Page 21 of Coming Home to Crumbleton

Ruby stared up at the crooked lines of the old house. It was about three hundred years old, and the building leaned slightly to one side, as if it was starting to feel its age and would really quite like to sit down. The window frames weren’t exactly square, and it definitely needed a bit of TLC - but there was something comforting about its familiarity.

‘Okay, here we go,’ she muttered, lifting the latch to let herself in.

Of course, this door didn’t lead directly into the house itself. The “front door” was actually a great big faker. It led to a hidden passageway which scooted right through the middle of the house to the back.

Ruby made her way along it, squeezing past a pile of firewood and her dad’s bike, until she reached a tiny courtyard garden. She was about to let herself through the back door into the kitchen when a voice made her turn.

‘There you are!’

Her mother’s smiling, very grubby face popped up from beside the one and only flower bed. Ruby couldn’t understand how she hadn’t spotted her, considering there wasn’t much to the little garden – just the bed, a patch of grass, and a few shrubs all hemmed in by the craggy stone walls of neighbouring houses on the hill.

The garden had never really been given the care and attention it deserved – considering neither Ruby nor her parents had much interest in gardening. In fact, it was quite disconcerting to find her mum out there now - especially considering she was leaning on a spade!

‘Mum!’ said Ruby, smiling as a syrupy puddle of pure love bubbled up inside her. ‘What on earth are you up to? Earth being the operative word here!’ Ruby nodded at the scruffy patch of lawn – which was even scruffier than usual. It looked like a demented rabbit had been having a field day.

‘What do you think this is?’ said her mum, completely ignoring Ruby’s question and bending down to retrieve something from a pile of other… somethings…

‘I truly have no idea!’ said Ruby, completely non-plussed.

‘Hmm…’ she said, staring at the thing in her hand. ‘I’m not sure it’s the one. I’m not even sure if I’m holding the blasted thing the right way up!’ She tossed it back onto the pile and beamed at Ruby.

‘Erm… “the one” for what?!’ said Ruby, doing her best to catch up.

‘The one to win the Odd Object Competition at the museum, of course!’ said her mum as though she was being deliberately slow to cotton on. ‘That trophy’s mine this year! Iris Tait reckons she’s going to win again, but I bet she’s going to go with that stupid thing that looks like a miniature cheese grater again. She entered that in 1992 - and that’s against the rules.’

Ruby smirked. She felt a bit like she’d climbed inside a time machine. Nothing had changed… she could have just come home from school. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting after such a long time away - maybe a hug or a bit of a fuss… maybe being dragged inside for a cuppa. She definitely hadn’t been expecting a distracted conversation over a pile of unidentified objects in the back garden!

‘Your dad’s inside somewhere,’ said her mum, turning back to the flower bed and thrusting her spade into a fresh spot. ‘He’s meant to be fixing the washing machine.’

And that was that. Ruby knew better than to expect anything else out of her mum while she was hyper-focussed on a task – no matter how random! She shrugged and headed for the back door. She’d go and say hi to her dad, and then head upstairs to her room. She had to admit, she was really dreading that bit.

Other than checking with her parents that it would be okay for her to stay with them - and making sure there was still a bed in her room - Ruby hadn’t dared to ask if they’d done anything else with it. Not that she’d blame them if they had, of course - six years was a long time. They might have turned it into an office… or a gym.

Grinning at the idea of either of her bookish parents on an elliptical, Ruby gave the crooked door a good push and then stepped back in time into her childhood.

The kitchen was exactly as she remembered it. It smelled of warm, fresh bread with an underlying note of coffee. The pine table in the centre of the room was heaped with all sorts - from books and piles of receipts to a bowl of slightly wizened grapes and what looked like a cardboard model of a rocket ship.

Ruby glanced around for her dad, but he was nowhere to be seen. The washing machine had been pulled out from its usual hiding place underneath the counter, and there was a toolbox abandoned in front of it.

A warm sense of familiarity and comfort wrapped its arms around Ruby and she sighed. She’d really not expected to feel like this.

‘Ruby Ruby Ruby!’ cheered her dad, appearing in the low, sagging doorway that led through to the rest of the house.

‘Dad!’

He mooched over to her and gave her a bristly kiss on the cheek before heading for the washing machine. ‘I’d give you a hug,’ he said, ‘but I’m filthy!’

Ruby grinned, noting that he had his red overalls on - a sure sign that her mum had put him to work on household chores for the day. It was the only time he ever wore them.

‘What are you up to?’ she said lightly, watching him fiddling around with the plug for the ancient machine.

‘Making a start on my to-do list,’ he chuckled, half nodding at the door to the airing cupboard.

Ruby turned to it. Her mum had covered it with blackboard paint back when she’d been in primary school - and it had been the official household calendar and to-do list ever since. Sure enough, its surface was covered in white chalk - her mum’s spidery scrawl detailing a long list of jobs. Right at the top - underneath the title “Things to Fix Before Ruby Comes Home” were the words “Fix Washing Machine.”

‘So… how’s that coming on?’ she said, turning back to her dad.

He shrugged, popped a new fuse into the plug and then quickly screwed it back together. ‘Let’s see, shall we?’ he said, shoving it back into the socket. ‘If this doesn’t go pop or trip the board, I’d say we’re onto a winner!’

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