The Secret Starling

by Judith Eagle

  There was another knock. Then the sound of the letterbox flapping and a voice calling ‘Coo-eeee!’ floating down the hallway and into the kitchen where they sat. It was a high, clear voice. It didn’t sound sinister, thought Clara.

  ‘Coo-eeee!’ there it was again.

  ‘What if it’s a trick?’ said Peter.

  ‘Let’s go and see,’ said Clara. ‘We don’t have to open the door if we don’t want to.’

  They edged out of the kitchen and along the hall, keeping close to the walls. When they got to the front door, Clara peered through a gap in the cardboard that they had used to cover the broken window. It was hard to see properly, but she could just about make out a girl with wild red hair, and behind her a boy who was walking on his hands, round and round in circles. Beyond him was a small girl clinging to the front leg of a muscular-looking horse. A horse?!

  ‘Who are you?’ Clara shouted through the letterbox. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Amelia-Ann,’ shouted the girl with red hair, coming closer to the door. ‘And these are my cousins, Lucille and Curtis. And that’s Dapple.’ The horse whinnied. ‘We’ve come to ask if you want to play?’

  This was unexpected. ‘How do I know you’re not from the authorities?’ yelled Clara. ‘Or the estate agents?’

  The girl came right up to the letterbox so her eyes were level with Clara’s, merely inches away. They were startling eyes, like bright blue buttons. Clara was pretty sure they were twinkling, if that were possible.

  ‘We’re children, not authorities or estate-agent thingies!’ laughed the girl. ‘Your cook is our nan. We’ve wanted to play here for ages, but Nan always said your uncle wouldn’t like it. But yesterday we followed your friend back and we guessed you were all alone.’

  Clara drew back. Cook’s grandchildren! And the girl had described Peter as her friend! ‘They followed you!’ she said to Peter.

  Now Peter shouted through the letterbox, ‘You were spying on me!’

  Clara noticed his fists were clenched. Gently, she nudged him.

  ‘Peter, I think it’s OK.’

  She opened the door and the girl called Amelia-Ann bounded in.

  ‘Look at all this!’ she shrieked. ‘I always knew it would be like a palace in here!’

  She was dressed in a yellow fisherman’s coat, thick black tights and white high-heeled shoes that were several sizes too big for her. She was gazing around her in wonderment, as though she had never seen anything like it before.

  ‘D’you like them?’ she asked, noticing Clara’s eyes on her shoes. She stuck out her ankle rather elegantly for Clara to admire. ‘They’re Tom’s girlfriend’s. She works in Lewis’s in Leeds.’

  Clara had no idea who Tom was, or what Lewis’s was, but she knew it must be good because the girl was looking at her as though she expected her to be impressed.

  Amelia-Ann shrugged off her coat to reveal a ribbed polo neck and pleated skirt, both black. ‘Pleased to meet you both,’ she said, twirling around in a circle and then sticking out her hand first to Clara and then to Peter. ‘Mam says if redheads haven’t got anything in green, they should wear black. Come on, Dapple, come on, Luci and Curtis.’

  The horse ducked its head neatly, politely minding the door frame, as though it visited strange houses every day. It clip-clopped into the hall and stood there expectantly, shuffling its legs and looking at Clara as if waiting for her to say, ‘How do you do.’

  ‘We’re staying with Nan ’cause our mum’s gone to Trinidad to see her sister,’ said Curtis. He too held his hand out for Clara and Peter to shake. Clara stared at his hair. It was the best hair she had ever seen, like a black halo, one hundred per cent better than any of the governesses’ backcombing.

  ‘Dad works nights,’ added Lucille helpfully. She had a very deep voice for someone so small, thought Clara. She was dressed in a grubby princess costume, pink and gauzy that sparkled in places and was so long it puddled on the floor. Her hair hung down her back in thousands of fine braids. ‘D’you both live here then?’ she looked from Clara to Peter. ‘We’ve come to play sardines.’

  ‘Manners, Luci!’ admonished Amelia-Ann.

  Lucille stuck out her hand. ‘How d’you do, nice to meet you, thanks for having us,’ she said in a rush. ‘NOW can we play sardines?’

  Clara felt almost giddy with excitement. She was actually face to face with the children she had heard so much about! She was about to say yes, even though she had no idea what sardines was, when she felt Peter tugging at her arm and saw the pug frown was back on his face.

  ‘Clara, can I talk to you in private?’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Clara asked when they were in the dining room, the door closed.

  ‘How do we know they’re telling the truth?’ asked Peter. ‘What if they go back and tell someone you’re here on your own?’

  ‘But they are telling the truth! Cook’s told me all about them. I know Luci and Curtis live in Leeds. Their mum’s a nurse and their dad—’

  ‘Test them,’ said Peter, ‘just to be sure.’

  ‘Amelia-Ann,’ Clara yelled through the door, ‘what does your mum work at and what’s her name?’

  ‘Cruise ship,’ came the answer. ‘Babs.’

  ‘See!’ she said.

  ‘Get a move on,’ Amelia-Ann shouted. ‘We want to start the game!’

  ‘OK?’ Clara looked at Peter. She needed him to want this too.

  He nodded and she breathed an inner sigh of relief. ‘Only because I’ve never played it in a house this size before,’ he said.

  Clara opened the door and they went back out into the hall where the three visitors and the horse were waiting.

  ‘You can stay,’ she said, ‘but you have to promise—’

  ‘Swear on your life—’ added Peter.

  ‘That you won’t tell. Not Cook – I mean your nan – or anybody.’

  ‘Cross our hearts and hope to die,’ said Amelia-Ann, putting her hand to her heart and gazing at them both with appropriate solemnity. She clapped her hands imperiously. ‘Now, Curtis, show Peter your gymnastics!’

  Curtis jumped three times on the balls of his feet, flipped backwards onto his hands and then leapt up into a standing position, his chest thrust out and his arms aloft. Amelia-Ann and Lucille cheered. He did a double somersault in the air and they all cheered again, even Peter.

  And then the horse, as though he was feeling left out, did his own show piece, very deliberately, depositing three enormous portions of horse dung on the polished floor.

  ‘Dapple!’ shrieked Amelia-Ann. ‘It’s OK to do that at home, but not here! We’re visitors!’

  For a minute there was a stunned silence, and then Clara was looking at Amelia-Ann, who was looking at her, and it was something about the girl’s button eyes looking so shocked, almost as shocked as her crazy red hair, that pressed a button inside Clara. Then she was snorting and laughing as though a tap had been turned on, and her laughter was gushing out in one unstoppable torrent, and Amelia-Ann was laughing, and so were Peter and Curtis and Lucille.

  Clara had never laughed like this in her life before and now she couldn’t stop. She laughed so much her sides ached, and then her tummy hurt and she had to lie on the floor, and that made everyone laugh even more.

  At last, when the laughter had turned to hiccups, and Clara’s body had gone all weak, as though she’d just completed a marathon, they started to play.

  ‘Fists out,’ said Peter. Clara stood in a circle with the rest of them, both fists stuck out as Peter tapped each with his own, reciting: ‘One potato, two potato, three potato, four, five potato, six potato, seven potato, more.’ On the ‘more’, Peter’s fist landed on Curtis who responded by putting one of his fists behind his back. Peter carried on counting, knocking his own fists on his chin when it was his turn. Round and round he went, and each time he landed on ‘more’ another fist disappeared behind a back. Finally, only one person – Lucille – was left with a fist sticking out. It meant she
was the first to hide.

  ‘Scat!’ shouted Amelia-Ann, and Lucille shot off, while the others all shut their eyes and counted to twenty. Then, ‘Coming, ready or not!’ yelled Curtis, and they raced from room to room, hunting their prey.

  It took ages to find Lucille, even though all she had done was creep between the bedclothes in Uncle’s room and lie there still as a statue, flat as a pancake. There were so many covers and eiderdowns on the bed that Clara had barely noticed a gentle quivering. But when she finally pulled back the covers, there were Lucille and Curtis and Amelia-Ann, stifling giggles, silently gesturing at Clara to be quiet so Peter wouldn’t hear, and Clara had climbed in too and held her breath until Peter finally found them.

  They played all afternoon and Clara felt alive, like a kind of fire was surging through her and she was seeing the house for the first time. There were cupboards everywhere – no longer just boring spaces to store stuff, but dark, secret places, promising concealment. Under the stairs, in the pantry, below the bookshelves on the first- and second-floor hallways. There were so many hiding places: vast wardrobes, deep chests, voluminous curtains, nooks and crannies revealing themselves at every turn, perfect for squeezing into and huddling quiet as mice.

  The children, like Peter, were mad for the turret. Amelia-Ann wanted to play Rapunzel, but her hair wasn’t long enough. Lucille wanted a torch so she could flash it on and off and play lighthouses. ‘Let’s pretend the moor is the sea,’ she said in her husky voice. ‘I’m the lighthouse keeper and I’ve got to stop the ships crashing on the rocks!’

  Later, after Peter had shown them how he could wriggle his ears – and the only other one who could do it was Clara – Amelia-Ann wanted to redecorate, so they fetched Clara’s felt pens and coloured in the pale squares where the paintings had once hung at intervals up the stairs.

  After that, they took turns riding Dapple on a circuit through the library, hall and dining room. When it was Curtis’s turn, he stood on the horse’s back like a circus performer. They pushed the furniture in the dining room right up against the walls and Curtis taught Peter how to do a cartwheel, then a headstand, and then a handstand with both him and Amelia-Ann holding his ankles. After that they all practised crab arches, and Curtis showed Peter how to flip down from a handstand to a crab and then spring back up again.

  It was while they were sliding down the bannisters and Peter had disappeared with Curtis into the kitchen to mix up a giant bowl of butterscotch instant whip, that there came a sharp knock at the door.

  Amelia-Ann’s eyes boggled. ‘Don’t answer it,’ she hissed. While they’d been decorating the stairs, Clara had told her all about the estate agent and the sinister sounding couple. ‘Just ignore it and they’ll go away.’ There was another loud rap. Shuffles and mutterings. The blurry outline of someone tall and thin.

  ‘Anyone at home?’ the blurry outline called. It was a man. More mutterings. More shuffling. Then the letterbox flapped and a card fluttered through and wafted down onto the floor.

  As soon as they were certain the visitor had gone, Clara scuttled forward and picked the card up. ‘Jackson Smith Esq.’ she read out. ‘Private Investigator.’

  Jackson Smith! It was the very same man who had telephoned yesterday to speak to Uncle.

  Amelia-Ann’s eyes looked as though they were about to pop. ‘What’s he investigating?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Clara. ‘But if he wants to take the house away from me, I won’t let him.’

  ‘We won’t let him,’ said Amelia-Ann and grasped Clara’s hand in her own.

  They ate the instant whip in the kitchen and traded ideas about how to keep the house safe. Curtis wanted to make a barricade. Amelia-Ann wanted to go to the newspapers and get someone to write a story about it with photos, but Peter pointed out that that would have the opposite effect. They mustn’t draw attention to Clara’s new-found independence. She had to lie low.

  ‘Sawing down the for-sale sign wasn’t enough,’ Peter said. ‘We need to take the house off the market.’ He screwed up his forehead in what Clara now recognised as his thinking face. ‘I know! Plug the phone back in, Clara.’

  Peter’s idea was brilliant. Within minutes, they had found a telephone directory in Uncle’s study and located the number of the estate agent. Then Lucille had put on her deepest voice and announced herself as Edward Starling. ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she boomed in an impressive baritone. ‘I no longer want to sell the house.’

  Looking around at her friends, Clara had a renewed sense of hope. Her plan was going to work. With everyone’s help, she really would be able to fend for herself.

  Chapter Eleven

  Even though Peter said it was bound to be only until the grown-ups found out, Clara was overjoyed that the imminent danger of the house being sold had passed.

  When Uncle had been in charge, Braithwaite Manor had purely been the bare bones of a house, a skeleton without feeling or warmth. Now with Peter in it, and with Cook’s grandchildren coming to play, it felt like a living, breathing thing, a place with hope and heart. What a proper family home must feel like, thought Clara.

  And Peter seemed happier too.

  The garden and the moors beyond, which had seemed so desolate before, were now alive with possibility. Peter and Clara spent hours chalking hopscotch on the paving stones near the straggly rose beds; whacking tennis balls they’d found in James’s cupboard against the walls; making their own miniature gardens with moss and broken tiles.

  When Cook’s grandchildren came round, they’d race out onto the moor and play tin tan tommy, or make potions out of mushed-up mud and heather. If it was too cold, or it rained, they’d rush back into the house and thunder up the winding stairs to the turret. Here they’d sit in a circle, with Stockwell at their centre, and Peter would boast about the games he played in London, mucking about in dumps and lighting fire crackers in alleys, and knock-down ginger – which meant knocking on people’s front doors and running away before they’d opened them. It sounded exciting, Clara thought. But she was also starting to understand why Peter was always getting into trouble at school.

  One of Amelia-Ann’s favourite things to do was talk. She liked to lounge on Clara’s bed and ask endless questions. One day, while the others practised gymnastics downstairs, they had just moved on from their favourite names (‘Elisabeth with an s’ for Amelia-Ann; Adelaide for Clara) to the plait that Cook was knitting out of old fishing nets, when they heard a plaintive miaow.

  ‘Stockwell?’ called Clara. ‘Is that you?’ The miaow came again. It wasn’t an ‘I want feeding’ miaow, or even an ‘I want to be stroked’ miaow. It was a ‘worried, maybe even a little scared’ miaow.

  ‘Stockwell?’ Clara tried again. Where was she? Something scratched by her feet. But there was nothing there. A scrabble. A whimper. Clara bent down and put her ear to the ground. She heard a little miaow again. Somehow, the cat had got herself stuck under the floorboards.

  ‘Peter!’ Clara yelled, ‘Stockwell’s trapped!’

  Peter cantered up the stairs. ‘How did she get down there?’ he cried. ‘There must be a hole somewhere.’ So they ran up and down the first-floor corridor, and in and out of every room, looking and looking, calling and calling, first loud, then soft and coaxing. If they could only find the hole, they could persuade Stockwell to climb back out.

  ‘If she got down there, she’ll be able to get back up,’ Clara tried to reassure Peter. But Peter looked stricken, his face pale, his freckles standing out in tiny specks of shock.

  ‘You don’t understand!’ he said, his voice wavering. ‘She’s a rescue cat. Being down there in the dark will remind her of being lost in the London Underground. She’ll think she’s been abandoned all over again!’

  ‘Stockwell, Stockwell.’ They heard another miaow. It was coming from Clara’s bedroom. They rushed back in and there, by the radiator pipe was a tiny hole, about the size of an egg cup, and a little velvet nose pressed pitifully up towards the gap.
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  Peter lay down on the floor so his face loomed over the hole. The cat meowed sadly. She was small, but not small enough to fit through a hole that size.

  ‘Oh, Stockwell,’ said Peter. ‘It’s all right, we’ll get you out of there.’

  ‘I could take the floorboard up,’ said Clara. She couldn’t bear seeing Peter looking so wretched. So she fetched a chisel and hammer, and after a lot of huffing and puffing and getting it wrong, eventually managed to prise the board open and carefully pull out the nails from the joists. Then she and Curtis lifted the board up and there was Stockwell, covered in a fine layer of dust and looking like she’d had a fright and gone grey overnight.

  ‘What on earth have you got there?’ Peter crooned as he gently lifted her out and cradled her in his arms. Clamped between her teeth was a bedraggled length of ribbon attached to a crumple of dirty pink satin.

  Gently, Peter extricated the crumple, and smoothed it out.

  ‘A ballet shoe,’ he said, his eyes alight. ‘You never told me you did ballet, Clara!’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Clara.

  Peter had taken off his plimsoll and was trying to stuff his foot into the shoe. It had definitely seen better days. It was more grey than pink, slippery and soft.

  The shoe didn’t fit, but Peter pointed his foot in a ballet-type way anyway. He did look quite graceful, Clara thought. ‘This person had very small feet,’ he said, tugging it off and turning it over in his hands. ‘Look, there’s something on the sole.’

  It was gloomy in the house with no electricity and no sun shining in, so Peter carried the shoe over to the window where it was a tiny bit brighter. Clara leaned in. Just about legible, was a number and a name: 028658, Petruschka.

  ‘We know that place, don’t we Luci?’ said Curtis. ‘It’s a shop in Leeds! On the street where the Brass Kettle is.’

  Clara felt a kind of electric thrill course up and down her body. A mystery in her very own house! ‘We’ve got to go there!’ she said. ‘Peter, d’you remember the postcard you found in the study? The one from the person dancing Giselle in Rome? Maybe that was who wore this shoe? Now we can find out!’