Potkin and Stubbs

by Sophie Green

  ‘It will be cold by then.’

  ‘Maybe I like it cold.’

  ‘No one likes it cold.’ Lil was beginning to get impatient. ‘Just take it.’ She held out the fork but Nedly backed away from the glinting prongs. He wasn’t sweating, but he looked like he should have been. He pursed his lips and put his hands as far into his pockets as they would go. Lil put the cutlery back down on the table.

  ‘You can’t take it, can you?’

  ‘Of course I can.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she whispered.

  ‘Nothing!’ Nedly replied, a little too loudly. He turned to leave but finding the door closed he just walked up to it and stood there.

  ‘Don’t you want any breakfast then?’

  He shook his head sadly.

  ‘Not even a satsuma? Come on. I’ve got one each. Catch!’ Lil threw it at Nedly.

  He turned as it left her fingertips and reached out a hand to deflect it but missed. He shouted, ‘No!’ as the orange hit his stomach, disappeared through it, bounced on the lino, and rolled under the sideboard.

  It took Lil’s brain half a minute to take in what her eyes had just seen. As the second hand of the kitchen clock hammered its way through 180 degrees, she stared at Nedly with unblinking eyes; her jaw dropped a fraction of an inch and she held her last breath inside until she could swallow it. When she finally exhaled, her lips were still trembling.

  Nedly was panic-stricken. He spluttered: ‘That orange is going to go mouldy under there.’

  ‘I know it will,’ said Lil. ‘But that’s not the point. The point is you couldn’t catch it, could you?’

  ‘I could have if it hadn’t been such a rubbish throw,’ he said lamely.

  Lil fired a raised eyebrow at him. ‘Really? So why don’t you fetch it out from under there for me and I’ll throw it again?’

  He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Nedly, the satsuma went right through you. It went through your belly and out the other side. You don’t think there’s anything weird about that?’

  Nedly looked as though he was trying to think of an explanation.

  ‘Don’t try to think of an explanation. We both know why you couldn’t catch it and it’s time to face up to reality.’

  ‘You must have thrown it pretty hard.’

  ‘No I didn’t. The satsuma went through you because you’re not really there. So you must be a –’ Lil could hardly believe what she was about to say. ‘You’re a ghost, Nedly.’

  A look of abject horror struck Nedly. He gasped at her and then ran through the kitchen wall with a pop and vanished.

  Lil shot out of the back door just in time to see him disappear through the garden wall; by the time she got to the alley beyond the back yard he was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Nedly? I’m sorry!’ she called out. ‘Are you there?’ There was a cold patch to her left near to some bins. Lil turned to it. ‘Nedly?’

  She shivered as a curl of mist formed in the cold spot and coalesced into the outline of a boy, pale and wide-eyed. He sniffed miserably. ‘That was a rubbish throw.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Lil. ‘You could have just told me.’

  ‘Told you what?’

  ‘Did you think I wouldn’t notice?’ Lil reached out to touch him but he flinched away; the tips of her finger just brushed his shoulder and sank through it. He felt light and cold like falling snow.

  Nedly gave her a look of pure outrage and yelled: ‘I am not a ghost – you can see me, you’re talking to me. That means I’m real. That proves it!’

  ‘But no one else can see you. Just me. Mum wasn’t ignoring you. Neither was that man in the bus station. They couldn’t see you.’ She looked him square in the eyes. ‘You’re a ghost, Nedly. Admit it.’

  ‘I am not. You are …’ He scowled at her and small grey patches appeared on his cheeks.

  ‘That’s the worst come-back in the books.’

  ‘No it isn’t.’

  Lil folded her arms. ‘You’re right, that was. You’re not really a Missing Persons case are you, Nedly?’

  He shook his head sadly.

  ‘If you’re a ghost that means you’re already d …’ She faltered when she saw the stricken look on Nedly’s face. ‘It means you’re de …’

  The bin lids in the alley began to hum, and then rattle. Lil felt the vibrations of the approaching train thrumming in the concrete beneath her feet. She struggled to shout over the freight train. ‘Look, Nedly, let’s face it, it means that you’re DEAD!’ The last word rang out in the low chug and shunt that followed the train.

  Nedly flickered like a hologram; Lil could see the bricks of the alley wall appear through his sweatshirt. When he spoke his voice came out like a whisper so faint that it could have been the whistle of the wind. ‘But I don’t want to be dead.’

  Lil felt a tear prick the back of her eye. She looked away, sniffed it back and cleared her throat.

  ‘I know, Nedly. No one does but there it is. That’s, you know, life. Now, I don’t know much about ghosts – other than what I’ve read – but you’re still walking the earth so for my money that means you’re not currently at peace. It may be that you’ve come to a sticky end – had you thought of that?’

  Nedly shrugged.

  ‘In my book, an unquiet spirit means only one thing.’ Lil fixed him with a steely glare. ‘Murder.’

  The word ‘murder’ hung in the air between them like a corpse from a gibbet.

  Lil pushed it to one side. ‘Come on, we’ve got work to do.’

  Nedly peered at her from behind a lock of hair. ‘Aren’t you scared?’

  Lil pulled the remaining satsuma out of her pocket and peeled it thoughtfully. ‘Probably not as much as I should be.’

  Chapter 5

  Research

  Lil and Nedly had the top deck of the City Bus all to themselves and they sat right at the front. A couple of people had tried to sit nearby but the strange atmosphere moved them downstairs again. The air around Lil was so cold that the mist on the window had frosted, the ‘Stopping’ sign kept blinking on and off at random, and the seats across the aisle creaked eerily as the bus swung round corners.

  ‘First thing is,’ said Lil, buttoning up her mac against the chill, ‘we have to find out who you are, I mean … were. Before. We need an I.D. Then we can see if there was anyone you knew who might have wanted to … harm you.’

  Nedly shuddered.

  ‘Sorry,’ Lil winced. ‘There’s no easy way to say it.’

  ‘So, where are we going?’

  ‘We’re going to search the Archives, Nedly, the secret store of articles that document the recent history of Peligan and its citizens. Not everyone has access but lucky for you, it’s a place I’m pretty familiar with.’ Lil tapped the side of her nose ominously. ‘That’s how I came to know about the Chronicle.’

  ‘What’s the Chronicle?’

  She gave him an exasperated look. ‘It used to be the main newspaper here, before the Mayor’s Office closed it down and founded the Herald. Can you guess who the Chief Reporter was?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘A. J. McNair.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Don’t you know anything?’ With a furtive glance over her shoulder to make sure they were still alone, she pulled a worn-looking paperback out of her rucksack. It was titled McNair and the Free Press.

  ‘This is not just a biography,’ she explained. ‘It’s the essential text for investigative reporters.’ She flipped it over to show Nedly the information on the back.

  He read aloud: ‘Arthur James McNair was the chief investigative reporter for the Chronicle. The Klaxon was founded in his name after he vanished in mysterious circumstances during the election campaign for the previous mayor Al Davious’s second term of office. Three days later McNair’s body was dragged from the Kowpye River. It appeared that he had stumbled in there and drowned. This book tells the story of –’

  ‘What it doesn’t s
ay there,’ Lil interrupted, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘was that McNair disappeared when he was on the brink of exposing the scandal surrounding the elections. McNair had been asking Davious some very interesting questions about the misallocation of funds.

  ‘After McNair disappeared the Chronicle was shut down. He never filed the story but it was picked up a few weeks later by an underground newspaper pamphlet and distributed anonymously and so the Klaxon was born.

  ‘The Klaxon tells it the way it really is. It asks the questions we should all be asking.’

  ‘McNair sounds like a good person.’ Nedly nodded approvingly.

  ‘He was,’ said Lil quietly, touching the silhouette with her index finger. ‘Maybe the last good person Peligan City will ever see. He really stood for something; he spoke out against all of this.’ She lowered her voice even further and added darkly, ‘And they killed him for it.’

  ‘Who wrote the book?’ Nedly asked her.

  ‘A journalist calling herself “Marsha Quake” but that’s an alias, I checked. It’s really well researched,’ Lil told him admiringly. ‘She’s probably his second biggest fan. After me,’ she added. ‘I would lend it to you but I have to keep it close because if anyone found out I had it, they would confiscate it and put me in jail.’

  ‘Really?’ Nedly was sceptical.

  Lil flashed him a dare-devil look. ‘Maybe. It’s contraband because it’s full of allegations of corruption against Peligan City’s rich and influential, and no one is allowed to say that stuff in public any more.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Nedly, obviously impressed. ‘Where did you get your copy?’

  ‘I borrowed it.’ Lil gave him a sly wink.

  The corner of a black-and-white photo was poking out like a shark’s fin from between the pages. Nedly spied it. ‘What’s that?’

  Lil reluctantly pulled out the photo and held it up for Nedly. ‘It’s just an old picture I found. I use it as a bookmark.’

  ‘Is that your mum?’

  Lil nodded.

  ‘You really take after her,’ Nedly said.

  ‘So they tell me,’ Lil muttered through gritted teeth. She untucked her hair and flattened it over her ears.

  ‘It’s not just the ears,’ Nedly explained. ‘Anyway, it was supposed to be a compliment.’ He peered closer at the man beside her. ‘Is that your dad?’

  Lil shrugged. ‘No. He was just some old boyfriend, I suppose. I don’t know who any of the other people are. Mum doesn’t like to talk about it. It doesn’t matter anyway. If I have dad he’s not around.’

  ‘Do you miss him?’

  ‘Never knew the guy – what’s to miss?’ Lil leant her forehead against the damp glass of the window and gazed out at the rain. ‘I’m not complaining. It’s tough all over. I’ll bet you miss your folks, Nedly.’

  He didn’t reply straight away, and when he did his voice sounded like it had shrunk. ‘I don’t remember them.’

  ‘It will come back.’ Lil tried for upbeat and optimistic. ‘You just need your memory jogged.’

  Nedly smiled shyly at her and said, ‘You know, I was invisible until I met you.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure you’re still invisible, Nedly. I don’t know why it is that I can see you, but you should prepare yourself; I might be the only one who can.’

  ‘I know,’ he agreed. ‘But the way I see it, I got pretty lucky there, didn’t I, with you turning out to be an investigative reporter. A normal person might not have been able to … you know … solve the case. But I knew you would help, as soon as I saw you take that kid’s poster at the bus station. I knew the poster was significant.’

  ‘Well,’ Lil said uncertainly, ‘I’ll give it my best shot.’

  Nedly’s eyes shone. ‘I know you will, Lil. I bet on it.’

  Lil gave him what she hoped was a confident nod before turning her face away, so she could bite her lip while pretending to watch the grey city slide past.

  They got off at the last stop before the city centre. As soon as her feet hit the pavement Lil set off with a purposeful walk. Nedly had to jog to catch her up.

  ‘We need to run a couple of searches, find out who you are … might take a bit of digging …’

  They crossed a road and passed a row of shops. The streets of Peligan were littered with discount stores, credit exchanges, betting shops and laundrettes, but the old city still haunted the new, if you knew where to look. Faded signs painted on the brickwork suggested there had once been a flower shop, a deli and a baker’s but now metal graffiti-covered shutters had been pulled down over the windows and padlocked to the pavement. Some of the doors had metal grilles across them, and although the signs said ‘Open’ it wasn’t clear what they were selling.

  ‘… We’ll start with the facts. We have a name … sort of. Let’s see if you made the papers.’

  ‘But we don’t even know – Lil?’ Nedly suddenly found himself walking alone. ‘Lil?’

  He back-tracked a few paces and found an alleyway, which branched off to the left. He followed until it opened up into a courtyard. Black metal fire escapes zigzagged down at the backs of the buildings that surrounded the flagstones. Lil was in the corner wobbling around on an upturned bottle crate, while reaching up to a small window that was slightly ajar. She put one foot against the wall, bent her rubber sole to the brick and jumped, grabbing the window ledge and hauling herself upwards. Crouching on the ledge she reached inside and unhooked the window. It swung inwards and Lil followed it.

  Nedly watched her slide out of sight.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he called after her.

  Lil reappeared in the window. ‘Come on! Before someone sees you.’

  Nedly didn’t move. After a few seconds Lil stuck her head back through, not realising what she had said until she saw the look on his face.

  ‘Sorry, I forgot. Come on!’

  On the other side of the window was a toilet cubicle. Nedly dropped silently onto the loo seat and stepped down. Lil was waiting by the hand basins, dusting some flakes of paint from the window frame off her clothes.

  ‘Did we just break in?’

  ‘The window was open,’ Lil said by way of an answer. ‘You know you should take it as a compliment – that I forgot you were … you know … not really there.’ Nedly winced. ‘I mean, invisible.’ Lil pulled open the exit door, cursing herself under her breath.

  They walked into an oval atrium. Above them a round window threw a cylinder of dusty light down to the marble floor. The curved walls were hung with posters advertising citizenship meetings, all tattered and yellowed with age. They flapped in the draught that came from under the big main doors that were locked shut with a plank nailed across them.

  ‘Where are we?’ asked Nedly.

  Lil waded through the drifts of dead leaves and junk mail that were banked up against the walls and picked up a book from the heap beneath the letter box. She turned the first couple of pages and then held it out for Nedly to see. The stamp read ‘Property of Peligan City Library’.

  ‘I didn’t even know we had a library,’ said Nedly.

  Lil peeled off a piece of old sticky tack and paper that had been left stuck to the wall when a notice had been torn down. She pointed at the corresponding ‘Save our Library’ poster that was still lying on the floor beneath it. ‘Not many people do,’ she said. ‘Officially Mayor Dean closed it during his first term in office, just after he shut down all the high schools. Probably he didn’t want people getting too clever and finding out about what was going on.’

  Lil pressed a four-digit code into a keypad at the side of a sturdy door that was signposted ‘Reading Room’. They heard a buzz and some metallic clunking and the door swung open.

  Inside it was a different world. The ceiling was domed and decorated with ornate white plaster. The walls were lined with books; tall, dark wooden shelves reached up to a mezzanine, which encircled the room. Free-standing shelves radiated like wheel spokes, forming corridors to the cent
re in which stood six polished desks, each with a green glass-hooded reading light.

  Nedly was wide-eyed.

  Lil winked at him and then whispered, ‘It has to be a secret: the mayor would close it down all over again if he knew it was still open.’

  ‘So how come you know about it?’

  ‘My mum used to bring me here when I was small. I used to look at the newspapers and things while she did her library business.’

  ‘What’s “library business”?’

  ‘I don’t know, returning books and stuff.’

  ‘Before it was closed?’

  ‘Yeah, of course. And then one day we just stopped coming and that must have been when they shut it down. So then I found my own way back in.’

  ‘How did you know the special code?’

  Lil gave him the Squint. ‘Why all the questions?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Nedly shrugged defensively. ‘I’ve just never been in a library before.’ He scanned the shelves of maps and atlases. ‘So, who looks after all this? Arghhh!’

  A tall woman with very short grey hair and green-framed glasses suddenly appeared from behind a shelf and walked through Nedly with a shiver. She was followed by a black cat, which slunk out from between a gap in the bookshelves. The cat took one look at Nedly, pinned back its ears and hissed.

  Nedly looked uncomfortable. ‘Go away!’ he hissed back, stepping behind Lil and peering over her shoulder.

  The cat bared its fangs and its eyes bulged.

  Lil nodded at it in a way that meant: What’s up with Milton?

  The librarian shrugged as if to say: He’s a cat – who knows? She raised a questioning eyebrow at Lil and held out her hand.

  Lil took out her notebook. She tore out a page and carefully wrote ‘Missing Boy’ on it and passed it the librarian, who looked at it and frowned. She took it to a stack of small cardboard drawers, each labelled alphabetically, and opened the one that said ‘M’. She flicked through the yellowed index cards and pulled one out. Taking it with her to the lift at the back of the room, she pulled the metal grille aside and pushed a button. With a clunk and squeal the elevator came to life and the librarian was slowly lowered out of sight.