The Valley of Lost Secrets

by Lesley Parr

  ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘This is more exciting than any old school trip.’

  We run again, up and up, me pointing out the way. The gate to the field is in the distance and I shout for her to stop there. When I catch up she’s sitting on the top like it’s a horse.

  ‘Howdy, pardner.’ She winks.

  ‘You’d make a good cowgirl,’ I say, leaning on the gate.

  ‘I’d be brilliant at riding around and shooting mangy varmints – like in the Westerns.’

  ‘How have you—’ I stop myself.

  ‘What? How have I seen a Western?’ She leans close to my face. I can see her freckles again. ‘I have been to the pictures, you know.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Sneak in, don’t I?’ She swings her leg around and hops off the gate. ‘Coming then, pardner?’

  She won’t hold it. Won’t even come near it. I never thought Florence would be this afraid of the skull.

  ‘It’s just bone,’ I say, sitting next to her on the grass. ‘It can’t hurt you.’

  She moves backwards along the ground, not looking like a cocky cowgirl any more. ‘You ran away when you found it.’

  I hold out the skull.

  ‘No!’ She jumps a bit. ‘Don’t be an idiot!’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to … look … you wanted to see it and here it is.’

  ‘Well, I’ve seen it now, so –’ she waves her hand like a princess waving away a peasant – ‘put it back.’

  I don’t.

  Florence looks at the hollow, then stands and walks all around the trunk.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I ask.

  She kneels back down next to me. ‘I reckon you could fit in there.’

  ‘Florence, that gap you took me through next to the institute was bad enough – and I could still see the sky. I am not getting inside a flipping tree!’ The hollow is so small and dark, it’ll press on me and I’ll freeze and be stuck in there with who knows what. ‘You do it. You’re smaller than me.’

  She looks horrified. ‘I’m not doing it, there could be a hundred skulls in there!’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’ But oh heck, there could be. What if it’s the place a murderer kept all their victims’ skulls?

  ‘Go on then.’

  I don’t move.

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ She pushes me roughly out of the way. ‘One of us needs to flaming well do it or we’ll never find out what happened.’

  I watch Florence crawl into the hollow. I stare at the soles of her new shoes.

  Half a minute later she shuffles backwards so fast she almost kicks me.

  ‘Bones,’ she whispers. ‘Lots of them. But no more skulls.’ She sits up, redoing her ribbon. ‘I think it’s just one person, but if you make me go in there again I swear I’ll clock you one.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ I smile. ‘Thanks for looking.’

  She smiles back. ‘Where do you think they came from?’

  ‘I haven’t worked that out yet—’

  ‘Ooooh,’ she says, ‘I know!’

  I raise my eyebrows.

  ‘It’s probably a miner, there are loads of them round here. I bet he got drunk in the pub, got into a fight and was … murdered.’ She looks very pleased with herself. When I say nothing, she carries on. ‘All right then, how about a Victorian poacher? Shot – murdered – for nicking pheasants.’

  ‘This isn’t a game,’ I say.

  ‘A German spy!’

  ‘Also murdered, I suppose?’

  She pulls a face. ‘All right then, smarty-pants – you tell me who it is.’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? Maybe there’s no murderer.’

  ‘Jimmy, people don’t just go and die inside trees. And there’s a dent and a crack in the skull. Something bad must have happened.’

  ‘All I know is you aren’t helping.’ I run my fingers over the top of the skull. ‘But I think they must have been there for years, and maybe they weren’t just bones when they … when they went inside the hollow. I think someone put a whole dead body in and the bones got separated somehow.’

  Florence fiddles with her ribbon. ‘Animals?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  We sit in silence, me leaning on the tree trunk and her a few feet away on the grass. After a few minutes, Florence shuffles towards me. She turns away and holds her hand out. ‘Go on then, pass it here. The skull. Pass it here.’

  Suddenly I don’t want to give it to her.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asks, facing me properly now.

  ‘Two hands,’ I say. ‘And you have to hold it really carefully.’

  She nods and I place the skull in her open palms. Her fingers close around it and she breathes out slowly. She tilts the skull towards her.

  ‘Urgh! Take it back!’ She closes her eyes and holds her arms out straight. ‘I can’t … Quick! Just take it!’

  I snatch it off her, holding it tightly. ‘Let’s go, we need to see what we can find out. Starting with how long it takes a person to become bones. But you can’t tell anyone. We don’t know who we can trust.’

  ‘Of course. Loose lips sink ships.’ She grins. ‘I’ll see if there’s anything in Ieuan’s nature books. He won’t know what I’m up to.’

  ‘All right. But be careful.’

  I put the skull back.

  She looks at the hollow. ‘If this is so secret, we should cover the gap with branches, so the likes of Jack Evans can’t find it.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  ‘That’s me,’ she says, tapping her head with her finger. ‘The brains of this operation.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  HALF A SANDWICH

  Halfway down the mountain I remember the shopping. Mrs Thomas is already cross with me; now she’ll think I did it on purpose and I’ll be in even more trouble. Florence goes straight through to the back of the shop to ‘write down clues’ and I join the queue behind three women who chat and fuss like the chickens. I rub the stitch in my side and wait for my turn but the last one just wants to talk and talk.

  ‘Come on,’ I mutter. She turns around and frowns at me. Welsh women must have the hearing of a flipping bat. I know her; she’s the one who was scrubbing her step, the purple-hat woman from the institute. ‘Sorry.’ I try to win her over with a smile. It doesn’t work. I’m not Ronnie. ‘It’s just that I’m in a hurry.’

  She looks me right up and down like she’s never seen a boy before. ‘And what if I’m in a hurry? You haven’t thought about that, have you? No!’ She looks closer. ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  The way she was gossiping, she didn’t look like she was in a hurry. But I’d better not say so. She turns back to Phyllis.

  ‘Here we are sending off good boys like my John to fight Hitler, and look what Llanbryn gets in return! Thieves and vagabonds! Mind you –’ she jerks her head towards me and makes her voice a pretend whisper – ‘some have found a place where they can fit right in, haven’t they?’

  ‘I haven’t stolen anything!’ I say, feeling the blood pound in my head.

  ‘Well, nothing started going missing till you lot came here.’

  ‘So no flaming Welsh person has ever been a thief?’

  The woman turns, all puffed up like a prize hen. ‘Just who do you think you’re speaking to? If I thought it would do any good, I’d have a word with Gwen Thomas, but—’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Phyllis’s voice blasts through the air like a gunshot. She takes a big breath and blows it out slowly. ‘Mrs Ringrose, I’d appreciate you keeping your narrow-minded comments to yourself while in my establishment. And, Jimmy, keep a lid on it, bach, you’re doing yourself no favours!’

  Mrs Ringrose glares at us both before huffing out of the shop. I get the shopping and rush back to Heol Mabon thinking – again – that some people around here don’t like the Thomases at all.

  Mr Thomas is in the living room reading the paper. He looks over the top of it when I burst in. On the arm of his chair is a plate with crumbs and smears of dripping. I
just stand still, opening and closing my mouth like a stupid fish.

  He nods once. ‘Jimmy.’

  That’s all he says.

  I mumble hello and stare really hard at the rug till the flower pattern blurs. Mr Thomas looks at the shopping in my hand. ‘You’d better go and put those away in the pantry before Gwen gets back.’

  ‘Where is she?’ I ask.

  ‘Gone to see her cousin Jean in Aberbeeg. Took your brother on the bus and left me a note for when I got up. Said you’d gone to Phyllis’s.’

  ‘He’ll love that,’ I say quietly. ‘The bus, I mean.’

  ‘He will.’

  Then it all rushes out of my mouth like a balloon deflating. ‘Florence and me went straight to the shop, honest we did, but some boys chased us and we had to hide. Then we …’ What do I say? I can’t tell him about the tree. ‘I’m sorry about your breakfast.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘This is your bacon,’ I say like an idiot.

  He disappears behind the newspaper again. ‘Know how to fry it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Off you go then. Bread and dripping’s nice but it’s not bacon.’

  I go into the kitchen and take the pan down from its hook on the wall. While the bacon fries I cut some bread. Mrs Thomas’s note is on the kitchen table; it says just what Mr Thomas said it did. Nothing about me upsetting her. I suppose that’ll come later – she probably wants to tell him face to face – and he’ll think I’m awful and, I don’t know why, but that bothers me. I make the sandwich really nice.

  When I take it to him, Mr Thomas has put down the paper and is rubbing his eyes.

  ‘The bread’s a bit wonky,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

  He takes a bite. ‘How’s it so crispy?’ He presses it between his fingers.

  ‘I fried it in the bacon fat at the end. My dad likes it that way.’

  ‘Does he now?’ He puts it down.

  Oh heck, he hates it. I’ve ruined his sandwich.

  But then he smiles.

  ‘Your dad might be on to something,’ he says. ‘Now what’s this about boys chasing you and Flossie?’

  I shove my hands deep in my pockets. ‘Oh, it’s nothing. We can look after ourselves.’

  ‘Not the ones who picked on Ronnie, were they? The vicar’s boy and your London mate?’

  ‘He’s not my mate,’ I say. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘So it was, then.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You watch that Jack Evans. Nasty sort, he is.’ Mr Thomas picks up his sandwich again. ‘Thanks for the grub.’ He glances towards the kitchen. ‘Where’s yours?’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Nonsense. Boys are always hungry. Here, have this.’ Mr Thomas lifts the other half of his sandwich and offers it to me. I don’t move.

  ‘No need to be proud with me, bach. Here.’

  I take it.

  ‘Better get a plate,’ Mr Thomas says. ‘Or you’ll be for it when Gwen gets back.’

  I feel like sitting down with Mr Thomas so we can eat together but it’s probably just the sandwich making me miss Dad. And he’s not Dad so I get a plate and sit at the kitchen table.

  In the bedroom, I put down my Hotspur comic and pick up a little flip book. Ronnie and Mr Thomas made it after the party. They spent ages at the kitchen table cutting paper and drawing and colouring. When they’d finished, Mrs Thomas sewed it all together and said Ronnie was a proper author.

  Now I lie back on my pillow, flip flip flipping really fast to watch the yellow Dinky van drive across the pages.

  Flip flip flip …

  Flip flip flip …

  Till my eyes go blurry and I’m not even seeing the drawing any more, or thinking much at all, and the tree and the bones come into my head. Again. How could a whole person even fit in there? They’d have to be small.

  The front door bangs.

  ‘No running in the house!’ Mrs Thomas calls after Ronnie as he thunders down the passage. Their voices get muffled when they reach the living room. I pick at the candlewick on the bedspread, just like I told Ronnie not to do.

  ‘Jiiiiiimmy!’ Ronnie’s racing up the stairs. ‘Jimmy! I went on a bus!’

  He bursts into the bedroom, beaming and panting. I sit up. ‘Was it good?’

  ‘It was brilliant! We went all over Wales and most of it’s green, except for the pits and the coal heaps, and we went up a hill so big I thought we’d roll back down but we didn’t. And the bus driver said a bad swear and Aunty Gwen told him off and I met our new aunty, Aunty Jean, and she gave me this.’ He shoves a small paper bag into my hand and grins up at me.

  ‘You’ve been all over Wales?’ I say.

  He nods. I open the bag. Fudge.

  ‘Aunty Jean made it,’ Ronnie says, taking a big piece.

  ‘Not everyone in Wales is your aunty, you know.’

  ‘I know. Just Aunty Gwen and Aunty Jean.’ He looks so flipping pleased about it.

  ‘Don’t speak with your mouth full.’

  He swallows. ‘Where’s Florence?’

  ‘At home.’ That word. It’s true, I suppose. It’s more of a home than she’s got in London.

  ‘I’ll save her some fudge,’ he says, taking the bag and scrunching up the top.

  ‘She lives in a shop, Ronnie. With sweets.’

  ‘I’m still saving her some. She’s my friend.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  BONE SCIENCE

  ‘Nothing!’ Florence says, dramatically flopping against the front wall of number twenty-one. ‘I spent all night looking through Ieuan’s science books but – nothing! Are you sure Gwen and Alun don’t have any books like that?’

  ‘I told you. All their books have stories,’ I say.

  ‘We could go to the library,’ Ronnie says.

  I stare at him. ‘What library?’

  ‘The one in Pantdu. The bus stopped outside it yesterday, on the way to Aunty Jean’s.’

  ‘Pantdu’s the next village,’ Florence says. ‘I saw signs for it from the train on the way here. Bet we could walk it. There’s only one main road, we can follow it and there’ll be signs. And if we get lost we’ll just ask someone.’

  The road out of Llanbryn follows the river along the bottom of the valley. We set off. Mrs Thomas didn’t say anything about yesterday, about the bacon and oats. But she didn’t really look at me all through tea so I went to bed early with my comics. Even though she didn’t tell me to.

  I pull my jacket round me. It’s colder today and dark clouds fill the sky. I thought telling Ronnie about all the bones would trouble him more than it did. He looked a bit scared, but he didn’t wet himself so that’s something. He just said he was glad that Florence knows because she’s the cleverest of all of us. I let him get away with that one because it’s probably true. Florence offers round a bag of jelly babies. Ronnie takes a red one and bites off the head. She nibbles the other end of her green one. ‘They can’t run away if you start with the feet.’

  Ronnie and me laugh.

  The sky gets darker and the clouds get fatter. We speed up but, still, three buses have passed us by the time we get to the library.

  The building is old and small. I hope they have enough science books or we’ve had a really long walk for nothing. And we still have to walk back.

  We go up the steps and Florence pushes open the heavy doors. Behind the front desk, a man puts cards into a cabinet of little wooden drawers. He glances at us. ‘Children’s books to your right.’

  ‘Actually, we don’t want the children’s books,’ Florence says. She’s using a voice I’ve never heard her use before. A trying-to-be-posh one. ‘Please can you tell us where the science section is?’

  The man puts down the cards. ‘English, are you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says.

  ‘Evacuees, is it?’

  Not this again.

  She nods. ‘If you can just tell us where the science section is, I can find what I need. It’s for my
homework and I won’t get top marks if I get my facts from children’s books.’

  She’s thought of everything.

  The man smiles. ‘That’s what I like to see, an enquiring mind. You can’t borrow books from the adult section without an adult ticket though.’

  ‘I don’t need to take them out. I just need to look something up.’

  He smiles at her again. ‘Aren’t you a scholar? What type of science do you need?’

  ‘Bone science,’ Ronnie says, before we can stop him.

  ‘Biology,’ Florence says quickly. ‘He means biology.’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ the librarian says. We follow him through some more doors into the adult section; it’s very quiet. A few grown-ups stare at us, as if we shouldn’t be in their section at all.

  Right at the far end, the man stops. ‘The biology books are here. It’s all labelled. If you can’t find what you need, come and get me, but a clever girl like you shouldn’t have any trouble.’ He turns to Ronnie and me. ‘And make sure you whisper.’

  He’s right. She doesn’t have any trouble; Florence soon finds the right chapter in a book called Human Anatomy.

  ‘How did you do that?’ I ask.

  ‘Do what?’ Florence whispers.

  ‘Find it so quickly.’

  ‘I go in the Fieldway library all the time back home. It’s nice and warm and quiet.’

  She means it’s the opposite of her house, and I wonder again at how much I didn’t know about her before we came here.

  ‘Look.’ Florence points to a page with a drawing of a skeleton. ‘It says here two hundred and six – that’s how many bones there should be. Good to know, but not what we need right now.’

  ‘Blimey, that’s a lot,’ I say, forgetting to whisper.

  A man in the military section tuts loudly. I stare at the diagram and think of the bones, think of the person in the tree.

  Florence flicks through a few more pages. ‘Ah, here we go – decomposition.’

  Ronnie peers at the pictures and winces. I find a book on animals and give it to him. Florence runs her finger down the paragraphs, turns over and keeps going. At the end of the next page she stops. ‘It says here between eight and twelve years for a human body to decompose – longer if it’s well buried.’ She looks up. ‘That’s about as long as we’ve been alive.’