Part one
The removal of the old tatty "For Sale Sign" and the appearance of a shiny bright "Sold" one came right out of the blue. Initially the locals were relieved the farmhouse was to be occupied again. It was falling apart and it was rapidly becoming an embarrassing eyesore. For such house-proud villagers it pained them to see the place fall apart. Everyone agreed that it would be great to see someone move in, and then hopefully the place would be renovated. It needed to get back into the shape it had been when the Browns had lived there. It had been their pride and joy, and had held many a party or get together. Sadly after their deaths it had simply fallen into disrepair. The building would be impossible to salvage soon if some action wasn't taken. Which for such a nice old place would be such a shame.
However, the new buyers were not exactly the nice married couple with two point two children that everyone had hoped would move in. Villagers had been hoping for a stockbroker, or a lawyer, people with money to get the place back into shape quickly. The battered old van that turned up seemed to destroy all their hopes for the recovery of the farm. The vehicle had been crudely converted to carry 9 people. It arrived with a woman and 8 children on board. There was no way a vehicle in this state was roadworthy or legal.
The odd thing was later in the day it seemed like even more children had arrived, but no one in the village seemed to have seen where or how they had got to the farm. This was very strange when the eagle-eyed villagers were all watching events closely. It was rare for outsiders to join their community, so many eyes had studied the moving-in carefully, but somehow these extra children had sneaked through and just appeared. However, there was no doubting there were more of the little cherubs running around.
Many of the locals went over to the farmhouse with cakes and other welcoming gifts. It was the traditional neighbourly thing to do. The woman who had driven the van would open the door and greet each visitor in turn. However the locals found the welcome from their new neighbour to be a cool, although any gift was eagerly snatched away. Disappointingly there were no offers to come inside, so no one stayed very long, or to their immense frustration learnt very much.
This motley crew that had arrived to live amongst them certainly raised an eyebrow or two. The new arrivals became the favourite topic of conversation over the garden fence or in the village café. The arrival of one rotund elderly woman in her sixties would not have made much of a ripple, it was the dozen or so children in tow that got tongues wagging. The children were all somewhere between 8 and 12. Sweet innocent looking little girls with golden locks that hid their delinquent natures completely. They all called the woman their Grandma and she was friendly enough, pretty soon becoming a familiar face in the High Street and in the shops.
If you stopped long enough for a conversation she would be quick to offer help or friendly advice. Slowly over time the villagers learnt that the children were all orphans from Hungary. The family had just travelled from there, hoping for a better life in a new country. Hungary did not mean much to the locals; not being somewhere any of them had been to. The Grandma said she hoped she would be able to settle happily in the village. It seems she had taken it upon herself to rescue the children and to look after them. They were all in such a pitiful state without a mother, she was heard to say. If anyone braved asking the children, they would always confirm that their mothers were dead. How, they would not say, at that point they would run away or change the subject. People began to notice the Grandma did the same thing; she would skilfully avoid any questions concerning the children's mothers. The other odd thing was the children all seemed to look alike. In the end the poorly travelled locals decided that people in Hungary must all be similar in appearance.
The children though quickly became a pain. A complete nightmare in fact and it seemed they were beyond the ability of the Grandma to control. If indeed she tried at all.
Children at the play park came home complaining they had been picked on, or driven off by some of the little terrors. Adults found it hard to believe when confronting the sweet innocent faces of the girls, but slowly the number of incidents concerning the children grew.
The butcher's shop began to notice stock disappearing. At first it seemed wrong to blame the girls, but they did hang around that shop a lot. Although the butcher could not prove they were stealing, in the end out of frustration at his loses, he decided to ban them from the store.
The storeowner for the first time saw a different side of the Grandma when he insisted her charges were not welcome in his shop. She lost her temper and stormed out, breaking a glass ornament in the window by slamming the door very hard.
The ultimate proof for everyone was that the stealing from the butcher's stopped at this point. So it was pretty obvious to everyone the girls were indeed to blame.
It was the long summer holidays from school and the opinion in the village flipped between praying for the school year to start so the children were kept off the streets, to sympathy for the poor teachers who would have to deal with this menace.
There was a little snippet of information that leaked out from the shop incident though that got people's attention. As the woman stormed out she announced loudly that her son would have something to say about the matter when he arrived from Hungary.
So that was the next hot topic of gossip in and around the village. There was much speculation on what the son might be like and whether or not he could bring some discipline to the children. However, time began to pass and although improvements seemed to appear on and around the farmhouse, suggesting to many the arrival of a man. It got a new coat of paint for instance. No son seemed to be spotted. When someone braved asking the Grandma, she smiled.
"Soon dear, very soon," she said.
Sadly the lives of the villagers continued to be blighted, seemingly by the children. Again there was no proof, but a couple of houses were broken into, sometimes with money and jewels stolen, but always meat taken from freezers. This was something unheard of in this area. It was such a safe neighbourhood.
At this time the villagers had their work to distract them and so most were too busy to care about the children. The locals were all very much engaged in agriculture and the farming calendar dominated their lives. So this was a busy time for them all, with harvesting and young animals to deal with. So there was little time to do much about delinquent kids. This year was proving to be especially difficult with more than the usual number of dead animals turning up in their fields, and even the odd adult sheep being killed.
The campaign for dog owners to control their animals when out and about became everyone's focus. Posters appeared, showing the sad sight of a dead lamb with its throat ripped out. These were put up all around the village and local footpaths, but it was clear this year they would lose more animals than they ever had before. God how the locals hated the townies as they called them, and their stupid naivety about the countryside. Why could they not keep their pets under control?
Just as they were dealing with the havoc the children caused during the day, there was a new cause for complaint about the kids. At night, midnight and even early morning, well before dawn, the children were often still out and about. Generally making a fearful noise too. The farmhouse was fairly separate from its neighbours, but the nearest house belonging to Paul and Alex Wood began to be disturbed late at night by the children shouting and playing. Incredibly they began to play in the Wood's garden, right outside their bedroom window. Apart from the trespass issue this ensured Paul and Alex were constantly disturbed.
Paul tried reasoning with the children, but as each night passed he just got angrier and angrier with them. Finally in desperation Alex went out to talk to them finding them as difficult to control as Paul had.
The children began dancing round her, ignoring her protests, singing what she imagined were Hungarian songs. Their dancing and singing becoming so fast Alex began to feel giddy. They may only have been sweet looking youngsters, but Alex still began to feel nervous. Her pleas began to get more and desperate for them to stop, when she thought she heard a voice call to them from the trees at the side of her house. Suddenly like good little angels they stopped and walked off, quietly heading back in the direction in which they lived.
Alex strained her eyes and ears; sure she was being watched, eventually even tentatively calling out. The children had to have responded to something the way they had all stopped so suddenly. The moon that night was bright so there was a good light to see by. She thought she saw a shape in the trees move away. It looked like it walked on four legs. However, with only moonlight to see by she could not be sure. Eventually with a sigh and a shrug she returned to the house. As she entered the house she heard a strange noise like an animal calling out in the distant. She guessed it was a fox, but in truth it was like no fox she had ever heard before and Alex had spent her whole life in this village.