Granny Magic Read online

  A MESSAGE FROM CHICKEN HOUSE

  I’ve always suspected that knitting was about more than just wool – haven’t you? Maybe it’s disguising deadly martial arts powers, I thought, or it could be a way of trapping unsuspecting enemies in a tangle of strange jumpers and scarves . . . As the clever Elka Evalds reveals, the truth is even more surprising. Don’t be sheepish, read on and find out!

  BARRY CUNNINGHAM

  Publisher

  Chicken House

  In memory of Grandma-in-Connecticut and Grandma Pie

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Copyright

  Will didn’t know the jumper was magic at first. It seemed dead ordinary. It had a round neck, long sleeves and stripes the width of bicycle tyres in navy blue, battleship grey and racing green. The only odd thing was a stripe near the bottom, which had bits of sparkly gold running through it. But only if you looked hard.

  ‘Would you like something to help you remember Gran by?’ Mum asked. ‘You can pick anything you like.’

  They were at Gran’s house. All of her cupboard doors were open, and her belongings were heaped in piles. There were flower-covered dresses and flower-covered handbags and flower-covered rain hats. There were teapots shaped like cottages, and sugar bowls shaped like cabbages, and plates with pictures of the Isle of Man on them. And, of course, there were great honking hills of knitting.

  Gran had knitted pincushions, tea cosies and shawls. She’d knitted coats for dogs, cases for glasses and hats for dolls. She’d knitted bathing costumes, dressing gowns and opera capes. She’d even knitted an umbrella once. If you’d asked Will if he’d like to have any of these things while Gran was still alive, he’d have said, ‘Not bothered, thanks.’ Will wasn’t sure why it was different now that Gran had died.

  The jumper lay on top of a mountain of mittens that Mum had poured on to Gran’s kitchen table. With its arms spread wide, it looked as if it wanted to hug him. Will wasn’t always keen on being hugged, but the jumper reminded him of things he’d forgotten, like coming to Gran’s after school, back before there was rugby and Scouts. He’d helped her make chutney and pickles and jam. He’d built cities out of saucepans and spindles while Gran told him stories.

  ‘That’ll be too small for you, Bilbo,’ Mum said when he reached for the jumper. But Will wouldn’t let go of it. Instead, he put it on. ‘Look! It fits!’ he said. It was surprisingly soft.

  ‘How funny!’ said Mum, her eyebrows flying up. ‘It’s absolutely perfect.’

  Suddenly Will felt much, much better. In fact, he felt downright happy.

  ‘Can I pick something for Sophie?’ he asked. Sophie was his little sister, who was five. ‘Maybe there’s a dog.’ More than anything else in the world, Sophie loved dogs.

  ‘You’re very thoughtful all of a sudden,’ said Mum, stroking his hair. They found a knitted corgi with a green pom-pom for a nose, then started home for lunch.

  Will’s house was on the other side of the river that ran through the middle of Knittington. He always went to Gran’s by the wooden footbridge hidden between the old mills lining the banks. It wasn’t really a shortcut, but it felt more secret than going over the stone bridge with the cars, and it smelt of ferns and wet stones.

  As they stepped through the daisies in the cracked car park though, a rumble erupted from the first of the big stone buildings. A cloud of dust puffed out of the open door.

  ‘Oh look!’ said Mum, stopping to see. ‘Someone’s fixing up that old woollen mill.’

  There were vans parked next to the building, full of drills and screws and clamps. Coils of thick orange electrical cord spilt out of them. A lorry packed with crates and boxes stood open at the back. Wedged in the middle of the crates, Will could see a wire cage, with pointed pink noses poking in and out between the bars, twitching in the warm air.

  ‘Are those weasels in that cage?’ Will asked.

  ‘Ferrets, I think,’ said Mum. ‘People use them to sniff out rats in old buildings.’

  They came around the building towards the river, but yellow tape barred the path to the footbridge. NO TRESPASSING, read the signs, and BUILDING WORKS.

  ‘But the new owner doesn’t own the river too,’ said Will, ‘do they?’

  ‘No,’ said Mum, ‘though they might be allowed to use the water for power.’

  The building rumbled again and there was a blast of sound, like a hundred showers turning on at once. It drowned out the mossy rush of the river.

  They had to retrace their path through the car park and then cross the river on the stone bridge. Will looked back down at the old mill as he and Mum climbed the cobbled street on the other side. The tall trees that grew along the riverbank blocked the view, but a breeze parted the branches for a second. Was that a face in the top-floor window? Ghost-white, it was looking down at the rushing water. Then the leaves hid the building again.

  ‘I wonder what they’re going to make in that old factory,’ said Mum. ‘Probably not jumpers and woolly hats any more.’

  ‘Is that what they used to make?’

  ‘A long time ago,’ said Mum. ‘It’ll be good for Knittington to have something made here again, whatever it is.’

  ‘Unless it’s asbestos,’ said Will, who liked logic. ‘Or poison. Or nuclear waste.’

  Mum smiled. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘The town won’t let anything harmful be made here.’

  ‘I’m just saying,’ said Will. ‘Not everything would be good.’

  Ding-dong! The doorbell rang while they were eating dinner.

  ‘Oh pants!’ said Will as Mum went to the door. ‘Somebody’s probably brought more pond slime.’ Someone on Mumsnet had posted that the best thing to do for people who’d lost a loved one was to bring them healthy food. All of their neighbours must have read that post, because for two weeks now they’d been leaving beetroot casserole and soybean stew on the doorstep. Yesterday, Will had stuck his finger into a bowl of what looked like peanut butter icing but turned out to be extra-garlic hummus.

  Sophie giggled. ‘Pond slime!’

  ‘With a side of lawn trimmings!’ said Will.

  Sophie laughed harder, kicking her legs under the table. ‘And old tennis balls boiled in—’

  ‘Will,’ said Dad, ‘our neighbours are being very kind, bringing us all of this food.’ But he was smiling just a little bit as he said it.

  Mum’s face poked through the kitchen doorway. ‘Some ladies who knew your mum,’ she said to Dad.

  ‘Eat three bites of those lawn trimmings, you two,’ Dad said, following Mum out of the kitchen.

  Will ate the three smallest shards of kale on his plate then went out to the hall. Mum and Dad were at the front door. Beyond them five old ladies were standing on the path. The smallest one was at the front. She had short, grey hair and gazed steadily through purple glasses. She stood up so straight that she seemed tall. The others crowded behind her. Each one of them was carrying a little china plate.

  ‘This must be W
ill,’ said Purple Glasses. She had a voice like a head teacher’s.

  ‘Yes,’ said Dad. ‘Our son.’

  ‘Would you like to come in?’ said Mum.

  They filed in through the hall in order of height: first Purple Glasses; then a tiny little sparrow-lady whose cotton-wool hair was pulled up into a bun on the top of her head; next a willowy one with two silver plaits and a flowery tunic; then a stout one with strong arms and a man’s hat, and finally a tall one with owlish glasses and a startled expression.

  They said they were Gran’s knitting club.

  ‘Her knitting club?’ asked Dad, glancing at Mum as she came into the living room with a tea tray. ‘I didn’t know Mum had a knitting club – I thought she just knitted on her own.’

  ‘Not that it’s surprising!’ Mum chuckled. ‘It’s just that we never heard her talk about you.’

  ‘Not much to tell, really,’ said the one with the purple glasses.

  ‘A bunch of old ladies sitting around knitting baby booties,’ said the tall one, blinking mildly behind her round glasses.

  Will didn’t mind if they were Dracula’s aunties. They’d brought butterscotch biscuits, lardy-cake wedges, hazelnut brownies, caramel toffee and honeycomb flapjacks. But he couldn’t help noticing that their eyes went all around the house while they drank their tea, as if they were searching for something. At some point, each one of them noticed the knitted cushions on the sofa, and then nodded at one of the others. When Sophie climbed down from Dad’s lap they spotted the knitted dog’s head sticking out from her pocket, and the tall one asked if she could hold ‘that dear little puppy’.

  ‘She’s a corgi,’ said Sophie, ‘and her name is Omelette and she can get big to fight thieves.’

  Did Will just imagine it, or did all of the ladies lean forward to look as the tall one held the little dog up, turning it over and over in the light?

  ‘. . . and so we wondered if any of Gertie’s patterns might be left – or half-finished projects, or anything at all that she knitted, really,’ Purple Glasses was saying. Gertie was Gran.

  ‘We’d dearly love to have any of it, if it’s going begging,’ said the one with the man’s hat.

  ‘Oh, if only I’d known!’ said Mum. ‘There were bags and bags, but it all went to the charity shop, just this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh!’ said the sparrow-lady softly, as if something had hurt her.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Mum.

  ‘Don’t fret,’ said the owlish one, patting Mum’s hand.

  ‘But if anything else turns up, and you’d like it off your hands, we’d greatly appreciate it if you’d let us come and get it,’ said Purple Glasses, putting her cup down and heading for the door, followed by the other old ladies. ‘You can find us at the knitting shop in Woolwick Lane.’

  ‘How mysterious!’ said Mum, as she shut the door. ‘All this time they were knitting together, and I’d never even heard their names before.’

  ‘I always said there was more to my mum than met the eye,’ said Dad. Will couldn’t tell if he was joking.

  Ding-dong.

  Will was cleaning his teeth and Sophie was choosing bedtime stories when the doorbell rang again. Will rinsed his toothbrush, then followed the voices back downstairs to the living room.

  On the sofa sat a small man wearing a neat suit, with a stripy jumper underneath. He had a tiny sharp nose, an egg-smooth forehead, and eyebrows like white wolf tails. There was a large box of chocolates on the table beside him. Epic! thought Will, then peeped down at the box and saw it was Turkish Delight. Yuk.

  ‘I want to offer my deepest condolences,’ the man was saying. His voice was smooth but reedy, like an oboe.

  Something moving caught Will’s eye and he glanced up from the table. Weird! For a second he thought the stripes on the man’s jumper had started waving, like octopus arms. But now he was looking directly at them, he could see that the stripes were still. They were just diagonal, knitted in a kind of spiral . . . Will stepped closer to get a better look.

  ‘Ah! Here’s our son, Will,’ Dad said. ‘Will, come and meet Mr Fitchet. He used to know Gran.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Will.

  ‘Hello, young man.’ Mr Fitchet turned towards Will and put his hand out to shake. He had a pressed-thin grin. Will stretched his hand out, and Mr Fitchet clamped it softly with both of his, keeping Will close while peering into his face. He had the brightest blue eyes Will had ever seen, and they looked at him without blinking.

  ‘I’ll bet you’re a clever one,’ he said, letting go of Will’s hand suddenly, as if he’d been burnt. ‘Like your grandad.’ His smile fell, like a marble dropping off the edge of a table.

  ‘And here’s our daughter,’ said Mum, as Sophie came running into the room. ‘Come and say hello to Mr Fitchet, Sophie.’

  Sophie leant up against Mum’s legs shyly, and Mr Fitchet bent forward with his hands clasped. ‘Ahh!’ he said. ‘This one looks like her gran!’

  ‘Do you have a dog?’ asked Sophie.

  ‘No,’ said Mr Fitchet, smiling his pressed little grin. ‘I have some ferrets, though.’

  ‘We saw ferrets in the back of a lorry today!’ said Will. ‘Down at the mills.’

  Mr Fitchet peered at Will from under his wolf-tail eyebrows. ‘Well observed, lad,’ he said. ‘I am now the owner of the old Woolman Mill, as it happens. So you probably saw my pets.’

  Mum’s face lit up. ‘You’ll have good neighbours,’ she said. ‘One of the other old factories has been fixed up with craft workshops. There’s a blacksmith, and some wood turners and candlemakers, and I think there’s a potter now too.’ Mum used to be an art teacher. She liked crafts.

  ‘Is that the sort of thing you’ll be putting into your building?’ asked Dad.

  ‘I had something bigger in mind,’ said Mr Fitchet. He was stroking the sofa cushion. The one Gran had knitted.

  ‘Well, we’ll look forward to seeing what that might be,’ said Dad.

  ‘I wonder if I might confess something,’ said Mr Fitchet, looking at the cushion under his hand. ‘When I left Knittington as a young man, I hadn’t a penny to my name. I’ve lived in many different cities over the years, and so I’ve had very few possessions. Now that I’m back again, it would mean a great deal to me to have something to help me remember Gertie.’

  ‘Oh, I think that would be OK,’ said Dad. ‘The house is full of things Mum made.’

  ‘That’s really sweet,’ said Mum.

  ‘Would you like that cushion?’ said Dad. ‘The one you’re holding?’

  ‘No!’ somebody squeaked. Will realized it was him. ‘I mean – it’s just . . .’ His heart was pounding suddenly. ‘That cushion has always been there. That’s where it belongs.’ He looked from Mum to Dad and back again. His face was burning with embarrassment, but he couldn’t stop. ‘We make forts out of those. We need them. All.’

  Mum looked at Will and her eyes got shiny. ‘Mr Fitchet, I’m very sorry but—’

  The man put his hand in the air. ‘Say no more, Mrs Shepherd,’ he said.

  ‘It’s just—’ Mum started again.

  Mr Fitchet took both of Mum’s hands in his, and smiled his little smile, looking at her from under his white eyebrows. ‘I wouldn’t hear of it, madam. Not another word, now.’

  Will watched as Dad walked their guest to the front door, and the two stood next to the long table in the hallway, talking about the historic water turbine at the factory. (Why did grown-ups always take so long to say goodbye?) Then, just as Dad turned to open the door, Mr Fitchet’s hand shot down, quick as a lizard’s tongue, into the big basket where Dad and Mum left keys and pens and phones, and put something in his pocket. It happened so quickly that Will wasn’t sure it had.

  ‘What a sweet man,’ said Mum, back in the kitchen as the front door closed.

  ‘I saw him put something in his pocket!’ Will said. ‘Something from the basket in the hall.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Mum, looking at him wi
th her head tilted. ‘What did you think it was?’

  But Will didn’t know.

  ‘I think you must have made a mistake, Will,’ said Dad. ‘Why would he do that?’

  Will didn’t know that either.

  Dad was in the study and Mum was in the bathroom when Sophie started crying the next morning.

  ‘What’s the matter, Soph?’ Will asked.

  ‘I can’t find m-my n-new juckie!’ Juckie was Sophie’s word for dog.

  Will sat down on the floor next to her. She was surrounded by dogs: wooden dogs, plastic dogs, even a chipped china dog – and of course all the knitted dogs Gran had made.

  ‘The corgi we brought you yesterday?’ asked Will.

  Sophie nodded. ‘I put it in the basket. In the hall.’

  So that was what Mr Fitchet had put into his pocket! Will hadn’t imagined it.

  Sophie’s tears ran down her cheeks and she began to breathe in little gasps. Will knew these gasps. They would build up and up and up, until she finally let out a World-Cup Wail. Sophie could have wailed for England.

  ‘Hey!’ he cried. ‘Want to wear my jumper?’ Will pulled the jumper off quickly. ‘Because Gran made it.’ He scrunched it up and looped the neck hole over Sophie’s head. She tugged at it wildly for a second, and then suddenly stopped. ‘So it’s sort of like Gran’s hugging you when you wear it.’ Sophie did like being hugged.

  She gasped twice and then let out a long sigh.

  Phew! thought Will. He pulled Sophie’s arms through the jumper’s sleeves.

  ‘And see how there’s one stripe with golden sparkles in it?’ he asked. ‘It’s . . . fairy dust!’ Sophie loved that kind of stuff.

  Sophie traced the odd stripe with her finger silently for a minute. Then she looked up and smiled.

  ‘Let’s make it quiet for Dad,’ she said. Dad was having trouble concentrating. He worked at the local museum, and today he was writing a special lecture for the big Open Day at the end of August. ‘Let’s wrap up the house in earmuffs.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Will. ‘How about some pillows and blankets around the study door instead?’