by Hilary McKay
No one else was happy. Clem, Binny, and their mother were so separately miserable that they had not been kind to each other. James had produced Miss Piper’s small white van before he went to bed.
“She gave it to me for a present,” he had told Binny. “I asked if she didn’t want it but she said not anymore.”
“She’s witched Pete away,” said Binny. “That’s why.”
“For GOODNESS’ SAKE Binny!” her mother had exclaimed, and later Binny heard her say to Clare’s mum during a long and grumpy phone call, “Sometimes I feel like packing up and moving a hundred miles away!”
“When are you going to get your junk up into the attic?” Clem asked Binny. “Then Mum can have your room and stop sleeping on the sofa at last.”
“I never thought of that,” said Binny, and spent the rest of the evening climbing up and down her new staircase with her arms full of possessions. It took a very long time because as she packed she searched once again for the twenty-pound notes. By bedtime the attic, which had looked very large when she first saw it, had shrunk to a normal sized room, and her old bedroom, which had seemed very small, had expanded in every direction. Gareth, who came to say good night to Max and stayed to help carry things, was very rude about Binny’s possessions.
“Teddy bears and stuff!” he said in disgust.
“Some are Clem’s that I had to rescue when she threw them away.”
“Rescue!”
“Their faces,” explained Binny. “Their eyes . . .” She stopped. Useless to try and explain the pathos of an about-to-be-chucked-out teddy bear’s eyes to Gareth. “Anyway, I like them, and I haven’t rescued many of Clem’s things. Just the bears and the dolls’ house.”
“Dolls’ house?” asked Gareth. “Where?”
“Somewhere about.”
Gareth was looking around the attic more carefully. “It’s really good up here,” he said. “Can you open up that skylight or is it fixed shut?”
It slid open easily. Binny climbed on her father’s desk, and Gareth stood on the bedroom chair, and together they gazed at the night view of the town. Far away, a lighthouse flashed and paused and flashed again. Close by, Miss Piper’s broomstick made a long shadow against her garden wall. In the eaves, feathery bundles of pigeons roosted, waiting for the next free meal to appear in Gareth’s garden.
“She wouldn’t be pleased if she knew they were there,” said Gareth, glancing at the broomstick.
“Gareth, what’ll I do?”
“It’s Pete or Clem,” he said.
But in bed that night Binny remembered Gareth’s casual question: “Dolls’ house? Where?”
Where was the dolls’ house?
The dolls’ house, with its miniature cupboards and wardrobes, held half a dozen hiding places, and Binny fell asleep recalling them, instead of the way Clem’s eyes had looked when she had said of the broken flute: “It’s paid for already.”
Instead of remembering Pete, with the squashy green bag in his hand, and his cold eyes as the bracelet fell to the ground.
Instead of imagining Miss Piper’s lapping voice saying to her money-hunted mother, There’s something I have to tell you about Binny.
* * *
When Gareth arrived in the morning for Max’s early walk there was one thought in Binny’s mind.
“I need to find the dolls’ house. It’s lost.”
“Lost? How can you lose a dolls’ house? What’s it like anyway? Does it open up or something? Surely you’d remember if you put money inside a dolls’ house!”
“Would I?”
“ ’Course you would. What a weird thing to do.”
“No it’s not. I could easily have put it there. I often used to put things in it, just to tidy them away. I don’t know where it is now, though. I gave it to James, but he didn’t want it and it’s not in his room. Nor in mine either, and I can’t see it downstairs.”
“What about Clem’s room?”
“She’s gone out. She rushed out early. I’ll check, just in case.”
It wasn’t in Clem’s room. It wasn’t in the cupboard under the stairs either.
“Come out of there!” ordered Binny’s mother crossly, as usual in a rush.
“I was just looking for the dolls’ house,” said Binny meekly.
“The dolls’ house? What for? You were trying to give it to James not long ago. You shouldn’t have; he dropped it down the stairs and the chimneys broke. It’s being glued back together, I believe, so you’ll have to wait till it’s fixed.”
“Has Pete taken it, then?” asked Binny, very surprised.
“Not Pete. Miss Piper.”
“Miss Piper?”
“She offered,” said Binny’s mother, and disappeared into the bathroom.
“My whole life is going wrong!” wailed Binny, when she had gone. “What if the money’s in there and Miss Piper finds it? We’ve got to get it back quick. Gareth . . .”
“No!” said Gareth at once. “I’ve had enough run-ins with that old bat! No way am I going with you while you ask, ‘Please can I have my dolls’ house back!’ And to make quite sure this didn’t happen he went off with Max, leaving Binny hovering outside Miss Piper’s windows, gathering her courage.
The house seemed empty. No shadowy movements behind the lace curtains and silk flowers. No answer to Binny’s knock on the door.
“I expect she’s in town somewhere,” said Binny’s mother, pausing on her way to work with James in tow. “I’m taking James with me, and Clem should be back soon. There’s cheese and apples and potato chips for sandwiches at lunchtime, or you can have a go at cooking if you’re feeling enterprising.”
“I don’t think I will be.”
“Well, perhaps Clem might. And don’t go bothering Miss Piper for that dolls’ house if she hasn’t got it finished. I can’t think what you want it for anyway.”
“I just wanted to look inside very quickly.”
“Gareth’s not thinking of turning it into a pigeon coop or anything?”
“No, no! Of course not!”
“Be good then, Binny. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Binny was still being good outside Miss Piper’s when she spotted Clem.
Clem, half running, half stumbling up the steep cobbled street from the market, her head held down to hide her face. She passed Binny without seeming to see her at all, tripped over the doorstep, flung herself through the front door, and went racing up the stairs.
Even from the street outside, Binny could hear the sobs.
“Clem?” she called, running after her. “Clem?”
“Leave me ALONE!”
“Has something awful happened?”
Sob, went Clem.
“Shall I ring Mum at work?”
“Don’t you dare!”
Clem appeared then at her bedroom door, blotchy faced, mascara streaked eyes, messy haired, such an achingly younger version of her usual self, that Binny reached out and hugged her.
“Oh Clem!”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” moaned Clem, slumping back onto her bed. “Don’t tell Mum. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t look at me like that!”
“What’s happened?”
“I’ve done something awful.”
“No Clem, you can’t have. Not awful. Not you.”
“I didn’t want to,” said Clem, with her head in her arms.
“Of course you didn’t.” Binny patted a quivering shoulder with such sympathy that for a moment Clem stopped sobbing.
Only for a moment, though, then her body began to shake again and she said, “You would never understand.”
“I might,” said Binny humbly. “I’ve done loads of awful things myself.”
“Well, you’re used to it,” sniffed Clem. “You should be anyway,” she added so callously that Binny would have marched out of the room if she had not had to ask: “Did you . . . did you . . . take something, Clem?”
“What do you mean, take something? Steal something? Is
that what you mean?”
“Money,” said Binny, hating what she was doing, but doing it anyway. “You didn’t take a whole lot of money did you? Twenty-pound notes . . .” Binny’s voice trailed away at the sight of the bewilderment on her sister’s face. “No,” she said. “No you didn’t.”
“Are you mad, Binny? Whatever could make you ask that? Twenty-pound notes? I wish!”
“I knew you wouldn’t have.”
“I would!” said Clem. “I would if I could! It would have been better.”
“Better than what?”
“I can’t tell you. You’d hate me. Please shut up now Binny and leave me alone. I just want to be miserable for a bit.”
“I was only trying to help.”
“I know.”
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
“No thank you. Haven’t you got anything to do?”
“Millions of things.”
“Go and do them, then.”
“The first is Miss Piper. I’ve got to get the dolls’ house off her. She’s mending it or something.”
“Who cares?”
“Oh.”
“What do you want it for, anyway?”
“I just do. But it’s going to be awful. Oh Clem, stop crying!”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry. Please just leave me alone, Bin.”
“All right. Oh. I forgot. Your bracelet. Here.”
“WHAT!”
The restoration of Spider-Man to Dill was nothing compared to the return of the bracelet to Clem.
Clem stared, seized, stared again, and then all at once began to cry in frightening, anguished howls, Hooo, hooo, hooo, the way no one in the family had cried for years and years. The way Clem had cried when her father had died.
“Clem! Stop it! Stop it!” begged Binny. “Someone will hear! Gareth’s family! Miss Piper! Clem, I really will have to ring Mum!”
“Hooo!” wailed Clem one last time, and then as suddenly as she had started, she stopped, rocked for a little, and then said, in a fairly normal voice, “I thought I’d never see it again! How did you get my bracelet?”
“You must have dropped it,” said Binny.
“What?”
Binny was suddenly very uncomfortable. As far as she knew, Pete had only ever been kind. Grumpy sometimes, but kind. And she liked him very much. Yet too well she remembered the green bag and the bracelet falling, Miss Piper’s hints.
All her money, gone missing . . .
Clem was insisting. “I didn’t drop it. I knew where it was. Tell me how you got it.”
“Someone gave it to me to give to you,” said Binny reluctantly.
“Who? Mum?”
Binny shook her head.
“Please tell me?”
“Please don’t make me. Why did you think you’d never see it again?”
“I sold it.”
“Sold it?” asked Binny, truly shocked.
“Yes.”
“Sold it to Pete?”
“To Pete? Of course not! I sold it to a jewelers’ shop in town.”
“Well then,” said Binny, helplessly. “Well then, I don’t understand.”
“Listen,” said Clem, and explained how her flute had been broken. “They should be serviced,” she said, “like a car, but I could never afford it. So it had to be mended and I hadn’t any money and the café was closed so I couldn’t earn any.”
“Hadn’t you any saved up?”
Clem explained about the tremendous cost of flute lessons, and exam fees, and music books, and all the other things it took to study an instrument at such a high level, and also how she had nothing left to sell. Nothing at all.
“Except the bracelet. So I took it to that scuffy little jewelers’ near the marketplace. The one with the notice saying ‘Gold and silver bought.’ They wouldn’t buy it until I showed them my student ID card to prove I was old enough to let them and then they put it straight into the window for sale.”
“I asked them not to,” continued Clem. “I was so scared Mum would see it. There were cases inside the shop they could have put it in instead. At the beginning I thought maybe when I’d earned some money I could go back and buy it, but when I saw it in the window I knew I never could. They put the price underneath it. It was twice as much as they paid me. And when I went in and complained . . .”
“You didn’t!” exclaimed Binny at this bravery.
“Of course I did. Dad’s bracelet! I hated that man in the shop. He had a big white face and he smiled at me and said, ‘This is a business, my dear.’ ”
“Cheating pig!” said Binny.
“Yes he was!”
“Is that why you’ve been so miserable? And in and out all the time?”
Clem nodded. “I kept checking it was still there. Every day, whenever I had a chance. And the last time I checked, just now, just half an hour ago, it was gone. Sold.”
“Sold?”
“Yes. I asked, but they wouldn’t tell me who bought it.”
“It was Pete,” said Binny. “It must have been. He gave it to me last night, just before he drove away.”
“Pete did?”
“Yes. He said not to tell Mum but to say to you that he’d picked it up to keep it safe before it got lost. And he said I was to give it back to you.”
“It was more than a hundred pounds!” said Clem. “Those charms are white gold, not silver! That star is a diamond! How could Pete buy it?”
Binny did not want to think about how Pete could buy it. Instead she asked, “Was that the awful thing you did, selling your bracelet?”
“Yes.”
“I did something much worse than that,” said Binny, but Clem was turning and turning the bracelet on her wrist and she did not hear.
Chapter Seventeen
Thursday Afternoon
The Unbewitching
Clem had sold her bracelet, her last gift from her father and her most desperate selling yet. A year before, a month before, even a week before, Binny would have been furious and bewildered at such a betrayal, but not anymore. She understood about money now.
Poor Clem, she thought, and remembering how she had got it back again, Oh Pete.
Mostly however, Binny thought of the dolls’ house. It had been in her room the night she lost the money. It still might save Pete. It still might save them both.
So once again she knocked on Miss Piper’s door, and this time she knew that it would be opened. There was a light shining somewhere beyond the frosted glass panel, and soft movements behind the lace curtains. Binny chewed her nails and twisted her hair into worried knots and waited for the blue eyes and the lapping voice.
“Binny. You’ve come to see me at last.”
“Yes,” agreed Binny, and she nodded and nodded with nervousness. “Yes,” she said again, and dried up.
“There’s something you’d like to tell me?” suggested Miss Piper.
“To ask you,” said Binny.
“Ask me?” The blue eyes became bright with surprise.
“Please could we have our dolls’ house back?”
Miss Piper’s whole shape changed. She stepped back and stared.
“Your dolls’ house?” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“You’re here to ask for your dolls’ house? That’s all?”
“Yes please. Mum said you were mending it. Thank you very much, but I can mend it.”
Miss Piper seemed unconvinced. “Why just now?”
“I didn’t know it was here before,” explained Binny. “I came as soon as Mum told me, but you were out.”
“Well,” said Miss Piper, “I thought you had come to see me on quite a different matter. And here’s Clem too!”
A Clem transformed had arrived behind Binny, not just her bracelet sparkling, but the whole of her sparkling with joy. “College rang! My flute is back! I’m just going to collect it!”
“It’s been mended so soon?” asked Miss Piper, and Clem said, “Yes, so soon!” and didn’t think to ask
how she knew it had been broken.
“Please,” said Binny desperately, “would you mind if Clem helped me carry my dolls’ house back?”
“I would never have suspected you of caring about a dolls’ house,” said Miss Piper, and although she smiled and her voice was as smooth as ever, she looked at Clem as if asking a question.
Clem said, “Oh, yes, Binny does! She always did. That’s why we’ve kept it so long,” and Binny felt herself blushing at all the attention and scuffled a little with her feet.
“You’d better take it, then,” said Miss Piper, moving aside. “It’s in the sitting room, behind the door. I’m afraid I’ve hardly had time to look at it yet.”
“Thank you,” said Binny, and she was truly thankful for that news. “Thank you, thank you! Come on Clem!”
Miss Piper looked at them both curiously as they passed, so curiously that Clem paused to ask, “Miss Piper?”
“Nothing, nothing,” said Miss Piper, waving them away, and she said something else that Binny did not catch.
“What was it?” she asked Clem, as they heaved the dolls’ house first up the main stairs and then up the attic stairs.
“She said, ‘I may have been mistaken,’ ” said Clem as she dumped down her end of the burden. “What did she mean? Oh, it doesn’t matter! Can you manage now? I’m going for my flute.”
“Yes, go,” said Binny, and even before Clem was down the attic stairs, she was on her knees in front of the dolls’ house. She was very tired, as tired as a traveler at the end of a long journey. “Please,” she whispered out loud, and undid the catch that opened it up.
The whole front swung open. Every room was visible, and Binny, who had forgotten until then the peg doll people, saw that every floor was inhabited. There was a small wooden Clem, four inches high, slumped across the sofa in the dolls’ living room. No wonder she was slumped: her flute (a silver twirl of foil and wire) lay broken on the floor.
Upstairs, in the blue bedroom, a miniature James lay neatly in bed, tucked in immovably tight. His eyes gazed blankly at the ceiling above; he was clearly and firmly banished.
That’s how she did it, thought Binny.
On the staircase between the floors sat Binny herself, her notebook fallen but her left hand still tight in her pocket, gripping the invisible money.