We present an extract from Frogs For Watchdogs, the debut novel by Seán Farrell.
After years of moving from place to place, a young family finds shelter in an isolated house in the Irish countryside. Their father is missing, Mum is a healer and B a formidable big sister. In his strange new territory, a wild little boy gives voice to his experience...
December 1988
If the crows call two times I'll kill him. But if they only call once then he lives. Crows don’t make birdsong, they speak out and if you listen hard it’s either a double or single call they end with. They’ll tell me if today is the day. When he comes his engine will be louder than the crows, but I’ll listen and I’ll know what to do.
The place to stab is in the neck straight away. I’ll land on the roof behind the cab. He won’t know I’m there, and when he climbs out, he won’t have time to look left or right afor I’m on top of him. I free one hand to take the knife from out my teeth. It’s foreign from France with a band that stops the blade folding. This is a fighting knife, and is sharp as new because I save it only for real attack. It’s not for whittling sticks or carving the spoons that Mum likes.
The crows live in the big grey chestnuts up by the gate. To get to the barn Jerry Drain has to come down past them. He has to slow nearly to a stop to turn here by the garage. His Toyota Dyna used to be a flatbed, but he built a shelter on the back of it with metal sheeting and painted it the same red to the rest. There’s melted bubbles at the joins where he’s stuck it together. It was a truck and now it’s a van so he can steal more and more of our hay. I know his tyre marks in the mud, over and over. Big curvy triangles that always give him away. When we arrived in the summer the barn was full with hay and straw but it is going down and down. Every time I come back from school, I check the barn and there’s less. He’ll empty it completely and then everything will be gone.
The mud is dry now on my cheeks and my forehead, it cracks when I frown and when I smile. The pine sap sticks it in well, I’m the same colour to everything and all I can smell is green.
It’s always easier to see out of a tree than in, you can see but not be seen. To look out I have to move the branches a little, but I’m high up enough that no one would see me even if I put my whole head out.
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Listen: Frogs For Watchdogs - Sean Farrell talks to RTÉ Arena
From here I can see the top of Mum’s head when she goes by with the barrow, round the frozen puddles out to the back field. Nobody thinks to look up. Even if they did, they wouldn’t catch me. I know all of the tricks. Finn MacCool was caught when he was hiding in the tree because he was holding the branches still, and the wind was moving the other ones around him. So when the wind blows I sway a bit and move my treetop too.
The crows will hear him afor me. They hop from place to place and nod and croak. You can see the movement of their heads, and their wings out when they land. It’s difficult to find their nests, even in the bare branches, but one is there, and another, and then they’re everywhere, knots of sticks caught. When you listen you can understand what they want.
I count the calls. They change every time over and back—one for peace and two for death.
The last time he came I was watching and I didn’t move. I’ll get him if he comes today. I’m on just the right branch, and if the last crow calls two times I’ll jump.
The pothole clang of the Dyna. It rattles when he’s on the brakes and shakes like thunder on the straight. Jerry Drain. The sun flashes on his windscreen and the crows all call together like shouting at once and I cannot tell how it ends. Now is all engine and the bull bar comes out from the shadows of the chestnuts—he has two fists on the wheel and his mouth down. He’s up right below me loud and the engine slows.
I do not know to attack or not, it is the time but I do not know and then it is too late. I can’t see him anymore, but he’ll be turning, reversing in under the barn, making more to the same tyre tracks. The engine’s off now and the crows are calling. Two and two, and four and three, they’re saying kill him, kill him, but now they’re saying wait.
I climb higher and wedge in. There’s bunches of knobs on the branches about. The death blade cuts through the little twiggy stalks of them easy. They’re like pine cones but not, they’re small and round, heavy little balls with cracks. I collect them up in my lap.
The engine starts and I stick my knife in the trunk. I grip the thin crown of the tree with one hand, and stand up. I’m right out from the top, the cold is all over me prickling through my gansey. The rest of the tree stones have fallen, but I have three or four in my fist and I fling them down at the roaring van. They all hit the top, bouncing in a spray.
Little stones spit out behind his wheels. He’s braking, but he hasn’t even got as far as the chestnuts. He stops with a jerk, dead opposite the house.
Was I in the wing mirror? The branches are closed above me, but the tree-top sways. I’m swinging high up in the sky though there’s no wind. I can see in above the tailgate, all is stuffed with hay. One crow call from the chestnuts, and three small and quiet in reply. I duck down and reach for my knife. My wrist is tense and strong—if the wrist bends the knife won’t go in. I open my eyes. The crows said to wait, it was not time to attack. But now it is too late.
I hold my breath and listen. The van door opens and slams shut. The tree is nearly still. Careful, I pull down a branch.
He’s not even looking in my direction, he’s walking straight across the grass and up to the front door of the house. What on earth does he want? He doesn’t even know to go down between the sheds to the kitchen door at the end. The front door is only for patients. It’s like he’s going to ring the bell— he half reaches for the rope. We don’t ring the bell because it makes an awful noise and Mum shouts and is angry. I hope he tries it, it will be a big mistake for him. He steps back though, and forward again. The window panes upstairs rattle when he bangs the knocker down. The back of his head is the same to a clot of blood under the skin of your thumb. His nose might be touching the door his head is so forward.
Mum won’t be happy about this. She’ll have to slide the big wooden bar into the hole in the wall and then lift it up and out. It’s heavy and awkward. The door is either open all day or it’s closed and that’s that, it’s not to be opened. Jerry Drain is standing with his elbows pointing out, his knuckles on his hips and his fingers out flat like two flaps.
When Mum knocks on somewhere she’ll come away a few steps and turn, so when the door is opened she’ll have her back to it and only spin round at the sound. Jerry Drain doesn’t move, he doesn’t change his head or step back.
He’s waiting there a long time, but he doesn’t knock again. The door opens and it’s too far away to see the expression on Mum’s face but Jerry Drain takes a step back and one hand goes into his pocket. Mum nods her head, and nods her head again. Jerry Drain nods his head, and nods his head again, and then Mum shuts the door.
As he comes away, he’s walking slower, his head isn’t pushed out anymore, and he’s looking at the ground. He climbs into his van and drives away quietly.
These tree branches are so thick together that I can jump off the top and just fall prickly down through, every bit a soft drop until the ground.
The sun has gone now, there’s no shadow under the trees. The whole sky is one colour of grey, the house is a lighter grey than the sky but the slates are darker. Light comes out the kitchen window onto the hedge, otherwise the wall and the cloud, the tree trunks, grass, slates, the telegraph line are all just different greys. The spaces between them are no longer there and one thing is becoming another. The crows have stopped calling and the black bars of the gate fuzz. The darkness has come so slowly that I never noticed and now it is almost here. The kitchen window is like an ember in ash. I run towards it afor the dark comes black down.
Frogs For Watchdogs is published by New Island
