The Store Room

by Saki

The children were going to be driven to the beach at Jagborough as a special treat. But Nicholas was not going; he was in disgrace. That morning he had refused to eat his bread-and-milk for the stupid reason that there was a frog in it. Older and wiser and better people had told him that there could not possibly be a frog in his bread-and-milk] and that he shouldn’t talk nonsense. Nevertheless, he continued and described in great detail the colour and markings of the frog. The dramatic part of the incident was that there really was a frog in Nicholas' bowl of bread-and-milk; he had put it there himself, so he knew something about it.

The sin of taking a frog from the garden and putting it into a bowl of bread-and-milk was explained at great length, but the fact that stood out most clearly in the whole affair, at least in Nicholas’ mind, was that the older, wiser and better people had been profoundly wrong about things they were entirely sure about.

"You said there couldn't be a frog in my bread-and-milk. There was a frog in my bread-and-milk," he repeated, like a skilled general who does not intend to move from favourable ground.

So his boy-cousin and girl-cousin and his uninteresting younger brother were going to be taken to the beach at Jagborough that afternoon and he was to stay at home. His cousins’ aunt, who insisted on calling herself his aunt too, had quickly invented the Jagborough excursion in order to show Nicholas the pleasures he would miss by his disgraceful behaviour at the breakfast table. It was her habit, whenever one of the children was in disgrace, to organise a treat. The sinner was then excluded. If all the children sinned together they were suddenly told about a circus in a neighbouring town, a circus with countless elephants, where they would have gone that day, if they hadn’t behaved so badly.

A few tears were expected from Nicholas when the moment for departure arrived. As a matter of fact, however, all the crying was done by his girl-cousin, who hurt her knee as she was getting ready to go.

"She cried so much!" said Nicholas cheerfully, as the party drove off without any of the expected excitement.

"She'll soon get over that," said the aunt. "It will be a wonderful afternoon for running about on that beautiful sand. They’ll enjoy themselves so much!"

"Bobby won't enjoy himself much and he won't run either," said Nicholas with a grim chuckle. "His boots are hurting him. They're too tight."

"Why didn't he tell me they were hurting?" asked the aunt with annoyance.

"He told you twice, but you weren't listening. You often don't listen when we tell you important things."

"You must not go into the fruit garden," said the aunt, changing the subject.

"Why not?" demanded Nicholas.

"Because you are in disgrace," said the aunt.

Nicholas felt he could be in disgrace and in a fruit garden at the same time. His face took on a look of great obstinacy. It was clear to his aunt that he had decided to get into the fruit garden, "only," as she said to herself, "because I’ve told him he mustn’t."

Now the fruit garden had two doors and, when a small person like Nicholas slipped in there, he could disappear among the fruit bushes. The aunt had many other things to do that afternoon, but she spent an hour or two gardening in the flowers and bushes, so she could keep an eye on the two doors that led to the forbidden paradise. She was a woman of few ideas, but great concentration.

Nicholas made one or two runs towards one or other of the doors with obvious secrecy, but was never able to escape the aunt's careful eye. As a matter of fact, he had no intention of getting into the fruit garden, but it was extremely convenient for him that his aunt should believe that he had; it was a belief that would keep her there for most of the afternoon. After he had confirmed her suspicions, Nicholas slipped back into the house and rapidly put his plan into practice.

He had thought about this for a long time. By standing on a chair in the library, he could reach a shelf where there was a fat, important-looking key. The key was as important as it looked; it locked and opened the store room, which was usually only open to aunts and other privileged people. Nicholas had not had much experience of putting keys into keyholes and turning locks, but for some days he had practised with the key of the schoolroom door. He did not believe in relying on luck. The key turned stiffly in the lock, but it turned. The door opened and Nicholas was in an unknown land. The fruit garden was a stale pleasure by comparison.

Often, so often, Nicholas had pictured what the store room might be like, that area that was so carefully hidden from young eyes. No questions were ever answered about it. It measured up to his expectations. In the first place, it was large and dimly lit; one high window was its only light. Second, it was full of unimagined treasures. The aunt was one of those people who think that things spoil if you use them and so put them in the damp to preserve them. The parts of the house Nicholas knew best were rather bare, but here there were wonderful things.

First and foremost, there was a piece of tapestry. To Nicholas it was a living, breathing story; he sat down and drank in all the details of the tapestry. A man, dressed in a hunting costume of some remote age, had just shot a deer with an arrow. It couldn’t have been a difficult shot because the deer was only one or two steps away from him. In the thick bushes covering the picture, it wouldn’t have been difficult to creep up on the feeding deer, and the two dogs that were jumping forward had evidently been trained to wait till the arrow was shot.

That part of the picture was simple, although interesting. But did the huntsman see, as Nicholas saw, four running wolves that were coming in his direction through the wood? There might be more than four of them hidden behind the trees. Would the man and his dogs, in any case, be able to cope with the four wolves if they attacked? The man had only two arrows left, and he might miss with one or both of them. All one knew about his skill in shooting was that he could hit a large deer two steps away.

Nicholas sat for many golden minutes considering the possibilities. He believed there were more than four wolves and that the man and his dogs were in a difficult position.

But there were other objects of interest needing his immediate attention. There were candlesticks in the shape of snakes, and a teapot which looked like a duck and the tea was supposed to come out of its beak. The teapot he had to use was so boring by comparison! A large square book with plain black covers looked less promising. Nicholas peeped into it and it was full of coloured pictures of birds. And such wonderful birds! In the garden and in the lanes when he went for a walk, Nicholas came across a few birds but the largest was an occasional pigeon. Here there was a whole portrait gallery of undreamed-of creatures.

But, as he was admiring the colouring of the duck and imagining its life history, his aunt’s voice screaming his name came from the fruit garden outside. She had grown suspicious of his long disappearance and decided that he had climbed over the wall into the fruit garden. She was now busy with an energetic but hopeless search for him.

"Nicholas, Nicholas!" she screamed, "You are to come out of the garden at once. It's no use trying to hide there. I can see you."

It was probably the first time for twenty years that anyone had smiled in that store room.

Very soon, the angry repetitions of Nicholas' name gave way to a scream and a demand that somebody should come quickly. Nicholas shut the book, put it carefully back in its place in a corner, and shook dirt from some newspapers over it. Then he crept from the room, locked the door, and replaced the key exactly where he had found it. His aunt was still calling his name when he wandered into the front garden.

"Who's calling?" he asked.

"Me!" came the answer from the other side of the wall. "Didn't you hear me? I've been looking for you in the fruit garden and I've slipped into the water tank. Luckily there's no water in it but the sides are slippery and I can't get out. Bring the little ladder from under the cherry tree."

"I was told I shouldn't go into the fruit garden," said Nicholas quickly.

"I told you not to and now I’m telling you that you can," came the voice, rather impatiently.

"Your voice doesn't sound like my aunt's," complained Nicholas. "You may be the Evil One trying to make me disobedient. Aunt often tells me that the Evil One plays with me and that I always follow him. This time I'm not going to."

"Don't talk nonsense," said the prisoner in the tank. "Go and fetch the ladder."

"Will there be strawberry jam for tea?" asked Nicholas innocently.

"Certainly there will," said the aunt, privately deciding that Nicholas shouldn’t have any of it.

"Now I know that you are the Evil One and not my aunt," shouted Nicholas happily. "When we asked aunt for strawberry jam yesterday, she said there wasn't any. I know there are four jars of it in the cupboard, because I looked, and of course you know it's there, but she doesn't, because she said there wasn't any!"

There was an unusual luxury in talking to an aunt as though he was talking to the Evil One, but Nicholas knew that luxuries like these could not last forever. He walked noisily away, and it was a maid who eventually rescued the aunt from the water tank.

They had tea that evening in awful silence. The sea had been at its highest when the children arrived at Jagborough, so there had been no sand to play on - something the aunt had overlooked when she had quickly organised the excursion. The tightness of Bobby's boots was disastrous for his temper the whole afternoon, and the children did not enjoy themselves. The aunt kept the frozen silence of someone who has suffered in a water tank for thirty-five minutes. As for Nicholas, he was silent too. He had a lot to think about. It was just possible, he believed, that the huntsman would escape with his dogs while the wolves ate the wounded deer.