‘Hello. What are you doing out here?’ I asked her.
‘I’m thinking,’ she said simply. ‘I sometimes like to come out here, think, and watch people walk by. I feel like I can tell a lot about a person from their walk. Sometimes I make up little stories in my head about them. I might see a businessman in a fancy suit and sunglasses and think to myself, He is an international bank robber in disguise. And you? What have you been doing?’
‘I was thinking too… maybe we could think together?’
‘Absolutely. I love thinking with somebody else.’
We sat in silence for a few minutes, but what I really wanted was to hear more of Ania’s story. I asked whether she could tell me the next instalment. As she started to speak, I drifted away from the horrible present, transported into her world.
‘You got up to the part when you jumped,’ I reminded her.
‘So I did. I told you that everything turned black because I lost consciousness, but only for a few seconds. When I came round, I saw two faces leaning over me. I couldn’t recognise them at first, and there were voices that came in and out of focus, like a faulty radio transmitter.
‘It took a few minutes before the awful pain in my left ankle hit me and I realised that I couldn’t move it. Then my mind put together everything that had happened. I remembered the soldiers, the train, the boys, the leap – and I knew that something had gone wrong.
‘“We’re so far from where we were supposed to be,” Henryk kept repeating over and over, and Adam cursed under his breath. It turned out that we’d jumped much earlier than we should have done and that we were nowhere near any form of civilisation.
‘“We need to get to the main road,” Adam said. “Then we can flag someone down.”’
‘But you couldn’t find anyone?’ I guessed.
‘We couldn’t even find the road. We walked and walked. I felt guilty because I was slowing them down, hobbling on my ankle. After a few hours, the pain was so bad that the boys had to carry me between them. We walked through forest, then fields, and eventually we managed to find a cobbled path.
‘By nightfall, we were so exhausted that we flung ourselves on the ground by the side of the path and we fell asleep almost straightaway.
‘When a clip-clop sound cut through my sleep, I wasn’t sure whether it was real or if it had been created by my tired brain, like those travellers who dream up an oasis in the dry desert. But then I heard a horse somewhere close, and I opened my eyes to see an old woman walking towards us. I say old, but I’m sure she was much, much younger than I am now. Age seems so different depending on how old you are, doesn’t it? She was probably not much older than fifty. I thought of her as our saviour.
‘She got the boys to help her lift me on to the back of her cart and then she sat us down among her milk crates and covered us with a huge canvas sheet. We were so relieved that we had found someone to look after us that we just sat there holding hands like little children. I told myself that everything would be fine now.’
I could tell by Ania’s expression that things didn’t turn out fine, and I gripped her hand, scared of what she would say next.
‘We’d been travelling for a few minutes when we heard shouting,’ she continued.
‘“Stop! Get down!” It was a man’s voice with a heavy accent. I didn’t even have to peep out from under the sheet to know that it was an enemy soldier. The only thing we didn’t know was whether he was alone, or whether there was a whole army there.
‘We heard the sound of our woman getting down.
‘“Where are you going?” the horrible voice demanded.
‘“Home. It’s not far from here – just round the left turn.” I was surprised at how calm she sounded.
‘“And where did you come from?”
‘“The market. I was selling my milk.”
‘“Your milk. She was selling her milk,” the voice repeated mockingly. There was the sound of stifled laughter. So there was more than one of them.
‘“Show us,” the voice demanded suddenly and the breath caught in my throat. “Sommer, check the woman is not a dirty liar.” That was it. I was certain then that we would die, and I imagined that before we did, we would be tortured for trying to escape.
‘I held my breath and clutched Henryk’s hand, and then the canvas sheet was lifted from above our heads and a face peered in.
‘It was a face that I remember in such great detail that I can paint every hair and wrinkle on it. He wasn’t what most people would think of as a beautiful man. He was middle-aged, with mousy-brown hair, a thick beard and a scar on his left cheek in the shape of a question mark. But his gaze was deep and kind, and I could see how shocked he was when he saw me. I think he almost didn’t notice the boys – he looked at me, and my ankle, which was very swollen by then, and I could have been imagining it, but I thought that his head shook slightly. Then he raised his finger to his lips.
‘“Well, anything interesting?” yelled the horrible voice.
‘I stared back at the man and thought that it was the last time that I would be free. The silent seconds stretched out between us like a thread that would snap at any moment.
‘And then, to my shock, he said in a calm voice, “No. Nothing. Milk crates.”’
‘He let you go?’ I asked Ania. I couldn’t believe it. ‘But why?’
‘I asked myself that question for many days afterwards. I stared at his face as it broke into a smile. It was a sad smile, but for a moment, it brought together two people on opposite sides of a great divide, and it felt wonderful. It felt really wonderful.
‘“You must be careful,” barked the horrible voice to our woman, “a fraulein like you shouldn’t be out on her own.” He laughed again and there was a sudden smacking sound, skin on skin. He must have hit her. I could feel Adam’s body tense when he heard it, and it looked like he was about to get out and attack the man. We managed to pull him back, and I could barely believe it when the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves could be heard. We were on our way again.’
Ania paused and I waited with my eyes closed for her to continue. In my mind, I was still there with her on that cart, underneath the old sheet, staring at Sommer hopefully. I didn’t want the moment to end.
‘I think that’s all for today,’ Ania said quietly, and when I looked up, I saw that she was rubbing each of her shoulders with the opposite hand, as if she wanted to warm herself. I helped her to her feet and picked up the parrot walking stick. Then I led her indoors and sat her down in her favourite chair in the conservatory.
‘So that’s why you call him “The Good Solider”?’ I asked her. ‘Even though he was part of the enemy army who did awful things?’
Ania smiled eagerly, and I knew that I’d hit the nail on the head.
‘Yes, because actually it’s not about sides, when you think about it, is it? He did what he could to be good and kind in the circumstances that he was in. The world around us was filled with darkness, but within him there was more light than dark. That is all that matters. That’s all that you can ask of any human being.’
TWELVE
I couldn’t sleep that night. I wasn’t sure why Sommer had decided to spare Ania but I knew it was incredibly brave of him to risk that for something he believed in.
And the more I thought about this, the more I realised that I would never be remembered as brave or good. If anything, it would be the opposite. When I shut my eyes, a rolled-up letter appeared before me, tucked carefully behind the glass of a museum cabinet. A dense crowd was gathered around, people pushing past one another to read the sign that explained what it was.
Those who managed to draw closer recoiled in disgust. It took me hours to get to the front of the queue, and when I did, I saw the familiar crest along with Mr Kim’s scanned signature, and I knew. I read the title of the exhibit: Letter from a Bully to an Innocent Boy.
The words were still circling in my head as I went downstairs to breakfast. I felt dizzy with tiredness.
‘Are you feeling OK, love?’ Mum asked. I must have looked terrible for her to notice.
‘Fine,’ I mumbled. I didn’t want to get into it. I knew that there was nothing that they could do to help.
The doorbell went as we were finishing eating and Dad answered it.
‘Hello, Gemma,’ I heard him say. ‘What brings you here so early?’
‘I thought I’d walk the long way round and pick Kat up on the way to school,’ she announced, coming into the kitchen.
‘Would you like a croissant?’ Mum asked. Why was it that even she couldn’t see through Gem and realise how mean and unkind she could be?
‘I’m all right, thanks. I’ve already had breakfast.’ She was bursting to speak to me. Her hair wasn’t as perfect as usual and she had a sheen of sweat on her forehead. I imagined that she must have run all the way to our house.
I took a deliberately long time gathering my stuff so that I could delay the conversation we were about to have. I probably managed about three minutes.
‘Did you get it?’ she asked as soon as we were out of the door. ‘I saw you talking to him outside school yesterday. Nice work. Did you get his number?’
‘Yes.’
‘Great. You’re a star,’ she said, looking at me with genuine admiration as we got on the bus. ‘How did you manage it?’
I lowered my voice and looked frantically up and down the bus to make sure that there was nobody there who we knew. I spied a couple of girls at the back from our class, but they seemed far enough away to be out of earshot.
‘He just gave it to me. He said his mum’s been encouraging him to invite some of his new friends round.’
‘Wow, he’s deluded, isn’t he? Anyway, you’ve got it. That’s the main thing. I’ve been thinking about what to send him. I reckon we’ll start off with something small. We’ll say, Hey, I’ve been thinking about you a lot. You’re awesome. Thanks for giving me your number xxx.’
‘What? Why?’ I asked her. ‘Don’t you just want to tell him where to turn up and what time?’
‘It’s all about making him believe that you’re properly into him,’ she explained, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘We’ll send that this morning and then we’ll build it up from there. The next message can say: I thought there was something magical about you from the first time I saw you. Trust me – I know how to handle these things.’
‘But that’s mad. He’ll know that I don’t mean it. Nobody says stuff like that.’
‘He’s not just anybody. He’s the world’s biggest freak. It’s exactly the sort of thing he’ll believe. He believed the charity-day thing, didn’t he?’
‘That was different. And what if he tries to talk to me?’
‘Ah, yeah, that’s the thing. You’re going to have to avoid him until we get him to agree to the meeting. Pretend you fancy him, but you’re shy. I’ll be with you all the time so you don’t have to worry. I’ll make sure that I lead you away when I see him coming.’
‘But why do we have to do all this?’ I didn’t intend for the question to sound so much like a wail.
‘What do you mean, Katherine?’ she snapped.
When she used my full name, I knew that I was in trouble. She looked at me and I was surprised her voice shook a bit.
‘How can you even ask that? He waltzed in trying to show everyone that he was the best and the cleverest, wanting to imply I’m the idiot. And then he stole my limelight in the one thing that I love the most.’ It was the first time she’d admitted aloud how much that had got to her, and I could see by the way she suddenly clamped her hand over her mouth that she hadn’t meant to say it.
‘He can’t get away with everything he’s doing,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Someone needs to put him in his place and it should be us – that’s why we’re doing Operation Loser Boy. Don’t you want to help stand up for me? Because, you know, you don’t have to. I can get Ruby or Dilly…’
‘Well, maybe you should get one of them to do it instead. I don’t want to be messaging him stuff that isn’t true! He probably wouldn’t believe it anyway, but if he does, it will be so cruel.’
It was the first time that I’d said something like that to Gem. I felt strangely lightheaded.
She was shocked, and then the shock turned into her getting really, really mad.
We didn’t look at each other for the rest of the bus journey, or the short walk into school.
It was only when we sat down at our desks that she said, ‘Give me your phone!’
‘No,’ I replied firmly. But she snatched it out of my hand before I could stop her. She found his name in the list of contacts and started typing.
I tried to grab it back, but she was too quick. And that was when I couldn’t bear it any longer. Rage pounded through me. This was it. I would tell Julius the truth at the next possible opportunity. I no longer cared what Gem thought, or how mad she’d get.
Julius turned in his seat almost as soon as Gem hit ‘Send’ and I ducked under the desk pretending to look for something in my bag. Telling him would be much harder than I imagined.
The whole morning, I felt as if I was walking on burning lava, just like Girl 38. In fact, the only way I managed to get through the day was by pretending to be her. I tiptoed around, trying to dodge the Vilk as he sneaked from one classroom to another. The trouble was that he was swift of foot and appeared in places where Girl 38 least expected him.
The main thing was to keep your head down and be constantly on the look-out for his mane, which was a particularly bright, pale yellow. Whenever Girl 38 saw it, she was careful to step behind the trunk of a moon tree to avoid being caught.
Gem still wouldn’t give me my phone back and sent another message to Julius before lunch. After that I decided that it was safest to hang out in the quietest and most hidden corner of the library until the final period of double maths. I knew it was very unlikely that he would find me there and I sat doing my homework with a stash of books in front of my face.
But when I got back to our form room, she was busy with my phone.
‘What are you writing now?’ I whispered frantically.
‘Something very important.’
She looked at the message, satisfied, and hit ‘Send’. ‘I was just reassuring our friend Julius, who says: Thanks for the compliments. Do you mean them, or are you joking? Want to meet me on the way out of school? J. So I’ve told him, I think you’re so hot, but I’m too shy to talk to you. The way you look at me makes me shiver.’
‘What? What does that even mean?’ I asked Gem. ‘“Makes me shiver” – nobody says that kind of thing.’
She sighed. ‘Yes, they do, Kat,’ she said, giving me a pitying look. ‘Come to mine tomorrow around midday. Dil and Ruby are coming. Mum will make us pancakes and then we can plan our strategy. Oh, and you can have your phone back then – maybe.’
I forced myself to keep my lips zipped, because I knew that if I didn’t, something terrible (which I might regret) would come out. I breathed slowly in and out three times, counting the length of my breath in my head. One caterpillar. Two caterpillars. Three caterpillars.
It sounds silly now, but Mum taught me to do it when I was little. I used to get frightened in some situations and my heart would start racing. I was scared of big dogs, and one time, a huge Alsatian came running up to me in the playground. I lay on the ground and shut my eyes, and I remember that there was a moment when I couldn’t even breathe.
Finally, Mum reached me, put me on her lap and rocked me. The dog had gone back to the other side of the playground. From a distance, I could tell it wasn’t dangerous, but in that moment the feeling was so overwhelming that I couldn’t focus on anything. Not even getting the air in and out of my lungs. The memory made me think of Julius and his sheep.
Ever since the dog incident, whenever I’m scared, or angry, or sad, I always use the breathing strategy. I hadn’t had to use it for a long time. When my heart went back to feeling normal, I tried
to cheer myself up with the thought that there was only one double period left and then, after school, I could visit Ania. I started to count down the minutes.
She was there in the conservatory when I got home and I could feel my shoulders slumping with relief as I caught a glimpse of her from my bedroom window. I ran straight over to see her. Her long grey hair was piled on her head and held up with something that I thought was a large pencil, but turned out to be a knitting needle.
She’d finished the charcoal outline of Sommer and I could see that she was adding colour, but slowly – building up from the palest peach of the skin to a darker pink hue around the cheeks. The eyes she’d coloured a deep-sea green.
I sat on the armrest of her chair to watch her work.
‘I’ve had the most terrible day,’ I said.
‘I can see.’
She went to the kitchen and re-emerged minutes later with a cracked spotty teapot and the usual two mugs with slices of lemon and a spoon of honey already inside. She handed me the Victorian tea glass.
‘Maybe today you want to tell me something about it?’ she asked quietly, and when I looked into her eyes, it struck me that she was the only person who sensed the storm hidden in me – she had seen it all along and was patiently waiting for me to confide in her when the moment was right, and it finally was right. I knew that I could trust her.
‘I’m part of something that I didn’t want to do – a cruel thing that I know is going to badly hurt another person. I’m…’
Tears were filling my eyes. Any second now they would brim over.
She sat next to me and closed her bony hands gently around mine. They were warm.
‘And has it already hurt this other person?’
‘Sort of, but I think it’s about to get a whole lot worse.’
‘Sometimes when difficult situations like this happen, it is good to park them for a moment, if you can. Your mind needs a break from worrying, and then when you go back to thinking about them, you might surprise yourself with a solution. Perhaps I could help?’
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