Well, I was really busy that week writing an essay for college, too busy to go to the shops and by Friday we were out of bread and I was just about to go to the supermart and get some when I thought ... well, we do have flour and if we only had yeast then I could just make some bread and so I cycled over to the Botanica in the brownfield and leaned my bicycle against a nearby tree
The building looked even more ramshackle than usual and there was no light from inside and no sign of the brothers, not even of Wesley, so I went round the back where they kept the chickens .
There was a trestle table there, chickens everywhere and a man struggling with an expandable ladder.
Hi there - I said - I’m Mary Anne Patterson. Are the brothers around?
Hi there Mary Anne, lovely name! Glad to meet you! Sorry, they had to go to the city but they did say you would be around to help
They said what?
They said you had agreed to come round and help with the repairs ...
They are making this up. I am quite sure I never agreed to anything ... In fact I only even thought of coming here about an hour ago so it is definitely rubbish. Maybe they were thinking of someone else. Anyway .. I’m here now ... What do you want me to do ?
I want you to hold the ladder while I climb up it
Okay ... But Why?
It’s a safety requirement. Insurance purposes.
I watched him struggle with the ladder which had already destroyed the henhouse roof. I was glad he was insured and was taking the small print seriously.
Okay - I said - so long as it doesn’t take too long ... What are you going to fix?
Well, I have already fixed the window and now the problem is mainly the roof as it seems to have been attacked by a plant which has dislodged some of the shingles and the Botanica has been leaking ever since
I felt a bit guilty then as some of this damage had been indirectly my fault so I helped him to sort out the ladder and when it was right he leaned it against the back of the Botanica and shinned up it and climbed out of sight onto the roof.
What’s your name? - I shouted after him
Super Mario - came the voice from the roof
No joking ... What’s your real name? - I shouted - Super Mario is a plumber !
I do plumbing too - and he said something else but his voice was drowned out with the noise of hammering
I looked around the clearing. I couldn’t move away from the ladder because of the Insurance thing, but it did give me a chance to look around the yard. There were chickens simply everywhere due to the hole in the henhouse but there was nothing I could do about that. There were pigeons too and white doves and some rabbits. There was a small vegetable garden, more a herb patch, where the brothers grew the sort of herbs that would grow in Idaho which, with its dry summers and bitter winters, wasn’t many but these few were surrounded by a neat stone wall.
There was a wooden outhouse, the washing line with two matching pairs of everything and there was a sundial. There was also a strange thing with bands of metal and balls of different sizes that might have been some sort of sculpture but if it wasn’t then I didn’t know what it was meant to be saying and staring at it didn’t make me any the wiser.
I looked at the trees and I looked at the clouds and then I looked at the things on the table. Mario had laid out his tools in a tidy row at one end of the table ... I wondered how long he had been waiting for me. In the middle of the table were a feather, a candle, a cup of water and a stone and they were arranged in a sort of square
Well ... Not a “sort of square”, an actual square as the feather was taped to the tale so that it didn’t blow away
I leaned against the ladder, looking at these and having nothing better to do. Then I looked at the clouds
Then I looked back at the table and saw it covered with a sword, a wand, a cup and a coin and all on a white cloth. That’s crazy - I thought - that is not what was there a minute ago
And then I looked again and there were four playing cards on the table which was covered with green felt. I looked closer and the pictures on the cards were the Ace of Spades, the Ace of Diamonds, the Ace of Hearts and the Ace of Clubs
Too much sun - I thought, and watched the chickens for a while to calm me down ... I don’t like this Optical Illusion sort of thing, it does my head in.
Then I looked back at the table and there was the feather, the candle, the water and the stone that had been there in the first place. Was I going mad ?
Smoke and Mirrors my dear - said a voice from the roof- Smoke and Mirrors ... Hand me up the hammer would you?
The hammer? If he wanted the hammer then who the hell had that been hammering on the roof? ... And what was taking him so long anyway? I looked at the sundial and saw that more that an hour had gone by
There were only a few missing shingles, not a whole roof
You are wondering if I haven’t fixed the roof already?
I was wondering that ... Yes
I have been making a weather vane ... The roof does not have a weather vane and it really should have ... So I am making a weather vane
It should have a roof that doesn’t have a hole in it ... Are you saying that I have been standing by this ladder for over an hour while you have NOT been fixing the roof?
Ahh ... Miss Bailey ... The brothers did say that you were an intelligent girl ... Oh ... Are you cross?
Yes. I AM cross ... and I think I have the sunstroke
Why, dear Marriane, do you think that you have a stroke of the sun?
Oh never mind ... Just get on with fixing the roof would you
But for that I need nails
Then come down and get them then
But for that I must let go of the shingles and then they will fall and then I will be on the roof with the nails but the shingles will be on the ground and then I will have to climb down and pick up the shingles and climb up with ...
Stop! You want me me to bring the nails up onto the roof? ... Okay, but who will hold the ladder while I climb up it?
Nobody will hold the ladder. It is quite safe, it will not slip
But what about the Insurance?
Are you a plumber?
No. I am a student of Occupational Therapy at the University of Idaho, on vacation with my Nan and I am not insured to go climbing all over roofs
Then if you have no Insurance then it doesn’t matter if nobody is holding the ladder. I want fourteen shingle nails from the jar with the red lid and don’t take too long please because my arms are getting tired.
With a sigh, I took a handful of nails and climbed up the ladder to the roof
There were massive holes in it where the shingles were missing, but Mario was adjusting a metal thing on top of the chimney. This is the Weather Vane ... It is good ... Yes?
I looked at the weather vane. It seemed to have been created by the same person who had made the strange metal thing behind the washing line.
That is a weather vane?
Yes ... It will tell you which way the wind will be blowing to
And how does that matter?
Ah ... You ARE a clever girl ... Not easy to fool, no, it matters nothing where the wind goes to ... It matters where it comes from!
Why?
Because if it comes from the West, it will bring rain ... See?
Why?
Because it will have been blowing across the Ocean of course
It will have been blowing from Washington State which is mostly a desert... But the weather vane is certainly ornamental.
And it was, it was lovely. I love all that curly iron.
Now ... Shall we get this roof fixed before it gets dark? Here are the nails ... Where is the hammer ?
Oh ... I dropped it
Dropped it? Where? Down the front of the Botanica? - I was glad it wasn’t at the back as I had been standing right under the eaves
No ... I have dropped it INTO the Botanica. See? I can let you down on a rope that I tie to your leg and then you can grab the hammer and I will pull you back up
No - None of this seemed like a good idea to me
See? - he pointed to the weather vane just as the arrow was swinging round and ending up pointing to the East. See? The wind is coming from the West ... It will bring rain. And just as he said that, a thunder cloud appeared on the horizon, flashing lightning downwards like a giant electrical woodlouse. Okay - I said as he unrolled the rope - let me down into the Botanica then, at least it will be dry there as it still has part of a roof! - So he did.. Then the sound of the thunder got louder and closer and I suppose he tied the rope round the chimney stack or something as he let himself down into the darkness of the shop too.
We gathered as many buckets as we could find to put under the hole in the roof and then lit a hurricane lamp as we waited for the rain which did arrive in a deluge.
Then there was a sudden blinding flash of light and a the noise of a whiplash crack as lightning struck the weather vane and what there was of the roof caught fire so we hurried down into the cellar and found a doorway between the chest freezers which turned out to be the entrance to a tunnel which seemed to be a convenient route to the outhouse and we emerged at the edge of the vegetable patch beside the strange metal sculpture
We were not a moment too soon either as from the rhubarb plant we saw the Botanica burst into flames and then we both watched in astonishment as we saw a meteorite landing on it and making the fire a bit irrelevant by reducing the building to a crater.
The trees immediately around us had been flattened by the blast but extraordinarily the chickens emerged one by one from the forest looking nothing but slightly bald and flustered. Somehow we were also unharmed in any serious way and soon the rain stopped and the storm passed ... but leaving the Botanica and all its contents nothing but wreckage.
I will ring the brothers to tell them what has happened - said Mario - and then I will ring the Insurance Company and I am sure that everything will be fine. You had better go home as your Nan will be worried ... Oh look! ... One of the darling chicken must have laid an egg in my jacket! - he said as he pulled an egg out of his sleeve - That is so Lucky! ...You can take it home to your Nan for her tea.
And he waved me cheerfully off on my bike when I had found it blown under a bush - And take care on the roads !
My Nan wasn’t worried at all ... she was watching her box set of Broadchurch again ... And even though there wasn’t bread to make toast, she did have the egg for her tea
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