A Pack of Lies (21 page)

He patted around the desk-top until he found his glasses, and put them on. The comforts of his room swam into view — the shabby furniture, the hundreds of books, the box-files full of manuscripts only waiting for the day he became a famous and sought-after author. But his heart continued to ache.

Downstairs in the kitchen, his mother was making sandwiches for the cricketers’ tea, and their neighbour was once again lending the benefit of her advice in a stream of well-meaning prattle.

‘The trouble is, he doesn’t get out enough, shut away in that room all day — even in this lovely weather — rattling away at that typewriter — we can hear it, you
know, right through the wall — three, four o’clock in the morning. I mean he’s never going to find a girlfriend, sitting in his room all day, is he? You should make him go out — take him out of himself it would. There’s plenty of plain girls in the world wouldn’t sneeze at him despite his . . .’

‘He’s very shy,’ said his mother’s voice in an apologetic murmur. ‘He’s got his books. So long as he’s happy.’

‘Yes, but scribbling stories all day! That doesn’t bring in any money, does it? That doesn’t help you with the housekeeping — and you a widow trying to manage. He’s just a drain on you, that’s what. It’s not fair. It was the same when he was at school, my Johnnie says. None of the other kids could make head nor tail of him; said he was always fibbing — telling whoppers, anyway. No wonder they ragged him — cruel, but what else can you expect? And there’s my Johnnie married and with kids of his own and a Ford Sierra. And what’s going to become of your Michael, that’s what I wonder? It’s only friendly concern makes me say it, but he ought to get out more . . . make some friends . . . make himself useful at least . . .’

Michael Charles Christie Berkshire pushed the typewriter away from him and stood up and stamped. The circulation always packed up in his bad leg when he had sat for a long time. He caught sight of himself in the mirror, his eyes shrunken to piggy little smudges by the grotesque thickness of the glasses. His sparse, mousy hair was stuck to his pallid head with the sweat of concentration. That drawn, sickly face in the mirror was like the glimpse of an old enemy across the room at a party — someone he had spent years trying to avoid.

He pulled on his old green corduroy jacket and felt better at once. Wasn’t at least the little lead soldier, standing on his finished typescript, saluting him respectfully? ‘I had to leave, though, didn’t I? I couldn’t stay for ever!’ said Michael aloud. ‘They got away from
me. My characters. I lost control of them. You heard them: they were working it all out! They got too real for me!’

No, perhaps after all the soldier was beckoning rather than saluting: some strange, crooked gesture.

‘I mean I can’t go back, can I?’ cried Michael, and the pain in his heart was momentarily much greater than the pain in his leg. ‘It’s all just made-up lies!’ he suddenly shouted at the little lead soldier. ‘I’m just a damnable liar! Aren’t I?’

A breeze from the open window dislodged the top few sheets of typing and toppled the lead soldier on to his back. Michael scrabbled clumsily to save the whole stack from being scattered around the room, finishing on his hands and knees, putting the pages in order again. His eye ran over a sentence here, a paragraph there.

‘Of course I could always change the ending,’ he said, absent-mindedly slipping the soldier into his breast pocket. ‘Perhaps it would work better if I just changed the last few . . . That’s it! That’s what I’ll do! I’ll do it!’ And the ache in his chest immediately subsided as he sat down at the desk again and pulled his typewriter towards him.

When the last cricketer was out, and the last uneaten cucumber sandwiches had been left deserted along the trestle-tables, Mrs Berkshire mustered them together on to a single plate. She could hear the rattle and ting of a typewriter overhead, and climbed the stairs to her son’s bedroom. ‘Would you like to finish these up?’ she began, putting her head around the door. But the bedroom was empty. ‘That’s strange. I could have sworn . . . How could he have come by me without me seeing? Still . . . it’s good for him to get out. I’m glad. I’m glad.’

She went to tidy the desk, and took a quick, incurious glance at the title of her son’s latest little ‘effort’. ‘Oh, I
don’t think that’s a very nice title, Michael,’ she thought primly, crossly. And separating the one sheet from the rest, she tore up the title page of
A Pack of Lies
and dropped it into the wastepaper basket.

From the bottom of the bin, a circular shine caught her eye, and she bent down with a gasp of relief to snatch up (from among a few torn sheets) Michael’s glasses. So nearly lost!

‘But oh! where could he possibly have gone without these?’ she said to herself.

Publication Info

Oxford University Press, Walton Street,
Oxford OX2 6DP
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and associated companies in
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is a trade mark of Oxford University Press

Copyright © Geraldine McCaughrean 1988
First published 1988
Reprinted 1989

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise without the prior permission of
Oxford University Press.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it
shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without
the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding
or cover other than that in which it is published
and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent
purchaser.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

McCaughrean, Geraldine
A pack of lies.
I. Title
823’.914[J]

ISBN
0 19 271612 3

Typeset by Pentacor Ltd, High Wycombe, Bucks
Printed in Great Britain by Billing & Sons Ltd, Worcester

Front Flap

WHEN MCC BERKSHIRE
moves into Ailsa
and her mother’s antiques shop, he
turns their lives upside down. He
sleeps on the old bed in the shop (for
sale), and corners every potential
customer with a special story, told just
for them. But where does MCC come
from? And why does he tell such
awful lies?

Ailsa has never met anyone like this.
Adventure, horror, romance, comedy,
tragedy, mystery—MCC tells a pack of
lies to suit every taste. But then he is,
after all, the real joker in the pack.

This witty and fascinating collection,
which was published to critical
acclaim, was awarded both the
Guardian Children’s Fiction Award
and the Carnegie Medal. Geraldine
McCaughrean won the 1987
Whitbread Children’s Novel Award
for
A Little Lower than the Angels
.

Jacket illustration by Robina Green

Rear Flap

Geraldine McCaughrean took a degree in
Education at Christ Church College,
Canterbury. She worked for some years
for a London publisher on a variety of
projects, including children’s partworks,
and now writes full time. Her other books
for Oxford University Press are
One
Thousand and One Arabian Nights
,
The
Canterbury Tales
,
A Little Lower than the
Angels
and
St George and the Dragon
.

A Little Lower than the Angels
Winner of the 1987 Whitbread Children’s
Novel Award

‘A fine children’s book because of the
emotional power of the storytelling,
unflinching and true—a remarkable
achievement.’
Books for Your Children

‘Its originality, thrilling story and its richly
poetic language . . . this unforgettable
book, which knows no age barrier, should
become a classic.’
Evening Standard

The Canterbury Tales
Illustrated by Victor G. Ambrus

One Thousand and One Arabian Nights
Illustrated by Stephen Lavis

‘Incomparable versions of Chaucer and
the Arabian Nights . . . these tours de
force.’
The Junior Bookshelf

Version Info

v 1.0 HTML

• Scanned and proofed 2011-06-28
  
• Changes / Corrections to the printed book
  
  • for fear she poison him / she would poison
    
  • Section break inserted after ‘It’s only polite.’
    
  • langoustine, the / moved 'the' to next line
    
  • Section break inserted after 'sent him below to eat.'
    
  • the Yamaha organ and the harpischord / harpsichord
    
  • Section break inserted after 'Ailsa and MCC, all together.'
    
  • pout in the miror / mirror
    
  • Section break deleted after 'through Father Kirby’s arm.'
    
  • Section break inserted after 'well have been dead.'
    
  • harrassed / harassed
    
  • materials . . .In fact / materials . . . In fact
    
• Inconsistent hyphenation
  
  • buttonholes / button-holes