The Treasure Beneath the Hill, chapter 1

When Dora went to stay with Grandpa Jack she was surprized to find the old school next to the church all boarded up. There was a yellow digger in the playground, next to a pile of earth and bricks. A deep trench had been dug through the tarmac, and the row of brick outhouses where the Pig Man kept his pig had been partly demolished.

'What are they doing, Grandpa?'

'They're knocking it all down,' said Grandpa Jack. 'They're going to build some flats.'

'But what about the Pig Man?'

'He's going to have to move out.'

'Where will he go? What's going to happen to his pig?'

'I don't know,' said Grandpa Jack. 'I don't even know what's going to happen to me.'

'You? You're not going to have to move out, are you, Grandpa?'

'Yes,' said Grandpa Jack, as he unlocked the front door.

'They're knocking this place down as well.'

Inside the house was the familiar mess: the smell of old paper; books everywhere; sheet music stacked on chairs and tables and all over the top of the piano; lots of empty teacups and plates with biscuit-crumbs on them. Grandpa Jack was the church organist and choir master, and he'd been living in the little house next to the church, attached to one side of the old school, since before Dora was born.

It was probably her favourite house in the world, partly because of Grandpa Jack, and partly because it had two staircases. You could go up a little twisty stair with red carpet on it, next to Grandpa Jack's study, then along the upstairs corridor past Grandpa Jack's bedroom, and come down another little twisty stair with a blue carpet on it, into a passage next to the pantry. When she was little she used to make that journey over and over again, and it always felt magical. She used to go up one stair as herself, and come down the other as a dog or a crocodile.

Sometimes, because she decided quite early in life that she'd really rather be a boy than a girl, she used to go up the red stairs dressed as a girl, and come down the blue ones dressed as a boy. Her full name was Pandora: so she used to go up as Dora, and come down as Pan. Grandpa Jack and her Dad, whichever happened to be around, took her magical transformations for granted and played along with them. It was only in later life that people tried to pin her down to being one particular thing.

Even better: in the upstairs corridor there was a door that was never opened. Grandpa Jack said it led into the upper floor of the old schoolhouse, but it was locked up years ago and nobody knew where the key was. Dora dreamed about finding the key and stepping through, not just into a different place but a different world, a different identity.

'It's that bugger Sylvia Pouncer,' said Grandpa Jack.

'Sylvia Pouncer?' said Dora. 'Who's she?'

'The new vicar.'

'But I thought Bill was the vicar!' protested Dora.

Bill the vicar was Grandpa Jack's oldest friend. He was a gigantic redfaced old man with a big nose and bushy eyebrows, and a dramatically wobbly voice like a broken-down opera singer. He and Grandpa Jack more or less decided everything about the running of the church between the two of them.

'Yes, of course he's the vicar,' agreed Grandpa Jack, 'but he's in hospital. They brought in this Sylvia Pouncer as a temporary replacement, and next thing you know, they've decided to knock everything down and build flats. Bloody church commissioners. They never would have tried it if Bill hadn't been out of action. But they've had all these meetings without him in attendance, and decided everything behind his back. Sneaky buggers. He's furious about it, but while he's stuck in hospital there's nothing he can do.'

'But why's he in hospital?' said Dora.

'Ah well,' said Grandpa Jack, 'I'm afraid we both got rather drunk.'

Grandpa Jack had called at the vicarage one night, for one of his usual chats, and found Bill with a guest, a man called Abner Brown.

'Jack my dear! I'm so glad you've come! You must meet Abner,' said Bill. 'Abner Brown. He's a church historian, and he's been telling me all sorts of things I didn't know about St Bridget's. He says we ought to have a festival.'

A tall dark suave man emerged into the hallway and enthusiastically shook Jack's hand. 'Aha! Good evening, good evening, good evening! You must be Jack the church organist!' he said. 'I'm very pleased to meet you, very pleased indeed. Bill has told me all about you. It's a pleasure, a really great pleasure.'

'What's all this about a festival?' said Grandpa Jack.

'Come in and have a drink,' said Abner Brown, as if he owned the house. 'We'll tell you all about it.'

'Abner introduced himself by turning up with a case of wine,' said Bill, who had obviously had a drink or two already.

'Superb idea! And a Stilton cheese. You know how I love Stilton. I must've eaten about half a pound. And excellent wine. First class wine. Wait till you taste it, Jack. I haven't had wine like it since I was at King's.'

The dining room table was covered in wine bottles, plates, cheese, grapes, crackers and biscuits, plus a litter of historical documents.

'Abner says the church is fifteen hundred years old, my dear!' said Bill. 'Imagine!'

'Not the existing church,' said Abner, pouring some wine.

'That's comparatively recent. But the foundations go back centuries. And the site itself, as a place of worship, goes back even further, into pre-Christian times. Many churches were built on pagan places of worship, of course. If we could dig beneath the floor of the existing building -'

'Which we never could, of course,' put in Bill.

'No, of course not,' said Abner Brown; 'but if we could, I'm convinced we would find all sorts of archaelogical treasure, evidence of previous worship on the site, going back to pagan times: the Saxons, the Celts, perhaps even further. I've discovered a written reference to what I believe is this site in Anglo-Saxon times, and that reference will be fifteen hundred years old this year.'

'That's why he thinks we should have a festival,' said Bill.

'Well, what I originally suggested was an exhibition,' said Abner Brown. 'I should like to get some people down from London to do some exploring in and around the church - nothing disruptive, mind you, just a little bit here and there - and then stage an exhibition about the history of the site. But then Bill said celebration. Then one of us, I can't remember who - '

'It was definitely you, my dear chap,' said Bill.

'One of us said festival. Perhaps it was me,' said Abner modestly. 'Have some more wine.'

'A festival, Jack,' said Bill. 'You know, with music. You could organize the music, couldn't you? We were thinking Hallowe'en.'

'That's not long,' said Jack.

'A very neglected festival from the church point of view,' said Abner Brown. 'It's been taken over by the Americans. Trick or treat, and so forth. But of course the tradition is much older.'

'But it's not long,' said Grandpa Jack cautiously, 'and that sort of thing takes a lot of planning.'

'Yes, yes, of course it does, of course it does, my dear boy,' said Bill. 'Lots of work, lots of work all round. But you're very good at organizing musical events. You're always organizing something or other. He organizes madrigals every year, you know,' he explained to Abner. 'Wonderful madrigals. The choir sing like angels. People come from far and wide.'

'He sounds like just the man for the job,' said Abner.

'Splendid fellow. Try some of this Stilton, and have some more wine.'

It didn't take long for Grandpa Jack to become just as enthusiastic as the other two. Abner Brown kept circulating the wine, and everything started to seem not only possible but easy, delightfully easy, bound to be a huge success. Abner Brown was a delightful fellow, Bill was his oldest and dearest friend, the wine was really excellent wine, the Stilton was really wonderful Stilton, everything was warming up and expanding, there was a sense of enlarging possibilities, and he found himself smiling an enormous smile and fondly offering half a biscuit to one of Bill's two fat Labradors - who he had previously always regarded as a bit of a nuisance, because they wouldn't leave you alone when you were eating - but who he now realised were actually the two nicest friendliest dogs in the world, even if they did keep pawing at your leg and putting their chins on your knee when you weren't expecting it, which sometimes made you spill your wine on the carpet. Eventually he found himself, still smiling the same enormous smile, fumbling his way into his coat and making what seemed like an extremely long and complicated journey to the front door, weaving around all sorts of furniture that seemed to loom up out of nowhere, and explaining loudly that he'd really got to be going, partly because there was a service early the next morning, which Bill seemed to have forgotten all about, and partly, although he didn't mention this, because he'd just been startled in his chair by a very abrupt snore, which he rather suspected might have come out of his own nose.

'Goodnight my dear chap!' hooted Bill, following him down the hallway with a glass of wine in one hand and a digestive biscuit in the other. 'Splendid evening! Inspirational! See you tomorrow! Take care in the dark! Mind the front step!'

'Take one of these bottles!' cried Abner Brown, following along behind.

Grandpa Jack felt the cold air on his face and the gravel under his feet - he started to crunch his way towards the front gate - then he heard a yelp and a shout and a crash, and when he turned round there was Bill, lying across the front step like a fallen tree. One of the Labradors was nosing guiltily at his face, and Abner Brown was bending over him apologising, the unopened bottle of wine still in his hand.

'Don't try to move,' said Abner Brown, 'we'll call an ambulance. What a catastrophe! I was trying to reach past him to offer you this bottle, and the dog somehow got in his way...'

'Bloody dog,' groaned Bill. 'Tripped me up, the blasted animal.'

'Can you move your leg at all?' said Abner Brown, who suddenly seemed very efficient and not at all drunk. 'Where does it hurt? Is it your ankle?'

'Yes, my ankle,' said Bill between his teeth. 'I felt it snap.'

'Terribly bad luck,' said Abner. 'I'll call for the ambulance.'

Dora's first morning with Grandpa Jack was spoiled by the arrival of Sylvia Pouncer.

'I'm so sorry to disturb you,' Dora heard her saying in the hall, 'but I thought we should discuss the order of service for tomorrow. And I've got to pop up to London later. All sorts of paperwork to do with the redevelopment. You wouldn't believe the complications. Oh!' she said, looking into the dining room and seeing Dora at the breakfast table. 'Who's this?'

'Dora,' said Grandpa Jack. 'My granddaughter.'

'How delightful!' said Miss Pouncer. 'Aren't you pretty?' Dora mumbled an awkward hallo and took an instant dislike to her. She seemed much too well-groomed and businesslike for a vicar: tightly-pinned blond hair, smartly-plucked eyebrows, immaculate makeup, high heels and a well-tailored jacket and skirt. She looked more as if she was about to pitch a corporate takeover to a money-hungry boardroom than do anything remotely churchy. The only slightly unpredictable note was a gold cat-brooch on the lapel of her burgundy jacket.

'Are you another musical prodigy, like your grandfather?' she inquired.

'Not really.'

'She does pictures,' volunteered Grandpa Jack.

'Pictures!' exclaimed Sylvia Pouncer. 'Oh, I adore art! If there's one thing in life I regret, it's that I've never been able to draw. Do you think it's something one can learn, or does one have to be born with a gift for it?'

'Dunno,' said Dora.

'No - well, there you are - if you've got it, you don't have to worry about where it comes from! Perhaps I should buy one of your paintings now, and then when you become famous it'll be worth a fortune.'

'I don't expect she's got anything with her,' said Grandpa Jack.

'No,' agreed Dora, 'I haven't.'

'Just leave a thousand pounds on the table,' said Grandpa Jack, 'and we'll send you something later on.'

'Ha ha ha!' trilled Sylvia Pouncer. 'I wish I had a thousand pounds! There's nothing I'd rather spend it on!'

'Dora does most of her pictures on the computer,' said Grandpa Jack, 'and she sells them online.'

'Oh,' said Sylvia, 'isn't it wonderful what these young people can do with their technology?'

As a matter of fact, Dora had built up a considerable following on a social media site called Blackbirds, but she didn't feel like telling Sylvia Pouncer anything about it. She shovelled a big spoonful of porridge into her mouth as an excuse for not saying anything.

'I don't understand any of this computer stuff, personally,' said Grandpa Jack. 'It gives me a headache.'

'Me too!' agreed Sylvia. 'I've got a niece who's terribly good at all that sort of thing. Social media and what have you. I can't keep up with her at all. You should see her texting on her mobile phone! Her thumbs are just a blur!'

'I hate mobile phones,' said Grandpa Jack. 'I had one for about a fortnight, and it was the bane of my life. The bloody thing kept making all sorts of funny beeping noises, wanting me to do something or other. I dropped it down the toilet in the end, which was the best thing that could possibly have happened.'

'Oh, Jack, you're even more of a dinosaur than I am!' screamed Sylvia. 'Now, I must show you, Jack,' she added, producing a folder from under her arm, 'I've brought the brochure for that sheltered accommodation of yours.'

'Oh, lovely,' said Grandpa Jack, looking gloomy straight away.

'They're such beautiful places! So modern and warm after this draughty old pile! Central heating, double glazing, everything your heart could desire!'

'Sounds wonderful,' said Grandpa Jack, looking more fed up than before.

'I'm sure you'll adore them if you just give them a chance,' said Sylvia Pouncer, putting a persuasive hand on his arm. 'I do hope so. Nobody wants to feel that you're being forced out of your home against your will. But the Church Commissioners do desperately need to raise some money, and none of us can afford to stand in the way of progress.'

'No, no, of course not,' said Grandpa Jack. 'I expect it's all for the best. I'll soon get used to the idea.'

'That's the spirit,' said Sylvia Pouncer. 'This could be a new start for you, Jack! A new lease of life!'

'Yes, I'm sure it could,' said Grandpa Jack.

After Sylvia Pouncer was gone, Dora said 'Grandpa, why don't you just tell her you don't want to move?'

'I can't tell her,' said Grandpa Jack. 'You can't tell these people.'

'But she keeps saying she doesn't want to make you move if you don't want to. Why don't you just tell her?'

'No, it's all been decided,' said Grandpa Jack. 'They've had all these committee meetings and made all these decisions. There's lots of money involved, and lots of people have made their plans. I can't be the one person to throw a spanner in the works. It's probably all for the best anyway.'

'But you hate the idea!'

'Well, I don't want to end up in sheltered housing, cooped up with a lot of other miserable old buggers. But she's probably right in a way. A modern place would probably be better for me than a creaky old house like this.' He glumly started to turn the pages of the brochure Sylvia Pouncer had left on the table. 'It does look small, though,' he murmured. 'It's the size of a shoe box. I don't know what I'm going to do with all my sheet music.'

A bit later in the morning, Grandpa Jack was shuffling around in his study, 'sorting his sheet music out', as he described it - a process which seemed to involve shifting musical scores from one tottering dusty old pile to another, without ever actually making anything tidier or more organized. Dora couldn't offer to help him, because she'd done that before, and he always said 'No, no, I know where everything is'. So she went outside to see the pig instead.

Grandpa's house was built onto the side of the old school. The old school hadn't been used as a proper school for years, but up until her last visit it had still been used for play groups, dancing classes, yoga, bring-and-buy sales and so forth. Now, however, all the windows were boarded up with chipboard, which had the effect of suddenly making the school look not just old but derelict. On the far side of it was the playground, with the raw new trench dug through the middle, next to which were the pile of earth and bricks and the yellow digger she had seen when she first arrived. It was Saturday today, so there were no workmen around. And on the far side of the playground was the row of brick outhouses that were being demolished.

Most of these outhouses consisted of a slatted wooden door, a small window (sometimes with wire netting instead of glass) and a whitewashed oblong interior full of old stuff - school benches, flower-pots, spades, chairs, demi-johns, bags of cement powder, tins of paint, broken roof tiles, mouldy sheets of plywood splitting apart into layers, rusting wire baskets, balls of twine, mouldering copies of the Beano, plus innumerable spiders, woodlice and earwigs. Dora spent hours and hours exploring there when she was younger.

The outhouse closest to the Church, however, was in better order than the others. It had a metal stovepipe with a pointed cap sticking up through its roof, which signified that it had a wood- burning stove inside to keep the occupant warm. This was the work shed of the school and church caretaker, otherwise known as the Pig Man.

The outhouse next door to this had two half-doors instead of one whole door, meaning that you could swing the top half open 12while keeping the lower half shut. It also, unusually, had another door on the other side, the side that faced away from the playground, opening into a kind of little courtyard or paddock full of nettles and mud, with an elderberry bush growing in the corner. And this outhouse contained a special rich kind of gloom in the middle of which - when he wasn't nosing around in his courtyard - was the pig.

He was a black and white pig with flopping-forward ears and wise humorous eyes. He was one of Dora's favourite animals in the world. His nose, which came snuffling up at you if you leaned in over his half-door - especially if you offered him something to eat - always looked as if it was going to be wet and snotty but always turned out to be warm and clever and rubbery, and that nose was one of her favourite things to touch in the world. On top of which, there was one occasion when she was small and the Pig Man had held her on the pig's back and let her ride him while he trotted a circuit of his courtyard, which was one of her favourite memories in the world.

Dora gave the pig a wrinkled apple from Grandpa's fruit bowl, and then went to see the Pig Man.

'Henry,' she said - because that was his real name - 'they're knocking down your outhouses.'

'That's right,' said the Pig Man. 'That's right. So they are. They're knocking em down. They've knocked two down already. Those two at the end. They've knocked those two down already, they have, and then they're going to knock down the rest.'

The Pig Man was very easy to talk to, because he could turn an idea over and over and round and round, in the way of conversation, almost idefinitely. Also, you didn't have to say anything polite like 'Do you mind if I come in?' or 'I'm back' or 'How have you been?' You walked into his shed and said something to him, and he just looked at you and talked right back, as if you'd been there all the time. He wasn't surprised to see you or anything. It was almost a year since Dora had last come on a visit, but as far as the Pig Man was concerned, it might as well have been five minutes.

'And I'll tell you something,' said the Pig Man. 'The pig didn't like it. When they started all that banging and thumping, and the machinery going and that, he started grunting and squealing and going up and down like a mad thing. I never heard him do anything like it. He kept going up and down inside his shed and grunting and squealing, he did. He didn't like it one bit, he didn't.'

'I don't blame him,' said Dora. 'What's going to happen to him? Where's he going to live?'

'Don't know,' said the Pig Man. 'I ain't sure yet.'

'And what about you?' said Dora. 'Where are you going to live?'

'Well,' said the Pig Man, 'I'm going to live in my house, same as usual. I don't live here, you know. I don't live in this here shed.'

'Oh no,' said Dora. 'Of course you don't.'

The Pig Man sat back and folded his arms. 'You thought I lived in this shed, did you?' he said with a sly smile. 'This here's just a shed, you know. It ain't a house. You can't live in a shed. Even I can't live in a shed. It ain't got a bed in it, for a start.'

'No, I know that,' said Dora.

'Ah,' said the Pig Man. 'Not that I haven't slept in here once or twice, mind you. Anyway,' he added, 'it's worse for your Grandpa than it is for me.'

'He hates it,' said Dora.

'Course he does,' agreed the Pig Man. 'Course he hates it. Course he does. He's losing his home.'

'What's all that stuff on your desk?' said Dora.

'This here?' said the Pig Man. 'This is rescuings.'

The top of his desk was covered with a little collection of ancient looking glass and pottery.

'This is stuff they've dug up, and if I didn't come along and rescue it, they'd just throw it away. I went through their pile of earth, and this is what I found.'

'Is it valuable?'

'No, I shouldn't think so. But it's old stuff. It's worth taking a look at. Look here,' he said. 'That's an old clay pipe.' He held it up for her to see. 'That's how they used to smoke their tobacco in the old days. And that there is an ink bottle, that they used to do their writing out of, with ink pens. The old teacher probably smoked that pipe, and one of the old school children probably used that little ink bottle, about two hundred years ago.'

'And what's that key?' said Dora.

In amongst the other stuff was a big heavy-looking old key that looked as if it was made of iron.

'Ah,' said the Pig Man. 'That's a bit like the old key to the front door of the church, that is, but it's different. And it's a bit like the old key to the front door of the school, it is, but it's different from that too. It's probably the key to something round here, but I don't know what it's the key to. Would you like it?'

'What, me?'

'Yes, you have it, if it interests you. You might find out what it belongs to.'

'All right,' said Dora, and she took it.

That night she was woken by a thumping noise. She sat up in bed with her heart beating. What was it? Perhaps she'd dreamed it. But then she heard it again - a muffled thud. Something moving around on the far side of her bedroom wall. Her room was next door to the old school. That meant, if something was moving around on the other side, then it was in the old school, which was meant to be empty.

What was it? She listened, but it was quiet now.

Perhaps an animal was in there. It wasn't a scratchy scrabbling noise or a nibbling gnawing noise or a rapid scampering noise, like a squirrel or a rat would make. And it wasn't a flapping blundering noise like a trapped bird. It might be something larger and heavier, like a badger. Would a badger make a noise like that? She didn't know.

Anyway, it couldn't get through into her side of the house, or at least she didn't think it could, unless there was a hole somewhere. And it seemed to have gone quiet now. Perhaps it had gone away. Perhaps she should go back to sleep.

But then she heard something else - a low murmur - voices.

People! People in the old school! Who could be in there at this time of night? Burglars? Could it be burglars? If it was burglars, then she didn't feel safe any more. Her heart was beating faster than ever. There was that old door upstairs, just outside her own room, which was supposed to lead from Grandpa's house into the old school. What if they were planning to force that door open and come through?

Almost without realising what she was doing, she found herself getting out of bed and going onto the landing. Grandpa's bedroom was down the corridor to her left. In front of her, in a recess next to the airing cupboard, was the door to the old school.

She went to the door and listened. She couldn't hear anything.

She went back into her own room and listened. Silence - then the murmur of voices again, from beyond the wall. It was very soft, but she definitely wasn't imagining it.

She went back to the door again, and this time she took with her the key that the Pig Man had given her. She listened at the door, but couldn't hear anything. After a moment she put the key into the lock. It fitted. She turned it. It unlocked with what seemed like a loud click. She pulled the door handle and it opened towards her with a creak.

She stood in the doorway for a moment with her heart beating. Surely they must have heard those noises. But there was no sound. She stepped through into the old school.

And as soon as he stepped through he wasn't Dora the girl any more: he was Pan the boy.

The passage in which he found himself wasn't completely dark. Almost opposite him was a window, and through the window a bit of moonlight came in. Once his eyes adjusted, he could see by this light that the passage ended in a blank wall almost immediately to his left; but to his right it reached a corner, and on the far side of that corner was what looked like a railing. The railing was flat and black looking, because it was silhouetted. There was another light, different from moonlight, steadier and more artificial, coming from the far side. And the murmur of voices, the same murmur he had heard through his bedroom wall, was coming from the far side of the railing too.

He crept along to the right until he reached the corner. The passage opened onto a broad landing, or rather a balcony, railed off from a big open space. After a moment of trying to get his bearings he realised that he was standing on a balcony overlooking the school hall. He went cautiously to the railings and looked down. Below him, two people, a man and a woman, were sitting at a table lit by an anglepoise lamp, and they were sharing a cold chicken and a bottle of red wine.

'What I still don't understand, my darling,' said the woman,

'is why we have to meet after midnight, in a draughty old school hall, when you could perfectly well have come to see me in my nice cosy vicarage.'

'Because your vicarage, my dear,' replied the man in a deep suave voice, 'is too closely observed by the people of the town. Hardly a minute goes by when a dog-walker or some other kind of busybody doesn't go dawdling past your front gate. If I were to present myself at your residence, half the old biddies in the parish would be talking about it within fifteen minutes. In here, with the windows boarded up so nobody can see the light, once the Pig Man goes home and Jack the Organist starts to snore his nightly snore, we should be perfectly safe from prying eyes. And it's much better, for the time being, if the two of us seem to have nothing to do with each other.'

'Well, I defer to your strategy, of course, my dear clever Abner. You always plan things out so nicely. And it certainly seems to be working out well so far.'

'Yes indeed, my Pouncer,' said Abner Brown. 'Things are going smoothly, very smoothly. It was so sublimely easy to get those two old fools drunk, and then to push the old Vicar over his own dog - and so very obliging of him to break his ankle like that! I suppose one might have hoped for a broken neck, but the ankle will suffice. But there's still a great deal to be done. By the time he's up and about again we need to have cemented our position.'

'But surely, my darling Abner, the rest is a formality,' said Sylvia Pouncer. 'The Church Commissioners are in the palm of my hand. They're so desperate for money they can't think straight. I only had to wonder out loud about pulling down the school and building some flats in its place, and within a few minutes they were convinced that they'd come up with the idea themselves. And when I mentioned your lovely little property development company, they were only too pleased to discover that there was a business close at hand, ready and able to look after all the formalities for them. So, you take care of the demolition, you redevelop the site, you sell off the flats, then you give the Commissioners enough profit to gladden their greedy little hearts, but keep the lion's share for yourself - not neglecting to put a little bit in my direction, of course, my darling. What could be simpler?'

'Ah yes,' said Abner Brown, 'but you see the redevelopment is only half the story. And I shall soon have to bring it to a halt.'

'Bring it to a halt!' exclaimed Sylvia Pouncer. 'What can you possibly mean, my dear Abner?'

'I mean, my dear Pouncer, that in my capacity as a church historian, I am soon going to discover an invaluable relic of some description buried under the school playground, and bring the redevelopment to a halt so that we can have an achaeological dig instead.'

'Abner!' exclaimed Sylvia Pouncer. 'You never said anything about this before!'

'I have been playing a deeper game than you suspected, my dear,' he replied. 'And I prefer to keep my cards close to my chest until the right moment comes. Even now, my dear, I shan't tell you everything, if you will forgive me. Suffice it to say that the profit from the redevelopment is one thing, but I have something of far greater interest in view. It's what's beneath the church that really interests me.'

'What's beneath the church! Oh Abner, you must tell me! You know I can't abide secrets!'

'Not yet, my little Pouncer, not yet. We have a difficult game to play. The prize at which I aim is protected by certain powers, powers that must be circumvented with great care. I'm not talking about the town council or the planning authorities. I speak of the ancient powers of the earth. They are asleep at the moment, but we must tread carefully. I don't think we need worry too much about the Vicar or Jack the organist, but I do believe we should be careful of the Pig Man.'

'The Pig Man!' exclaimed Sylvia Pouncer.

'Yes indeed,' said Abner. 'And even more careful of his pig.'

On Monday, the noise of diggers at work in the playground woke Dora early - but after what seemed like a short time they fell quiet again, and she went back to sleep.

Later, waking again, she heard a knock at the door, Grandpa Jack answering, and Sylvia Pouncer's voice. Then the two of them going into the front room for a discussion.

Later still, when she was up and dressed, and in the kitchen making herself a sandwich, she heard Sylvia Pouncer leave, and then Grandpa Jack came in to fetch himself a cup of tea.

'Well, that's an unexpected development,' he said. 'Put the kettle on.'

'What's an unexpected development?' said Dora.

'They've suspended the demolition,' replied Grandpa. 'Apparently they've just dug up something hundreds of years old, so now they're going to have to get the archaeologists in, in case there's anything else buried there. They don't want to ruin it with the diggers.'

'What did they find?' said Dora. 'Was it gold?'

'No, no, nothing like that. Pottery. A pottery animal of some kind. She showed me a picture of it on her mobile phone. It was covered in dirt, so you couldn't tell what it was supposed to be: a dog or a bear or something.'

'Does that mean you're not going to have to move out?'

'Well,' said Grandpa Jack, 'I expect it means I've got a bit more time. But they're shutting up the church, the buggers,' he said.

'They're going to lock it up, and move all the services to St Margaret's. I can't see the point, personally. It's the playground they're digging up, not the church floor. But Sylvia says they can't afford to have people wandering around, not while there's an archaeological dig taking place. I can't see it myself. They could just fence off the playground, couldn't they? But you can't talk to her. She says the decision's out of her hands, which is what she always says, about everything. Bill wouldn't have let them shut up the church. I don't like St Margaret's,' he added grumpily. 'It's a poky little place, freezing cold, poor acoustics, and I don't like the organ.'

'What about the Pig Man?'

'The Pig Man? What about him?'

'Will he still have to move?'

'She never said anything about that,' said Grandpa Jack. 'But I expect so. If they don't want people coming and going, they won't want him pottering around in that little hut of his.'

'Grandpa says they've suspended the demolition,' said Dora, when she went to see the Pig Man later that day.

'Looks like it,' said the Pig Man. 'They started early this morning, but they stopped again almost straight away. They can't have been going more than twenty minutes. Half an hour at the most. Stopped again almost straight away, they did.'

The yellow digger had been loaded onto the back of a lorry and trundled off, and the workmen had all been packed off too.

'They found something historical,' said the Pig Man.

'Yes, like a clay animal or something,' said Dora.

'Ah,' said the Pig Man. 'I'm not surprised. If you start digging down around here, you're bound to find all sorts. It's as old as history round here, it is. Older than history. It goes right back, it does. So now they've got to bring in all these history experts to start poking and prying around. Poking and prying. Prying and poking. I don't expect any good to come of it.'

'But does it mean you can stay a bit longer?' said Dora. 'If they're not going to knock everything down straight away?'

'No, I've got to go. They're going to close it all off, and not let anybody near, while they do all their poking and prying. They want to do it in private. They don't want the likes of me hanging around. I'm to pack up and clear off, I am. I've had that Sylvia Pouncer here this morning, giving me my orders. Pack up and clear off, she said. She put plenty of sugar on it, but that's what it came down to: pack up and clear off.'

'And what about the Pig?' said Dora.

She had looked into his stall on the way past, intending to give him some stale digestive biscuits, but there was no sign of him.

'He's already gone,' said the Pig Man.

'Where have you moved him to?' said Dora.

'Me? Where have I moved him? I haven't moved him anywhere,' said the Pig Man. 'He's gone. He's gone of his own accord. I told you he didn't like that digging. He's taken himself off.'

'But where's he gone?' cried Dora, in distress. 'You can't let him just go wandering around! He might get run over or something! Somebody might steal him and sell him for sausages!'

'Now now now,' said the Pig Man, 'don't you worry about that old pig. He knows how to take care of himself.'

'But you're the one that takes care of him!' said Dora.

'No, I never took care of him,' said the Pig Man. 'He took care of me.'

'What!'

'I fed him,' said the Pig Man. 'That's true. I did feed him. And I used to clean out his place, and bring him bedding and that. But I never took care of him. He took care of me.'

'But how could he?'

'He was here before I came,' said the Pig Man. 'Did you ever stop and think how old he might be?'

'Well, no,' admitted Dora. There had always been a Pig, just as there had always been a Pig Man, ever since she could remember.

'Ah, well,' said the Pig Man, 'he was here before I came. And I've been here a long while. I was here before your Grandpa came.'

'How long do pigs live?' said Dora. 'They don't live longer than people, do they?'

'I wouldn't know about pigs in general,' said the Pig Man. 'But that one's an old one. And he knows how to look after himself. It's my opinion he's gone into the hill.'

'Into the hill?' said Dora, in disbelief. 'How can he go into the hill?'

'What's this hill called?' demanded the Pig Man.

'What hill?' said Dora blankly.

'This hill. This here hill, that we're on top of right now. This hill that the church is builded on and the school's builded on.'

'I never even knew it was a hill,' said Dora.

'You have to walk up a slope to get to the church, don't you?'

'Yes, I suppose you do,' said Dora, 'but I never really thought about it before.'

'Well, the church and the school are builded on a hill, and the hill is the middle of the town, and all the rest of the town is builded around the hill. And this here hill, in case you didn't know, is called the Hog's Back. Hog being an old name for a pig.'

'I know that!'

'Ah. Well then, there you are then.'

'But I still don't see how the pig can have gone into the hill. It doesn't make sense.'

'Well that's what I think,' said the Pig Man: 'that's my opinion, that's the best of my belief, and that's all I'm saying.' He drained the last of his mug of tea. 'And now it's time for me to go home.'

He put the empty mug into his old ruck-sack, he closed the air-vents on the front of his stove, within which the last embers of the fire were still just about glowing cherry-red, and he pulled on his donkey jacket. Then he led Dora outside into the playground, and padlocked the door behind them.

There was an air of finality and completion about his actions. Instead of putting the key in his pocket when he'd locked up, he left it on the window sill.

'Is this your last day?' said Dora.

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