Mrs. Garrett clapped her hands suddenly and said, “A pageant!” (Augustus had returned to loitering, a soup spoon was no deterrent to an Apache.) “We should have a pageant to celebrate the village’s history.”
The assembled company were in voluble agreement. “It will depict the whole history of Britain as experienced from the point of view of a typically English village,” Mrs. Garrett enthused.
“I myself,” Mrs. Brewster said, “have played several queens in theatrical productions.”
Mrs. Swift murmured something inaudible.
“But none of those awful boys must be in it,” Colonel Stewart said.
“Oh, goodness no, I quite agree,” Miss Carlton said. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said hastily to Mr. Swift, “one of them is yours, isn’t he?”
“Well…” Mr. Swift demurred, “we found him on the front doorstep actually.” Augustus frowned at this paternal betrayal. There were sympathetic murmurs all round and Mrs. Swift said agreeably, “Of course we didn’t. It was the back doorstep.” There was much laughter at this remark. Augustus’s frown deepened. Had he been found on a doorstep? Front or back seemed irrelevant. He was an abandoned orphan. He was rather pleased with that idea. Perhaps his real parents were incredibly rich and had been hunting for him ever since accidentally leaving him on Mr. and Mrs. Swift’s doorstep.
“Oh, I’m sure we can find something for all the children to do,” Mrs. Garrett said. Mrs. Garrett was a somewhat troubling figure in Augustus’s world. Until recently she had been merely the rather stout and friendly widow who lived next door. She was fond of children (an unusual trait in a grown-up) and had a very good greenhouse full of peaches and grapes that the Apaches were always attempting to raid, to the fury of her gardener. She was also generous with sweets and cakes, again an unusual habit in a grown-up. But, unfortunately, she was also the leader of the local “chapter” of Afor Arod. The words were Saxon, according to Mrs. Garrett, for “fierce” and “bold,” which none of the members were. If you could imagine a Scout pack consisting of only the outcasts and rejects of boyhood society then that would be Afor Arod: the goody-goodies, the fat, the toadies, the swots—and girls.
They were a peace-loving alternative to the “rather militaristic” Scouts, according to Mrs. Garrett, who was a stalwart of the Peace Pledge Union. “Cooperation and harmony,” she said. Augustus’s mother thought this would be “good” for Augustus as these were traits that he was “singularly lacking.” Not true! he protested. “Look at the Apaches.”
“Quite,” Mrs. Swift said and dragged him along to a meeting.
This was so unfair, he thought bitterly as he watched a group of children dancing in a circle. Dancing! No one had mentioned dancing.
“Oh, a new friend for us!” Mrs. Garrett declared as if she had never seen him before when in fact she encountered Augustus on an almost daily basis.
And then Augustus met his nemesis. He spied a little girl in the corner of the room, a little girl with the curliest curls and the sweetest dimples. “Madge—hello.” She was doing some kind of sewing. “Cross-stitch—a badge, would you like me to make you one, Augustus?” Augustus nodded dumbly, looking even more idiotic than usual.
And now he lived in horror that the rest of the Apaches would catch him in the midst of any of the Afor Arod’s ghastly pastimes—the aforesaid dancing and sewing, the chanting and poetry writing. Nature walks—which, it turned out, did not mean the raiding of birds’ nests or the indiscriminate shooting at things with catapults, no mayhem, in fact.
The whole thing was odious, but he was helplessly in thrall to Madge. (“Oh, thank you for helping me wind my wool, Augustus.”)
A pageant,” he reported back to the Apaches. “Invading hordes,” he added. He moved a pear drop from one cheek to the other, a movement that generally signalled deep thought. “Got an idea,” he said casually. “If we—”
“Oh, do stop,” Teddy said to Ursula.
“He’s nothing like you, you know,” his sister said, laughing.
“I know that,” Teddy said. “But please stop reading now.”
Author’s Note