Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms

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Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms Page 13

by Katherine Rundell


  In front of each house was a large green plastic garbage can of the perfect size to hide in. She lifted the lid of one; garbage stench belched out.

  “Sha!”

  Will backed away. She could still fit inside, on top of one of the bags. She tried to coax herself—soft-voiced like Lazarus to the horses—to climb on top of the black bags. Her legs didn’t agree. They stayed where they were. Fine. If she couldn’t hide, she’d have to make some kind of disguise. She could do nothing about the other things the article said she was: “olive skinned,” “small and slight for her age” (which was what the Leewood girls meant when they said “midget”), and “likely to be noticeably disheveled” (which meant, she guessed, “unwashed”). But there was one thing she could change, right now, something in her own power, and as Will thought of it, she felt hope rise in her chest. Her father would have said, “A nudge to the heart and a polish to the soul,” and the captain would have spat, and nodded with closed eyes.

  She dropped back down on her haunches against the bin, and sorted the pocketknife from the tangle in her pockets. Will gathered her hair in a bundle over her shoulder and hacked at it with the scissors part of the knife. The scissors were blunt from cutting the wire at the zoo; just a few solitary wisps of hair drifted onto the pavement. She pried out the knife instead with one bitten nail and sliced downward at the hair over her eyes, tugging it taut with her swollen hand and hacking with the other. It worked. Chunks of brown fell onto the pavement. She looked the other way. It was despicable to cry about hair.

  When she’d got it to shoulder length all round, Will stopped and ran her fingers through it. It felt strangely light, and smooth. She wished she had a mirror. It still felt too long to be much of a disguise: she probably didn’t look very different.

  Will took up the knife again in tight knuckles. It was harder cutting close to the head; but she gritted her teeth and kept hacking until she thought it was like the boy at the zoo’s—three inches all round, except over her left ear, where the knife had slipped and she was bald. She ran her fingers through it, tugged at it. Her neck felt oddly light. If she spat on her hands and used the spit as glue, she could make her hair stand straight up, like the quills on a porcupine, or the hackles on a cat. Will grinned. She thought, Wildcat hair. The grass on the farm used to be longer than this.

  Lights were starting to flicker on in some of the houses now. She sank back against the garbage bin. She thought, What next? Think, Will. But for the moment she could only feel—feel mostly how strong the wind was growing, and how it seemed to be blowing through her skin and lining her bones with frost.

  She could see halfway down the street a red box, like one of the toilet cubicles at school, but with windows and a door that reached all the way to the floor. One of the windows was broken, but the box might still be warmer than the sidewalk. Will bundled handfuls of her hair into her pockets and limped toward the red box.

  Inside the box there was a smell of dying rodents, and urine, and—Will was amazed—there was a telephone. The telephone gave her an idea, though, and she searched through her pockets for the coins the tourists had given her. If she could work out how to call the number from the article, and if she disguised her voice, then she could say she had spotted herself, somewhere else. Throw them off the scent, she thought. Sweep away her tracks, like if you were hunting impala with a gun by the water hole.

  Where could she have seen herself, though? She didn’t know the names of any English towns, and she’d never thought to ask her father. There was so much she hadn’t thought to ask, she thought angrily—about whether money was really important, and about how not to care about being hated, and how to live in the aching cold. Will spat, and coughed, then shook the thought away. Her father used to sing about it being a long way to Tipperary. But she didn’t know if that was a place. It might, she thought, be a verb.

  Will found a handful of cold coppers, but it didn’t look like enough. They had given her more than that, she knew, and she dug through her pockets. She started to unpack her shorts properly—knife, bits of straw, a sheaf of paper. Will stared at the paper. In one corner it said, Daniel James. Underneath that, in between doodles of lions and superheroes, was scribbled Exclusive Property of Daniel James, 117 Clement Avenue, London, England, The World. The Universe. And underneath, in capitals, KEEP OFF ON PAIN OF DEATH (Very Painful Death).

  Will whispered, “Unanki. Excellent.” And there came stark realization: it was easier, in this world, not to be alone.

  Will burst out of the red box—calling the number wasn’t important now—and hopped and limped through the streets until she found a small shop with newspapers in the window. It was grubby and cluttered, like the shops in Mutare; not at all like the great stone shops she’d passed that day, which were more like hospitals or churches. Nobody looked up as she went in. The fat man at the desk kept reading a paper.

  She quickly found a yellow-and-red roly-poly cake and a plastic bottle of Coke. At home Coke came in glass bottles; Will marveled at the lightness of this one, and tossed it into the air. The man behind the cash desk called out, “Oi! You! You better be going to buy that, yeah?” and she jumped, and turned the same color as the Coke label, and ducked down the next aisle. There she was desperately tempted by the jar of crunchy peanut butter, but it was two dollars—pounds, she corrected herself, and whispered it out loud to make herself remember, “Pounds, hey”—and she needed the money for a map. At the counter she added the cheapest bar of chocolate and laid everything in a row.

  “And I’d like a map,” she said. “Please, ja?”

  The man said, “Ayterzed, yeah?”

  Will blinked.

  “You want an A-to-Z? Or one of the touristy ones?”

  “I’m not a tourist. Just a paper map.”

  “Right you are.”

  “Also—”

  “Yes?”

  “Um . . . what street are we on?”

  “What street?” He smiled. “Sure you’re not a tourist?”

  Will tried to smile back. “Ja. Sure.”

  “This is Sunnyfield Road. Page forty-two on the map, if you want to know.”

  Will nodded. Page forty-two. “That’s everything, thank you.”

  “Nine eighty-nine, then.”

  Will looked at the coins in her hand. There wasn’t enough for it all. She put back the cake, blushing hotly.

  The man tapped his fingers impatiently. “You need a bag, son?”

  “What? I mean, yes.” Son. She’d forgotten about the hair. Will tried to deepen her voice, to sound like a boy. “Yes. A large one, please.”

  “You what?”

  “Yes, please.” It came out halfway between a growl and a burp. She tried again. “Yes.” It was like an engine revving.

  The man looked at her suspiciously and laid the change on the counter, ignoring her outstretched hand.

  “You all right, lad?” He glanced toward the open paper on his chair, and back at Will. “Nothing on your mind?”

  Will flushed again and shook her head. Hush, chook, she thought. Silence now was her best defense. Silence, and speed. She ran with her bag down the steps and into the street.

  It was dark outside, and lamplights were starting to prick the sky—like overweight fireflies, thought Will. She’d never seen so many houses crushed so closely together. She’d never seen a map of a city either, but she was quick and had a hawk’s sense of direction—“My fierce little falcon,” her father used to say—and it wasn’t difficult to work out a route. Will turned west and set off at a steady limp, holding the map in one tightly clenched fist.

  THE HOUSE, WHEN SHE FOUND it, was exactly like every other house she’d passed. There was a narrow road separating it from another row of houses, and those looked exactly like every other house she had passed too. Two hours of walking had given Will a very low opinion of English architecture.

  It took her some time to find the right house. The numbering didn’t go as she would have done it�
�one, two, three up one side and back down the other like a scale; instead it was odd on one side and even on the other, some with As and Bs tacked on at unexplained intervals. It was an ugly sort of way of labeling, Will thought. It was like the school: ordered insanity. She caught sight of her own scowl in a car window and shivered. The cold was eating her heart.

  She pressed one finger against the doorbell of number 117.

  Nothing happened.

  She pushed again, with all five fingers—and again, and knocked with both fists. A man and a woman walking arm in arm along the sidewalk stopped, murmured to each other, stared at her. Or was she just imagining it? Will tried to hide her face, but it was impossible now, with no hood and no hair. Increasingly desperate, Will tried the door. It was locked. Of course. England was a land of locks. She was just about to ring the bell for a seventh time when the door opened and Daniel stood in the doorway.

  “Yes?”

  “I—” To her fury she began to stutter and blush. “I—I was wondering, ja—”

  He shielded his eyes from the yellow glare of the hallway light. “Bloomin’ heck. It’s you!”

  He knew some impressive swear words, Will thought. He ran through them in a voice of awed surprise. “You! What do you want? Didn’t you see that thing in the paper? I knew it was you! Lizzie didn’t believe me. I knew it! There’s police searching everywhere, you know.”

  “I know. I want—” Will clenched both fists so tightly that her nails bit through the paper of the map and broke the skin on her palms. “I need help.”

  “What sort of help?” He didn’t seem to guess how much it took to say it.

  “Your help. I need somewhere to sleep, ja, and somewhere to think.”

  “Oh.” He glanced backward into the hall. “Right. The thing is, though . . .”

  “Please.”

  “It’s just, my nan would slaughter me. And my sister Lizzie’s upstairs. She’s got about three thousand friends up there. They’d call the police if they saw you.”

  “Why? Why would they do that?”

  “I dunno. There’s a station down the road, and they fancy one of the sergeants.” And then, “What happened to your hair? Where’s it gone?”

  “In my pocket. With some chocolate I bought for you.” She felt for it. “They might be a bit mixed up.” Will decided not to tell him about the police, the running, the exhaustion. “It’s easier to be invisible, ja, if you’re a boy.”

  Daniel nodded. He seemed to take it as a compliment to his sex. She said, “I made it like yours. A”—what was it called?—“a tribute. You were a major influence on my work.”

  “Yeah? Really?” And he laughed, harder than she’d expected, spraying the doorstep with spit. He said, “Look. Have you been followed?” She shook her head. “Then I guess you’d better get inside. Nan’s gone to the restaurant. We’ll be safe for five minutes. She walks slow.”

  Will followed him, past a bicycle and a backpack, past a pile of white shirts and a soccer ball, through a narrow door into a kitchen.

  “Do you need food?” said Daniel. “Will? What sort of thing do you eat?” There was no answer. “Will?”

  “What?” Will was entranced by the kitchen. “What? Oh, anything, ja.” She tore herself away from something that looked like an interesting torture instrument with fake-gold fake-handwriting up one side. Supa-Wizz Electric Blender. “Do you have biltong? Simon and me used to eat that when we were tired. It’s just meat and salt.”

  “No. We’ve got sausages in a tin.”

  “Can I put them in your Supa-Wizz Electric Blender?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? What would happen?”

  “My gran would notice. You don’t cross my gran. She’s fierce.”

  “Oh,” she said. And then, “Those chairs . . . they look comfortable, ja?”

  “I guess, yeah.”

  “Could you sleep in them?”

  He laughed. “Subtle.”

  “What?”

  “You couldn’t. I’m sorry, yeah, honestly, but my gran would definitely notice. You don’t really blend in to the furniture.”

  “Oh. Who sleeps in the stable?”

  “What stable?”

  “The one attached to your house, ja?”

  “That’s the garage. The car’s in it. Nobody drives it, not since my granddad died last month.”

  “Then I’ll sleep there,” said Will. Daniel raised his eyebrows. She had tried to sound authoritative and persuasive at once, and her voice had come out like Mrs. Robinson’s. She added, more softly, “Please, hey, Daniel?”

  “You can’t. There’s no light.”

  “I can. Please. I’ve got a flashlight. See, there. Please. You have to let me. It’s important. This isn’t a game.”

  “I can’t just—” Dan paused. Upstairs he had a set of plastic Indians. There was one with a knife in his hand, crouched to spring. This girl looked like that. She looked ready to fight.

  “All right.” He started digging in a drawer for candles and matches; they wouldn’t do much but might give a bit of warmth. “But I can’t get you any blankets. My gran’d notice they were gone. You’ll have to sleep under your coat.”

  “Fine. That’s fine. Quick, ja.”

  “Where is it, anyway? Your coat?”

  Will could feel her ears turning red. “I’ll be fine. I just need to be inside, and to sleep, and to think. I can’t plan in the rain. It’s like ice.”

  “You don’t have a coat?” She was thinner than anyone else he’d ever seen, and her lips were lined with purple. She’d freeze to death. “How can you not have a coat?”

  Will kept herself from throwing the Supa-Wizz Electric Blender at his head, but she found it was surprisingly difficult not to. “It’s fine! Can you just show me the way, ja? Please. And quick, hey. Before your grandmother gets back.”

  He said, “Don’t rush me. I hate being rushed. Wait—you can have my granddad’s coat, if you like. It’s that one, underneath all the others. No, not that one. That’s my sister’s.” And Will dropped the beautiful fluff-hooded jacket as though it were a dead snake. He stared at her. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I don’t like girls’ things. I don’t like girls.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” He picked up the blue coat and unhooked another one. “You’re a girl yourself, aren’t you? My gran says only cowards hate themselves.” When Will said nothing, only stared with those unblinking brown eyes, he turned away, saying, “Here—this one’s my granddad’s.”

  It was enormous, and smelled of cigarettes and dust. Will wrapped herself in it; it went round her twice. Despite the urgency in her chest, she grinned. It was like wearing courage.

  He was watching her, and as they crossed the square of rubble that was the back garden, he said, “Weren’t you cold before?”

  “Ja. Freezing. Especially at nights.”

  “Scared?”

  “No.”

  He looked skeptical. “Yeah, right.”

  “Yes. Of being caught, ja. Not of anything else.”

  He led her into a square of grass behind the house and round to the garage door. “The hinges creak.” Dan pulled the door back and forth. “Hear that? That can give you warning. If it’s me, I’ll knock twice first. If you hear the creak without a knock, it’s someone else, and you’ll have to escape round the back garden. Can you get out of the window?”

  Will didn’t think that was worth answering. Windows were her specialty. She said, “Thanks. And I’ll need water. I’ve done something to my ankle, I think, and the blisters are septic.” They had gone from plump transparent cushions to deflated brown patches with loose skin. She was more worried about them than she wanted to admit. “And I cut my hand. There’s pus.”

  “Pus?”

  “Ja. Don’t you have pus in England? It’s like . . . I dunno . . . yellow blood. It means there’s an infection.”

  “Right. Okay.” He sounded flustered in the dark. He sounded young. “Lo
ok, I’ve got to go. Gran’ll be back in a second, and it’s my day to set the table. If I don’t do it, she’ll notice something’s going on. She’s fierce, my gran.”

  “Ja. You said.” Will thought she liked the sound of her.

  “Did I? Well, she is. But I’ll bring water, and some food, in about an hour, yeah?”

  At the side door he stopped. “One thing. If you’re a boy now, what am I supposed to call you?”

  Will looked out from under the musty weight of the corduroy coat. Her chest was thawing now. For the first time in what felt like months, Will laughed properly. “You call me Will,” she said.

  • • •

  Alone in the garage, Will dozed, woke, dozed, explored. The silence was complete, and once she had breathed hot air down into her coat, it was not unbearably cold. There was a box of wrenches, and some bicycle lights that didn’t appear to work, and a box full of damp comics.

  She fished some out and trained the light of the flashlight on one. She was astonished to find that she was too happy to read. Without warning, Will found that the feeling of being watched and disliked had left her, and along with it, the feeling of being always wrong, and the loneliness that had filled her chest with black tar. Will thought, Why should it hurt so much to be hated? She had a feeling it was an important question, but before she could begin to think of an answer, the garage door crashed open.

  Will was up and across the floor and crouched behind the car before the door had time to crash shut again—but even so. “I can see your feet, you know,” said Daniel.

  “Ja, well.” Will stood up. “It’s your fault. You forgot to knock.” But he could hear from the shapes of her words that she was grinning. “There’s nowhere to hide, anyway. I wouldn’t have fit in the toolbox.”

  “I’ll bring a big cardboard box later. I got you food.” He sounded much less bewildered than before. His voice was thick with excitement as he dropped to his haunches beside her.

  “What’s this?” said Will.

 

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