William at Christmas Read online

  CONTENTS

  Foreword by Julia Donaldson

  1. A Busy Day

  (from More William)

  2. William All the Time

  (from William the Fourth)

  3. William’s Truthful Christmas

  (from Still William)

  4. William Starts the Holidays

  (from William the Conqueror)

  5. William Joins the Waits

  (from William in Trouble)

  6. William Plays Santa Claus

  (from William the Outlaw)

  7. The Outlaws Fetch the Holly

  (from William)

  8. The Christmas Truce

  (from William’s Happy Days)

  9. William’s Christmas Eve

  (from William the Gangster)

  10. A Present from William

  (from William the Detective)

  FOREWORD

  I was eleven – William’s own age – when I started collecting the books about him. Unlike William, I was only eleven for one year. William is always eleven. The ten stories in William at Christmas are taken from ten different books, describing many different Christmases, so in theory he would be in his teens or twenties in the last story, but, just like Peter Pan, he never grows up.

  William was my childhood hero. I was a town child, and I think what first attracted me to the stories was the country setting. I loved the idea of roaming woods and fields unsupervised, with a dog to explore rabbit holes, keepers to run away from, and an old barn where you could meet and plot and light fires. But once I was hooked on the books, what most appealed to me was William’s way of talking – and, in particular, arguing. I liked the way he was always ‘snorting sardonically’ and I used to imitate his heavy sarcasm and righteous indignation: ‘Huh! I like that!’ became my favourite exclamation, just as it was his.

  Christmas is a time that William looks forward to with ‘mingled feelings’. On the plus side there is the turkey, the trifle, the crackers and the pantomimes, but offset against these are all the visiting relations (‘Aunts are the worst’), with their curious taste in presents. William and his friends, the Outlaws, pour scorn on the unwelcome history books, pencil cases and ties they are so often given. They yearn instead for mouth organs, airguns, sweets and pirate stories. So part of their Christmas ritual is to check where the presents are hidden, investigate them and then decide whether to hide them in the hope of being given money instead, or to bear their fate with resignation.

  However, even the overabundance of prim aunts cannot dampen William’s spirits for long. He is soon to be found singing ‘Christians Awake!’ very loudly and out of tune, and he is always ready to embark on a new adventure. The stories in this book illustrate the wide range of his ambitions. Whether he has decided to be an animal in a pantomime or an Arab in the desert, to play the trumpet or to cast out deceit, his enthusiasm is enormous. ‘I bet I’ll be the best elephant stuffer in the world by the time I’ve finished. You only need a bit more stuffin’ for an elephant than what you do for a caterpillar, that’s all.’ His imagination is equally boundless: a wheelbarrow can be a fortress one minute, a wagon the next and then be converted into a cave or a mountain top or even a ‘mortally wounded chieftain’.

  And even though William’s schemes invariably go wrong, his self-confidence is never seriously dented. The gadget he has unsuccessfully tried to take apart and put together must have something wrong with it, or the rat he has tried to stuff must have been a poor specimen, that’s all.

  Although William and the Outlaws wreak havoc and are the despair of their families and Sunday-School teachers, they are not in fact remotely bad. On the contrary, their escapades are often the result of the best intentions, and when penniless one of their main regrets is that they are unable to buy their mothers something nice for Christmas.

  The stories are adventurous and touching, but above all they are funny. Rereading them I found myself laughing aloud when William, in an attempt to appear saintly, assumes his ‘most expressionless expression’, and when, mistaken for a Martian, he decides to act the part and comes out with ‘Flam gobba manxy pop gebboo’.

  If you’ve been given this book for Christmas – or if, like William, you have cunningly swapped around a couple of labels and received it instead of a book about the Kings and Queens of England – you are in for a treat.

  Julia Donaldson

  CHAPTER 1

  A BUSY DAY

  William awoke and rubbed his eyes. It was Christmas Day – the day to which he had looked forward with mingled feelings for twelve months. It was a jolly day, of course – presents and turkey and crackers and staying up late. On the other hand, there were generally too many relations about, too much was often expected of one, the curious taste displayed by people who gave one presents often marred one’s pleasure.

  He looked round his bedroom expectantly. On the wall, just opposite the bed, was a large illuminated card hanging by a string from a nail – ‘A Busy Day is a Happy Day’. That had not been there the day before. Brightly-coloured roses and forget-me-nots and honeysuckle twined round all the words. William hastily thought over the three aunts staying in the house, and put it down to Aunt Lucy. He looked at it with a doubtful frown. He distrusted the sentiment.

  A copy of ‘Portraits of our Kings and Queens’ he put aside as beneath contempt. ‘Things a Boy Can Do’ was more promising. Much more promising. After inspecting a penknife, a pocket-compass, and a pencil-box (which shared the fate of ‘Portraits of our Kings and Queens’), William returned to ‘Things a Boy Can Do’. As he turned the pages, his face lit up.

  He leapt lightly out of bed and dressed. Then he began to arrange his own gifts to his family. For his father he had bought a bottle of highly-coloured sweets, for his elder brother Robert (aged nineteen) he had expended a vast sum of money on a copy of ‘The Pirates of the Bloody Hand’. These gifts had cost him much thought. The knowledge that his father never touched sweets, and that Robert professed scorn of pirate stories, had led him to hope that the recipients of his gifts would make no objection to the unobtrusive theft of them by their recent donor in the course of the next few days. For his grown-up sister Ethel he had bought a box of coloured chalks. That also might come in useful later. Funds now had been running low, but for his mother he had bought a small cream jug which, after fierce bargaining, the man had let him have at half-price because it was cracked.

  Singing ‘Christians Awake!’ at the top of his lusty young voice, he went along the landing, putting his gifts outside the doors of his family, and pausing to yell ‘Happy Christmas’ as he did so. From within he was greeted in each case by muffled groans.

  He went downstairs into the hall, still singing. It was earlier than he thought – just five o’clock. The maids were not down yet. He switched on lights recklessly, and discovered that he was not the only person in the hall. His four-year-old cousin Jimmy was sitting on the bottom step in an attitude of despondency, holding an empty tin.

  Jimmy’s mother had influenza at home, and Jimmy and his small sister Barbara were in the happy position of spending Christmas with relations, but immune from parental or maternal interference.

  ‘They’ve gotten out,’ said Jimmy, sadly. ‘I got ’em for presents yesterday, an’ they’ve gotten out. I’ve been feeling for ’em in the dark, but I can’t find ’em.’

  ‘What?’ said William.

  ‘Snails. Great big suge ones wiv great big suge shells. I put ’em in a tin for presents an’ they’ve gotten out an’ I’ve gotten no presents for nobody.’

  He relapsed into despondency.

  William surveyed the hall.

  ‘They’ve got out right enough!’ he said, sternly. ‘They’ve got out right e
nough. Jus’ look at our hall! Jus’ look at our clothes! They’ve got out right enough.’

  Innumerable slimy iridescent trails shone over hats, and coats, and umbrellas, and wallpaper.

  ‘Huh!’ grunted William, who was apt to overwork his phrases. ‘They got out right enough.’

  He looked at the tracks again and brightened. Jimmy was frankly delighted.

  ‘Oo! Look!’ he cried. ‘Oo funny!’

  William’s thoughts flew back to his bedroom wall – ‘A Busy Day is a Happy Day’.

  ‘Let’s clean it up!’ he said. ‘Let’s have it all nice an’ clean for when they come down. We’ll be busy. You tell me if you feel happy when we’ve done. It might be true wot it says, but I don’t like the flowers messin’ all over it.’

  Investigation in the kitchen provided them with a large pail of water and scrubbing-brush each.

  For a long time they worked in silence. They used plenty of water. When they had finished the trails were all gone. Each soaked garment on the hatstand was sending a steady drip on to the already flooded floor. The wallpaper was sodden. With a feeling of blankness they realised that there was nothing else to clean.

  It was Jimmy who conceived the exquisite idea of dipping his brush in the bucket and sprinkling William with water. A scrubbing-brush is in many ways almost as good as a hose. Each had a pail of ammunition. Each had a good-sized brush. During the next few minutes they experienced purest joy. Then William heard threatening movements above, and decided hastily that the battle must cease.

  ‘Backstairs,’ he said shortly. ‘Come on.’

  Marking their tracks by a running stream of water, they crept up the backstairs.

  But two small boys soaked to the skin could not disclaim all knowledge of a flooded hall.

  William was calm and collected when confronted with a distracted mother.

  ‘We was tryin’ to clean up,’ he said. ‘We found all snail marks an’ we was tryin’ to clean up. We was tryin’ to help. You said so last night, you know, when you was talkin’ to me. You said to help. Well, I thought it was helpin’ to try an’ clean up. You can’t clean up with water an’ not get wet – not if you do it prop’ly. You said to try an’ make Christmas Day happy for other folks and then I’d be happy. Well, I don’t know as I’m very happy,’ he said, bitterly, ‘but I’ve been workin’ hard enough since early this mornin’. I’ve been workin’,’ he went on pathetically. His eye wandered to the notice on his wall. ‘I’ve been busy all right, but it doesn’t make me happy – not jus’ now,’ he added, with memories of the rapture of the fight. That certainly must be repeated some time. Buckets of water and scrubbing-brushes. He wondered he’d never thought of that before.

  William’s mother looked down at his dripping form.

  ‘Did you get all that water with just cleaning up the snail marks?’ she said.

  William coughed and cleared his throat. ‘Well,’ he said, deprecatingly, ‘most of it. I think I got most of it.’

  ‘If it wasn’t Christmas Day . . .’ she went on darkly.

  William’s spirits rose. There was certainly something to be said for Christmas Day.

  It was decided to hide the traces of the crime as far as possible from William’s father. It was felt – and not without reason – that William’s father’s feelings of respect for the sanctity of Christmas Day might be overcome by his feelings of paternal ire.

  Half an hour later William, dried, dressed, brushed, and chastened, descended the stairs as the gong sounded in a hall which was bare of hats and coats, and whose floor shone with cleanliness.

  ‘And jus’ to think,’ said William, despondently, ‘that it’s only jus’ got to brekfust time.’

  William’s father was at the bottom of the stairs. William’s father frankly disliked Christmas Day.

  ‘Good morning, William,’ he said, ‘and a happy Christmas, and I hope it’s not too much to ask of you that on this relation-infested day one’s feelings may be harrowed by you as little as possible. And why the deu—dickens they think it necessary to wash the hall floor before breakfast, Heaven only knows!’

  William coughed, a cough meant to be a polite mixture of greeting and deference. William’s face was a study in holy innocence. His father glanced at him suspiciously. There were certain expressions of William’s that he distrusted.

  William entered the dining-room morosely. Jimmy’s sister Barbara – a small bundle of curls and white frills – was already beginning her porridge.

  ‘Goo’ mornin’,’ she said, politely. ‘Did you hear me cleanin’ my teef?’

  He crushed her with a glance.

  He sat eating in silence till everyone had come down, and Aunts Jane, Evangeline and Lucy were consuming porridge with that mixture of festivity and solemnity that they felt the occasion demanded.

  Then Jimmy entered, radiant, with a tin in his hand.

  ‘Got presents,’ he said, proudly. ‘Got presents, lots of presents.’

  He deposited on Barbara’s plate a worm which Barbara promptly threw at his face. Jimmy looked at her reproachfully and proceeded to Aunt Evangeline. Aunt Evangeline’s gift was a centipede – a live centipede that ran gaily off the tablecloth on to Aunt Evangeline’s lap before anyone could stop it. With a yell that sent William’s father to the library with his hands to his ears, Aunt Evangeline leapt to her chair and stood with her skirts held to her knees.

  ‘Help! Help!’ she cried. ‘The horrible boy! Catch it! Kill it!’

  Jimmy gazed at her in amazement, and Barbara looked with interest at Aunt Evangeline’s long expanse of shin.

  ‘My legs isn’t like your legs,’ she said pleasantly and conversationally. ‘My legs is knees.’

  It was some time before order was restored, the centipede killed, and Jimmy’s remaining gifts thrown out of the window. William looked across the table at Jimmy with respect in his eye. Jimmy, in spite of his youth, was an acquaintance worth cultivating. Jimmy was eating porridge unconcernedly.

  Aunt Evangeline had rushed from the room when the slaughter of the centipede had left the coast clear, and refused to return. She carried on a conversation from the top of the stairs.

  ‘When that horrible child has gone, I’ll come. He may have insects concealed on his person. And someone’s been dropping water all over these stairs. They’re damp!’

  ‘Dear, dear!’ murmured Aunt Jane, sadly.

  Jimmy looked up from his porridge.

  ‘How was I to know she didn’t like insecks?’ he said, aggrievedly. ‘I like ’em.’

  William’s mother’s despair was only tempered by the fact that this time William was not the culprit. To William also it was a novel sensation. He realised the advantages of a fellow criminal.

  After breakfast peace reigned. William’s father went out for a walk with Robert. The aunts sat round the drawing-room fire talking and doing crochet-work. In this consists the whole art and duty of aunthood. All aunts do crochet-work.

  They had made careful inquiries about the time of the service.

  ‘You needn’t worry,’ had said William’s mother. ‘It’s at ten-thirty, and if you go to get ready when the clock in the library strikes ten it will give you heaps of time.’

  Peace . . . calm . . . quiet. Mrs Brown and Ethel in the kitchen supervising the arrangements for the day. The aunts in the drawing-room discussing over their crochet-work the terrible way in which their sisters had brought up their children. That, also, is a necessary part of aunthood.

  Time slipped by happily and peacefully. Then William’s mother came into the drawing-room.

  ‘I thought you were going to church,’ she said.

  ‘We are. The clock hasn’t struck.’

  ‘But – it’s eleven o’clock!’

  There was a gasp of dismay.

  ‘The clock never struck!’

  Indignantly they set off to the library. Peace and quiet reigned also in the library. On the floor sat William and Jimmy gazing with frowns of concentratio
n at an open page of ‘Things a Boy Can Do’. Around them lay, most indecently exposed, the internal arrangements of the library clock.

  ‘William! You wicked boy!’

  William raised a frowning face.

  ‘It’s not put together right,’ he said. ‘It’s not been put together right all this time. We’re makin’ it right now. It must have wanted mendin’ for ever so long. I dunno how it’s been goin’ at all. It’s lucky we found it out. It’s put together wrong. I guess it’s made wrong. It’s goin’ to be a lot of trouble to us to put it right, an’ we can’t do much when you’re all standin’ in the light. We’re very busy – workin’ at tryin’ to mend this ole clock for you all.’

  ‘Clever,’ said Jimmy, admiringly. ‘Mendin’ the clock. Clever!’

  ‘William!’ groaned his mother. ‘You’ve ruined the clock. What will your father say?’

  AROUND THEM LAY, MOST INDECENTLY EXPOSED, THE INTERNAL ARRANGEMENTS OF THE LIBRARY CLOCK.

  ‘Well, the cogwheels was wrong,’ said William doggedly. ‘See? An’ this ratchet wheel isn’t on the pawl prop’ly – not like what this book says it ought to be. Seems we’ve got to take it all to pieces to get it right. Seems to me the person wot made this clock didn’t know much about clock-making. Seems to me—’

  ‘Be quiet, William!’

  ‘We was be quietin’ ’fore you came in,’ said Jimmy severely. ‘You ’sturbed us.’

  ‘Leave it just as it is, William,’ said his mother.

  ‘You don’t unnerstand,’ said William with the excitement of the fanatic. ‘The cogwheel an’ the ratchet ought to be put on the arbor different. See, this is the cogwheel. Well, it oughtn’t to be like wot it was. It was put on all wrong. Well, we was mendin’ it. An’ we was doin’ it for you,’ he ended, bitterly, ‘jus’ to help an’ – to – to make other folks happy. It makes folks happy havin’ clocks goin’ right, anyone would think. But if you want your clocks put together wrong, I don’t care.’

  He picked up his book and walked proudly from the room followed by the admiring Jimmy.