‘I doubt you’ve tried kicking down a door of solid wood before,’ Ramblebrook hissed on the other side. ‘It’d take you most of the night. Now you tell me exactly how you know about that story, because, as far as I was aware, there were only two people in the world who knew it was here, one being me and the other being the person I got it from.’
I went to the door and stood next to Gypsy. ‘Do you mean Dr Rosemary?’
There was silence. Then, ‘How on earth would you know about Dr Rosemary? Who are you children? Who sent you? You’re not coming out until I get answers!’
‘You want answers?’ I shouted, losing my temper. ‘Well, you won’t like them.’
‘What do you mean?’ Ramblebrook said, sounding rattled now.
‘I know things about you, Ramblebrook. I know how you’ve stolen lots of these stories for your museum, and the reason it all started.’ I slid my rucksack off my shoulders and unzipped it, reaching for the section of the notebook I’d had from the start.
‘What are you doing?’ Gypsy mouthed.
‘Bluffing,’ I whispered. ‘There’s a chance I might be able to get him to let us out.’ I leafed through the pages and found what I was looking for: a name. It meant nothing to me, but everything to Ramblebrook.
‘Don’t lie,’ he blustered. ‘No one knows that! Only me.’
‘You started to collect unfinished stories because you felt guilty,’ I said. I tried to keep the nervous squeak out of my voice. ‘About what happened to Georgie Squitch.’
A strangled sound came from the other side of the door. ‘How . . . ? Who told you that name? Who . . . ?’
‘Someone who knows a lot about you,’ I said. ‘And Georgie Squitch. And how you blamed yourself for . . . what happened to him.’ I held my breath, waiting and afraid. I didn’t know what had happened. Alice hadn’t revealed that, but, if I could convince Ramblebrook that I knew, perhaps he might be persuaded to let us go.
Another gasping noise came from Ramblebrook. I realised he was sobbing. ‘Who else knew?’ he babbled. ‘All these years . . . I thought I was the only one. . . . . . .ried to tell someone once. My mother. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bear to see the disappointment on her face, to have her know that about me.’
I looked at Gypsy in dismay. Her expression had softened now. Whatever he might have done, Ramblebrook’s distress was difficult to listen to. Only Piper looked unmoved.
‘No one else has to know,’ I said. ‘Just let us go and we won’t say anything.’
He appeared not to have heard, weeping softly on the other side of the door. ‘If only I’d opened the gate,’ he muttered, sniffing. ‘If only I’d been brave and not a coward. He could have been saved.’
I scanned the story again with difficulty. The light was so faint it was hard to read. I searched for some clue, something in Alice’s writing that would get him to talk more, but found nothing. I stayed silent, but to Ramblebrook it must have sounded like an accusation.
‘I had no choice,’ he said, defensive. ‘Anyone else in school would have done the same.’
‘Would they?’ I asked.
‘Everyone knew he was being bullied. No one did a thing. They were too scared it would make them targets, too.’ He’d stopped crying now and spoke more quickly. ‘I can’t have been the only person who was in their garden that evening. I can’t have been the only person who heard them chasing him down the alley.’
‘But you could have saved him,’ I pressed, remembering some mention of a gate. ‘You could have let him in.’
‘Everything could have been so different,’ Ramblebrook murmured. ‘If only I’d let him in and got him away from them. Or if I’d at least gone into the alley and delayed them, just by a few seconds . . .’ He faltered. ‘If . . . if the train at the end of my street hadn’t been going past just as they chased him on to the track. All those “ifs”.’
I closed my eyes. Georgie Squitch had been chased into the path of a train, and Ramblebrook had lived with the guilt of knowing he could have been saved . . . if only Ramblebrook had been brave enough to open his gate and offer Georgie an escape.
‘They’d emptied his bag out in the alley,’ Ramblebrook continued shakily. His voice was far away now, as if he were lost in his memories. ‘Thrown his belongings around. I picked them all up after they’d gone. That’s how I found his stories, dozens of them in his school books. I stayed up half the night reading them; brilliant, they were. And then there was the unfinished one. I was desperate to know what happened next. I decided then and there I was going to be Squitchey’s friend, no matter what.’ He hiccuped. ‘But, of course, it was already too late for that. I found out at school the next day that he’d been killed. Him . . . and the two cretins chasing him. So you see? It wasn’t just one life but three I could have saved.’
‘You can still save a life now,’ I said. ‘Help us! Give us the story and let us go.’ I pressed my ear against the door, trying to get some clue as to what Ramblebrook’s next move might be. All I could hear was his breathing, fast and panicked.
‘Who else knows what I did?’ he demanded. ‘Who told you this?’
Gypsy’s eyes were wide. She shook her head, warning me to say no more. I nodded. I already knew that Ramblebrook wouldn’t be able to handle the truth. He was so eaten up with the guilt of what he had done that there was no way I could tell him about Alice, even if it was to try and make him see that she had written everything for him. The discovery would crush him and possibly put us in worse danger. There was no telling how he might react or lash out.
‘I . . . I can’t tell you,’ I said finally. ‘But we know you didn’t mean for it to happen. It was an accident, a horrible accident. Whoever was chasing Georgie was to blame. They were the ones who made it happen.’
‘Yes, they made it happen.’ Ramblebrook’s voice was faint. ‘But I let them. Sometimes doing nothing is the worst thing of all. That’s why I have to think carefully about what to do next with you.’
I stared at Gypsy and Piper, stricken with fear, as Ramblebrook’s footsteps shuffled away from the door. The stairs creaked as he went down them.
‘He’s keeping us here?’ I mumbled. ‘But he can’t . . .’
‘He’s keeping us for now,’ Piper said, glowering. ‘He knows he’s gotta let us out sooner or later, but at the moment we’re stuck.’
‘Piper’s right,’ Gypsy said quietly. ‘The only way we’re getting out of here any time soon is if we can escape.’
I turned. She had opened the window and was leaning out, her breath puffing in the cold air.
‘How far down is it?’ I asked.
‘Too far to jump without breaking any bones.’
‘What about the roof below, that the cat climbed on to?’
Piper joined us at the window. ‘No, the roof’s unstable. There were tiles slipping even when the cat walked over it. If one of us tried it, the whole thing would cave in. We could be killed.’
‘Wonder what happened to Tabitha?’ said Gypsy. ‘Did you see her at all after you came upstairs?’
‘No. She went into this room and I stood at the front window. I never saw or heard nothing from her after that.’
‘Maybe she got out when Ramblebrook came back,’ I said. ‘She could have gone back to Ramone for help.’
Piper looked unconvinced. ‘Or she could’ve just saved her own skin.’
‘We need another idea.’ I scanned the room desperately. ‘Something that would force Ramblebrook to open the door.’ My eyes rested on the safe. ‘Perhaps there’s money or valuables in there. If we could get into it and start throwing the money out of the window, he’d come in to try and stop us and we could overpower him.’
‘Bingo.’ Piper’s eyes glinted. ‘Well done, kid!’
Gypsy eyed the safe doubtfully. ‘How are we meant to get into it? We can’t possibly guess the combination.’
‘Forget the safe.’ Piper grabbed the topmost box from the pile in the alcove. ‘We’ve got so
mething Ramblebrook values above everything else.’ He put the box on the floor, pulling it open. The musty smell of old paper hit my nose.
‘Stories,’ I whispered.
Piper pulled out a handful of papers.
‘Ramblebrook!’ he bellowed. ‘You’d better get up here and open this door!’
‘What are you going to do with them?’ I asked.
Piper began heaping the stories on the hearth. ‘Whatever it takes.’ He nodded to the other boxes. ‘Help me empty these.’
Gypsy shifted the next box and I took the one after, staggering under its weight. It slid out of my grasp as I went to put it down, landing on its side. In the dim light, I could just see a single letter printed on its side: W. I began pulling the stories out in handfuls. Some typed, some handwritten. Some just a page or two, others that were much longer novels but a few chapters incomplete.
Had Alice thought of every single one of these stories? It seemed impossible. There were just too many, even in these few boxes. And it wasn’t just me thinking it.
‘Alice came up with all these?’ Gypsy asked. ‘How? Just . . . how? It’s enough to drive someone mad.’
‘Maybe that’s why all this happened,’ I said, my voice shaky. ‘Maybe that’s exactly what happened.’ I thought of my storytelling sister asleep on the boat and my eyes suddenly stung with tears.
Piper took out the book of matches.
I stared at him in alarm.
‘Ramblebrook!’ he called again. ‘If you wanna save your stories, you’d better get up here!’
‘You’re really going to burn them?’ I asked.
His eyes gleamed triumphantly. ‘I will if he don’t let us out, but I’m betting he’s gonna open that door pretty soon.’
Gypsy pressed her ear against the door. ‘He’s coming.’
Piper stuffed the pages into the grate, a match held at the ready. I stared at it, almost longingly. It was so cold in the room. My gaze drifted over the stories I’d pulled out and scattered over the floor. So many stories, so many names. All these imaginary people . . .
. . . .nd one very real one.
I sat up straighter, staring at a folder that had slid almost into my lap. With shaking fingers, I picked it up. There was no mistaking the name written at the top.
I opened it up. Inside was a story called Nine Lives. The edges of the pages were grubby, smeared with inky black fingerprints and something else that was dark, but not quite black. I started to read.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl called Dorothy Grimes who lived in a special hospital. She had been sent there, because she did something bad and the doctors thought that her head was all wrong, but Dorothy did not agree. She thought her head was perfectly fine, thank you very much, and she said so many times to her cat, who was a rather special cat, but we will come to that in a moment.
The cat was one of Dorothy’s favourite things, but not her absolute favourite. No.
Her absolute favourite thing was writing stories, which were also special – but we will come to that in a moment, too.
One day, a little while before she went to live in the hospital, Dorothy was thinking about something. She poked the cat, who was asleep, and said, ‘Names are important, don’t you think?’
‘Eh?’ the cat replied, because this cat was one of those rare cats that could talk. (This was one of the reasons she was special, but there were more.)
‘Names,’ Dorothy repeated. ‘Pay attention.’
‘I was asleep,’ the cat said grumpily. ‘Is this important?’
‘Yes,’ said Dorothy. ‘You know, considering I saved you from being tortured, it’s as if sometimes you don’t even like me at all.’
‘Who said liking you had to come into it?’ the cat retorted. ‘Anyway, spit it out.’
‘You’re cute when you’re grumpy,’ Dorothy said, giggling. ‘Where was I? Oh, yes, names. If my stories are going to be famous one day, I’d better think of another name for myself, hadn’t I?’
‘What do you mean?’ the cat replied. ‘What’s wrong with the name you already have?’
‘Grimes is not a name for an author,’ said Dorothy. ‘It sounds like a chimney sweep. Like dust and dirt and unwashed things. I want another name to go on my stories. A pen-name. What’s the proper word for it? A pseudonym.’
‘Fair enough,’ said the cat. ‘What do you want instead?’
‘I’ve been thinking about spiders’ webs and all the work that goes into them. And how people say lies are like webs. Well, stories are like that, too. So I’ve decided on Weaver.’
‘Dorothy Weaver,’ said the cat. ‘Like it.’
‘No, no, not Dorothy,’ she snapped.
‘You don’t like Dorothy, either?’
She scowled. ‘It gets shortened to Dot, or Dotty. Dotty means mad and I’ve had enough of people saying that.’
‘So what will your first name be?’
Dorothy took down a doll from the shelf and stroked its long, golden hair. ‘I think I like Dolly.’ She picked up her scissors and started to snip, snip, snip. Chunks of yellow hair fell in her lap. ‘A dolly can be whatever you want it to be. You can dress it how you want, and make it say and do what you want. A bit like a character in a story.’ She pressed the blade of the scissors into the doll’s eye, gouging. There was a soft pop and it rolled out on to the floor.
‘Yes, Dolly it is.’ She smiled, crushing the glass eye underfoot. ‘Dolly Weaver.’
‘Excellent choice,’ said the cat. ‘Now do you think I could have a cup of tea?’
22
Turncoat
I SLAMMED THE PAGES DOWN. There was no need to read the rest. ‘Piper, start burning the stories now!’ I hissed. ‘We’re in trouble!’
‘What is it?’ Gypsy asked.
I held up the folder, displaying the name on the front.
Her mouth dropped open. ‘Dolly Weaver?’
‘It’s a pen-name,’ I said. ‘The pen-name of Dorothy Grimes. Dolly Weaver is Dorothy Grimes!’ I pointed to the stains on the edges of the paper. ‘Look, it makes sense now. Dolly’s gloves – she was hiding the state of her hands . . . she’s a writer. The stains on her fingers are ink. Our plan can’t work. And that’s not the worst part.’
Ramblebrook hammered on the door, cutting me off. ‘What are you hollering about?’
Gypsy glanced fearfully at the door. ‘What is it, Midge? What else does it say?’
‘The cat, Tabitha.’ I felt a stab of betrayal as I said her name. ‘She’s in this. She’s Dolly’s – I mean, Dorothy’s cat! She must have been working against us the whole time, listening and spying and feeding information back!’
‘And now we’re trapped in here and the cat’s gone,’ Gypsy said, horrified. ‘She knows Alice is on my boat, with only Ramone to protect her . . . She hasn’t gone to fetch help at all . . . she’s gone to take Dolly to Alice!’
Ramblebrook thumped the door again. ‘What are you whispering about? I know you’re up to something in there!’
‘We’ve got to make him open the door,’ I said. ‘We have to get back to Alice now!’ Papers rustled around us, a few floating into the far corners. ‘And I’ve got to solve that riddle. If Dolly gets to Alice before we do, I need to be master of that cat.’ I pushed the story into my rucksack and pulled out the riddle, reading through it again, but still it was no clearer. Nettles . . . bees . . . scorpions.
A vessel of venom that can kill with a sting . . .
Which one was it? What was I missing?
‘What are you doing in there?’ Ramblebrook demanded, his voice rising. ‘That sounded like paper crumpling! You’d better not be meddling with my work!’
‘Oh, we’re meddling all right!’ Piper shouted. ‘We’ve opened up all your boxes and, if you don’t let us out, we’ll start on the stories one by one!’
‘What?’ Ramblebrook growled. ‘You’ll start doing what?’
Gypsy strode to the door. ‘Burning them.’
‘You
wouldn’t dare!’ he raged. ‘You’ll put everything back in those boxes at once, do you hear me?’
‘Make us!’ Piper crowed. ‘Open the door. I’ll count to ten, then the first story goes up in smoke!’
‘Don’t you dare!’
Piper put his hand on his chin and spoke in an exaggerated voice. ‘Hmm. I don’t think he believes us. Let’s see . . . what’s this one?’ He picked up a couple of loose pages from the floor.
I leaned closer, reading the title aloud. ‘The Silver Cage.’
‘Are you fond of The Silver Cage?’ Piper called.
‘By T. M. Winter,’ I added.
‘By T. M. Winter? Because it’s about to vanish for ever!’
‘Put that back this instant!’ Ramblebrook cried.
‘One, two, three, four . . .’
‘I’m warning you . . .’
‘. . . .ive, six, seven, eight . . .’
‘If you’ve so much as wrinkled it, I’ll wring your neck!’
‘. . . .ine, ten.’ Piper sighed. ‘I don’t think he’s gonna open the door yet, do you? And it’s so cold in here.’
There was utter silence as Gypsy and I waited, unsure whether he would carry out his threat. On the other side of the door, I sensed that Ramblebrook was hardly daring to breathe. The hiss of the match being struck was oddly loud. even Ramblebrook heard it.
‘No!’ he wailed.
Piper held the flame to the paper. It was dry and brittle with age, and the flame took hold easily.
‘Whoa!’ He threw it into the grate and stepped back from the orange glow. A curl of grey smoke spiralled up the chimney. The pages blackened and fell to ash.
‘One story gone,’ I said, oddly sad about it. ‘Are you ready to let us out?’
There was no reply, but we could hear that he had begun to pace.
‘Good,’ said Gypsy. ‘You got his attention. Burn two stories this time.’
I picked up a handful of stories from the hearth and looked at the top two.
‘Never Gone by Woody Wickens, and Les Chats . . . Les . . .’ I squinted in the faint light. ‘I can’t read this one.’
Gypsy took it from me. ‘Les Chats Formidables. It means The Great Cats in French and it’s by—’
The Other Alice Page 23