Binny Bewitched

by Hilary McKay

  All the same, Binny did not turn back. Instead she found a low boulder and hunched down on it. There was nothing to hear but the wild sound of the waves, nothing to see but a tear-blurry wash of rock and sand, and nothing to feel but a sort of cold, numb weariness.

  For a long time she stayed that way.

  The tide crawled higher, dislodging the gulls. They screamed as they rose and swirled above the waves, and at the same moment Binny was knocked sideways by a great force.

  Something was upon her, bounding and alive. Thick silky fur was warm against her face.

  “Max!” cried Binny.

  Right on cue, the sun escaped the last rags of cloud and flung gilt reflections across the sea. The gulls glittered in the new brightness and the waves broke on the granite in fountains of white light.

  “Max!” murmured Binny, with her arms around him. “Max.”

  The wind, sharp as a silver knife now, was cutting the clouds into streamers and banners. Max and Binny hugged and hugged each other, and Binny asked aloud, “But how did you get here?”

  “How do you think?” demanded a voice, and Binny looked up.

  There, silhouetted against the bannered sky, stood Gareth, dreadful hair, hideous glasses, hands in pockets, too wide jeans sagging over gruesome sneakers, best of enemies, most loyal of friends.

  He gazed down at Binny with twitching lips, as if absolutely determined not to grin.

  “Gareth!” exclaimed Binny, jumping up and hugging him. “Oh Gareth, why didn’t you say you were coming?”

  “Surprise,” said Gareth, disentangling himself very promptly. “Don’t get too happy. We’re just here till Friday.”

  “You and your dad and your stepmother?”

  “Yes, it was her idea. Just last night. And Dad said okay (he wouldn’t have if I’d suggested it) and he and I drove down this morning with Max, we picked him up from Mum’s house, and she’s coming later . . .”

  “Your mum?”

  “No, no!”

  “Your stepmother?”

  “Yes, her. She might be here now. I don’t know. Anyway, when I arrived I went straight round to yours next door and there was your mum going bonkers. And so was Clem.”

  “Did you see James?”

  “James was the only one behaving normally. He came charging downstairs out of the bathroom when he heard me. That old woman with the silly voice from the house on the other side of you was there too. Going on about burglars.”

  “Did Miss Piper have burglars?”

  “No. ’Course not. She thought you had! It’s all right, you haven’t. Your house just looks like they’ve been.”

  “That was me. Are they furious?”

  “Not as bad as my parents would have been if I’d wrecked our place like that. Your mum was more worried about you. She kept saying you’d never learned to swim properly and what about the lifeboat. She was getting really bothered. Clem was trying to calm her down and I said I’d take Max and go and look for you. I was to text her if I found you. I’ve already done it; I saw you from way back.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I guessed you’d done something mad . . . You have, haven’t you?”

  Binny nodded, her face buried in Max’s fur.

  “Go on, then! What?”

  “Promise you’ll never tell?”

  “Okay. If you like.”

  “I stole a lot of money from a bank.”

  Gareth whistled.

  “It was just there, at the ATM outside and I took it. I think Miss Piper saw me.”

  “Crikey, Bin!”

  “And it’s even worse than that because I’ve lost it. I can’t find it anywhere.”

  “How much money?”

  “It was a pile of twenty-pound notes. I don’t know how many. I didn’t count them.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t dare.”

  “You really are seriously weird sometimes,” said Gareth sternly. “It can’t be lost; it’ll be somewhere in all that mess at your house. What’ll you do when you find it, anyway?”

  “Give it back of course. That’s all I want to do now. Give it back quick, before Miss Piper tells. I’ve looked everywhere, Gareth. I promise I have.”

  “Still,” said Gareth, trying to be reasonable, “there’s no need for such a terrible fuss. ATMs don’t give out thousands. The most it’ll have been is a hundred or two. Even if it is lost, and I don’t see how it can be, it wouldn’t take forever to pay that much back. You should tell your mum. She’d help.”

  “I don’t think you understand about our sort of money, Gareth,” said Binny, looking up at him. “It’s not the same as your sort. It’s completely different. Your sort is heaps. Our sort is just enough, with none left over.”

  Gareth shuffled a bit awkwardly. He was an expensive only child with a huge allowance. It was true that he constantly forgot that Binny survived on free school lunches and the odd, rare pound coin. It was hard for him to imagine such an existence, and he mumbled, “Sorry,” not wanting to think about it, and then suddenly had an idea.

  “Max is good at finding stuff! Hide a ball, and he finds it, every time. Same with lots of things! Toys, hats . . . anything!”

  Hope shone across Binny’s face and then faded.

  “I know,” she said. “But he has to know what he’s looking for, doesn’t he? You have to show him the thing you want him to find first, and then hide it.”

  “So?”

  “So it wouldn’t work with something already lost.”

  Gareth explained patiently that Max found things by smell, and that probably one twenty-pound note smelled pretty much like another.

  “Yes but . . .”

  “You haven’t stolen all the twenty-pound notes in the country,” pointed out Gareth. “Just a few of them. There are plenty left for Max to practice with. I’ve got a couple myself.”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Binny, when she understood what Gareth was suggesting. “Oh, what a brilliant idea! Oh, thank goodness you and Max are here! Come on! Let’s get back! When can we do it?”

  “If you want to keep it secret we’ll have to wait until people are out of the way,” said Gareth, as they both began to walk back along the beach. “So not tonight. Anyway, we’re going out to supper as soon as she’s arrived . . .”

  She, was Gareth’s way of referring to his recently acquired stepmother. It was strangely infectious.

  “She’s nice, you shouldn’t talk about her like that,” said Binny.

  “Huh!” said Gareth.

  “I thought you liked her now.”

  “I suppose she’s all right. She’s still allergic to dogs, though. That’s why she’s driving down in her car separately, so as not to be with poor Max.”

  “She can’t help being allergic.”

  “She never seems to try! Anyway, when she gets here we’re going to a pub to save anyone cooking. Do you want to come with us? Dad said to ask you.”

  Meals out were a great treat, far beyond the Cornwallis family budget, and Binny liked Gareth’s furious tempered father and his gentle wicked stepmother, but all the same, she hesitated.

  “Are you going to be awful to her all the time?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “You were when I went out with you once before.”

  “I’ve almost got used to her. She’s not really any worse than Dad. He was dead annoying driving down. He talked all the way about babies.”

  “Babies? Gosh!”

  “He asked me if I liked them! What kind of a question is that? I said I’d never met one. Where would I meet a baby!”

  “Perhaps they are wondering about having one,” Binny suggested, “and he wanted to know what you thought.”

  “Well, he knows now because I told him,” said Gareth.

  With her new hope of Max finding the lost money, Binny could think of other things, and she could see that this sudden new mention of babies was worrying her friend, so she asked, “What did you say?”

&
nbsp; “I made a list of problems,” said Gareth smugly.

  “Go on, then!” prompted Binny.

  “I said: One. This planet is very overpopulated and you’ve already got me . . . What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing. Two?”

  “Two. You are both too old.”

  “Are they?”

  “Geriatric. Three. I guessed you’d ask me this one day so I googled the cost of child-rearing from zero to university and it’s about two hundred thousand pounds not counting driving lessons. That would buy more than three thousand acres of Amazon rain forest which would be much more sensible.”

  “Yes it would,” said Binny, impressed.

  “Four. She’s allergic to dogs. How do you know she’s not allergic to babies? Five. Who would look after it when you’re both playing golf?”

  A sudden mood of airy hilarity swept over Binny, which Gareth ignored.

  “Six. I’m not sitting in the back of the car with it. That was all I could think of, but he hadn’t considered a single one of those things himself. He admitted it.”

  “Was he cross?” asked Binny, who knew from experience that Gareth’s father could become very cross indeed.

  “No. He said I’d been helpful.”

  “Did you say, ‘And what if it was twins?’ ”

  “No, but that’s brilliant! I will do,” said Gareth. “There’s worse than twins, too! What do they call it when there’s three?”

  “Triplets. And quads is four.”

  “Fantastic. Thanks Bin! Quads!”

  “Although,” said Binny, “if they had quads, or triplets, or twins, or even one single ordinary quite small baby, it would mean that they would be totally distracted from bothering about you. So you could do just about what you liked forever and ever . . .”

  Gareth gave Binny a very startled look.

  “ . . . unless you like being an only child . . . Do you?”

  “Me?”

  “Fussed over . . . I wouldn’t. You don’t!”

  “Of course I don’t!”

  “How old is she?”

  “Thirty-two, I mean, thirty-two! Ancient!”

  “My mum’s forty. Poor old Mum. How’ll she pay nine thousand acres of rain forest for Clem and James and me?”

  “Hmm,” said Gareth.

  “It doesn’t matter about sitting with it in the backseat of the car because you’ve got two cars so you wouldn’t have to. I don’t know about being allergic to it, or the world being overpopulated. Maybe some very old person will die and make space.”

  “You can shut up now Binny, if you like,” said Gareth.

  “You could offer to look after it while they play golf! That would solve that problem.”

  The wet beach was dazzling with reflected light, the wind fizzed with salt, and whales and possibilities. Max raced the gulls and barked at the waves. Gareth, feeling virtuous, collected plastic litter from the tideline. Binny forgot that she had ever been alone, and was happy.

  * * *

  “Belinda Cornwallis, you have some explaining to do!” said Binny’s mother when Binny finally appeared, with Max and Gareth behind her. “Hello Gareth, thank you for texting. Binny, whatever were you thinking of, to turn the house upside down like this?”

  “I was just looking for something,” said Binny, her exhilaration fading fast at the look on her mother’s face.

  “Well, I hope you found it!” said her mother crossly. “Miss Piper thought we’d been burgled, and I’m not surprised. You’d better apologize to her for worrying her so much.”

  “Now?” asked Binny, horrified. “I can’t! I really can’t! I’m going to supper in a pub with Gareth and his dad and her.”

  “You are going nowhere,” said her mother calmly, “until every single thing you pulled out is put tidily away.”

  “Oh Mum!” said Binny.

  “Oh Binny!” said her mother. “Get on with it!”

  It took ages and ages. Gareth and his father and stepmother waited hungrily for nearly two hours, and then went off without her, promising that the next day (should the tidying be finished by then) they would go again and this time take her too. Clem helped put the books away. Binny’s mother repacked the cupboard. James took up his train track.

  “I’ll never have nobody to play with it again, anyway,” he said.

  “Why won’t you?” asked his family.

  “Because now Dill’s going to kill me.”

  “Kill you?” they said, laughing at him. “Kill you? Don’t be silly, James!”

  “He can’t come here again. Promise you won’t let him in if he tries! Clem, Mum! Binny! Promise!”

  Binny promised with her fingers crossed and carried on with the tidying. It was late night before it was done, and the money was still missing. However, Max was stretched out in his basket on her bedroom floor, and in the morning he would track it down. As soon as she had it she would take it back to the bank, put up with the consequences, and ordinary life could begin again.

  After three days and nights of crime, Binny longed for ordinary life. The weight of the lost money was worst when she was alone. It slowed her thoughts, so that she could concentrate on nothing else. She could not read, or write. On her bookshelf the blue notebook waited but she left it untouched. When this present trouble was over, she thought sleepily, she would write it all down, draw a line beneath the last words, turn a new page, and start again.

  Chapter Nine

  Tuesday Morning

  Binny’s mother took James with her into work the next day. She often did this; he played in the lounge or garden of the old people’s home, being spoiled by the residents with sweets and stories. He went very willingly that morning, saying, “Dill can’t get me there.”

  With James out of the house, Clem was free too. Clem was very quiet that day. This was not surprising, she nearly always was, either serene and quiet, or worried and quiet. Tuesday was one of her worried and quiet times.

  “I’m going to work in the college library,” she said, and vanished.

  So Binny and Max had the house to themselves, and as soon as Gareth arrived they set to work in search of the lost twenty-pound notes.

  It was terribly hard.

  Max could find a hidden ball.

  He could find Gareth’s sneakers.

  He picked out Binny’s notebook from a whole pile of books.

  But he couldn’t find money, not Gareth’s, nor the notes that were missing.

  He tried really hard, he knew what he was meant to do, he bounded round the house searching, but in the end he always came back to Binny and Gareth, nudging their hands in apology, asking them to help.

  They gave him one of Gareth’s twenty-pound notes to actually hold in his teeth. He dropped it quickly, the way he always dropped other things he didn’t like in his mouth, and offered a polite paw to show that he wasn’t offended.

  Binny put her arms around him and said, “It’s very important. Try again Max.”

  He looked at her worriedly, his head on one side, and then the other, understanding that she was unhappy, willing to keep trying for as long as he was asked. Eventually, when they deliberately left a corner of Gareth’s note sticking out, he did manage to locate it, but that was the only time.

  “He did it by sight, not by smell,” said Gareth. “It’s not going to work.”

  “It’s not fair to make him keep trying either,” said Binny. “He needs his walk. Let’s take him out. I told you the money was gone.”

  * * *

  “I don’t know what to do,” she continued, as they headed down the cliff path with a Frisbee to throw on the beach. “It’s properly lost. I think it’s gone to where lost things go.”

  “What are you on about?” demanded Gareth.

  “When lost things vanish.”

  “Vanish where?”

  “Look at Max! He loves it here! Good catch, Max! When lost things vanish to other places. You must know what I mean.”

  “I don’t.”
<
br />   “You’ve got to have noticed. It happens quite often. You know, when you have to stop looking for something because it’s disappeared forever.”

  “Go on,” said Gareth ominously.

  “I suppose there must be gaps. Ways through.”

  “Ways through to where?”

  “Other worlds,” said Binny impatiently. “Where things get lost.”

  Gareth had been partly watching Max, partly listening to Binny, partly picking up litter and stowing it in a carrier bag (he intended to donate his week’s collection to the town art gallery as a new installation: Public Derision, Private Despair). Now he stopped doing everything to stare at Binny. Her nuttiness was no surprise to him, just the forms it took.

  “Other worlds where things get lost?” he repeated.

  “Yes,” said Binny.

  “What sort of things?” asked Gareth, because that seemed a slightly more simple question to ask a nutter than, What sort of other worlds?

  “Oh,” said Binny, as calmly as if they were talking about the way to the library. “Usually things that no one counts. Leaves and rocks and stuff like that. Shells,” she suggested, looking down at the beach. “Rings and pencils and lids and keys. Legos,” she added, thinking of James, who often lost vital parts from Lego sets. “Loads and loads of things like that and now my stolen money!”

  “Bin,” said Gareth incredulously. “Do you really think planet earth junk is raining down into some mythical world through gaps?”

  “Slipping not raining.”

  “And I suppose their junk is coming here?”

  “I suppose,” agreed Binny, nodding.

  “How come we never see it, then?”

  Binny looked at Gareth’s half full carrier bag and then down at the tideline. Bladderwrack, orange nylon string, crab claws, a curve of some sort of earthenware pot, feathers, a cube of wood hammered on all sides with mysterious blackened nails.

  “Obviously it is,” she said.

  It surprised her to find how strongly Gareth disagreed with this sane and comforting belief. To Binny it had always been an accepted fact of life, one of the many everyday mysteries that included upside-down reflections in spoons, the shape of flames, and the Internet. Yet Gareth was almost outraged. It seemed there were no hidden gaps in his world at all. No one ever said, as they said so often in the Binny’s family, I’ve given up looking for my flute cleaner/the little red alarm clock/James’s other slipper. Things given up as gone for good, for which it was no use searching anymore.