Maggie Redding has kindly allowed us to publish this delightful new story. We must admit, it took us ages to work out what was in Grandma's special bag. Will you be any quicker to solve the riddle?
G00D VIBRATIONS
My grandma was a lovely lady. You wouldn’t think she was as old as she was, 83. Visiting her, which I did frequently, was no chore. One day, I let myself in as a note on the door instructed – ‘Janey, just come in and bring the key with you’ -. Was grandma ill?
‘Up here, Janey, love,’ she called, confirming my worries. Her voice came from her bedroom. In bed?
I pulled the key from the lock and ran up the stairs to the big bedroom at the front of Grandma’s house, which she used to share with Grandad until he died. I had been only seven at the time.
I was right. She was in bed, but on the top of the covers and over her only a blanket. I threw myself at her. ‘Oh, Gran, are you ill?’
She chuckled. ‘Just a bit off colour, love.’ Her white hair radiated on the pillow. I thought she looked beautiful. Could old ladies look beautiful?
‘Can I get you anything Gran? A cup of tea?’
She frowned. ‘I’ve gone off tea. Tell you what.’ She waved a £5 note at me, ‘Could you pop down to the shop and get me a bottle of fizz?’ You know, common or garden lemonade.’
‘Of course I can.’ Nothing was too much trouble for Gran, especially if it would keep her alive. ‘Anything else?’
‘No love, that will be lovely.’
I checked, and again, but that was all she needed. It didn’t seem like enough. Anyway, I rushed out, remembering to take the key. I brought home a large bottle of lemonade and when I went back into Gran’s house, I popped into the kitchen for a glass tumbler.
‘You’re a good girl,’ she cooed over me. She paused and seemed to be pondering something. ‘Look, can you do something else?’
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘It’s got to be kept a secret.’
‘That’s okay. I can keep a secret.’
‘I need to give you a bag, to take to the rubbish dump. Recycling. You know? And don’t tell anyone, and don’t look in it.’
‘No,’ I said rashly.’ I won’t.’
She hesitated again, then ‘Okay’, she said. ‘You see that third drawer down in this unit next to the bed?’
I looked to where she was pointing. It was too low for her to reach from the bed. She could easily fall out. ‘This one?’ I squatted down to the drawer and tugged it open.
‘Is there a pretty bag, with a zip, in there?’
There was, with lots of other pretty things. Grandma loved flowers. The bag was very pretty with birds and flowers on it, all in lovely colours. It looked a bit lumpy. ‘This one?’
I pulled it out. It was not big or heavy.
‘That’s the one.’ Gran leaned back on her pillow. ‘Just take it to the dump and sling it on.’
‘Even the bag?’
‘Yes. Even the bag. Especially the bag. I hoped I could trust you. I’ll get you a bag like that if you want one.’
‘No. No. Shall I go now, Gran? The dump isn’t too far, is it?’
‘No, but I think you should go home straight afterwards. Your Mum will be worried.’ She put her hand out to touch my face. ‘You’re a good girl,’ she said. She sounded weary. ‘I’ve been wondering what to do with that bag.’
‘You haven’t been robbing people, have you, Gran?’
‘Yes, I have. And don’t you copy me.’ But she chuckled. ‘Janey. It’s my guilty secret. I have a few, private things, you know, that nobody knows about.’
I set off, with the pretty bag, to go to the Recycling Centre. It was not far. What on earth could my grandmother have a guilty secret about? Old ladies surely don’t have guilty secrets.
On my way, as a distraction, I prodded the bag. There were, by the look of it, some unlikely-shaped articles in there. I could not imagine what they were. On the way I met my school friend, Lauren. Normally, I would have been pleased to see her.
‘Janey! Where you going?’
‘To the dump. With some rubbish.’
‘What’s in there? I like the bag.’ She reached out to touch it.
‘No!’ I shrieked. ‘It’s my Gran’s. You can’’t touch it. It’s – lethal rubbish.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said as I turned so that the bag was behind me.
‘I promised Gran. It’s old-fashioned stuff.’ I was desperate. I had promised Gran that the bag would be disposed of.
‘All right. Keep your hair on. The Dump is closed today, in the afternoon, anyway.’
‘It isn’t?’ I gasped.
‘Where you gonna put it now?’
‘I don’t know. Is there another rubbish dump?’
‘There are rubbish bins in the Park,’ Lauren said. Would that count, a rubbish bin? I didn’t know. If Gran wanted to keep this bag a secret, there was no way I was going to take it home. My mother would have been so inquisitive. I knew that revealing your secrets to your mother was something not easily done.
We walked a bit further, Lauren and me. It was a late afternoon, not getting dark, but sunless and gloomy. Trees were beginning to turn. The air smelled sort of dank and of rotting stuff. ‘I expect a rubbish bin would do,’ I said.
‘I’m not supposed to go in the Park alone,’ Lauren said as we neared the gates.
‘You wouldn’t be alone if I was with you,’ I told her. ‘I can go on my own if you don’t want to come.’
But she wanted to come with me. I suspected she still hoped to find out what was in the bag. ‘I won’t try to take it off you or anything, bad, I mean, I don’t want to be haunted by your Gran’s ghost.’
‘Gran’s not going to die.’ I said. I glanced sideways at her. I was suspicious. Would Lauren return after I’d gone to investigate the bag if I put it in a bin? I could not allow that. I owed it to Gran.
We turned into the Park, through the gates, still open. Ahead of us was a group of boys. Normally I would have given them a wide berth, especially at this time of the year, when they were likely to be tossing fireworks at what they considered to be attractive targets.
‘They’ve got fireworks,’ I said. ‘I’m going back home. I don’t like fireworks.’
‘Me neither,’ said Lauren and began to run. She reached the gates well before I did and when I got to the road she was a fast-vanishing speck, almost at her home.
Now I could return to the Park, even facing the boys and their fireworks. I had feared Lauren returning more than I feared fireworks.
Rubbish bins were situated at frequent intervals along the pathways round the Park. The boys soon saw me and came towards me. There were five of them, one of them, probably their leader, spotted Gran’s bag. He was grinning. I took a couple of paces backwards. There was something in his hand which he half-heartedly was attempting to hide or avoid me seeing, a cigarette or a firework, I was not sure.
‘Nice bag,’ he said indicating Gran’s bag with a grubby finger.
‘It’s an old lady’s bag,’ I said.
‘Why you got it, then?’
‘I’m on an errand for her.’
‘Let’s see,’ he said, coming closer.
‘No!’
I spun the bag over my head and then with all the skills acquired as Shooter in the Netball Team at school, I lobbed it towards the nearest rubbish bin, some eight feet, or two metres anyway.
With a loud metallic clunk and the sound of breaking glass, it landed squarely inside the bin. An aroma filled the air, that of the scent I had given Gran for Christmas. Disappointment washed over me. Had Gran not used the scent which I had given her last year? It sounded as though the bottle had smashed on hitting the metal of the bin. I rushed towards the bin, peered in and froze. The bag was there, soaked in the scent, but an ominous buzzing came from the soggy depths. The bag appeared to move, too, odd jerks. Was it alive, whatever was moving about in the pretty bag? One of the boys rushed forward, eager to find out what was causing the noise and the movement.
‘It’s alive!’ I yelled but all they did was to look at me and laugh.
I was getting desperate now. I leaned over the bin, anxious to pull out Grandma’s pretty bag, but one of the boys lunged towards me, ready to shove me aside.
But I shoved him aside. He tumbled to the ground and prepared to have another go at me, but I hit out at him, hard on his nose, causing it to bleed, great gushes of red blood pouring down his face. I stood there, frightened at what I had done, but unapologetic.
Now I had achieved desperation. I screamed, ‘It’s a bomb!’ and took several paces back.
Two of the boys rushed forward. ‘Nah! It ain't!’ shouted the biggest one and, to prevent further exposure of whatever was now emitting smoke from his fingers, chucked it in the bin with the bag.
I ran. An almighty flash, and a boom followed. I fell over.
By the time I’d picked myself up and was on my shaking legs, the boys had disappeared and a plume of smoke billowed from the bin.
Walking at an innocent speed, in case someone came to investigate, I returned home to hide in my bedroom for the rest of the evening.
A month later, my poor Gran died never knowing what caused the boom in the Park that day. Neither did I. At least, not until I was much older and wiser.
Oh, and Gran bought another pretty bag and left it, with a note, for me.
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