Winslow's Wood

By John Ward

When his father disappears without explanation, Daniel is sent to a boarding school deep in a large wood. There he makes friends with the school misfit, Blunt, who tells him a secret about the school and a man he has met who lives in the woods. But can Daniel believe him? In a gripping story of friendship and betrayal, Daniel has to decide who he really is and who his friends are.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Ward
• Release date: Jul 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476254289

John Ward

John Morris Ward is a professional architect and author. In addition to architecture and writing, he loves anything that has to do with water and the ocean, including sailing, scuba diving, fishing, and spearfishing. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida.

Book preview

Winslow’s Wood

John Ward

Copyright 2012 John Ward

Smashwords Edition

http://www.winslowswood.co.uk

Chapter One:

When I was 12 things went very wrong in my world. My life was turned upside down, and nothing was ever the same again.

You see, my father vanished.

I will always remember the way my mother broke the news. We lived, just my parents and I and a cat called Fat (because he was), in a flat in east London, and I went to school a five minute walk away. The day it happened I ran home just as I always did, to get changed as quickly as possible and go out and kick about with my friends.

Home Mum! I yelled as I opened the door with my key. There was no reply, but I thought nothing of it. I threw my bag onto my bed, got changed in under 30 seconds, and headed for the front door.

Daniel? came my mother’s voice from the kitchen. She sounded subdued. She was sitting at the kitchen table. Behind her was Uncle Paul. He was my father’s brother. He had his hand on her shoulder. I thought she’d been crying. She often cried after she and my father had been arguing and she tried to hide it, but her eyes went red so I could always tell.

You need to sit down Daniel, said Uncle Paul. I hesitated. He raised an eyebrow and nodded at the chair opposite him. I sat.

Listen, what I’ve got to say is rather shocking, he cleared his throat. My mother looked up at him and then down at the table. She wouldn’t look at me. Your father’s vanished.

The word ‘vanished’ seemed odd to me. Wasn’t that what magicians did with rabbits? My mother and Uncle Paul were looking at me, waiting for my response. I didn’t have one. I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about.

He’s disappeared Danny. He had never called me Danny before. Why was I suddenly Danny?

But you said he’d gone to Yorkshire to pick up some stone, I said. My father was a sculptor. He didn’t make much money. That was why they were always arguing. My mother said she hadn’t been brought up to live in a tower block in East London. My father said life wasn't about money. She said it was when you hadn’t had a holiday in ten years and your car belonged in a museum and your son’s school sweatshirt was two sizes too small. My father said she had no soul.

He didn’t go to Yorkshire Danny, at last my mother spoke. When he first disappeared I hoped he might come back in a couple of days, and you wouldn’t need to know anything about it. But now we’ve not heard anything for a week, she paused. Uncle Paul’s here to help us. Uncle Paul squeezed my mother’s shoulder.

I went over to the kitchen window and looked down to the car park eight floors below. My father’s battered green Volvo was still there. He usually took it when he went to get the stone from Yorkshire.

I adored my father. If I wasn’t at school or playing football with my friends, I’d be at his studio watching him work, making him cups of tea, running small errands, sweeping the floor, telling him about school. Other peoples’ fathers wore suits and worked in banks, mine wore overalls and was an artist and was different and I was terribly proud.

His studio was the whole top floor of an old warehouse. It was painted bright white and had large windows in the ceiling so it was filled with soft light. And it was quiet too, absolutely silent. We used to call it heaven. Dad used to say he was going to heaven, instead of saying he was going to the studio, and it was one of those family jokes which wasn’t actually that funny.

He sometimes encouraged me to have a go at sculpture myself, and he stood behind me to help me with the tools, but they were heavy and the stone was hard. I preferred just watching him.

My father was full of big ideas, but he rarely seemed to finish his projects. He had loads of half-finished work filling every nook and cranny of the studio. There was a wonderful sculpture of an owl in the middle of Victoria Park that I liked to think was one of his, though for some reason I never asked him if it was. I guess I really wanted it to be, but I knew it wasn’t. To be honest I don’t think my father ever sold any of his sculptures.

Over the next few days life at home became tense and quiet. Uncle Paul seemed to be there all the time, and always in his tie and burgundy v neck sweater. His hair was immaculately combed. He would be there in the kitchen whenever I got home from school, and I would hear him leave soon after I went to bed. My mother and he would talk in quiet, serious tones and then stop when they heard me coming. Then they would pretend to have been talking about something else.

Sometimes I got the feeling that my mother wanted to talk to me, but that Uncle Paul wouldn’t allow it. She often looked at him rather nervously. My mother had a bottle of pills that came out whenever she and my father had argued. It had come out again now. She would tip one out onto her palm and swallow it down with a glass of water, and afterwards she seemed to relax.

I spent a lot of time peering down at my father’s Volvo. The Volvo seemed like a part of dad somehow, and looking at it helped me feel connected to him. I didn’t feel like meeting up with my friends. I tried to watch the television, but I was always waiting for the door to open and my father to stride in and for it all to be OK and for Uncle Paul to leave.

About a week after the news of my father’s disappearance was broken to me I came home after school and saw the Volvo was gone.

Mum! I called. The Volvo’s gone! Dad’s taken the Volvo! I rushed into the kitchen. I was excited because it might give us a clue about my father. It was evidence he might be nearby. My mother was tipping out one of the pills. Uncle Paul wasn’t there for once.

Oh Danny! she put down the glass of water, came over to me and hugged me. She put her hand behind my head and pressed me against the soft wool of her blue cardigan. Danny, we had to get rid of the Volvo.

But it’s Dad’s car, I said. He’ll need it. When he gets back. He’ll need it!

I had no idea you were so fond of it my love, she said. Until then I hadn’t know how fond I was of it either. My mother was crying now. I hated seeing her crying. I didn’t know what to do when she cried.

Danny, I’m not as strong as I’d like to be, you know that, she said, letting go of me and sitting down at the table. Now your father’s gone things are very, very difficult. I looked over at the pills and she followed my eyes. It’s not easy for you to understand at your age. When you’re an adult things aren’t as simple as they are when you’re a child. We do need Uncle Paul’s help. We need his help in so, so many ways. He’s helping me decide what to do. I knew what she really meant was that Uncle Paul was the boss now.

So was it Uncle Paul who sold the Volvo? I asked.

He suggested it, and I agreed, she said, but she wasn’t very convincing. Actually we had to scrap it. It’s expensive running a car, especially an old car that goes wrong all the time.

There’s something else Danny, she continued. She took my hand, pulled me over to her and wrapped an arm around my waist. She hadn’t done that for a while now that I was getting older. When he was your age your father went away to school, and Uncle Paul, and your grandfather, actually both of your grandfathers. A boarding school.

I knew what she was suggesting. My father had often told me stories about his school days. He and Uncle Paul had gone to the same school. I remembered stories about exciting things, like woods, dormitories, friendships, gangs, making dens, kitchen raids - and bad things; canings, strict teachers, missing home, latin lessons, bed-making.

I’d often thought I’d like to go, to follow in the footsteps of my father, to become the kind of man he was. But I also knew they cost loads of money, and you needed to be rich.

Uncle Paul has offered to pay, said my mother. It’s a fantastic opportunity Daniel. The best start in life a boy can have. There are all sorts of things that a boarding school can give you that you won’t get at your school.

I had a cousin who went to a boarding school. Whenever I saw him he seemed to use very long words that I didn’t know. Maybe I’d learn those too if I went to a boarding school.

What about Dad though, I said. What about when Dad gets back. He’ll wonder where I am.

My mother smiled. Don’t be daft Danny! He’ll come and visit you as soon as he’s back. We both will!

Will they do art there Mum? I asked.

Of course they will. All schools do art. Your father did art didn’t he? her voice quietened as if she wasn’t sure my father learning to do art was such a good thing.

Will they do sculpture Mum? I want to be a sculptor.

Chapter Two:

And so one Sunday evening in the middle of September I found myself sitting in Uncle Paul’s brand new black Range Rover being driven to a boarding school in the countryside miles away from London. I couldn’t remember the last time I had left London, it must have been a long, long time before. The only plants I’d seen had been the grass in Victoria Park, and the sunflowers we grew from seeds at school in science lessons, and the odd weed growing between the cracks in pavements, and the trees the dogs used for weeing against. And the only animals, apart from Fat the cat, were the ones in London Zoo, and of course the dogs watering the trees.

In the boot was a trunk with all the bits and pieces that you needed as a boarder that I hadn’t had before. My mother and I had spent a day shopping, and now I had a dressing-gown, a wash-bag, a hairbrush and a comb, some letter-writing paper, a fountain pen, new pyjamas, reading books, shoe polish and some jam. My new uniform would be waiting for me when I arrived. My mother had given me the bible she’d had at school. It seemed she didn’t need it anymore.

Despite all that had happened at home, I actually felt excited. I had all this new stuff. I felt quite grown-up. I wondered what new friends I might make. Would they be like my cousin? Would they use lots of long words? I wondered what the woods would be like that my father had talked about. And I wondered what it would be like sleeping in a dormitory with all your friends.

I never