by Adam Baron
The younger police officer looked up from her notebook. ‘Yes, Sarge?’
‘Cute. Cuddly, you could say. What do you think, Constable?’
‘Oh yes, Sarge. Very cuddly, though that’s not a particularly accurate description.’
‘No,’ the first police officer agreed. ‘I suppose that a lot of teddies could be described as “cuddly”. That is, of course, the intention of the manufacturers. So what we have here is a classic-style English teddy bear, approximately thirty-five centimetres in height, without any ribbons or other identifiable clothing. Legs, chubby. Tummy, round. Eyes, brown. Fur, also brown.’
‘I’d say gold, Sarge.’
‘Correction. Colour of fur, gold. It is also extremely …’ He hesitated.
‘Yes, Sarge?’
‘Downy. Would you say downy, Constable?
‘No, Sarge, I wouldn’t say downy. I think I would say …’
‘Yes, Constable?’
‘Velvety.’
‘Velvety?! Oh no! Look at it for goodness’ sake!’
‘Sorry, Sarge. Silky then?’
‘NO! It’s not silky either. It’s. Well, it’s …’ The older police officer sighed in frustration. But then he sat up.
‘FLUFFY!’ he said, and he turned to the constable who gave him a high-five. She wrote FLUFFY on her pad in big letters – but neither of them would believe that someone had broken into our house to steal it!
And neither would Mum or Dad.
‘It’s not old enough to be rare,’ Dad said. ‘It’s not an antique. We know you both love it, but still …’
And all four of them looked at me with this patient ADULT expression that made me want to SCREAM. Instead of doing that, though, I hissed and pulled Mr Goldy to my chest. Then I described the intruder.
I told the police officers all I could. I said the figure was tall. It wasn’t slim but not necessarily fat or anything – just like the lady who’d come round! Mrs Rose! I described her short grey curly hair and her red glasses. I could tell that the police officers didn’t think it was the same person, though. They just thanked me and went outside, Mum asking if I wanted a hot chocolate. I shrugged, still SO frustrated. Mum took that to mean yes, though, and went over to the worktop – where the Fox & Sons brochure was sitting next to the kettle.
Mum gave a little jerk. She slid the brochure into a drawer, not knowing that I’d already seen it. My frustration turned back to anger. I felt hot and helpless, wanting to just storm over there and pull the brochure out. Demand to know what Mum was playing at. The fact that I didn’t was because Milly was there – and then because of something else.
The most OBVIOUS thing had occurred to me. I wasn’t the only one who loved our house, was I? It was Mum’s house too.
So how must she feel about it?
The anger seemed to drift right out of me. When Mum put the hot chocolate down, I didn’t scowl. Instead, I smiled and took her hand. I held it and glanced at the drawer, Mum giving a small gasp, before pulling me into a hug. It was so brilliant I wanted to stay in it forever, but it wasn’t long before she drew away. Then I watched her help Dad back up the stairs, knowing that, after she came back, she’d have to deal with us. And, a few hours later, she’d be back at work.
How on earth did she do it?
I didn’t know, though the next day she actually didn’t go to work. Dad wasn’t well enough. Mum said it was the medicine he was on. It didn’t agree with him. The day after she did go, but had to come back halfway through. It was like that all week and so hard on Mum, even though Milly and I did all we could. We cleaned out Boffo. We put the washing in the machine. We hung it up after. We got our clothes out for the morning and made our own packed lunches. Milly missed after-school rugby to do the ironing and I didn’t go to art club. I cleaned the bathroom instead. Milly got really good at making cups of tea and I did us cheesy beans in the microwave (two minutes four seconds EXACTLY).
And things seemed to go okay.
Dad’s new medicine was better. He didn’t feel so groggy, or sick.
Then – Tuesday – he got a letter. It said he had to go to London at the weekend for some special tests. There was this new treatment that he might be eligible for. It made him happy and he got even happier when he realised that Brighton were playing some London team in the FA Cup. Milly and I don’t care about football, but we begged to go too.
‘We’ll see,’ Dad said, which SO meant yes. We still had Mr Goldy and the intruder to think about, though. Not only did Mum have to pay for better locks on the French windows, but the police hadn’t caught anyone.
‘It was her!’ I said. We’d just tidied our room. ‘I promise.’
Milly said she believed me.
‘And I’ve been thinking. If Mr Goldy really was hers, why didn’t she come back? When she realised that we’d tricked her?’
Milly nodded. ‘She must have thought we wouldn’t hand him over so she decided to steal him instead.’
‘So how can we know if she was lying or not, about whether Mr Goldy was hers?’
Milly sighed. ‘Rivers.’
‘What about them?’
‘We did them in school before Christmas. They come from places.’
‘Of course they do! So?’
‘So we should have asked Mrs Rose where her grandson dropped Mr Goldy in.’
‘She said son to Mum.’
‘I know. It’s so fishy! But her telling us where Mr Goldy went in the river would have told us if he really could have floated to Cuckmere Haven.’
‘But I did ask her!’ I insisted. ‘She started to answer but she stopped herself. She said I wouldn’t know it.’
‘Come on,’ said Milly, and she pulled me down the stairs.
We got the laptop and opened it on the kitchen table. We went into Maps and found Cuckmere Haven. The caption said that it was a ‘tranquil beach with cliff views’.
‘It wasn’t tranquil when we were there.’
‘No,’ I laughed. ‘It wasn’t.’
We traced the river back inland. It was called the Cuckmere River, and first it went up through a forest. It ran alongside a pub called the Plough and Harrow, though that wasn’t what Mrs Rose had nearly said. I was sure! The river passed a big lake, before flowing through the moat of a castle. People do visit castles and I was excited: but, again, the name wasn’t right. I shook my head and we scrolled up some more, the river spreading out now like the branches of a blue tree, any one of which would have brought Mr Goldy down to Cuckmere! It was frustrating, though not many of the little rivers had actual places on. But one did – and my finger darted to the screen.
‘Whitecross House,’ I said.
Milly’s eyes spun round to me. ‘Did she say that?’
I shrugged, thinking maybe, so Milly clicked on the link. On the left of the screen lots of information appeared, all about Whitecross House. There was another link for its own website and Milly clicked on it. Pictures came up of a big house, the inside full of four-poster beds and long, shiny dining tables. These scrolled past and were followed by photos of the outside. First there was a garden with tall hedges – and then there was a river bank! In the next one were lots of people having picnics! Some of them were kids and I could so imagine them messing about, perhaps playing Pooh Sticks like we had.
Did one of them drop Mr Goldy in the river? Right there? It was possible, but how could we know for certain?
‘Is that where you came from?’ I said, turning to Mr Goldy. He was on the kitchen table because we hardly let him out of our sight any more. But Mr Goldy didn’t reply, which I thought was just a little ungrateful after all we’d done for him. I shrugged and Milly did too, before her finger reached out for the mouse pad again. She was about to close the page down, but I stopped her.
‘Wait,’ I said, pointing to the top of the screen.
I was looking at a line of headings. Milly moved the cursor up to them. The first said ‘Plan Your Visit’ and I knew that, if Milly clicked
on it, there would be subheadings underneath. Beside ‘Plan Your Visit’ was a heading called ‘Events’, and then two more: ‘Kids’ and ‘Wedding Hire’. It was the last one that I wanted, though.
‘Shop’.
‘Click on it,’ I said and Milly did.
And her mouth dropped WIDE OPEN.
‘Gucci,’ she said.
There were tea towels for sale (one for £5.99 or two for £10.00).
There were teapots (two, four or six cups).
There were coffee mugs, there were pencil sets, there were powerballs and sticker books, none of which were of any interest to us at all.
Because of the teddies.
They weren’t called teddies. They were called ‘Soft Toys’, which is SO wrong. TEDDIES AREN’T TOYS! They’re something else, something deeper and more serious, which I can’t quite explain. But there were loads of them.
There were small teddies.
And big ones.
There were fat teddies.
And thin ones.
There were colourful teddies and regular ones. There were Gruffalos and Paddingtons, Eeyores and Winnie the Poohs. They even had the Tiger Who Came to Tea, which normally I SO would have wanted.
But I was looking at Mr Goldy.
They didn’t call him that (though he SO is Mr Goldy). They called him ‘Whitecross Bear’ – but it was him. Or at least a clone of him and, when I turned back to the table, it was spooky. It was probably just the light from the screen, but I could swear that Mr Goldy’s eyes were twinkling.
‘Found you!’ said Milly, though I wasn’t so happy. The river connected Whitecross House to Cuckmere Haven, which meant that Mr Goldy might really belong to Mrs Rose. What if she came back for him? What if she pretended she hadn’t tried to burgle us and just turned up?
I gripped Mr Goldy tight and went to look out of the window. There was no one there, but I couldn’t stop worrying, imagining that the doorbell was going to ring any second. I worried about it all day, even waking up in the night. The next day I worried about it at school and when I got back I thought my worst fears had come true.
Because Mum called us into the living room.
She looked drawn. Exhausted. Worst of all she looked SO miserable. The first thing she did was give us both a massive hug and I bit my lip, determined not to complain, not to make things any worse for her. Mr Goldy was in my schoolbag and I’d just have to go and get him.
But Mum didn’t ask us for Mr Goldy.
She didn’t tell us that Mrs Rose had been back in touch.
She didn’t say anything in fact – she couldn’t. When she tried, she just started to sob, and all we could do was look at her, with no idea what we should do, until there was a noise outside.
Was it Mrs Rose? Had she come back? I didn’t care. I’d just hand Mr Goldy over so that she’d go away and I could go back in to be with Mum. I ran to the door and pulled it open, though it wasn’t Mrs Rose that I saw.
It was a man. He was lifting something out of the back of his car. I blinked, confused, until I realised who it was.
I felt Milly behind me. Her fingernails dug into my arm and stayed there until the Fox & Sons man was gone.
The one good thing about Ellen being at Veronique’s house was that she wasn’t around on Saturday morning. I watched TV in peace until it was time to go up to Saturday football. I can go on my own, but I wanted Dad to take me. He was still in bed, though, so Mum said she’d come. She started to put her coat on, but Stephan stopped her. He said he fancied a walk, and then turned to Mabel (who was halfway through her rice crispies).
‘You’d like to watch Cym play football, wouldn’t you, love?’
Mabel looked REALLY excited and ran upstairs to clean her teeth.
Mum hung her coat back up and Stephan put his on. I thought we might be late because Mabel had to stuff loads of things in her unicorn backpack. Stephan pulled her on a scooter, though, and we made good time, in spite of the fact that she kept leaping off to jump in puddles. Stephan explained that puddles were the only things that she liked as much as unicorns, so I got a stick and stuck it in one.
‘It’s a uni-puddle,’ I said.
We made three more uni-puddles and then turned off the main road.
Stephan looked at me. ‘Been thinking more about the burglary,’ he said.
‘Oh yes?’
Stephan nodded. ‘I asked your mum about the painting that was stolen, but all she said was that it was a landscape. She didn’t want to talk about it. She also didn’t think there was anything special on the iPad. So then I thought about your room and that friend of yours. Veronique?’
Was she still my friend? ‘And?’
‘Does she have anything of yours?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, that the burglars might have wanted, but didn’t find in your bedroom?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Nothing you’ve left behind after a sleepover maybe?’
‘No. And she said that nothing of hers was taken anyway.’
‘Right. Well, I spoke to the police again. They’re going to come back to fingerprint the gutters. You never know, they might find something.’
‘Wow,’ I said, amazed that Stephan had gone that far. ‘What about the Phoenix Medal? What do you think about that then?’
Stephan sucked his cheeks in. ‘I haven’t managed to speak to the person I mentioned. The one who’s good at puzzles. Ask me later, okay?’
I said okay and we walked on, spotting all the players up ahead, spread across the grass.
We were on time and I was glad: we had league matches next week and I wanted to be in the starting seven. Mabel was a worry, though: it would be SO embarrassing if she started shouting, ‘Go, Thimbeline!’ from the touchline. Marcus Breen would shred me. I was about to suggest that Stephan take her into Blackheath Village for a hot chocolate, but Mabel pointed to the Reception team, whose coach was just getting some cones out.
‘What?’ she screamed. ‘Do little ones play football too, Thimbeline?’
I said they do, which was when Vi, Daisy and Lizzie Fisher came up. They’d all just started playing for Lewisham Girls and had their new tracksuits on. Normally I would have been jealous, but when they saw how excited Mabel was Vi passed a ball to her. Mabel hoofed it back and then ran at Vi to tackle her. Vi laughed and I told her who Mabel was.
‘Do you want to join in?’ Vi asked.
‘REALLY?’ Mabel said.
Vi said, ‘Really!’ and took Mabel over to the Reception team, staying to help coach them because one of the parents couldn’t make it that day.
I was relieved, though after we’d done some warm-ups and a few passing drills I sighed. Veronique’s dad was walking towards us. Veronique wasn’t with him – she has piano lessons on Saturday mornings – but Ellen was. He was obviously dropping her off. Ellen said thank you to him and I bit my lip, noticing the FOUR friendship bracelets that were now circling her wrists.
I shook my head, knowing that she’d gloat, though she’d have to wait until I’d finished training. That thought made me nod and tell myself to concentrate. Stephan was staying to watch both Mabel and me, so Ellen would have to as well, and I didn’t want to give her anything to laugh at. I wanted to play well, maybe even score, so at least I’d have that to tell her when she started droning on about Veronique.
Ellen and Stephan came over to the touchline just as we started to play. When the ball went off for a throw-in, I was quite close to them and I expected Ellen to say something. She didn’t, though – she and Stephan were talking. The next time I saw her she was looking at Stephan’s mobile phone, and when I glanced over again (free kick) she was still doing it. That was a REAL shame because I DID score, doing a one-two with Lance before nutmegging the goalkeeper (Daisy’s dad, but he DID NOT LET ME DO IT). There was no way Ellen would believe me when I told her, though Stephan saw it. I knew that because he did this big fist pump, clapped and bellowed, ‘
GET IN!’ at the top of his voice.
That made me blush – and feel odd. And – weirdly – a bit sad. I didn’t know why, I just did, as if that really good thing – scoring a goal in front of Stephan – had uncovered something that wasn’t good. I bit my lip and ran back to the halfway line, confused. I couldn’t wait to tell Dad, though, and I wondered if he’d actually come up after all and seen it. But he hadn’t.
I didn’t mind, though, when Stephan went over to watch Mabel’s match. I took a breath. Would Ellen take the opportunity to gloat about last night? I tried to anticipate what she’d say: did they watch a movie together? The second Harry Potter that Mum says I’m too young for? Did they arrange to have another play date at our house – without me being invited? Or was it Kit-Kat, the Lego rat that I’d made for Veronique? Had Ellen broken it up and made something else with the pieces, like Mabel had with the Death Star? I didn’t know but I was about to find out. Vi’s dad (our coach) blew his whistle for full time, and Ellen came marching over.
‘I don’t care,’ I said.
Ellen stared at me. ‘About what?’
I shrugged. ‘About anything. That you did. So you can tell me if you like.’
‘Tell you?’
‘Yeah, go on. Smash it, did you?’
‘Smash what?’
‘Veronique’s rat. That I made her? Did you?’
‘No!’
‘Probably didn’t see it then.’
Ellen’s eyes flared. ‘Wrong. Veronique showed it to me.’
‘Oh. She … did?’
‘Yes, and I was going to say that it was really good. Don’t think I’ll bother now, or show you this.’
‘This?’
‘Yes,’ Ellen said, and she held Stephan’s mobile out to me.
I was curious, but then I shook my head. Was it a picture of her and Veronique, all smiley? Had Veronique’s dad sent it to Stephan?
‘No thanks. I’m not stupid.’
‘No? You must be if you haven’t thought to do this before.’
‘Do what?’
Ellen hissed out a sigh. ‘Try to find the Phoenix Medal of course.’