Susie and the Snow-it-alls

By Gregory Dark

Susie is facing expulsion from her new school. For a theft she didn’t commit. Why, she despairs, is life so unfair? To clear her name she resolves to find the real thief. She sneaks out of the house. For which offence she faces further severe punishment, this time at the hands of her parents. Why, she despairs to Mr E, is life so unfair? Mr E is one of her collection of toy frogs, collectively known as the Sufrogs. If Susie really wants to know, he suggests, maybe she should get a bit of distance between herself and the question. The Sufrogs have magi powers – not magic, the ‘magi’ inside i-magi-nation. Using which they can whoosh Susie anywhere. The clouds are some way away. Maybe far enough to give Susie the perspective she needs. Accompanied by six of her Sufrogs – and a large dollop of scepticism – Susie incants the magi words. … And whooshes through her window.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
• Release date: Nov 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781846948824

Book preview

you."

Chapter 1

Cold is not cool, Susie shivered to herself. Ch-ch-chilling is not f-f-freezing. B-b-being c-c-cold, my f-f-friends, she shouted aloud, is n-n-not b-b-eing c-c-cool.

The nip in the air was a scythe in the air, so sharp it could sharpen a pencil. It bit like a cut from licking an envelope: too finely to draw blood but oh so painfully.

Susie was in an otherwise deserted goal-mouth of the barren sports-ground. She was goalkeeper. And the goal she kept? They could keep it! They could blooming well keep all of it!

She had been put in goal because she was always put in goal. Susie was the last person picked for any team. Goal was reckoned where she could do less damage than anywhere else.

In fact, she continued brrring to herself, "cool is not cool. The only thing that is cool, in fact, she told God, just in case God didn’t know, is being boiling, baking HOT."

Susie looked at her numb hands. They were turning blue. Appropriate really. It matched her team-sash. Susie was playing for the light blues.

The light blues were (to Susie’s not-really-interested surprise) hammering the dark blues. Since the kick-off all she had seen of her team-mates was a distant blur.

Susie was not a soccer enthusiast. If anything, in fact, she was a soccer ‘naf’ – a ‘naf’ is the opposite of a ‘fan’.

Cold is not cool, she repeated, marching the length of her goal-line like a tin soldier, left arm and left leg swinging together. Cold is not cool, cold is not cool, cold is not cool, she shunted, train-engine like, chuffing backwards and forwards, steam streaming from her nose and her mouth as if she were a locomotive.

She got bored with the game. She kicked Beckhamly at a tuft of much-too cheerful grass, and leaned with pretended nonchalance against the glacial goal-post.

She clutched the frog in her pocket.

Like most of her frogs, this was a present from her grandmother. Her mother called them toys and her grandmother portable kisses. Susie – albeit secretly – disliked the first description and squirmed at the second, but she usually (albeit secretly) carried one of them. The one she had with her that day bore the most ginormous scar from yellow belly to dark green back.

Her glance happened towards the sky. It was a lovely sight. It was of a sky-blue which the sky so rarely is. Into which had been splodged a pick’n’mix of clouds, as light, as white and fluffy as cotton-wool balls. The sun had about it the sadness of a has-been prize-fighter, still trying to prove a strength no-one else now believed in.

Oh, cold is not cool, she sang to the firmament, her ever more blueing hand grasping an air microphone. Cold is not coo-oo-oo-l.

One of the clouds was in the shape of a bear. No, two clouds, two bears. And there! A man with a sausage nose and a sort of oniony head. Friends? – So her grandma was always telling her – Who needed them?

Cold is not cool, she cha-cha-cha’d to herself as her gaze swooped over the various sights. C-c-cold is not c-c- …

SU-SIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIE!!!!

The roar jolted her back to Earth smartly enough that she was able to see the football dribble, almost apologetically, over the goal-line. Like a panther she hurled herself on it. She found herself face down in a puddle of half-frozen mud.

Miss McBain (Games) took the ball from her. Brilliant save, Susie, she told her. Susie, her face coated with and dripping mud, accepted the tribute demurely. Only, see, the idea is, Miss McBain (Games) know-it-alled, "to save the ball before it goes into the goal."

Oh, ha-ha-ha, Miss McBain (Games). Highly droll. Totally hysterical.

Susie could hear laughter. She was a girl whose range of talents was Andes-like in its scale. Sadly, though, an ability to laugh at herself was not … let us say, one of its peaks. She glanced over to the touch-line. On which, giggling like tickled hyenas, were Mia and Wilmer.

Ever since her arrival at the Iain Kennedy Institute, some six weeks previously, Mia and Wilmer had been a thorn in Susie’s side. Susie didn’t know why. She had, as far as she knew, done nothing to upset them. They had just seemed to take an instant dislike to her. Which had, very shortly, simmered into a hatred as seething as it was inexplicable.

Mia was tall and big. She wore pink spectacles joined at the arm with a length of grimy plaster. Wilmer was short and skinny. He had a stye in his eye, which was thus protected for the moment by a black patch. Mia and Wilmer seemed to give truth to the truism that opposites attract: Mia and Wilmer were inseparable. And, inseparably, they were the bane of Susie’s life.

Mrs Adelaide referred to them frequently as ne’er-do-wells and as such they were currently being punished for some misdemeanour or other. Thus, instead of freezing to death on the Arctic playing field, they were joining other transgressors in a game called ‘Hunt the Challenge Cup’. Funny sort of a punishment that was. Susie would have given her chattering eye-teeth to be undergoing that sort of a punishment.

The Challenge Cup! It had gone missing, Mrs Adelaide had announced at that morning’s assembly. Presumed stolen. What a colossal deal! It was a shiny bit of tin, for God’s sake, the blooming Challenge Cup! Not the ‘Mona Lisa’ or anything. I mean, do let’s get real here. What was all the fuss about?

But fuss there was. And a-plenty. Indeed, a fuss a-plenty, and a dragnet. Around the changing rooms, in the school itself. No nook was not nooked into, no cranny not scoured with a crannifying glass.

Schools!

Not till the day that she died would Susie understand schools. Not them, nor their constant know-it-allery, not their absurd rules, nor their even more absurd set of values. Neither their principles – nor principals!

Around the changing rooms there continued to be the beehiviest commotion.

Oh, and now we had the staff joining in as well, the entire know-it-all squadron, no doubt. There was Ms Stewart (English). Oh, and there Mr Jonson (History). What? No Phil? Well, doubtless in a minute or two. Didn’t they have any teaching to do, these teachers?

That was the problem with school – well, at any rate, one of the problems with school: Everyone was trying to be something other than what they were. Teachers were Sherlock Holmesing all over the place, Miss McBain (Games) was managing the World Cup football XI ...

She could feel glowers lasering into her from her team-mates. The ball was kicked back. Oh, get real, Susie wanted to tell them. This is a game of school schoolgirl soccer. But she didn’t say that. Instead she kept mouthing an icicled sorry each time a glowerer was spotted.

The sky breathed in and sucked her again into its grip. She was, Susie, so-o-o-o c-c-c-c-cold. There in the clouds, zooming through them, there was a rabbit. But with the nose of a super-sonic plane. And there, drifting regally backwards, was a unicorn. A rather beautiful and snooty unicorn, point of fact. Susie bet herself unicorns didn’t have to play blooming soccer. She bet unicorns weren’t forced outside to die from hypothermia on frozen fields.

SUSIE!!!

She checked the ball wasn’t already in the net. It wasn’t. Okay, that meant it had to be coming towards her. Right. So, where the hell was it?

Ah!

Poof!

It hit her square on the forehead. And cannoned to one of the defensive players who then booted it randomly up-field.

"Good save, Susie, she heard a team-mate tell her without even a vestige of sarcasm. Really. Good save."

Her head still jiggling from the shock, she woozily accepted the compliment with a lop-sided grin and a shrug which sought, unsuccessfully, for an anyone-could-have-done-it modesty. She peeked over to the touch-line to see whether or not Mia and Wilmer had also witnessed that.

Of course they hadn’t. I mean, why was she surprised? If they had have seen that, that would have been fair. That would have gone some way to compensate for the fact that they had seen her humiliation. But, as anyone over six knows – anyone with even half a brain-cell – there is about as much fairness in life as there are lions in the North Pole.

Oh, and now there was an even greater kerfuffle around the changing rooms. The headmistress herself, the redoubtable Mrs Adelaide, had got herself involved – of the know-it-alls the know-it-allest.

And yes, sure enough, there was Phil.

Oh God, oh please God no, there too was Susie’s mother, Mrs Adelaide’s secretary.

All of them buzzing around the place like bees with ants in their stings.

Had any of them seen her magnificent save?

No, of course not. It was the story of Susie’s life. Her disasters were watched by an audience the size of that for a royal wedding. Her triumphs, rare in themselves, were noticed by her frogs alone.

Courtesy of Susie’s save, the light blues won 4:1. Susie got a couple of slaps on the back as she glowed towards the changing rooms, knowing that soon (and finally) she would be warm again. Those slaps were the closest Susie had ever been to be sportily feted. They felt good.

But the good they felt was short-lived indeed.

As soon as she entered the changing rooms she saw them. And as soon as she saw them she knew she was in trouble. Big trouble.

Like so many witches around a cauldron, there was a small coven huddled together. This contained Susie’s mum and Phil, Mrs Adelaide, Ms Stewart and Mr Jonson. Ms Stewart cracked her knuckles. Mr Jonson sniffed. Mia and Wilmer were basking just outside the coven’s inner core. Mrs Adelaide held Susie’s school bag.

Ah, Susan, Mrs Adelaide said, I wonder if you can explain what the plinth of the Challenge Cup is doing in your satchel.

Chapter 2

Susie was furious. But she was also terrified. I did not steal it, she murmured for what felt to her like the hundredth time.

And for what seemed like the thousandth time her mother wailed: Oh Susie! and, whilst Phil there, thered her and patted her snivelling shoulder, grizzled some more into her soggy Kleenex.

Susie could feel herself getting very angry. If she wasn’t careful she’d end up doing something really silly. How dare they? How dare they?

She didn’t know how the stupid plinth got into her stupid bag. She hadn’t a clue where the actual cup actually was. Neither did she care. The cup was, she was tired of saying, an object of no interest to her whatsoever: of the same interest that a boomerang would have in a buttercup. Why would she steal it?

And just suppose for a moment she had stolen it, how could they think her so dumb that she would have left the plinth in her bag? That was almost more insulting than being thought the thief.

This is getting us nowhere, said Mrs Adelaide, scratching the side of Susie’s frayed nerves with her thistly Scottish brogue. She smoothed back her perfectly smooth, severely combed grey hair into the tight-fisted bun which contained it. It was an affectation. Not a single hair would have had the temerity to move a millimetre on such a perfectly regimented head. You have the weekend to consider your position, child. If on Monday you inform us of the cup’s whereabouts we will deal with the matter internally. If, however, you remain obdurate, you will leave me no alternative other than to call in the police. Do you understand me, child?

Susie wanted to protest. She wanted to remind the headmistress she’d not yet been tried, not yet been found guilty. But she was too scared, too daunted, too intimidated.

Do you, child, understand me?

Yes, Susie managed to burble.

‘Yes’ what, Susan?

Yes, ma’am, Susie pushed out, every atom of her body rebelling against this enforced unction.

Go, the headmistress told her.

Susie stood and made for the door; her mother likewise.

I did not steal it, Susie said under her breath for the hundred and first time.

Oh, Susie, wailed her mother for the thousand and oneth, as Phil there, thered her once again, and once again patted her shoulders. He closed the door behind them.

As the trio walked along the corridor which led to the car park, Susie could feel the rage sear within her. It felt like the monster must do in nearby Loch Ness, too scared of its own strength to show itself publicly.

The three of them marched in silence. Those walking in the opposite direction would not even look at them. Her school-friends, her colleagues. But Susie knew, the second they had passed, they would start sniggering. And pointing. And sneering. The temptation would be too great: She was the new girl, the daughter of the headmistress’s secretary, stepdaughter of the geography teacher.

The Great Challenge Cup Robber.

Suddenly there before her were Mia and Wilmer. Mia’s red sweatshirt was emblazoned with the yellow letters ‘IKI’. Above this she wore a grin of crowing smugness. Wilmer wore a similar sweatshirt – unsurprisingly, as this was the uniform. What was surprising was that his grimace was not a grin but a frown. The frown told Susie that Wilmer was not feeling triumphant: He was feeling guilty. In that moment Susie knew who had planted the plinth in her bag.

Well, she’d have to do something about that.

She thought about challenging the duo there and then. No, she decided, she needed some time to think, some time to decide what to do for the best.

* * *

It was only the remorselessly sad who could call the heap of junk which Phil used as transport a ‘car’. Susie called it the ‘shamemobile’.

As if the indignities she’d already suffered that day were not enough, she had now to live with the knowledge that an entire, albeit invisible, institute of eyes was watching her clamber into that shamemobile. An entire, albeit inaudible, tidal wave of their giggles splashed oceanically around her, engulfed her. Drowned her.

The shamemobile did not start in the manner of non-jalopy cars. The shamemobile spluttered into a reluctant life of hiccupped smoke and exhausted belches. With the wind behind it, downhill and in top gear it managed a chug. It was thus, and in silence, that they got home.

Bo, their full-sized poodle, bounded to Susie and pinioned her to the door. Normally she would have returned the welcome. Today was not normally. Phil had gone straight into the kitchen.

I didn’t steal it, Mum.

Bath, her mother said. You didn’t have one after football.

You have to believe me, Susie protested.

Her mother stopped in her tracks. I believed you the last time, she said.

But this time, it’s true, Susie insisted. Really.

‘Bath,’ I think I said, her mother replied.

Phil came out of the kitchen, bearing a glass of water, his right fist clenched.

Phil? Susie appealed to him.

Later, munchkin, Phil replied. He passed her mother the glass of water.

I don’t want a bloody pill, her mother stomped.

It’ll calm you down, Phil advised her.

You can’t just pop a pill, you know …

Please take it, Jane.

… not for every little upset in life.

Please, my dear.

It brings on my hot flushes.

For me, Phil insisted.

See? her mother shot at Susie as she took the orange lozenge from Phil’s now unclenched fist, and swallowed it.

Phil was busy being kind and conciliatory. He was the kind of man who liked being kind and conciliatory – one of the reasons he was, damn his eyes (and though Susie hated to admit it), such a good teacher.

Susie had tried – tried her hardest, in fact – to find his lessons boring. Everything about them said they should be: the Arctic, presently, the fauna of the tundra, the narwhals and Inuits. But try as she might, she had found herself absorbed.

He went to retrieve the mail from the little wire basket he’d screwed in skewiffly behind the letter-box to stop Bo from mutilating the post. He was also patting Bo’s bouncing head, almost as if he were yo-yoing with him. I know the whole thing is worrying … exceeding worrying indeed. We’ll talk through it all later, he said – kindly, conciliatorily. Here, he said passing her a squidgy, jiffy-bag type envelope. This one’s for you.

The stamp on it was from Papua New Guinea.

Grandma! Susie snorted.

I think that would be a reasonable guess. Come on, Bo, he said and took down the dog’s lead.

Susie trudged upstairs to her bedroom. Normally ‘Grandma’, the mother of her dead father, was someone … well, at any rate, whose eccentricities made her laugh. Made them all, the whole family, laugh. Today, though – as has already been said –, was not normally. And the not-normalness of today made of Grandma’s not-normalness something that was – just for the moment – neither funny ha-ha, nor even funny peculiar, but something profoundly irritating.

Normal grandmothers, Susie had been told, rocked on chairs and crocheted. Susie’s grandma rocked around the clock and Karaoke’d. Normal grandmothers went on holiday twice a year and sent postcards. Susie’s grandmother whizzed around the globe like a satellite with ants in its antennae and sent … frogs.

Over the years, consequently, Susie had acquired less a collection of frogs than, piled as they were into her bookshelves, a library of them. She had wooden frogs from China, and china frogs from Hollywood; she had polyester frogs from Polynesia and velvet frogs from Venezuela. She had frogs with Stetsons, with matador caps and with berets; she had fat frogs and thin frogs and sort-of-neither-fat-nor-thin frogs; she had frogs so real you half expected them to croak, and others whose only concessions to their amphibian originals were a set of bulgy eyes and ‘w’-ed legs. She even had one frog which was blue. Sent from Perth. Perth, Australia.

Normally Susie got some kind of perverse pleasure from shredding the inevitably badly wrapped parcels. But today – as has already been noted – was not a normal day. Whilst she tore she wondered angrily to herself whether in Papua New Guinea there wasn’t, by the smallest quirk of fate, something else to buy other than a frog. A T-shirt, for instance. Even a ‘My Grandma Went To Papua New Guinea And All I Got Was A Lousy T-shirt’ sort of a T-shirt.

True to tradition, though, it was a frog.

A beanbag frog, this, of a paisley design and with rather weird, very green eyes which even for a frog were very sticky-outy. It exuded an indefinable eeriness, this frog. A certain almost mystic quality. It had a wise face. Yes. A wise face and a kind face.

Despite her anger, despite her fear and misery and frustration, Susie found herself smiling at the frog.

To this day she swears she doesn’t know why. There was a compulsion, that was all: She had to do it. She had no choice.

She kissed the frog.

And he came to life.

Chapter 3

Susie dropped the frog. Like a hot potato she dropped him.

Susie’s world was not one in which kissed frogs came to life. She didn’t believe in fairy-godmothers. Pumpkins, in Susie’s world, were not coaches-in-waiting and glass slippers were really stupid shoes to go dancing in.

He’d splatted on the floor as only a beanbag frog could splat, legs and arms splayed enough for them to be described as ‘alimbo akimbo’. The green, sticky-out eyes were lifeless. Susie was transfixed.

She knew she had to touch it again. She knew she would find the courage to do it, knew it was just a question of time. Curiosity may have killed the cat; humankind, though, was created by it.

She also knew that the longer she took to do it the harder the doing of it would be. The sooner she found the courage the easier it would be. Yes, the sooner – there was no question about it – the bet- …

She squidged her eyes closed as tight as they could go. She extended a rigid arm, closed her eyes still shutter, thought of England, and clutched the frog.

DON’T DROP ME, shouted the beanbag frog, almost causing Susie to do precisely that. If you let go of me we all become lifeless again.

All? Susie asked.

Look, don’t you know, and you will see, said the frog.

She looked around her.

Her entire library had come to life.

Even the little brown dog bought in Paris and who was thus, for politically very incorrect reasons, considered by Grandma to be an ‘honorary frog’.

And not just to life. But to a life which had been imprisoned, djinni-like, in a bottle. This bottle one of lemonade; and which had been jiggled up and down just before being opened. When its top had come off, therefore … DJOOM! They were spuming, the frogs (and honorary frog), all over the place. Susie’s gob was so smacked as to be stuck – stuck fast. Her eyes protruded even more than the beanbag frog’s.

Who, beneath the froggy cavorting, continued, Touch one of us, don’t you know, any one of us and we all remain alive. Break that contact and we all return to being lifeless. Well, until you make contact again.

Right, said Susie. But it was just a noise. She was still finding it quite hard to adjust to the new reality which was before her.

I don’t hear bathwater running. Her mother. Shouting from downstairs.

Susie made a blind grab for her petulance and found it remarkably easily. Give me a chance, she petulanted back. To the beanbag frog she said, Sorry.

She sat him comfortably in the middle of her bed, picked up her fresh clothes and left him. She couldn’t see her mother, in her