Anneli the Art Hater Read online

  The knob turned easily. Anneli pulled the door but nothing happened. She pulled again, harder. The door refused to budge. Anneli tried pushing. The little door swung open so easily it gave her a fright.

  A curious musty smell swept out. It was a strange odour of ancient dust and spiders. There was nothing slimy about it. Nothing dank and disgusting. That was a relief. Not daring to delay, Anneli poked her head through. Nothing with creepy long legs fell in her hair. Nothing furry and fast scuttled in front of her.

  So far, so good.

  She peered into the darkness. Needles of light fell through the cracks in two or three slates. In them, dust motes were spinning. It was a moment or two before she could make out that the floor was rough boards, and above was the sloping underside of a roof.

  Anneli peered to the side. On her left, huge and squat like a vast sleeping monster, lay the water tank. A pipe led in at one end and out at the other. The lid was crooked. Anneli shuddered, dreading to think what might have slipped in and drowned, and still be lying at the very bottom. She’d never drink from the bath taps again.

  She looked the other way. Darkness. It was impossible to see how far it would be possible to crawl. For all that she could tell, the little passage under the roof might come to a dead end only a few feet away, or might go on forever. It was too dark to see.

  She shuffled forward on her knees towards a lump of shadow at the end that might be a corner she could crawl round and keep on going till she found an attic full of precious things. But suddenly behind her there was a huge and echoing clang that startled her so much she froze.

  Anneli felt sick with terror. She shut her eyes. Then, suddenly, another noise took over. The sound of rushing, filling water.

  Of course! The water tank in action!

  Anneli kept her eyes shut till she was absolutely sure. In this dark space, the sound seemed enormous. But already the hissing rush was slowing to a trickle, then droplets running after one another fast, and then, at last, just the occasional drip that sounded round and wet and hollow as if in some ancient cavern underground.

  Anneli pulled herself together and carried on.

  The lump of darkness turned out to be, not a corner leading to further passages, but a dead end.

  So much for all her bravery. So much for Henry’s brilliant idea. Something precious to sell in an attic! How stupid!

  Bitterly disappointed, Anneli sat down and leaned back.

  There was the loudest of clicks, and then a hideous grating noise. Whatever Anneli was leaning against was giving way. She struggled to regain her balance. A little door, no larger than the one she’d crawled through earlier, was swinging open. Anneli tumbled backwards, catching her elbows on the frame of the doorway and landing on threadbare carpet that scraped her knees.

  It hurt. Tears pricked behind her eyes. Anneli blinked them shut. But when she opened them again, what did she see in front of her but the most hideous face, glaring at her with fierce hatred.

  Anneli shut her eyes tightly again, out of sheer terror, and waited for whoever it was to pounce.

  But nothing happened. The moments passed. She could not even hear breathing. Just silence, absolute silence. Had she imagined it all in the great shock of tumbling through the hole? Had she seen what she thought?

  She flickered her eyelids open the tiniest amount. Not quite enough for anyone watching to think she was looking at them. Just enough to let the smallest crack of light seep in between her eyelashes and let her peep a second time.

  That face! Still there! But something so odd about it . . .

  Anneli’s eyes widened. Without being able to prevent herself, she cried out loud:

  ‘What a great cheat!’

  It was a painting.

  Life-size, and stuck right in her face, it had fooled her into thinking it was real. But it was just a painting, propped up and facing where she fell.

  ‘What a great fizzing cheat!’

  And then, from the other side of the room, there came a voice.

  ‘What’s a great fizzing cheat?’

  The voice scared Anneli even more than the first sight of the painting. The blood ran cold in her veins. She couldn’t answer.

  She heard the question again.

  ‘What’s a great fizzing cheat? Who are you? Come on out from behind there, so I can see you. What on earth is going on?’

  4

  ‘Precious to sell and precious to keep.’

  Anneli was no chicken. She’d never found that trying to avoid trouble got her out of it, or made it any easier when it came. She’d never believed in ghosts, and she was pretty brave about people, even exasperated ones into whose rooms she fell, uninvited and dusty. So scrambling to her feet, she peered over the large gold frame of the painting.

  There, staring back at her was Old Mrs Pears.

  ‘Anneli!’ said Mrs Pears. ‘How very sweet of you to drop in.’

  Anneli grinned sheepishly.

  ‘Are you hurt? Are you horribly bruised? That was a thump and a half.’

  Anneli prodded the worst bits.

  ‘Not too bad,’ she said. ‘I’ll be all right.’

  ‘Did you bring Josh along with you? Or is he lost somewhere in the roof?’

  ‘No,’ Anneli said. ‘It’s only me. And I was hoping to find something precious.’

  Mrs Pears looked about the room, and gave a vague but gracious wave of invitation.

  ‘Oh, no!’ said Anneli hastily. ‘I didn’t mean from you!’

  ‘Of course,’ said Old Mrs Pears, speaking softly, as though to herself and not to Anneli, ‘there’s precious to sell and precious to keep, and in this room, I’m afraid, there’s mostly precious to keep.’

  Anneli looked about her. The room itself was the mirror image of the room she’d crawled from, Jodie’s bedroom. There was the same bow window, the same cupboard doors, even the same old-fashioned fireplace with its pretty blue patterned tiles.

  But this room could not have looked more different. Where Jodie’s room was filled with cosy, pretty things, this room was filled with paintings. Paintings hanging on every spare inch of wall, and propped above the mantelpiece, and leaning in stacks against the cupboard doors, and laid flat on the desk. Dozens of paintings in dozens of frames, simple and fancy. Everywhere you looked were drawings and paintings – snarling animals, blossoming trees, fast flowing rivers, beautiful women in long white dresses lifting their parasols against the sunlight, men fighting battles, women weeping, a little girl sitting on a bench nursing a black and white rabbit.

  Art. Everywhere you looked. Nothing but art.

  ‘Did you buy all of them?’ demanded Anneli, far too aghast at the thought of such a massive waste of money to remember her manners.

  ‘Lord, no,’ said Mrs Pears. ‘My brother painted them.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Every last one.’

  ‘What for?’

  Mrs Pears stared at Anneli, and then asked, very politely:

  ‘Anneli, do you know very much about art?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Anneli,

  You don’t draw, or paint, or go to galleries, or look at books of prints?’

  ‘We slosh about a bit on Tuesday afternoons,’ Anneli offered helpfully. ‘But that’s about it.’

  ‘And do you enjoy it?’

  ‘Not much,’ said Anneli, then added with a flash of truthfulness: ‘Actually, I hate it.’

  Mrs Pears waved her hands around in the air, as though seeking the right words.

  ‘So, when you say: “What for?”, what you mean is: “Why did your brother waste his time painting when he could have been doing something else?”’

  Anneli blushed.

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘And not what many others ask, which is: “Why, when he clearly had talent, did your brother spend so much time copying other artists’ paintings?”’

  ‘Is that what he was doing?’

  Mrs Pears sighed.

  ‘It wa
s.’

  Anneli looked around her, and breathed out slowly.

  ‘He certainly copied an awful lot of paintings.’

  ‘He certainly did.’ Mrs Pears let herself down into the chair by the fireplace. ‘And he certainly copied a lot of awful paintings, too.’

  She shut her eyes, as if to blot out the memory of some of the worst.

  ‘But why?’ asked Anneli.

  ‘He wanted money.’ Mrs Pears sighed. ‘My brother wanted as much money as he could lay his hands on.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For his Running-Away Box.’

  Anneli was shocked. A Running-Away Box? It sounded almost desperate.

  ‘Why? Was your brother horribly unhappy?’

  There was a silence. Mrs Pears tilted her head back against the chair, her eyes still closed, her hands folded in her lap. Finally she said:

  ‘Be a dear, Anneli. Run away home. Come back tomorrow and I’ll find you something precious to sell.’

  5

  ‘Not painting again!’

  Anneli sat in bed, trying to concentrate on her library book. But she couldn’t read. Her eyes skimmed over the words, but inside her head things were distracting her. Old Mrs Pears, all of those paintings, the brother with his Running-Away Box. It was a mystery, and once there was any sort of puzzle in her life, Anneli could never rest until she had solved it.

  When her mother came in, Anneli laid down the book.

  ‘Good day, sweet?’

  ‘It was Tuesday,’ Anneli reminded her mother, scowling.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So we had art.’

  ‘And what did you paint?’

  Anneli thought back. She could still see clearly in her mind’s eye Mrs Pears’ brother’s paintings – the one that scared her out of her wits, the lovely lady with the frills and the lap dog, the terrified horse – but the large sheet of paper that she herself had worked on for most of the afternoon was no more than a misty blank.

  ‘Something stupid. I can’t remember.’

  ‘You never can. You’re a real art hater, Anneli. I don’t know why I keep bothering to ask you!’

  Her mother kissed her and left the room, yawning. Anneli lay back and listened through the half-open doorway. She heard her mother filling the teapot and turning over the pages of the paper. Usually the sounds lulled her to sleep, but tonight was different. Though she was tired, her mind was racing, and she was still awake when Jodie let herself in.

  ‘Well?’ she heard her mother ask her friend. ‘How did the meeting go?’

  Anneli heard Jodie sigh. Then:

  ‘Terrible. Terrible. They’re going to close the pool.’

  Anneli jack-knifed upright in bed. She couldn’t believe it! Close the swimming pool at Carrington Lodge? Why, swimming was the only real pleasure some of those children had! They did lots of it, too. It was good for their bodies. On the days Jodie took Anneli and Josh, Anneli saw children who could barely walk, or manage their wheelchairs, moving around in the water as though there was almost nothing the matter with their spines or their muscles or their disobedient legs.

  Anneli’s mother was just as shocked.

  ‘Close the pool? What? For ever?’

  ‘No, not for ever. Just for a year or so.’

  ‘A year or so! That might as well be for ever for some of those children!’ Anneli’s mother said bitterly.

  ‘I told you it was a terrible meeting.’

  Anneli heard the sofa springs sagging as Jodie settled.

  ‘It seems that pool’s quite ancient. The bottom’s giving way, the heating unit is too old for safety, the changing rooms are going mouldy, and the lights need rewiring. They’ve decided to repair the whole lot all in one go; but none the less it will take months and months.’

  ‘But, Jodie, what about the children? Can they use the pool in town?’

  ‘They can. And they will. But only at certain times of day. And since the minibus can only hold four wheelchairs at one time, there won’t be much swimming for anyone this year.’

  ‘Unless they get another minibus.’

  ‘On top of all the repairs to the pool?’

  ‘Have a collection!’

  ‘We only just finished the last collection. People round here aren’t made of money.’

  There was a gloomy silence. Anneli rolled over and bunched the duvet up over her head. Cracked pools and mouldy changing rooms. Only one minibus. Art rooms. Everyone needed money for something. She simply didn’t want to hear another word. She’d think about it all tomorrow . . . tomorrow . . .

  Tomorrow turned out to be the oddest day, and not one on which Anneli found time to think much at all. When she reached school in the morning, she found Henry doubled over the gates, waiting for her, shrieking the news.

  ‘Miss Pears is off.’

  ‘Off?’

  ‘Not coming to school.’

  ‘That’s never happened before. Perhaps she’s feeling sick.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s ill.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s very ill.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s dying.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s dead.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s buried.’

  ‘Don’t be so silly. Who are we getting instead?’

  ‘No one. There isn’t anyone, so they’re splitting us up. Everyone else is having five of us. We’re to be helpers.’

  ‘Teaching babies the ABC?’

  ‘You won’t be any use, then. You don’t know yours yet.’

  The insults kept up through the ringing of the bell, and standing in line. Anneli was smart. Grabbing Henry, she fought her way to the front. The deputy head would split them into fives. If Mrs Fleming had any sense, she’d pick the quiet goody-goodies queuing at the front, dying to get into school, to join her in the infant class.

  And since Anneli liked Mrs Fleming and didn’t mind infants, she was determined that she and Henry would get into Mrs Fleming’s pack of five.

  It paid off. Soon she and Henry were being swept away in a tide of little people.

  Mrs Fleming, it was clear, had no idea what to do with the five she had picked. She looked around the room searching for an idea. Anneli watched with horror as her eyes settled on the six easels in the painting corner, the aprons, the jam jars filled with bright poster paints.

  ‘Art,’ she said firmly. ‘That’ll be nice.’

  ‘No, it won’t,’ Henry said loyally. ‘Anneli hates art.’

  ‘Painting! Not painting again!’

  ‘We had art yesterday.’

  ‘Painting? All day?’

  ‘On those silly easels?’

  ‘I’m certainly not wearing one of those bibs!’

  Mrs Fleming lifted her hand for silence.

  ‘You five can stay in that corner together and paint quietly,’ – she paused – ‘or I can send up for a set of long division cards.’

  The complaining quietened to a sullen muttering, and then, as Henry handed round the brushes, squabbling broke out instead.

  ‘I can’t paint with this. This brush is bald. I might as well paint with my fingers.’

  ‘I’ve seen your work. I thought you did.’

  ‘This brush has exactly seven bristles left in it.’

  ‘Let me count.’

  ‘Careful!’

  ‘Whoops. Sorry.’

  ‘Now there’s only six!’

  Anneli dragged her easel backwards until it stood right behind Henry’s, and she could see what he was doing. She waited while he stared at his blank sheet of paper, deciding what to paint. Henry never drew anything in pencil first. He said that the lines always spoiled it after. He simply thought for a long while instead.

  As she stood watching, Anneli found herself filling with curiosity. What was he going to paint? Which colour would he begin with? Would his brush strokes be bold and slashing, or dotty and delicate? She waited, burning with impatience, for him to start.

  Then, at last, Henry dipped his brush into a jar of light
blue. Anneli did the same, moving as far as possible like an action replay on the television. Henry drew his brush firmly across the sheet of paper. With a growing feeling of interest, Anneli did exactly the same.

  She’d never taken to art, but this was something different. It was going to be a long morning. So she would do what Mrs Pears’ brother had been so good at doing – copying other artists’ work.

  6

  ‘My garden and my pool.’

  At break time, everyone crowded round the two finished paintings.

  ‘Which one is Henry’s?’

  ‘This one. It’s got his name on it.’

  ‘But that one has, too.’

  Anneli grinned. She had enjoyed herself enormously. She’d found it fascinating, and for the first time in her life she’d had a paintbrush in her hand without feeling irritable. From time to time during the morning, Henry had stepped back to admire her work, and now it was finished he did so again.

  ‘That’s very good.’

  ‘You did it.’

  ‘But you painted it.’

  ‘But it’s your painting.’

  Henry screwed up his face.

  ‘Funny, that. Whose is it, then?’

  Everyone had an opinion.

  ‘Yours.’

  ‘Hers.’

  ‘Mine.’

  ‘His.’

  ‘Both of ours.’

  Henry asked Anneli:

  ‘Was it difficult to do?’

  ‘Not really,’ Anneli said, ‘once I got into the swing of painting like you do. It was easier when I didn’t try to keep up. When you were stabbing away at those tree tops I couldn’t stab as hard and as fast as you did in case you weren’t making them the shape I thought. So I waited till you’d finished, and then did them all in a rush, like you, after.’

  ‘They came out just the same,’ Henry admitted admiringly.

  ‘Almost,’ said Anneli, ruthlessly self-critical. ‘Not quite.’

  Henry leaned over and pointed to her version of the painting.

  ‘See that red there. It’s wrong.’

  ‘Your red had white in it. It wasn’t like mine. I kept trying to add just the right amount to get it exact.’ Anneli ran her finger over the red of her barn roof. ‘But it didn’t come quite right until I got here.’ She pointed again. ‘I tried going back and painting over, but that made it look too thick, so I had to stop.’