The Bagthorpe Saga: Ordinary Jack. Helen Cresswell

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      Uncle Parker was dozing in a deckchair under the apple trees when Jack reached home.

      “Hello, young Jack,” he said, without opening his eyes.

      There’s another of them, Jack thought. Can even see with his eyes shut.

      None the less, he liked Uncle Parker, who was not all that brilliant, and whose main distinction was that the way he drove his car was the talk of the neighbourhood (though he had never yet been prosecuted for it).

      “If you could do anything in the world this afternoon, what would you do?” enquired Uncle Parker, his eyes still closed. This was another thing about him that Jack liked. He never said what you expected him to say.

      “Be immortal,” said Jack promptly.

      “Bit pointless,” observed Uncle Parker. “You’re bound to survive the afternoon anyway, I should say. You can’t be immortal just for an afternoon, you know, old son.”

      “I know that,” said Jack, nettled. “It means to live for ever. Anyway, you asked me, and I told you.”

      “You won’t get immortal piggling at your father’s pansies,” said Uncle Parker. “That I can tell you. More likely to get cut off in your prime.”

      Jack snatched away his hand which had admittedly, though quite of its own accord, been picking off pansy heads.

      “It just shows what a nervous wreck I am,” he said. “I already bite my nails, and say ‘touch wood’ all the time, and now I’m piggling pansies. Goodness knows how I’ll end up.”

      “I suppose what you’re all steamed up about as usual is not being a genius?”

      Jack nodded. The two of them had had this kind of conversation before. Uncle Parker, not being a Blood Relation of the Bagthorpes, merely lucky enough to be married to Jack’s Aunt Celia (who was not only ravishingly beautiful but could also solve The Times crossword in ten minutes flat without a dictionary and do pottery and poetry) could sympathise with Jack’s feelings. On the other hand, whereas Uncle Parker did not seem to mind being everlastingly eclipsed, Jack did.

      “What’s been going on at the pool, then?” enquired Uncle Parker. “One of ’em do a triple somersault from the top board and get invited to the next Olympics, did they?”

      “Rosie beat me doing ten lengths.”

      “Pooh!” said Uncle Parker.

      “It’s all right you saying ‘Pooh!’ You’re not her brother, and older, and you won’t hear them all going on at tea-time when she tells them.”

      “I shall, then,” returned Uncle Parker. “We’re stopping. Grandma’s birthday, remember. And I shall say ‘Pooh!’ then, just as I say ‘Pooh!’ now.”

      “Will you? Will you really?”

      “Naturally. You must have the courage of your convictions, Jack, old lad. If you mean ‘Pooh!’ then you must say ‘Pooh!’ and the devil take the consequences.”

      “But why do you mean ‘Pooh’?” persisted Jack. “After all, it’s pretty good – she is younger than me.”

      “If you’ll forgive me saying so,” said Uncle Parker, “the way you swim, just about anyone could beat you. So her doing it doesn’t exactly add up to an Olympic future. If she brings it up at tea, I shall put it into the category of ordinary, common or garden boasting, and I shall say ‘Pooh!’ accordingly.”

      “Not her speciality, of course, swimming,” said Jack glumly. “I was thinking of trying to make it mine, but I shan’t now.”

      “Well, I wouldn’t, either,” agreed Uncle Parker. “If old Rosie’s already got a head start on you, not much future there.”

      “So what shall I have as a speciality?”

      Jack did not really believe Uncle Parker would be able to answer this question. Hours of solitary, nail-biting thought on his own part had as yet produced no result.

      “I’ll think about it,” promised Uncle Parker. “Think about it and let you know.”

      “Thanks. Nothing to do with maths, thanks, and nothing to do with sport. We’ve already got two walking computers, and Mother’s always carping on about cleaning silver cups.”

      “Doesn’t leave much,” said Uncle Parker. “But I’ll try. Hello. Here come the genii.”

      Jack turned his head and they both watched the advance of the Bagthorpes. You could hear them better than you could see them because they were bawling out a song together. It sounded like Frère Jacques but could easily have been something else. None of the Bagthorpes were great singers, though Rosie played the violin and Tess the oboe and piano and both were always appearing in concerts, and William (for his third String) was a wizard on the drums. Mr Bagthorpe was given to saying on occasion that William must have been a tribal warrior in a previous incarnation, which, while interesting, was hard on his present family.

      They don’t look like geniuses, Jack thought, not for the first time. Just like anybody else’s brother and sisters they look.

      Now William, lank and sandy, had Rosie on his shoulders, clutching and screaming as she swayed up there. Tess (who was thirteen and read Voltaire in the original for pleasure and was a Black Belt in Judo, besides talking like a dictionary) ran behind, beating William with a branch.

      Normal, even, sometimes, thought Jack. He even knew that they were all fond of him, in their own way. But more as if I was a kind of pet, or something, he thought. As if I’m just harmless. Not as an equal. I want to be equal.

      Now they were through the wicket between garden and meadow and William finally pitched the shrieking Rosie somersaulting on to the grass.

      “Didn’t hurt yourself, did you, Jacko?” William pitched himself full length beside him. For answer, Jack raised his skinned elbows.

      “Making a grand exit,” said Tess. “Gosh, they look sore.”

      “Hey – Uncle Park!” Rosie was up again now. “Guess what? I beat Jack doing ten lengths.”

      “Pooh!” Uncle Parker was true to his word.

      “What d’you mean, ‘Pooh’?” demanded Rosie. “He’s three years older than me.”

      “And swims like an elephant,” returned Uncle Parker, admittedly unflatteringly. “There’s too much boasting goes on at this house.”

      “Not boasting,” corrected Tess. “Mother and Father both say we should be proud of achievement. They say it’s an inbred fault of the English to underestimate themselves. Their favourite sin is ‘pride that apes humility’.”

      “Well, if it is,” said Uncle Parker, “you lot are certainly doing your bit to redress the balance. Enough boasting here to leaven the whole loaf.”

      “Except for me,” said Jack, “who hasn’t СКАЧАТЬ