The Illustrated Child

by Polly Crosby

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘But what did the boys see in the book, then?’

  He shook his head as if coming out of a trance, his eyes almost hidden by his furrowed brow. ‘I don’t know, Romilly,’ he said at last, but something about the way he said it made me question his honesty. He lifted a hand and rubbed it over his mouth. ‘Excuse me, I need to…’ he broke off, patting me on the shoulder. ‘Keep an eye on them, would you?’

  I followed the boys at a distance, careful to keep out of sight, wondering what Dad had been talking about. The garden was so big and so wild that it was easy to drop down behind bramble bushes or old piles of logs every time they turned my way. I studied them meticulously: they must be brothers; they both had the same upturned nose. The older one had ducked into the space under the weeping willow. I could see his feet circling the bare earth.

  ‘This’d be a great place to dig,’ he was saying to the younger boy who had followed him in.

  I crept closer, listening intently.

  ‘We can see your feet,’ the older boy said.

  I parted the willow’s branches. ‘It is my garden,’ I said, ‘I’m allowed to be here.’

  ‘Yeah, but do you have to earwig in on other people’s conversations?’

  The circle of shade was cool on my bare feet. I sat down and watched the two boys. ‘My dad says there’s ghosts buried here,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t you mean skeletons?’ the older boy said. ‘You don’t bury ghosts.’

  I shrugged. ‘I’m just telling you what he said. I thought it might help you find the treasure. Are you going to dig, then?’

  ‘Not with you looking at us like that.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ I picked up a stick and trailed it idly in the earth. ‘What are you looking for, anyway?’

  ‘We told you: treasure.’ The older boy was pacing the small circle now, prodding the ground with his toe.

  ‘But how do you know it’s here?’

  ‘We don’t.’

  ‘Then what are you doing here?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s fun looking, isn’t it? Have you got any tips?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘But you’re his daughter. You’re the star. You must know something.’

  The star. I bristled at the word. ‘I don’t. What do you mean, treasure, anyway?’

  ‘I only know what the man on the news said, that there’s treasure buried in the book. Grown-ups are leaving their jobs to hunt for it.’

  A shiver ran down my spine. ‘What? That’s crazy. You can’t bury treasure in a book.’

  ‘No, the book holds the clues. We think there’s going to be another book, and it’ll have more clues in it. Maybe he’ll make loads of them and we won’t be able to find the treasure until we’ve got all the books.’

  ‘Don’t forget the spooky lady!’ the younger boy piped up.

  ‘What spooky lady?’ I said, but before the boys could answer there came a rattling sound from the garden, like old bones knocking together, and we all jumped. I peeped out through the branches and saw it was just Dad clicking the old gate shut, a letter in his hand.

  The older boy let out a breath. ‘David gets freaked out by the spooky lady near the end of the book. You know, the one without a face?’

  I tried to picture each page, but I couldn’t think of anything that matched their description. ‘Sounds creepy.’

  ‘She is!’ David squeaked, his eyes huge in the growing dark. ‘She just turns up on that page, and then disappears again.’

  ‘And she’s got no face?’

  ‘Well, no, but not in a freaky way,’ the older boy said, ‘it’s just, she’s sort of in shadow and you can’t see her eyes. There’s no mention of her in the story either.’ He stopped suddenly, crouching down on the ground, leaning on the handle of his spade.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Look here,’ he said, reaching down to touch the earth.

  I got up, bringing the stick with me.

  ‘Is it treasure?’ the young boy piped up, but he fell silent as he saw what his brother had found.

  We all stared at the ground.

  ‘Do you think it belongs to a dog?’ the younger boy said.

  ‘Nah, it’s way too big,’ said his brother, ‘maybe a wolf, or a bear—’

  ‘Or a panther,’ I said, looking at the huge paw mark in the bare earth, a tingle of excitement trickling over my skin.

  They both looked at me.

  ‘Where would a panther come from?’ the older boy scoffed.

  ‘It’s no more unusual than a bear. And besides, there’ve been sightings round the village for ages now.’

  ‘A panther,’ the little boy whispered, his eyes huge in his small, pale face.

  The trailing branches of the willow began to shimmer and rustle all around us, and we looked up, trying to see past them. The garden seemed to have grown larger and wilder in the last few moments. My hand flew to my mole, stroking it anxiously.

  ‘Romilly!’ Dad’s shout channelled through the willow’s leaves, breaking the chill that had settled over us.

  ‘It’s my bedtime,’ I said, getting up and brushing the soil from my dress, ‘let me know if you find any treasure. You know where I live.’

  That evening, after Dad had said goodnight, I sat in bed, my thoughts lost in shadows of panthers and ghostly women. I turned the pages of Romilly and the Kitten, trying to find the scary lady the boys had spoken about. It took me two searches of the entire book before I found her.

  Just as they said, she was on one of the last pages. It was a picture of the garden in full summer bloom. Monty and I were sitting on a swing tied to a branch of the beech tree before it had fallen. In the distance, on the path that led to the meadow, was the silhouette of a long-haired woman. The boys were right: there was something sinister about her blank face that stirred an uneasy feeling inside me.

  But what kept me awake that night was not the shadows of her face or the lack of features, but the fact that I couldn’t work out which way she was going; away from us and down to the meadow, or creeping towards us as we swung under the beech tree, oblivious.

  In September I started back at school, but right from the first day, something had changed. On the way in, as I was approaching the school gates, I noticed a man holding a camera. The girls around me smoothed their hair down and licked their lips, but to my surprise, the man lifted it to his eye as I got closer, and began to take photos of me. When the girls saw who it was aimed at, they flounced into their little groups, frowning at me, whispering and pointing.

  ‘Romilly!’ the man said. ‘Over here, Romilly, look this way, darling.’

  I dropped my head and hid behind my hair, which was thankfully long enough now to conceal my face.

  The man was there again as I came out that afternoon, and again the next morning. By the next week there were two more, all with huge cameras that clicked and flashed at me like giant black insects. The headmistress stood like a sentry each day, shepherding me inside, but I caught the look on her face as she took me to my classroom, a scrunching of the brow that lay somewhere between frustration and pity.

  At home one evening, as I was scooping up tomato soup, Dad said, ‘I had a call from school today.’

  I laid my spoon down, my appetite gone.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me there were photographers at school?’

  ‘I didn’t want to worry you. You’re busy. You’re…’

  Dad sighed, running his hands over his face. ‘Romilly, I’m never too busy that you can’t talk to me. Christ, I had no idea it had got to this point.’ With a jerk, he stood up from the table. ‘I need to think about this. I need to—’ Without finishing, he strode from the room, and I stared at the congealing soup in my bowl, feeling very small.

  When Dad didn’t return, I got up slowly and tiptoed to his study. I knocked softly on the door. There was silence for a long time. I stood in the dappled light trickling in from the hallway window. Eventually
the door creaked open and Dad stood there, blinking in the light. It took him a moment to focus, as if he were coming out of a trance. His beard had grown recently until it covered almost all of his face, and his teeth flashed within the dark stubble like a sly beaver.

  We observed each other for a long minute. Then Dad placed his hand on my head, cupping my skull like he used to.

  ‘I don’t want to go back to school,’ I whispered. His grip tightened ever so slightly. Then he cleared his throat and nodded slowly, a smile lifting his sad face just for a moment.

  ‘OK,’ he said lightly, ‘understandable. It’s overrated anyway. We’ll home school you.’ He shrugged, then he turned and walked back into his study, closing the door softly behind him, leaving me blinking in surprise in the hall.

  Eight

  Addressing me over a meagre lunch of cold potatoes and salad a few weeks later, Dad said, in his most pretentious voice, ‘Character is destiny, Romilly!’

  He had the Times Literary Supplement open at a two-page spread, all about his book, and his fingers were covered in newsprint from smoothing the creases in the pages so often.

  Meals were now often the only time that we met, we two Kemps, coming together from the furthest points of the house and garden, descending upon the lime green kitchen to inhale whatever was in the fridge before peeling away back to our thoughts and projects. I had been home schooled now for nearly four weeks. I knew this because I ticked off each day on my calendar. Dad’s idea of home schooling was quite free range.

  Dad grabbed the tomato sauce from the table and liberally slathered his salad with it.

  ‘Heraclitus knew his stuff, Roe,’ he said, shaking the ketchup so hard that it splattered against the wall. ‘Just think about it. You, and only you, will determine what happens in your books. Whatever you do, wherever you go, that’s what I’ll write about.’ A piece of potato skin had lodged itself over a front tooth as he talked. I giggled. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To decide what happens to you in your stories? Rather like being a god.’

  I opened my mouth to speak, but he carried on, enjoying the sound of his own voice.

  ‘And since we’re talking gods, there’s nothing wrong with having a god complex. Nothing at all.’ He drew himself up to his full height. ‘I am those pictures, and they are me, after all.’

  ‘But aren’t the pictures of me?’ I asked, a lump of cold potato bulging in my cheek, my eyes so transfixed by the length of his black eyebrows that I only just noticed the flash of laughter cross his face before he resumed an imperious expression once again.

  After I left school, I began to forget about the fame that came with the book, and apart from the odd flash of a camera aimed at us when we were walking to the shop in the village, I hardly noticed any change. As autumn took hold, Stacey and I spent much of our time out in the countryside, exploring the marshes and fields. The press hadn’t yet cottoned on to the fact that I was home schooled, so we were rarely bothered.

  But one chilly December day, something happened that revealed the double edge of my fame.

  I was holding tightly onto Dad’s hand as we sped along the pavement in the local town. We were in need of a ham hock, and the butcher’s was about to close. The streets were lit by a myriad of tiny multicoloured Christmas lights, making the wet pavement come alive with a hundred kaleidoscopic colours. I stopped to look in the window of a bookshop, spotting a flash of Dad’s book inside.

  A gnarled hand shot out and pinched my shoulder from behind, and I turned to find a squinting old woman leering down towards me, her skin like almond paste.

  ‘Where’s the treasure, Romilly?’ she whispered, her eyes twinkling.

  Dad, having noticed I was lagging behind, politely peeled the hand from my shoulder and pulled me away the way we’d come, the butcher’s forgotten, looking back occasionally and frowning. I’m sure she was just a kindly old lady and nothing more, but still my dreams contained her for weeks, her bony fingers clutching at my shoulder, pulling me further away from Dad each night.

  The darker evenings of winter meant an earlier curfew, and I consequently didn’t see Stacey as much as I would have liked, but Dad agreed that we could have a sleepover so that we could catch up properly. He needed to go away to London for a night, and Stacey said she would stay with me at Braër and keep me company.

  It was a Wednesday, and Stacey and I settled ourselves in the smaller sitting room that we called the snug, eating pot noodles and waiting to see Dad’s face on the TV. It was a treat for me to be allowed up after eight. Usually I would hear the reassuring Wogan theme tune from upstairs, tucked up in bed. Tonight it felt alarmingly loud.

  Dad was to be interviewed between a man called Paul McCartney and a woman called Debbie Allen. We scooped ribbons of noodles into our mouths, Monty snoring quietly between us, half listening as Mr McCartney talked about heather and hills and living on a farm. I wondered if Wogan was actually a farming programme and Dad would come on to talk about Braër’s ancient working past. My eyelids began to droop.

  Eventually, the man disappeared from the sofa, and Mr Wogan turned his tanned face to the screen. For a moment the TV was silent, and all I could hear was the flow of water in the pipes of Braër’s walls. All of a sudden the house felt very empty, and I grabbed Stacey’s hand for reassurance.

  Mr Wogan was speaking again. ‘Now, there are certain books that capture the hearts of young and old alike. My next guest is both author and illustrator of just such a book.’

  Stacey squeezed my hand, grinning, and my stomach lurched. Mr Wogan continued, ‘And yet this book is slightly different. It is about a girl, but not just any little girl: it is about the author’s very own daughter.’ I planted a kiss on Monty’s head, and he woke up, meowing loudly in return.

  ‘Yet some people say it is not just a book.’ Here, he raised his eyebrows and gazed more sternly at us sitting at home. ‘No. Some people say that hidden within its pages is a treasure hunt! Please welcome warmly, Tobias Kemp!’

  And as the applause and the theme music exploded through the TV, there was Dad, bounding into the studio, a hastily put together suit flapping as he ran, orange tie flitting through the air.

  Stacey squeaked with excitement and my stomach gave a small leap. Dad was here in the room with us, his body shrunk to the size of a mouse, gallivanting across the little TV screen, while really he was far away in London.

  ‘Did you know about the treasure hunt?’ Stacey said, looking at me accusingly.

  ‘No. Well… not really.’

  ‘Liar. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t know. Honest!’ I looked at the tiny-Dad on TV, and suddenly wished he was here in the house with us. ‘Stacey, I’m scared,’ I said in a small voice, my tummy squirming.

  Stacey reached for my hand again. ‘Don’t be. I’m here. And Monty will protect us.’ She smiled, and I felt a little better. ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘if you went on TV, everyone would know who you were. It’s safer that you’re here.’

  She was right. We had discussed the idea of me going on the show with Dad. The producers had been very insistent about it. I had ironed my denim dress, which was getting very short, and Dad had bought a new pack of red tights in preparation. But then, a few days before we were due to go, I had been on my own down near the meadow, dipping my hand into the frost-covered grass and picking out fallen pine cones to make into birdfeeders, when I had sensed movement out of the corner of my eye. Not the predictable movement of the mobiles, but a swift jolting twitch that made me scan the length of the yew hedge. It took me a while to locate it, but eventually my eyes settled on the gleam of a dark camera lens poking through the leaves. Above the hedge I could just make out the top of a woollen hat.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I’d asked politely. Dad always told me to be polite.

  ‘Are you Romilly Kemp?’ The voice had come through the hedge, slightly gravelly as if some of it had got stuck in the sharp branches.

  As I’d taken a
step back, the lens stayed trained on my chest. ‘I…’

  At that moment I’d heard Dad’s voice far away at the house, calling me in for lunch. The man was still crouched on the other side of the hedge, breathing deeply, the hedge jiggling as he panted. I’d turned and ran.

  At the house I’d told Dad, and he’d pulled me inside and shut the door.

  And so, Dad had gone to Wogan on his own, and I sat locked up at home, safe in the cosy snug with Stacey, watching with wonder and only a tiny bit of resentment as he gazed back at me from the other side of the screen.

  ‘Now, Tobias,’ Mr Wogan began, ‘your book has been out for a while now. What gave you the idea of writing it in the first place?’

  Dad uncrossed his legs and cleared his throat. He looked nervous. His beard had been trimmed, and it looked too neat.

  ‘Well, it was really when we moved to the country. I had decided to make a living as an artist, but then I saw this advertisement for a Siamese kitten, and it all went from there.’

  As he spoke, the screen changed to a montage of Dad’s pictures from the book: paintings of Braër; Monty up a tree; me sitting on my bed. I yelped with excitement.

  ‘So Montgomery the cat is real?’

  Another painting flashed up on the screen, this time of Monty as a kitten curled in Dad’s hand. The audience gave a collective ‘Aah’.

  ‘Yes, he’s very real. But he doesn’t talk in real life.’ The camera flashed back to Dad and the audience laughed. ‘It was all about the cat’s relationship with my daughter. All these stories popped into my head.’

  ‘And where do you create your books?’ The picture zoomed in on Mr Wogan, a smile flickering over his lips.

  ‘At the moment I do it all in my study, but I’m hoping to build a writing shed soon. I need silence and no distractions. It’s a tiny room: barely a broom cupboard, really. If I can’t move, I get on with my work. I sit squeezed in between a desk and a plan chest.’

  Wogan smiled again. ‘Oh bless.’

  ‘The room hangs over the moat. You have no idea how cold it’s got in the last few weeks, I can see my breath at times. But I have a little gas heater to keep me snug. It smells a bit funny, and I’m sure it’s played its part in my more surreal paintings.’