Moment 6 - Thomas and David, Casterbrook, 1914

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BA sent out a fun snippet in the Easter newsletter.

It was a bright spring day when David asked his friend Thomas to help him plant beans on the edge of Ambrose Wood.

‘Not another of your experiments,’ exclaimed Thomas. ‘Will this one explode too?’

‘Not if you resist the urge to meddle this time,’ said David. ‘And in any case what on earth are you doing?’

The two boys could not have been more different. Despite being the same age Thomas looked to be older, already tall and clean limbed, a natural athlete with an unruly mop of hair that was the despair of the barber and which topped an open cheerful countenance. David, his best friend, was shorter, although in recent months he had begun to shoot up like a weed so that his ankles and wrists poked clear of his school uniform. Just that week he had been forced to write to his pater and ask for a new pair of shoes and a blazer. His face was round, his eyes narrow and inquisitive and he was blessed, or cursed, depending on your point of view, with a highly active mind that generated a dozen new thoughts every passing minute.

The current thought that intruded foremost in his mind was why his chum was lying face down in the middle of the playing fields with his ear pressed against the sod.

‘I am listening to the grass,’ said Thomas.

‘Why?’

‘The Headmaster said that in order to become master practitioners we must learn to listen to all the things we might otherwise ignore.’

‘Viz the grass,’ said David. In his own way Thomas’s mind was as filled with curiosity as his friend but lacking, David considered, any scientific rigour at all.

‘Yes,’ said Thomas. ‘we spend enough time playing cricket on it, Old Borso lavishes ever so much attention on it but do we ever listen to what it has to say?’

David, who considered himself a scientific minded chap, failed to find a flaw in his friend’s argument. After all they were taught to ‘listen’ for vestigia as part of learning spells although Danglepot, the master who taught theory, had never mentioned grass.

‘And what does it have to say?’

‘Nothing so far,’ said Thomas. ‘But I’m terribly hopeful.’

‘How long have you been listening?’

‘Since chapel,’ said Thomas.

‘But that was hours ago,’ said David.

‘Perhaps they talk very slowly,’ said Thomas.

‘Perhaps they don’t talk at all.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Thomas and with that he leapt to his feet. ‘So what’s the experiment?’

*

Together the two chums loaded the seedlings, the poles and the netting into a wheelbarrow and pushed them from Old Borso’s shed and across the school’s market garden to a spot close to the edge of Ambrose Woods.

‘But not, you’ll notice,’ said David, ‘near the main path.’

‘Yes I noticed that,’ said Thomas – who had had some difficulty pushing the laden wheelbarrow across the bumpy turf away from the neat grid of paths that Old Borso, the head gardener, maintained between the plots. Particularly since David had refused to allow him to lift the barrow over rough ground with an impello spell. ‘Why is that so important?’

‘Because all the chaps use that path when they’re off to do japes,’ said David. ‘Which means that all the magical activity is concentrated in that part of the woods.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I found a map of the grounds and surveyed where all the campfires were,’ said David smugly. ‘I say did you know Leon has built himself a secret treehouse?’

‘So that’s where he goes on Sundays,’ said Thomas.

Leon was excused Chapel on religious grounds. David had tried to persuade his pater to write a letter asking for a similar exemption but to no avail. ‘A bit of the old God-bothering never did anyone any harm,’ Pater had opined. David thought that Galileo might have disputed that but he kept the thought to himself.

They reached the spot Old Borso had graciously allocated for David’s use. It had been potatoes the year before but the ageing groundsman had allowed that beans would be just the thing to bring back the soil.

While his friend had wheeled the barrow, David had carried one of the two seedling trays separately. Now he continued on and placed it on a second rectangular patch of soil some ten yards further on.

‘You haven’t said why you want to keep your peas –’

‘Beans!’

‘Your beans away from magic,’ said Thomas and then frowned as he saw that there were two patches of soil. ‘Or each other.’

David pointed at the seedling tray he’d left at the far patch.

‘I left those seeds to germinate in the greenhouse,’ he said and pointed at the tray still resting in the wheelbarrow. ‘And those ones I left on the windowsill in the practice room. So they have been exposed to magic while those ones haven’t.’

Thomas handed David a rake.

‘You want to see if they grow faster?’ he asked.

‘I want to see if they grow different,’ said David. ‘And I want to see if their offspring grow differently too.’

They set about raking their respective plots which didn’t take long. David had chosen beans partly because they were an easy crop to grow. Old Borso had also explained that beans were self-pollinating and the two crops could have been grown side by side but David decided not to take chances. Which was why, after both sets of beans had been planted, the two boys assembled the bamboo and netting to form a protective cage around each plot.

Thomas, who had no doubt envisioned spending his Sunday loafing or playing the outdoor game, grumbled about wrestling the recalcitrant netting into place.

‘This is a bother,’ he said as they finished.

‘I asked my Pater if I could stay over Easter,’ said David. ‘But we’re going to France to see grandmama. I need to know they’re protected while I’m gone.’ He eyed his chum speculatively. ‘I don’t suppose…?’

‘I’m going to the Lake District with my Uncle,’ said Thomas.

They inspected their handy work, tightening knots where needed and reseating one of the poles that seemed loose.

‘What do you expect to happen?’ asked Thomas.

‘I don’t know,’ said David. ‘That’s why I’m experimenting. But according to the headmaster there is some evidence that prolonged exposure to magic can change plants and animals and may even be inheritable.’

‘Do you think it changes us?’ said Thomas. ‘After all we’re exposed to magic all the time.’

‘That would be difficult to test,’ said David. ‘Although if you had twins, one who practised and other who didn’t…’ He realised that his chum was no longer listening but instead had his attention fixed on woods.

‘We’re being watched?’ he said and pointed.

David looked and saw that there was indeed a fox watching them from the eves of the forest.

‘That’s a bold creature,’ he said for the fox, despite being less than ten yards away showed no fear of the boys at all. Instead the animal sat calmly on its haunches regarding the boys with what David could have sworn was keen interest. ‘Perhaps he thinks we have food?’

‘Old Borso says that they are spirit foxes,’ said Thomas. ‘That they’re even more cunning than ordinary foxes and that’s why the local hunts never come near the woods,’

‘The headmaster has forbidden the hunts from school land,’ said David. ‘He doesn’t hold with hunting.’

‘No hunting at all?’ ejaculated Thomas in surprise.

‘Still,’ said David contemplatively. ‘It could be true.’

He advanced on the fox who narrowed its eyes but remained where it was.

‘I say, Mister Fox,’ called David. ‘I propose a bargain. If you protect my beans, which are no use to you, when I return after the hols I shall supply you with two whole raw chickens.’

The Fox cocked its head to one side and Thomas had the oddest feeling that it was indeed considering the offer.

‘Three chickens,’ called David and the Fox almost seemed to nod approval before ducking back into the undergrowth.

As they wheeled the empty wheelbarrow back to the garden shed, Thomas asked whether David really expected the fox to guard his beans.

‘Think of it as another experiment,’ said David. ‘If we come back and find the beans intact we shall have evidence that the Ambrose Wood contain foxes that can understand human speech.’

‘And you’ll have to provide three chickens,’ said Thomas.

‘Oh, I expect you to charm them out of the kitchen staff, Tom,’ said David. ‘You’ve always had the common touch.’