by Matt Haig
Mr Crust’s ramblings reminded Rissa of the cat that had come to school with her this morning. And, for some strange reason she couldn’t identify, this made her think of Barney again.
Something was definitely wrong. Barney had never run off like that before. Why would he have done that? What had scared him so much?
The questions stayed there, hovering, until the bell rang.
Lunch hour.
In the dining hall Rissa sat at a table on her own, eating the only vegetarian option – cheese and tomato pizza made with what was meant to be white bread, but tasted more like bath sponge. Well, she was on her own until Petra and Petula Primm came over to sit with her.
The twins were very neat-looking girls with shiny black hair cut into two perfectly immaculate bobs. And they were absolutely identical, except that Petra always wore a school tie while Petula, like most other girls, went for an open collar. They never normally made any effort with Rissa, as Petra and Petula didn’t like the idea of someone who lived on a barge, especially as they lived in a very large house near the library, full of everything they ever asked their daddy for. Today, though, they seemed very interested in talking to her.
‘What happened to Barney this morning?’ asked Petra instantly, placing her tray on the table.
‘Why did he run away?’ added Petula, doing the same.
Rissa shrugged and swallowed some more bath sponge. ‘I don’t know. It’s weird.’ She thought about whether she should really say the next thing. But she did. ‘I think it might have something to do with his dad.’
She noticed the twins look at each other, their eyes shining with secret knowledge.
‘What made you—’ started Petula.
‘Say that?’ finished Petra.
‘Well, I don’t know. I just think he might be missing his dad.’
‘Or,’ suggested Petra, allowing Petula to continue, ‘He might have seen his dad.’
Rissa swallowed her food and stared at the twins. She knew they were itching to tell her something. ‘His dad’s missing,’ she said. ‘No one’s seen him for months.’
The twins gave each other that look again.
‘Let’s show her,’ said Petra.
‘Yes.’ Petula was positively bursting with excitement. ‘Let’s.’
And the twins both got out their identical mobile phones as menacingly as if they were weapons. They were incredibly shiny and sparkly and had their initials, ‘PP’, engraved on the back.
Rissa watched, worried, as the twins’ thumbs kept sliding across their screens.
‘There!’ said Petula.
‘Me too!’ said Petra.
And they both turned their phones round for Rissa to view the photo on each screen. The photo on Petula’s phone was of a man with a beard, but it was a bit blurry and dark so Rissa couldn’t really tell what she was supposed to be seeing.
The photo on Petra’s phone was much clearer. It was of the same man. A man with mid-brown hair and the same big bushy beard. He was sitting at some kind of counter, and there was a painting on the wall behind. It was an oil painting of a cat.
But it wasn’t the painting she was meant to be looking at.
It was the man.
She knew him from somewhere, but couldn’t think where.
‘Take away the beard and who do you have?’ asked Petra.
Rissa gasped as she imagined the man without a beard. She remembered the face from primary school. Could picture the man at sports day cheering on Barney as he struggled in the sack race. No. It couldn’t be.
But then Petula took something from her pocket – a piece of folded paper – and slid it across the table towards Rissa. Rissa unfolded it and saw it was an old newspaper cutting from the Blandford Gazette.
‘It was in our dad’s paper,’ said Petula, reminding Rissa that their father was the Blandford Gazette’s editor in chief.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
But Rissa didn’t need an answer. She’d unfolded it now and could see it was a photo of a man she recognized, this time in black and white. And underneath the photo was the man’s name, and a brief summary of the news story.
Neil Willow, aged 45, went missing two days ago from his home on Bradbury Drive. He lived alone, having separated from his wife several months earlier. No one has any idea where he went.
‘Barney’s dad,’ said Rissa.
‘And read that,’ Petula told her.
But Petra was already doing so with delicious glee. ‘No one has any idea where he went!’ she said. Then added: ‘Until now!’
And that’s when Rissa looked again at the photos on the twins’ mobile phones, then back to the newspaper cutting.
‘Take away the beard and who is it?’ asked Petula. ‘And we only took these pictures yesterday … so you know what that means, don’t you?’
There was no denying it. It was the same man. The same eyes, the same nose, the same everything.
‘So, Barney’s dad is still alive …?’ said Rissa in shock.
The twins nodded, thrilled.
‘We stayed with our aunt at the weekend, and we were at the cattery near her house. She was picking up her cat. It’s in Edgarton, fifteen miles away. That is where Mr Willow is working.’
‘It’s going to be the best story ever. Too good for the school newspaper,’ added Petula. ‘Daddy’s promised us that if we uncover the mystery we can be his star journalists. We’ll have our own front-page story in the Blandford Gazette!’
But Rissa was hardly listening. She was just thinking about Barney’s weird behaviour that morning, and how there must be a link to this.
Of course, what the Primms were telling her should have been good news. But as they kept on smiling, Rissa’s stomach tightened with dread.
Something was wrong with all this, she just knew it.
And so she put down her knife and fork, said goodbye to the twins, and left the hall with urgent steps.
Rissa’s Decision
RISSA DIDN’T PARTICULARLY like Miss Whipmire.
Of course she didn’t. No one liked Miss Whipmire. She was, quite simply, impossible to like, in the same way bath-sponge pizza was impossible to enjoy.
But Miss Whipmire was the head teacher, and the job of a head teacher is to know what to do …
That is what Mrs Lavender told Rissa when she went to tell her about Barney. At first, and on Rissa’s insistence, Mrs Lavender had tried to phone Barney’s mum at the library, but it was engaged.
‘Now, if you are still worried you must, absolutely must, go and tell Miss Whipmire.’
Rissa had made a face at this. ‘But she doesn’t like Barney.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly. Of course she does. And even if she doesn’t, I’m sure she wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to him … You know our school motto: “Your child is our world”. Miss Whipmire came up with that herself.’
So Rissa reluctantly agreed and walked the empty corridors towards the head teacher’s office, knowing she would be there – one of the odd things about Miss Whipmire was that she never seemed to eat, and she certainly didn’t join the other teachers in the dining hall with their school dinners and packed lunches. But then, Rissa didn’t know about her sardine drawer.
She arrived. Outside the door.
She waited nervously, and whispered under her breath.
‘Marmalade, marmalade, marmalade.’
Then she knocked.
There came an angry squawk from beyond the door. ‘Ye-es?’
‘Hello … it’s Rissa Fairweather. I’m … I’m a pupil here. Year Seven. I just … want to speak to you about something. Mrs Lavender said to … to see you.’
‘Not now!’
Rissa started to walk away from the door. But she stopped. Barney might be in trouble, and she had to do everything she could. So she went back, looked around to make sure no one was listening, then said in as confident a voice as she could manage: ‘It’s about Barney Willow.’
And the door o
pened so fast Rissa jumped.
‘Come inside,’ hissed Miss Whipmire, with angry fear bulging her eyes. ‘Now!’
The Howling Miaow
RISSA STEPPED INSIDE Miss Whipmire’s office as the door was closed – and then locked – behind her. She had never been in here before and she found it a strange place. The scent of fish, the cat calendar, the unusual plants, the poster of a dark-looking, exotic landscape on the back of the door (Chao Phraya – Thailand it said on it), the sheepskin rug that was draped over Miss Whipmire’s chair, the ugly pot with the pens nearly falling out of it. Somehow the office didn’t feel part of the school, the way a wart on a finger doesn’t feel like a true part of a hand.
‘What about Barney Willow?’ Miss Whipmire said, turning to give Rissa a vicious stare.
‘He’s … erm, he’s not at school today.’
‘Oh, so you’re telling tales. It’s true what they say – no loyalty among rats or children.’
‘No. I’m just worried about him.’
‘Why? He’s a despicable boy. One of the worst. And boys are a despicable breed so that is really saying something.’
‘No,’ said Rissa, feeling her voice waiver. ‘He’s not. He’s a good friend. The best, in fact. I just wondered whether there was anything we … or you could do?’
Miss Whipmire hesitated. She was looking worriedly at the filing cabinet for some reason Rissa couldn’t understand. Then she softened her tone. ‘Lots of boys aren’t at school today – and girls. Without meaning any offence, you are all lazy slugs. I wouldn’t worry your mollusky head about it.’
Rissa heard something. Or thought she did. A faint but sad kind of a howl. It was a noise that made Miss Whipmire’s face stiffen. But then it faded, so Rissa decided to finish what she had come to say. ‘I saw Barney this morning. But he was weird. Quiet. Didn’t say a word. And then, just as we were heading to the bus stop, he ran away.’
‘Oh, that is strange,’ Miss Whipmire said, smiling one of her agonizing smiles. ‘Well, don’t worry, I assure you I will do absolutely everything to look into this. Now, if you’d please excuse me … I’d better start making some phone calls.’
Rissa felt reluctant to leave the room. There was something peculiar and rather fake about Miss Whipmire’s sudden switch to concern. Rissa suspected that she didn’t care about anything except getting her out of the office.
Indeed, Miss Whipmire had the door wide open, gesturing for Rissa to leave. But she waited. ‘I’ve tried to phone Barney’s mum but I haven’t been able to speak to her yet.’
Again, she thought very hard about whether she should say the next thing. But she did, because she knew it would be even more difficult to say it to Mrs Willow, and because she wanted Miss Whipmire to understand the seriousness of the situation.
‘Just one more thing,’ she began. ‘It’s Barney’s father. He’s alive and people know where he is. He’s working at a cattery in Edgarton. I’ve just seen a photo of him. I’m worried that this has got something to do with Barney’s weird behaviour.’
Miss Whipmire didn’t look at all surprised by this information. But her eyebrows pulled together rather crossly, as though she was annoyed with such knowledge being spoken aloud in front of the filing cabinet. ‘Right, well, I’m sure that’s a load of nonsense …’ she said, and tried to shoo Rissa out of the room with a string of ‘all right’s and ‘I’ll see what I can do’s.
But then it came.
That noise again.
Only this time it was unmistakable.
A howling miaow. A cat’s miaow. And it was coming from the filing cabinet.
The Voices in the Dark
IN THE DARK of the filing cabinet Barney had heard every word.
His dad!
Alive!
The thoughts definitely came with exclamation marks, but they soon became questions.
His dad?
Alive?
And the biggest of all was: if his dad was still alive, why had he never visited or called or emailed to say he was OK?
But whatever the answer, it wasn’t going to be found on the inside of a filing cabinet. Nor would it be found if Barney was dead.
So he miaowed the loudest miaow he could manage, one which hurt his new, dry cat throat and took all the breath from his reduced lungs. But one which did the job.
He heard them now.
First Rissa. Nervous. ‘What was that?’
Then Miss Whipmire. Maybe just a little nervous too at first: ‘What was what?’
‘That noise. It sounded like a—’
‘Faulty heating system?’
‘No. Actually, it sounded like a … like a cat.’
Barney miaowed again. Help! Rissa, it’s me! I’m here!
‘That was definitely a cat!’ Rissa said.
‘You misheard. Now go back to class.’
‘It’s lunch hour. I don’t have a class.’
‘Well, if you don’t leave this office I will have to write to your parents.’
Ha! thought Barney. Miss Whipmire obviously didn’t know Rissa – or her parents, for that matter – if she thought the threat of a letter home was going to stop her.
‘With all due respect,’ said Rissa, ‘my mum and dad would be more upset with me if I left a cat in a filing cabinet than if you sent a letter home …’ Barney then heard her mutter something under her breath. ‘Marmalade, marmalade, marmalade.’
Go, Rissa! Barney miaowed, proud of his best friend.
‘Would you keep your voice down!’ hushed Miss Whipmire, shutting the door again. Or trying to. But she obviously caught the eye of Mr Waffler, who must have been walking past.
‘Is everything all right, Miss Whipmire?’ Barney heard him ask in his deep voice.
‘Yes,’ she said, as fast and sharp as a pair of scissors. ‘And it has absolutely nothing to do with you, Mr Waffler! Nothing! Whatsoever! Go back to your Shakespeare.’
Mr Waffler shuffled off. The door closed fully. But Rissa had the upper hand now.
‘There’s a cat in the filing cabinet,’ she said, and Barney could feel his friend’s determination pushing her on. ‘And I have a feeling it is the cat Mrs Lavender gave to you. The one that followed me to school. And I don’t know why it would be … where it is … and I know you are my head teacher and I should do as you say, but I believe in animal rights and I believe cats and human beings have an equal right not to be locked away in the dark.’
Miss Whipmire snapped. ‘They are not equal! Cats are far superior to idiotic humans like you!’
‘Well,’ said Rissa, ‘if you actually believed that you would not be keeping one in a cupboard!’
And then Barney heard Miss Whipmire nearly come out with truth. ‘That is not a—’
Go on, say it!
Tell her!
Tell her! Tell her! Tell her I’m not a cat!
‘Not a what?’ asked Rissa.
Miss Whipmire quickly covered her mistake. ‘Not a cupboard. It’s a cabinet. It’s a human distinction, but I am a human so—’
Rissa pulled a puzzled face. ‘Well, whatever it’s called, would you open it for me so I can have a look?’
There was silence, but Barney could feel the tension in his whiskers. Then the voices came back, but muffled, even for Barney’s cat ears.
It went quiet again.
Barney waited. Didn’t even miaow. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen. He would stay in the dark and wait for whatever Miss Whipmire planned to do to him. Or he would come out into safety, to Rissa.
After what felt like a hundred beats of his fast and tiny heart he heard Miss Whipmire’s voice. ‘You will regret this, girl, I promise you.’
And then Barney heard the lock turn, and, as the drawer opened with a metallic whisper, he was back out in the light and in the arms of his best friend, who whispered warmly, ‘marmalade’ into his ear.
‘Breathe so much as a word about this little misunderstanding and I will make your life hell,’ sa
id Miss Whipmire. ‘Trust me, no one will believe the words of a scruffy twelve-year-old girl over her head teacher.’
As he was carried out of the door, Barney stared back over Rissa’s arm. He could just about see Miss Whipmire staring at him, pointing to the skull pen pot and mouthing the words, ‘You’re next!’
A Bad Feeling
RISSA WALKED OUT of school, out of the gates, and Barney noticed (though Rissa didn’t) that Pumpkin was still there on the pavement. And the ginger cat was still staring at him.
As Rissa kept walking, Barney felt her heart beating hard but not fast, like a bull against a gate. She was worried. Of course she was. She was walking out of school in the middle of the day. Plus, she had just made one very big enemy in the shape of Miss Whipmire.
And, speaking of the former Siamese cat, she was there now, outside the school. Barney could see her about two hundred metres behind them. She was just a speck from this distance. But she was watching as they walked down the very long and straight row of terraced houses which formed Alfred Street. Or was she?
No.
She wasn’t watching them. She was crouching down. Why?
Then Barney realized.
Miss Whipmire was crouching next to Pumpkin. She was telling the cat something. And now it was the ginger swiper himself who was staring at Barney and Rissa. And he kept staring right up until they turned the corner onto Hitchcock Road. Barney remembered what Pumpkin had told him earlier. ‘And, besides, we be ’avin’ our orders.’
‘It’s all right, little cat, don’t be scared,’ Rissa was whispering in his ear. ‘Miss Whipmire is just a very sad and bitter lady. Most humans aren’t like that. You’ll see …’
Barney realized where they were going. They were heading towards the river, which meant Rissa was planning on taking him to her barge. Which would mean food and drink and safety.