Free Johnny Swanson by Eleanor Updale

health is surprise visitors. And if her letters were delivered here in the first place, I could cash her postal orders with you and take the money straight home. She wouldn’t have to wait so long to get it. How much does a private box cost?’
    ‘Not much,’ said Hutch. ‘But listen, the poor woman’s an invalid, and I know your family’s having a rough time at present. I won’t make her pay. I’ll cover the costs myself.’
    Johnny tried to protest. But before he got the words out, he realized that he couldn’t offer to pay the fee himself. He mustn’t let on that he had a stash of money at home.
    ‘No, I’ll pay,’ said Hutch, interrupting Johnny’s garbled rejection of the offer, which he took as simple politeness. ‘I insist. It will be a pleasure. But it must all be done properly. You take this form home and get your aunt to fill it in.’
    So, that night, Johnny created Ada Fortune’s first official document, beautifully signed. The next day, Hutch marked it with his rubber stamp and filed it away.
    ‘Tell your auntie that her address is now PO Box Nine, Stambleton, Warwickshire. In future I’ll keep her letters aside, and you can take them home with you.’
    Even though the new address would add a few pence to the cost of each advertisement, Johnny knew the private box was going to make his life a lot easier, and he spent the rest of half-term dreaming up new projects. When he looked through the national papers he saw that most of the advertisements were about health and self-improvement. It was obviously a lucrative market, and although Dr Langford had struck a nerve with his criticism of quack medicine, Johnny could see that sending out remedies offered a solution to another problem. He needed to convince Hutch that Auntie Ada really
was
doing needleworkin exchange for all those postal orders. It was time to be seen posting parcels on her behalf. But there was no need for Johnny to sew anything. Hutch would never know what was inside the packages, so Johnny could fill them with ‘cures’ for everything from sleeplessness to sore toes.
    He had no trouble finding a list of illnesses: years of accompanying his mother on her visits to Mrs Slack had exposed him to the human version of a medical encyclopaedia; and the graveyard on his paper round had everything he needed to fulfil the orders. He pulled the juiciest leaves off the evergreens, and collected the most beautiful fallen autumn foliage from the ground. There were seed husks, conker shells, acorns and twisted pieces of twig.
    He was tugging the feathers off the corpse of a pigeon when he heard a rapping noise. It was Miss Dangerfield, bashing her walking stick on top of the wall.
    ‘Hey! You boy! What do you think you are doing?’
    Johnny had to think fast. ‘Oh, hello, madam,’ he said, playing for time. ‘I’m … I’m … It’s Nature Study. I have to collect some specimens for school.’
    ‘Don’t you “madam” me! And don’t you “Nature Study” me! I know the school is on holiday. Nature Study indeed! You’re up to no good. And where’s mypaper?’ Johnny put his hand into his bag to get it for her. ‘Not here, you fool! I don’t want it here, do I? I want it at home. And you’re late. Mr Hutchinson pays you to deliver the newspaper to my house. And you’re late!’
    Somewhere inside himself Johnny knew that it was pointless to argue, but after her unkindness the other day, and with the safety of the graveyard wall between them, he couldn’t resist pointing out the flaw in what Miss Dangerfield was saying. ‘But I’m on my way. And anyway, you’re not there, are you? I mean, you’re here. So you wouldn’t know I was late, would you? If you were there, I mean. Which you’re not.’
    ‘Don’t you answer me back, boy.’
    ‘I wasn’t answering back—’
    ‘Yes you were, and you’re doing it again now. I’ve got a good mind to report you. Now get off up the hill and deliver my paper.’
    Johnny placed a