A Cautionary Note
When you enter the Garden, inevitably, and perhaps none too surprisingly, you will find that you leave something behind. When you are in the Garden, you may find – to your surprise or indeed unwittingly – something different. That something different you may take out of the Garden if you so please. Some people may be lost in the Garden. And yet some people may find themselves in the Garden. Others may leave the Garden and never come back. Not all people will remember the Garden. Although if they do, they may find they will be curiously, indeed remarkably enriched by having visited it.
From Mr. Whizz’s Notebook: Concerning the Garden, a thing rarum
The moon was out, and Laila was wide awake when she saw the wolf crossing the side of the lawn. She watched it as it paused and sniffed the air.
The solitary wolf tipped its nose at the moon. Was it going to howl?
Then it disappeared behind some bushes. She watched, amazed, as it reappeared around the trunk of the tree they all knew as the Beech House.
Laila had to pinch herself – not once, twice but thrice. She looked down the side path where the bins were, and the collection of Dad’s bottles waiting to be recycled when she saw it the final time slinking off into the shadows. The house was in a shallow valley of the Green Belt, and she could see the tops of the trees from the woods where thither she imagined it was headed.
Was it really a wolf she had seen? If it was all the wrong colour and far too big for a little fox, it could have been a big dog, one of those strays they were talking about in the neighbourhood watch.
But what if it really was a wolf?
She got back into bed and hunkered down under the bedclothes with her torch and penknife until she fell asleep.
If, generally speaking, nothing could be further from her thoughts than wolves, the question was still nagging Laila when she sat down at the breakfast table the following morning.
“Dad, Mum, I have a question.”
“A question at this ungodly hour.”
“I want to know if there any wolves around here?”
“Wolves?”
“Yes, wolves. – I thought I saw one last night in the garden.”
“Rummaging, I imagine, around the compost.”
“Seriously, Mum. I saw it by the Beech House.”
“Don’t tell me,” said Dad from behind his newspaper. “It climbed onto the platform and howled at the moon.”
“Oh, Dad!”
“Anyway,” he went on, “Wolves don’t go for treehouses or composts. They go for small girls.”
“Grr,” went Timmy.
“And small boys.”
“Oh, honestly, Tony,” said Mum. “You’ll be putting ideas in her head again.”
“I was forgetting,” said Dad, turning to his daughter. “Laila, you can’t have seen a wolf. They died out a long time ago. At least in this country. Certainly not in a place like Sherwood.”
“Anyway,” said Laila, muttering, “it looked like a wolf to me.”
“Grr!” went Timmy, who was now holding up a soldier with a musket.
He looked up and around at everybody at the breakfast table. But Dad had his nose back in the newspaper, and Mum was looking down at the page of her magazine. And his sister was staring into space.
“Grr,” he went once more.
“Oh, do shut up, Timmy.”
Laila got up from the table and went off in a huff.
How the wolf got into her mind was a mystery. Parents, the Collins being no exception, would no doubt attribute it to a hyperactive imagination (Mum). She was going through phases (Dad). In fact, she was getting far too independent, and yet still rather random and dreamy (Mum again and Dad agreeing).
“Last year it was unicorns. And this year, I don’t know what it is this year.”
“I think it is still unicorns.”
“Of course, there was that pony – what was its name?”
“Whisper.”
“That’s right. Whisper, the clumsiest, noisiest and nosiest pony in the stable.”
Dad chuckled.
“Grr!” went Timmy, holding up the soldier at his father.
“Timmy,” said Dad, “I don’t think a soldier like that goes grr. If anything, he goes crack, crack!”
Timmy squinted at the soldier with the musket and finger pistoled it with a crack, crack!
It was a matter of some urgency; a wolf was loose in the woods. And being loose in the woods, he could get into the garden.
“Whatever you do,” said Dad. “Don’t go out the gate. You don’t want the wolf to eat you.”
“By the way,” said Mum, “don’t forget to take your apple.”
She went out the door, but the wolf was already in the garden.
She turned tail and ran.
“I must reach the Beech House,” she told herself. “It won’t get me in the Beech House.”
The wolf snapped at her heels as she scampered up the tree and onto the platform of the Beech House.
After a while, the wolf went away. She climbed down from the tree and ran back towards the house, but the wolf was waiting for her.
“There you are!” he cried. “I was wondering where you got to.”
“What are you doing here?” she said. “This is my garden.”
“It may be your garden,” said the wolf. “But once I turn you, you’ll be in my garden.”
The wolf took a step towards her and bared its teeth.
“Don’t eat me!” she cried. “Eat this.”
She threw the apple at its gaping mouth.
Suddenly, she woke up.
The light was on her bedroom; the book was still in her hand, but the apple was lying on the floor.
“Laila, I saw you left the light on again last night.”
“Sorry, Mum. I fell asleep reading.”
“Not those manga comics again.”
“It wasn’t a manga comic, it was a book.”
“You shouldn’t read so late on school nights.”
“Yes, Mum.”
“Well, in future make sure you turn out the light.”
“Mum, if you are going to turn out the light, can you please leave the light on in the landing?”
“Promise you won’t turn your light on again.”
“Yes, Mum.”
If truth be known, and, though nothing, generally speaking, could be further from her mind than wolves, Laila could not keep the wolf at bay. Time and again she would see him in her mind’s eye. Time and again he would try to catch her out.
The light was still on outside her room, and she could see him, smiling in the scrolls of the wallpaper. She was not exactly afraid but struck by the strangeness of his expression. He seemed, after all, to wink at her with amusement.
“Aren’t you going to sleep?” he would say.
“Not if you are going to catch me turning.”
The wolf seemed to laugh.
“I can’t catch you turning,” he said. “It’s you who will do the turning… Just like the absurd creatures in those comics of yours.”
“But I like my comics. I love unicorns.”
The wolf chuckled.
“I don’t doubt it,” he said. “They lead you off into unexpected places and unexpected adventures.”
“Oh, shut up, silly wolf. I’m going to sleep now.”
This was a moment of truth. Laila knew it from the stories she had been told and the books she had read. If wolves did not exist in Sherwood anymore, there was something in the woods of Sherwood that she had to find out. And into the woods of Sherwood she knew she must go.
“Chloe, are you going to come with me?”
“I don’t know.”
“But it’ll be fun climbing the trees.”
“I don’t like climbing trees. Anyway, the woods are scary.”
“Oh, please, Chloe. Come with me. We’re not exactly going to meet any wolves.”
“You shouldn’t say things like that, Laila.”
“You’re right. I shouldn’t, but still it would be fun, don’t you think?
“I’m not in the mood, Laila.”
“Oh, alright then.”
Laila hung up and went into the kitchen where her mother was cooking.
“I’m going out now, Mum.”
“Where are you going?”
“Round to Chloe’s.”
Which, of course, was partially true, if Laila could be bothered to go and beg her again.
“Well,” said her mother, as she filled a saucepan with water from the sink, “what time will you be back?”
“Supper time.”
“That’s quite late. – Here, why don’t you take an apple with you?”
“I’m fine, Mum.”
“And don’t go into the woods.”
“No, Mum, I know.”
Laila went back up to her room to fetch her penknife and torch.
“I heard you,” said Timmy, coming out of his room with a soldier in his hand. “You’re not going to Chloe’s. You’re going to the woods.”
“Go away,” she said.
“I’ll tell!” said Timmy.
“No, you won’t. I’ll bury your soldiers in the garden if you do.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Yes, I would. Dad’s just bought a new spade, too.”
“You’re horrid!” said Timmy.
“Mind your own business next time,” said Laila, as she closed the front door.
What a relief it was to get away, even if she couldn’t be sure she was running into a wolf trap.