Danny  Ch. 5  
Page 33-41

5. Read Story

Page 33

The Secret Methods

‘All the best ways
of poaching pheasants
were discovered
by my old dad,’
my father said.

‘My old dad studied poaching
the way a scientist studies science.’
 
Page 34

My father put my sandwiches
on a plate and brought them
over to my bunk.

I put the plate on my lap
and started eating.
I was ravenous.

 

‘Do you know
my old dad actually
used to keep a flock
of prime roosters
in the back-yard
just to practice on,’
my father said.

‘A rooster is very much
like a pheasant, you see.

They are equally stupid
and they like the same
sorts of food.

A rooster is tamer,
that’s all.

So whenever my dad
thought up a new method
of catching pheasants,
he tried it out on a rooster first
to see if it worked.’

‘What are the best ways?’
I asked.

My father laid
a half-eaten sandwich
on the edge of the sink
and gazed at me in silence
for about twenty seconds.

‘Promise you won’t tell
another soul?’

‘I promise.’

‘Now here’s the thing,’
he said.

‘Here’s the first big secret.
Ah, but it’s more
than a secret, Danny.
It’s the most important discovery
in the whole history of poaching.’

He edged a shade closer to me.
His face was pale
in the pale yellow glow
from the lamp in the ceiling,
but his eyes were shining like stars.

‘So here it is,’ he said,
and now suddenly
his voice became soft
and whispery and very private.

‘Pheasants’, he whispered,
‘are crazy about raisins.’

‘Is that the big secret?’

‘That’s it,’ he said.

‘It may not sound very much
when I say it like that,
but believe me it is.’

‘Raisins?’ I said.
‘Just ordinary raisins.
It’s like a mania with them.
You throw a few raisins
into a bunch of pheasants
and they’ll start fighting each other
to get at them.

Page 35

My dad discovered that
forty years ago
just as he discovered
these other things
I am about to
describe to you.’

My father paused
and glanced over his shoulder
as though to make sure
there was nobody
at the door of the caravan, listening.

‘Method Number One’,
he said softly,
‘is known as
The Horse-hair Stopper.’

‘The Horse-hair Stopper,’
I murmured.

‘That’s it,’ my father said.
‘And the reason
it’s such a brilliant method
is that it’s completely silent.

There’s no squawking
or flapping around
or anything else
with The Horse-hair Stopper
when the pheasant is caught.

And that’s mighty important
because don’t forget, Danny,
when you’re up in those woods
at night and the great trees
are spreading their branches
high above you like black ghosts,
it is so silent
you can hear a mouse moving.

And somewhere among it all,
the keepers are waiting
and listening.

They’re always there,
those keepers,
standing stony-still
against a tree
or behind a bush
with their guns at the ready’

‘What happens with
The Horse-hair Stopper?’
I asked.

‘How does it work?’
 
‘It’s very simple,’ he said.

‘First, you take
a few raisins
and you soak them
in water overnight
to make them plump
and soft and juicy.

Page 36

Then you get
a bit of good stiff horse-hair
and you cut it up
into half-inch lengths.’
 
‘Horse-hair?’ I said.
‘Where do you get horse-hair?’

‘You pull it out of
a horse’s tail,
of course.

That’s not difficult
as long as you stand
to one side
when you’re doing it
so you don’t get kicked.’

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘So you cut the horse-hair up
into half-inch lengths.
Then you push
one of these lengths
through the middle
of a raisin
so there’s just a tiny bit
of horse-hair
sticking out
on each side.
That’s all you do.

You are now ready
to catch a pheasant.
If you want to catch
more than one,
you prepare more raisins.
Then, when evening comes,
you creep up into the woods,
making sure you get there
before the pheasants
have gone up
into the trees to roost.

Then you scatter the raisins.

And soon,
along comes a pheasant
and gobbles it up.’

‘What happens then?’
I asked.

‘Here’s what my dad discovered,’
he said.

‘First of all
the horse-hair
makes the raisin stick
in the pheasant’s throat.
It doesn’t hurt him.
It simply stays there
and tickles.

It’s rather like having
a crumb stuck
in your own throat.

But after that,
believe it or not,
the pheasant never moves
his feet again!

He becomes
absolutely rooted to the spot,
and there he stands
pumping his silly neck
up and down
just like a piston,
and all you’ve got to do
is nip out quickly
from the place
where you’re hiding
and pick him up.’

‘Is that really true, Dad?’

‘I swear it,’ my father said.

‘Once a pheasant’s
had The Horse-hair Stopper,
you can turn a hosepipe
on him and he won’t move.

It’s just one of those
unexplainable little things.
But it takes a genius to discover it.’

Page 37

My father paused,
and there was a gleam
of pride in his eyes
as he dwelt for a moment
upon the memory
of his own dad,
the great poaching inventor.

‘So that’s Method Number One,’
he said.

‘What’s Number Two?’
I asked.

‘Ah,’ he said.
‘Number Two’s
a real beauty.
It’s a flash
of pure brilliance.

I can even remember
the day it was invented.
I was just about
the same age
as you are now
and it was a Sunday morning
and my dad comes into the kitchen
holding a huge white rooster
in his hands.

‘I think I’ve got it,’
he says.

There’s a little smile
on his face
and a shine of glory
in his eyes
and he comes in very soft
and quick
and puts the bird down
right in the middle
of the kitchen table.

‘By golly,’ he says,
‘I’ve got a good one this time.’

Page 38

‘ ‘A good what?’
Mum says,
looking up from the sink.

‘Horace, take that filthy bird
off my table.’

‘The rooster
has a funny little paper hat
over its head,
like an ice-cream cone
upside down,
and my dad
is pointing to it proudly
and saying,

“Stroke him.
Go on, stroke him.
Do anything you like to him.
He won’t move an inch.”
 
The rooster
starts scratching away
at the paper hat
with one of its feet,
but the hat
seems to be stuck on
and it won’t come off.
 
“No bird in the world
is going to run away
once you cover up its eyes,”
my dad says,
and he starts poking the rooster
with his finger
and pushing it around
on the table.

The rooster
doesn’t take
the slightest bit of notice.
 
“You can have this one,”
he says to Mum.
“You can have it
and wring its neck
and dish it up
for dinner
as a celebration
of what
I have just invented.”

And then straight away
he takes me by the arm
and marches me quickly
out of the door
and off we go
over the fields
and up into the big forest
the other side
of Little Hampden
which used to belong to
the Duke of Buckingham.

 

And in less than two hours
we get five lovely fat pheasants
with no more trouble
than it takes to go out
and buy them in a shop.’

My father paused for breath.
His eyes were shining bright
as they gazed back into
the wonderful world of his youth.

‘But Dad,’ I said,
‘how do you get the paper hats
over the pheasants’ heads?’

‘You’d never guess it, Danny’

‘Tell me.’
 

Page 39

‘Listen carefully,’
he said, glancing again
over his shoulder
as though he expected to see
a keeper or even
the Duke of Buckingham himself
at the caravan door.

‘Here’s how you do it.
First of all
you dig a little hole
in the ground.

Then you twist
a piece of paper
into the shape of a cone
and you fit this into the hole,
hollow end up,
like a cup.

Then you smear
the inside of the paper cup
with glue
and drop in a few raisins.

At the same time,
you lay a trail of raisins
along the ground
leading up to it.

Now, the old pheasant
comes pecking along the trail,
and when he gets to the hole
he pops his head inside
to gobble up the raisins
and the next thing he knows
he’s got a paper hat stuck
over his eyes
and he can’t see a thing.

Isn’t that a fantastic idea, Danny?
My dad called it The Sticky Hat:
 
‘Is that the one
you used this evening?’
I asked.

My father nodded.

‘How many did you get, Dad?’

‘Well,’ he said,
looking a bit sheepish.
‘Actually I didn’t get any.
I arrived too late.
By the time I got there
they were already
going up to roost.

That shows you
how out of practice I am.’

‘Was it fun all the same?’
 
‘Marvellous,’ he said.
‘Absolutely marvellous.
Just like the old days.’
 

Page 40

He undressed
and put on his pajamas.
Then he turned out
the lamp in the ceiling
and climbed up into his bunk.

‘Dad,’ I whispered.

‘What is it?’

‘Have you been doing this
often after I’ve gone to sleep,
without me knowing it?’

‘No,’ he said.
‘Tonight was
the first time for nine years.
When your mother died
and I had to look after you
by myself,
I made a vow
to give up poaching
until you were old enough
to be left alone at nights.

But this evening
I broke my vow.
I had such
a tremendous longing
to go up into the woods again,
I just couldn’t stop myself.
I’m very sorry I did it.’

Page 41

‘If you ever
want to go again,
I won’t mind,’ I said.

‘Do you mean that?’
he said,
his voice rising in excitement.
‘Do you really mean it?’

‘Yes,’ I said.
‘So long as
you tell me beforehand.
You will promise
to tell me beforehand
if you’re going,
won’t you?’

‘You’re quite sure
you won’t mind?’
 
‘Quite sure.’
 
‘Good boy,’ he said.

‘And we’ll have
roast pheasant for supper
whenever you want it.
It’s miles better than chicken.’

‘And one day, Dad,
will you take me with you?’

‘Ah,’ he said.
‘I reckon you’re just
a bit young to be
dodging around up there
in the dark.

I wouldn’t want you to
get peppered with buckshot
in the backside at your age.’

‘Your dad took you
at my age,’
I said.

There was a short silence.
‘We’ll see how it goes,’
my father said.

‘But I’d like to get back
into practice before
I make any promises,
you understand?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘I wouldn’t want
to take you with me
until I’m right back
in my old form.’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Good-night, Danny.

Go to sleep now.’

‘Good-night, Dad.’