She broke down into loud sobs and put her head back on her arm.
Sam leaned toward me. “Amy had the lead part in the school play, but she didn’t arrive for the evening performance.”
He brushed some popcorn off his yellow T-shirt.
“Her friends are really angry with her. The whole thing had to be canceled, as they didn’t have an understudy. The headmaster made an announcement and had to send the audience home.”
I folded my arms as I watched Amy crying. “Well, I can understand why they were so angry. She spoiled it for everybody! I don’t blame her friends for calling her a loser.”
I could feel Sam staring at me, and I glanced toward him.
“So, if I was to tell you that Amy’s mum had lost yet another job that day, would you think differently?”
I shrugged. The popcorn container had vanished from his hand. He looked all serious.
“And if I was to tell you that her mum was really upset, and I mean really upset, and she was crying about how they were going to pay the rent and buy food, would that change your mind?” I opened my mouth to say something but shut it again.
“And what if you knew that Amy had a baby brother who was just a year old? And because her mum was so upset she’d locked herself in her bedroom, and it was up to Amy to give her little brother his dinner and give him a bath and put him to bed. Would you think she had let her friends down then?”
I looked back at the bedroom and at the girl crying on the bed. I wanted to talk to her, to tell her it was all going to be okay, but I couldn’t.
“Amy’s mum struggles, Nate. She doesn’t always manage to do things that other parents do, so Amy makes up for it. She cleans the house, she cooks dinner, she does the dishes. And you know what? She’s eight.”
Amy was sitting up now. She’d stopped crying, and Meena, the imaginary friend, was sitting beside her, talking in whispers.
“What’s Meena doing?”
Sam smiled. “Her job,” he said proudly.
The little girl listened and wiped her nose on her sleeve as her imaginary friend whispered into her ear. Her shoulders were still trembling from her crying, but she was definitely calming down.
“Okay, okay, so Amy’s having a tough time. I get it. So why didn’t she tell her friends and teachers that this was why she couldn’t be in the play? Why doesn’t she tell someone what’s going on?”
I turned to face Sam. He seemed to have aged slightly, and his eyes were a deep amber.
“Not everyone wants to tell other people their business, do they, Nate? Just like your mum didn’t want to tell your grandma about Gary. Remember? Sometimes people might appear to walk tall, but on their shoulders they could be carrying an incredibly heavy load that you know nothing about.”
I blinked back at him. He was right. It wasn’t Grandma’s fault that she hadn’t let us stay that day. She didn’t know how bad things were with Gary—how could she if Mum hadn’t said anything?
I looked back at the wall but was faced with the scruffy, peeling paint and cobwebs that had been there a few moments ago. Amy and Meena were gone. I turned to ask Sam what had happened to Amy, but he’d disappeared too.
I found a packet of rice in the back of a kitchen cupboard, and I held on to it as I stared out of the kitchen window. Sam had been gone for nearly an hour now, so I was all on my own again. I’d been thinking about Amy and how sad she’d looked. If only she’d told her friends what was going on, then maybe they would have understood. Then they wouldn’t have been so angry with her. I don’t think Grandma would have been so angry with Mum if she’d known why we’d turned up with our bags on that day. I wished I could tell her. I wished I could talk to Mum. It was nearly twenty-four hours since she’d gone out for food. Maybe I should go and find the big house and tell Kitty what happened. But then she’d tell her parents and then they’d want to call the police and then I might get sent back to Gary.
I couldn’t risk it. I had to give Mum more time. She was probably just making plans. Trying to find somewhere better for us to live. But she wouldn’t have done that without telling me, surely? My eyes prickled with tears. Nothing was making sense. Mum always did her best for me, so maybe she was planning a nice surprise. A new home and a new town where I could have some friends over. I hadn’t had anyone over since Gary moved in. Well, I did once. Kyle Gibson …
Kyle’s mum had asked my mum if he could come to us for tea, as she had a meeting after work. He was the funniest boy in my year and I’d been trying to be his friend for months, so I was really pleased. At break time we started talking about what we would do and we decided to watch Back to the Future on DVD (which he’d never seen), and then we’d go to my room and listen to music on his phone.
We walked home from school, kicking a stone between us all the way, which was farther than I’d ever managed on my own. When the stone reached my driveway we both cheered and danced around, but then I stopped when I saw Gary’s car. He’d been living with us for a few months then.
“What’s he doing here?” I said. The front door opened and Gary appeared, beaming.
“Hi, guys! How you doing? You both have a good day at school?”
We went inside and kicked off our shoes, and Kyle threw his coat on the stairs. I quickly grabbed it and hung it up with mine. Gary hated it when things were left lying around.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I said.
Gary stared at me, wearing a fixed grin.
“I left early.”
He turned away.
“So, you must be Kyle,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m Gary. Pleased to meet you.”
Kyle gazed at the hand and then at me, and he rolled his eyes as they shook.
“Where’s Mum?” I said, looking down the hall toward the kitchen.
“I’ve sent her out for snacks. Popcorn, tortilla chips, and lemonade!” he said, rubbing his hands together. “You can’t have a friend over without snacks, can you, Nate?”
I stared at him as he slapped me on my back. I’d never seen him like this before. He was being … weird. And the whole “shaking Kyle’s hand” thing was just embarrassing.
“I’ve got the Monopoly set ready on the dining table, and then I thought we’d have a game in the garden. Do you like soccer, Kyle?”
Kyle’s jaw was hanging down.
“Errr … Yeah. Guess so.”
I felt light-headed. This wasn’t what I’d planned at all. Gary wasn’t leaving us alone.
“It’s okay; we’re going to watch a movie. Come on, Kyle,” I said, going into the living room.
I’d left the DVD by the TV that morning, but it was gone.
“Where’s Back to the Future?” I asked. “I put it right here.”
Gary stuck out his bottom lip and shrugged. Kyle looked at me and then at Gary.
“Monopoly it is then!” said Gary, clapping his hands together. “I thought I could be the top hat. Kyle, you can be the racing car, and Nate, you can be the thimble.”
He went over to the table, and the three pieces had been lined up already. Kyle stared at me. I didn’t know what to do. The air had gone all prickly again.
“Well … Maybe one game?” I said. “Is that okay?” I forced a smile at Kyle, who just looked horrified.
We played the game in near silence, and then Mum burst in about an hour later with a plastic bag full of snacks.
“Ah, here she is! I thought you’d gotten lost or something, Fiona. There’re two boys here dying for some popcorn. Aren’t you, boys?”
Kyle kept looking at me, his eyebrows nearly disappearing into his hair. All I could do was smile weakly.
“Sorry,” said Mum, nervously. “The register I was at broke down and I had to go to another aisle and …”
“Oh, I don’t think we need to know all the boring details, do we?” said Gary, laughing. Kyle snorted and then he stifled a yawn. My stomach ached from all the clenching.
The game went on for nearly three hou
rs. I tried my hardest to lose, so that at least Kyle and I could go and listen to some music, but Gary wasn’t having any of it. As he was the banker he kept giving me loans and making up stupid rules, like if you got a six you were given two hundred pounds. Mum tried to help and suggested we stop for pizza, but Gary said we could eat while we played, although he glared at me when I dropped a piece of pepperoni on the “jail” square.
Kyle spent most of the game staring out the front window, and as soon as his mum pulled up he shot out to the hall and stuffed his shoes on.
“See ya, Nate,” he said, opening the door and running down the driveway.
Gary got up and slammed the door behind him.
“Such a rude boy. Not even a thank-you,” he said. I ran up to my room.
I talked to Mum that night, telling her how Gary had spoiled the whole evening, but she just dismissed me. “He was only trying to make it nice for you, Nate. You know how he is.” The next day at school everyone was whispering behind their hands and pretending they weren’t. In French I overheard Kyle talking to Declan, and I caught the words Gary, Monopoly, and psycho before they turned around and giggled at me. I didn’t ask anyone else over after that.
I looked back down at the instructions on the rice. It looked like you had to weigh some out first and then measure the water. I couldn’t find any measuring cups, so I’d just have to guess. I was starving. I found a small pan and ran the cold tap and waited for the murky water to clear, and then I put it on the stove and turned the knob. It lit after the third click, and the purple flames roared as if they were thrilled with being released at last.
I stared out at the garden and the forest beyond and wondered if Kitty was still out there, randomly digging her holes. The trees sparkled with the frost that covered their bare branches. Nothing moved. The whole garden was frozen, like a black-and-white photograph.
Suddenly I realized that I knew the answer to Kitty’s riddle. It was there, on one line, staring her right in the face: I’m symbolic of life, yet watch over the dead.
Well, I wasn’t going to go out of my way to tell her I’d worked it out.
Tiny bubbles began to form on the water in the saucepan. I got ready to tip the rice in but stopped when I saw something moving outside. Next to the old iron gate was a large bush, and it appeared to be shaking. There must be something hiding underneath it. I turned the burner off and leaned toward the window. What was it? Could someone fit under there? Was there enough space for someone to hide? Someone like Gary, maybe? I was just going to check if the kitchen door was locked when the bush gave a final shudder and out popped the chicken. My shoulders dropped and I breathed a big sigh of relief. I watched as the chicken scratched around on the frosty earth, her beak stabbing at the frozen soil. I thought about the survival skills in my book. If I caught the chicken, then I’d have eggs. I mean, we’d have eggs. It would be a nice surprise for when Mum got back. And I knew how to boil eggs.
I grabbed my coat and sneakers, but when I stepped into the garden the chicken squeezed herself through the iron gate and into Kitty’s woods. I crunched along as quietly as I could, but the gate gave a strangled squeak as I opened it and the chicken fluttered farther away. She scratched at the leaves on the woodland floor and her head stabbed at the occasional grub, but she kept one yellow eye watching me. I walked slowly, my arms outstretched.
I dove for the chicken again and again, but even though she looked incredibly slow and stupid, she always managed to be just out of reach. Then I spotted Kitty, sitting on a log wearing her thick woolly hat. Her satchel was hanging from a branch and her shovel was lying on the ground and she was studying her piece of paper.
She hadn’t seen me and I wanted to keep it that way.
I dove for the chicken one last time, but this time she let out a squawk and scurried underneath some ferns.
Kitty’s head darted around.
“Nate! You’ve come to help! That’s fantastic.”
I shook my head, but before I had a chance to say I had no intention of helping, she waved the clue at me.
“I still don’t understand. It must be hidden beneath a tree, but I’m not getting anywhere. Look.”
Next to her was a shallow hole with a web of tree roots at the bottom. I’d been right: It would pretty much be impossible to dig anywhere in the woods.
“Is it worth it? All this searching?” I said. “Are you really expecting to find a great pile of treasure?”
She scowled at me. “What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. It just sounds a little bit … greedy?”
She looked hurt. “No. No, I’m not greedy. I just thought it would be a nice thing to do for Charlotte. That’s all. And with you knowing about all sorts of things … I thought you might be able to help me. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
Her bright blue eyes shone at me. I felt bad, so I looked away.
“No, I was just trying to catch a chicken, but it’s gone now, so I’m going to turn around and go back inside and leave you to it, all right?”
Putting her hands on her hips, she took a step toward me. “Chicken? Why are you catching a chicken? You’re not going to kill it and eat it for your lunch, are you?”
“What? No. I just thought, you know, it might need some shelter seeing as it’s so cold out here.”
Her face softened. To be honest, Kitty looked like the one needing shelter from the winter.
“I think you should go home, Kitty. Someone could freeze to death out here.”
She gasped. “You know about the accident then? I knew it! See? You know all sorts of stuff. You even know about the history of this place. I bet you know loads about the Turner-Wrights. You could be so helpful in solving this riddle, Nate. So helpful. I don’t think I can do it without you.”
This was getting ridiculous.
“I don’t know anything about an accident. I told you. I have no idea who you are or who your family are, I’m just here on some stupid holiday that I didn’t want to come on in the first place. You’re not the only one with problems, okay?”
I turned to leave.
“My dad always said it was his fault she died,” Kitty called after me.
I stopped.
“Who died?” I said. “What are you talking about?”
She tucked her hands into her armpits and sat back on the log.
“You’d better sit down,” she said.
I looked up at the swirl of smoke coming out of the cottage chimney and thought about Sam. Was he in there, waiting for me? Ready to show me another weird story? I couldn’t cope with any more of that right now. I looked at Kitty, and she sniffed a few times and then took out a tissue, and a huge trumpet noise erupted from her nose. It was nice to see a real person for a bit, even if she was … odd. I pulled my coat as tightly around me as I could, and then I sat at the opposite end of the log and listened.
“James, my dad, was born here. His grandfather set up a printing business over eighty years ago, and he bought the house with the money he made. When he died, everything was passed down to the firstborn child, my granddad, and then he passed it on to his own child.”
“Your dad?” I said.
“Yes. Dad had a sister named Charlotte who was younger than him.”
I quickly interrupted. “And it’s her treasure hunt you’re trying to solve?”
Kitty nodded. “Yes. As Dad was the eldest, he was destined to run the business after Granddad stopped working. He was next in line to inherit the house and the grounds. His whole future was mapped out for him; he’d be running the business and he’d be living here. Then after him it would all be passed on to his first child, and so on.”
I snorted.
“That all sounds a bit Victorian or something,” I said. “What if he didn’t want to run a business? Or have children, for that matter? Say he wanted to run off and teach surfing or be a musician or something?”
Kitty scowled at me again. “He wouldn’t have had a choice; it
was just the family tradition.”
“And did your dad’s sister mind? Knowing that her brother was going to be handed everything while she’d have to go out into the world on her own?”
Kitty edged along the log a little. “I don’t think she would have minded. She was really little, though, when it happened.”
“When what happened?” I asked, but Kitty ignored me and carried on with her story.
“One of their favorite things to do was put on plays. They only really had each other, remember. James would write the script and they’d both dress up and act it out for the rest of the family in the library.”
“The library? You’ve got a library?!”
Kitty nodded and looked a bit embarrassed. “Yep. We don’t really use that part of the house much anymore though. The east wing gets a little … chilly.”
I opened my mouth to say something about her having a “wing,” but I was getting the idea. Kitty’s house wasn’t just big—it was a stately home. The kind of place I would have visited on a school trip with a gift shop and a tearoom and immaculate lawns that we weren’t allowed to run around on. I guess the fact I couldn’t even see it from where we were should have given me some idea of the size of the grounds.
“Even though they grew up in an amazing house with acres of land it can be quite lonely living here, but Dad and Charlotte were the best of friends. Charlotte had asthma from an early age, and the doctors said living in a dusty old house didn’t help, so they played outside as much as they could. She used to catch lots of colds and chest infections, but Dad always looked out for her and made sure she didn’t overdo it.”
She stopped for a moment. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
I shook my head. It was just me and Mum. Thinking of her, my stomach lurched. It had been nice to forget about everything for a while.
“I don’t have any either,” she said, gazing back down at the ground.
That must have meant that Kitty was next in line to inherit the house and the business. I wondered how she felt about that.
The Light Jar Page 6