The Witches

NUMBER TEN DOWNING STREET

Before we close this book, I think I ought to tell you what happened to Bruno in the years that followed. For reasons that you will soon understand, a blanket of secrecy was suddenly lowered upon me and my mouse. It was all very high-powered stuff. I was forbidden most strictly to talk about it at the time. But nearly sixty years have passed since then, and I don’t think anyone is going to mind if I now give away a few ancient secrets.

Bruno was an eight-year-old boy when he became a mouse. Naturally, therefore, he became an eight-year-old mouse.

Now an eight-year-old mouse is a very different thing to an eight-year-old boy. An eight-year-old boy is still only a child. But an eight-year-old mouse is already more than half way through his life. He is middle-aged. He is the equivalent of a fifty-year-old man.

Bruno, as you know, possessed certain human characteristics. He was, for example, able to talk and think like a human. But the really extraordinary thing was that very soon after he had become a middle-aged mouse, the human part of him, the talking and the thinking, also became middle-aged. Within a week, he had given up the childish habit of overeating. Within ten days, there was not a single childish thought left in his head, and all of a sudden I found myself the keeper of a mouse that had all the knowledge and wisdom of a fifty-year-old man!

Bruno read books by the hundred and was particularly interested in history. By the time my grandmother and I returned from Scotland that summer, he was already astounding us with his knowledge. My father and mother arrived home at about the same time as we did, and when they were introduced to Bruno, they were of course completely flabbergasted. But as soon as they had recovered from the shock, they made what turned out to be a very wise decision. ‘Tell nobody else about him,’ they said. ‘If it gets known that we have a highly intelligent talking mouse in the household, we shall get no peace at all for the rest of our lives.’ So from then on we kept it a family secret.

Early in September, about a week after returning from Scotland, I had my eighth birthday. I was due very soon to go back to my dreaded boarding school, and of course Bruno would have to be left behind. But I couldn’t bear the thought of being parted from him. By now, we had become inseparable companions. He was miles ahead of me in knowledge and common sense, but physically he was still only a frail and very vulnerable little mouse. I was his protector. I kept him from danger. And I always carried him about in the breast pocket of my blazer so that we could whisper to each other in public places without him being seen.

Three days before the end of the holidays, Bruno said to me, ‘I have a plan. I think it will work. If it does, you will not have to return to that rotten boarding school, and we will never be separated.’ He then got my mother’s permission to take me (or rather for me to take him) on a trip to London, just the two of us. In normal circumstances, as an eight-year-old boy, I would never have been allowed to visit London without a grown-up accompanying me. But my mother trusted Bruno completely. He was so wise and sensible in every way that she knew he would look after me and tell me exactly where to go and what to do. ‘We might want to visit some museums,’ Bruno told my mother. ‘Anyway, we’ll be back in time for tea.’

With Bruno nestling in my breast pocket, I took the train to London. It was only a half-hour’s ride to Charing Cross station, and as soon as we got off the train, Bruno said to me, ‘I am going to direct you straight to Downing Street. I know how to get there. I’ve studied the map.’

‘What happens in Downing Street?’ I asked him as I walked along.

‘Number Ten Downing Street is where the prime minister of Britain lives,’ Bruno answered. ‘That’s all you need to know for the moment.’

As it turned out, Downing Street was no more than a five-minute walk from Charing Cross. ‘We’re about there,’ Bruno said, peeping out of my pocket. ‘It’s the next on the right.’

As soon as I had turned into Downing Street, Bruno said, ‘Stop here a moment.’ I stopped beside some railings. ‘Now as you can see,’ he went on, ‘this is a very short street. Number Ten, where the prime minister lives, is about a hundred yards up on this side. There’s a policeman standing outside.’

‘I can see him,’ I said.

‘Walk ahead,’ Bruno said. ‘I’ll tell you when I want you to stop again.’ I walked forward. I trusted him absolutely. I had got into the habit of doing just about everything he suggested.

‘Stop,’ Bruno said. ‘This will do fine.’ We were still about forty yards from the policeman who was standing outside Number Ten. ‘Now listen carefully,’ Bruno said. ‘Put me down on the ground just inside those railings. Make a careful note of the exact place. Then go away and don’t come back for at least two hours. It is now about ten o’clock. Come back at twelve thirty. I shall be waiting in this very same spot behind the railings.’

‘Where shall I go until twelve thirty?’ I said.

‘There’s a tea shop near Charing Cross,’ he said. ‘Go in there and have a bun and some lemonade. Take your time.’

‘But what are you going to do, Bruno?’ I asked him, trembling.

 ‘Never you mind,’ he said. ‘Wait till I’ve done it.’

I took him out of my pocket and quickly put him on the ground behind the railings. ‘Be careful, Bruno.’

‘Walk away,’ he said. ‘Hurry up. I’ll see you later.’

I walked slowly up Whitehall to the tea shop. I didn’t like what Bruno was doing one little bit. I felt sure it was something to do with the prime minister, but to tangle with a person as powerful as that was even more dangerous, in my opinion, than tangling with witches.

I sat all morning in the tea shop with my bun and my lemonade. I kept asking the waitress what time it was.

‘Are you waiting for someone?’ she said.

‘I’m meeting a friend down the street at half past twelve,’ I said.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you know when you must go. Stay where you are till I tell you.’ She was an awfully nice woman.

At half past twelve, I turned into Downing Street once again and walked along until I came to the place where I had dropped Bruno.

‘I’m here,’ came his voice from near my feet. ‘Make sure no one’s watching you, then pick me up quickly.’

I was tremendously relieved to have him with me once more. I had felt quite lost without him. ‘Are you all right?’ I said.

‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Now take me into the park and find a bench where we can sit down. We have work to do.’

Bruno showed me the way into St James’s Park, which was almost next door to Downing Street, and as we walked along, I asked him what he had been doing for the last two and a half hours.

‘I have been inside the prime minister’s house,’ he said. ‘It was easy. I learnt all about getting through doors when I did that kitchen job for you in the hotel in Bournemouth. All you have to do is to wait until someone goes in and then you nip in with him. No one ever sees a little mouse crouching against the wall. And when I move, I move very fast. I can go like lightning across the floor.’

‘I know you can,’ I said.

In St James’s Park, I found an unoccupied bench under some trees. It was one of those brilliant sunny days you get in September, with the leaves just beginning to turn from green to gold. I sat down on the bench.

‘You had better leave me in your pocket,’ Bruno said. ‘I can manage quite well from here. Now then, did you bring that pad and pencil?’

‘Yes, it’s here,’ I said. ‘And the envelope?’

‘I’ve got that too,’ I said.

‘Good,’ Bruno said. ‘Get out the pad and start writing. I shall tell you exactly what to say and I’ll help you with the spelling of difficult words. Are you ready?’

‘I’m ready,’ I said.

‘Put at the top of the paper, “To The Right Honourable Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister,”’ Bruno said. I wrote it down, with Bruno spelling nearly every word for me.

‘Now for the cruncher,’ Bruno said. ‘Write this. “The following is a summary of what went on at your most secret cabinet meeting this morning …”’

I was a slow writer. Bruno was very patient with me. He gave me plenty of time. He went on to dictate to me a whole mass of stuff which I really didn’t understand. There was something about a new kind of machine gun and whether it should be ordered for the army. There was talk about moving battleships across the high seas. There was a lot about the president of the United States and about India and China and there was something about The Budget and making income tax a lot higher. It meant almost nothing to me. I simply wrote down in my childish handwriting exactly what Bruno told me to write. I had painstakingly completed four handwritten pages when Bruno said at last, ‘That’s it. Now you must write at the bottom of the last page your own name, your age and your home address.’ I did as he told me.

‘Fold up the pages,’ he said. ‘Put them in the envelope. Seal the envelope. Then write on the front of it, “TO THE PRIME MINISTER. STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL. MOST URGENT.” Print it in capital letters.’

With Bruno carefully spelling out for me the difficult words like ‘confidential’ and ‘urgent’, I addressed the envelope.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘We will now walk back to Number Ten Downing Street. The policeman will ask you what you want. You will tell him that you have written a letter to the prime minister and that you wish to deliver it. He will allow you to ring the bell. Someone will open the door and you will hand over your envelope. Then you walk away, straight back to Charing Cross Station, and we will take the next train home. Is everything understood?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But are you sure you know what you’re doing?’

‘Quite sure,’ Bruno said. ‘I shall keep well out of sight in your pocket. Off you go.’

Everything happened exactly as Bruno had said it would. The policeman outside Number Ten asked me what I wanted, then he smiled and said, ‘Go ahead, laddie. Give them your letter.’ I rang the bell and a man came to the door and accepted my envelope and thanked me for it. Then off I went with Bruno and caught the next train home.

‘What is going to happen now, Bruno?’ I asked him in the train.

‘I’ll tell you exactly what’s going to happen,’ he said. ‘A junior secretary will open your letter. He will read it and he will think that it is probably a joke, but he will be just a little bit worried. He will show it to a slightly less junior secretary who will also be just a little bit worried and he or she will in turn show it to somebody else … and to somebody else … and to somebody else … all the way up the ladder until at last it reaches a person who is senior enough to know exactly what went on in that cabinet meeting, to know in other words that everything you have said in your report is deadly accurate. And then, my boy, all hell will break loose! “How in the name of heaven,” they will be shouting, “can an eight-year-old boy possibly have found out what went on at the prime minister’s most secret cabinet meeting this morning?”’

‘Bruno,’ I said, ‘were you really and truly in the room all through that cabinet meeting?’

‘I was,’ he said. ‘I was sitting very comfortably right underneath the long table where they were talking. I could see all their feet. The foreign secretary had a hole in the leather sole of his left foot and the prime minister had one of his shoelaces undone. One man, I think it was the chancellor of the exchequer, kept twiddling his feet non-stop all the way through.’

It was all a bit beyond a boy of my age although I understood perfectly well that Bruno had been visiting the very seat of power in my country and had learnt some terribly deep and deadly secrets. I began to realize the enormity of what he had done when I saw no less than four police cars parked outside our house as I walked up from the station with Bruno in my pocket.

Six men in plain clothes surrounded me as I put my hand on the latch of the front gate. ‘Did you write a letter to the prime minister this afternoon?’ one of them said to me.

‘Yes,’ I answered. Bruno had told me exactly how to handle the questioners.

‘We wish to have a word with you,’ the man said, gripping my arm and leading me up the drive to our house.

I saw my mother standing by the front door, clutching her cheeks. ‘Darling!’ she cried. ‘What have you been doing?’

‘Don’t worry, Mamma,’ I said. And to the men holding my arm, I said, ‘I will discuss this with nobody but the prime minister himself,’ repeating Bruno’s instructions.

‘Who the heck do you think you are!’ the man said. ‘Come inside. And don’t try anything funny with us!’

He pushed me into our living room and told me to sit down. Those six rather fearsome-looking men stood around me in a semicircle. Although it was a warm day, every one of them was wearing a mackintosh. They asked my mother to leave the room.

‘Why should I?’ she said. ‘It’s my house.’ And to me she said, ‘What in the world have you two been up to?’

The six men all jumped as though they had been stung. ‘So there were two of you, were there?’ the oldest one said. ‘What’s happened to your friend? Where is he? Come on! Out with it!’

In the breast pocket of my blazer I could feel Bruno moving about ever so slightly. He was gently stroking my chest with one of his paws to give me encouragement. I stared back at the six men. ‘I am the keeper of big secrets,’ I said, once again repeating words Bruno had taught me on the way home. ‘They are too big for you. I will talk only with the prime minister.’

The men went on shooting questions at me, but I stuck to my guns. I simply kept saying over and over again the sentence about talking only to the prime minister. After about an hour of this, the senior man among them told my mother that he wanted to use the telephone in the hall. He was away for about ten minutes while the rest of us sat waiting in silence. When he came back, he said to my mother, ‘We’re taking him away.’

‘Where to?’ she cried. ‘You can’t do that! He’s only a little boy. I’m sure he hasn’t done anything wrong!’

‘I’m sure he has,’ the man said.

‘Don’t worry, Mamma,’ I said. ‘I’ll soon be back.’