by Gwyneth Rees
It felt like forever but in fact it only took twenty minutes to cycle to our old cottage – Rat Cottage as we all referred to it now.
There was no sign of anyone in the two neighbouring cottages, though a car was parked on the grass verge in front. I couldn’t see my sister’s bicycle or Sam’s motorbike anywhere, but it made sense that they’d have hidden them.
I propped up my bike against the side of the cottage and crept round the back to find the dodgy window. Nothing had changed. The grass was still overgrown and judging by the droppings on the patio the rats were still alive and kicking. Even the Frisbee Grace had managed to get stuck in the tree was still up there.
Suddenly footsteps behind me made me jump and as I turned a familiar voice said, ‘Hey! It’s Libby, isn’t it? What are you doing here?’
It was the girl I’d met at the park – Katie. I was so stunned to find her here that I couldn’t speak at first. I soon recovered enough to mumble, ‘We used to rent this cottage. That’s our Frisbee.’ I pointed a bit lamely up at the tree.
‘Wait – was it your family who upset Mrs Fuller so badly?’ She sounded amused.
‘She upset us!’ I protested. ‘That house is disgusting inside!’ I paused. ‘But how come you’re here?’
‘My aunt and uncle live next door. They’re going on holiday today so we’re giving them a lift to the station. You’re lucky they already took the dogs to the kennels this morning. If the dogs had found you here they might have got nasty.’
‘Yeah … well … the dogs actually shouldn’t be in this garden,’ I murmured, edging past her to get back round to the front,
‘That’s what my mum says. My auntie doesn’t like Mrs Fuller though, so I don’t think she cares.’
I could feel Katie’s eyes on me, watching as I collected my bicycle. I was trying to think of something friendlier to say. On her own Katie seemed OK, although I was still wary of her two friends.
It was then that I heard voices and saw Bella and Sam walking round the bend in the road.
‘Libby, what are you doing?’ Bella called out crossly. ‘Does Aunt Thecla know you’re here? You’re going to spoil everything if you’re not careful –’
‘Hey!’ Sam came to the rescue, giving my sister a sharp nudge as he spotted Katie standing silently behind me watching us. ‘Who’s this then, Libby?’ he asked, trying to sound calm though I could tell he was nervous.
‘This is Katie,’ I introduced her quickly. ‘Her aunt and uncle live in the middle cottage.’
Suddenly we heard a door opening and adult voices talking and laughing. A man and a woman emerged from the middle cottage carrying suitcases.
‘Come on, Libby. Let’s go,’ Bella said sharply.
‘See you around, Libby,’ Katie called out.
My legs felt like they were made of lumps of wood as I hurried back along the road with Bella and Sam. When we were finally out of sight of the cottage, Bella turned and glared at me. ‘Are you trying to get us caught?’
I glared back. ‘I was just trying to find you, that’s all! Where were you?’
‘We were hiding my bike in the woods,’ Sam said, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. ‘Did Bella tell you about the den we found? We’ve patched it up and it makes a pretty good shelter.’
And a pretty good place to roll around snogging, I thought. Though of course I didn’t dare say that.
‘Come on, Libby,’ Sam said. ‘Come and see it. It’s actually pretty cool.’
Chapter Thirteen
‘This is cool,’ I said when I set eyes on it.
They’d first discovered the abandoned den while we’d been living at the cottage, when Bella had already been meeting up with Sam in secret. Apparently he’d driven here the day after we had. The den was made under a low overhanging tree, using lots of broken-off branches propped up and wedged into place to make slanting walls. Sam had found an old sheet of plastic in a skip, which he’d used to cover part of the roof.
Inside the shelter was all Sam’s stuff, including his motorbike. Bella’s bicycle was leaning up against it.
‘I’m still a bit worried about leaving my bike here for too long,’ he said. ‘Whoever made this den might come back, and I don’t fancy a load of kids crawling over it or someone siphoning off my petrol. I think I should stay here at night, Bella, at least for now.’
‘Don’t be daft. You should totally make use of the cottage. It’s not like you’ll be doing any damage.’
‘But it’s still against the law.’
‘Well, you won’t get caught,’ Bella said firmly. ‘Especially now that the people next door are going away.’
‘Katie told me the dogs went to the kennels this morning,’ I said.
‘See!’ said Bella. ‘And the old lady in the third cottage is deaf and never answers her door, so she won’t be any trouble.’
‘All the same, I think I’ll sleep out here tonight,’ Sam said stubbornly.
‘You do realise that the weather forecast is really bad for this weekend, don’t you?’ I said. ‘There’s supposed to be a storm, and it’s not safe to shelter underneath trees if there’s thunder and lightning. You could get electrocuted.’
Bella looked at me gratefully as he sighed and said, ‘If the weather’s bad I’ll sleep in the cottage. But really I just want to find some work so I can move back to the B & B.’
As we headed back towards civilisation my phone rang. The three of us had just reached the road where the trees ended and Sam was about to ride off to the jobcentre in Castle Westbury. I checked to see who was calling me and wished I hadn’t when I saw that it was Aunt Thecla.
‘Don’t answer it,’ Bella said.
‘I have to,’ I grunted.
Thankfully it was Grace at the other end. ‘Libby, we’ve just put our cakes in the oven,’ she told me excitedly. ‘And now Aunt Thecla wants to give me an art lesson. Oh … and a girl called in to see you.’
‘What girl?’
‘Tansy. Aunt Thecla called her Pansy and she got really cross.’ She giggled. ‘She was going somewhere on the bus and she came to see if you wanted to go with her.’
‘Going where on the bus?’
‘Shopping. In a castle.’
‘Castle? Oh, do you mean Castle Westbury?’
I could hear our aunt saying something in the background, then Grace said, ‘Aunt Thecla wants to know where you are.’
‘With Bella. We’ll be home soon.’
As I came off the phone, Sam said, ‘I can give you a lift to Castle Westbury if you like.’
‘What? On that thing?’ I had butterflies in my tummy just at the thought of riding on his motorbike.
‘Hey, I’m a perfectly safe driver, you know,’ he said indignantly as he fastened his helmet.
‘Don’t take it personally,’ Bella said. ‘Dad’s completely brainwashed her about motorbikes.’
I averted my eyes as they kissed goodbye.
After Sam had gone, Bella and I cycled back to the village together, with Bella barking, ‘Car!’ whenever she heard one approaching. And instead of feeling annoyed every time she yelled at me to keep closer to the hedge, I found myself feeling pleasantly surprised by how protective she was being.
We arrived back to find Aunt Thecla in the kitchen with Grace, showing her how to draw pictures using charcoal.
‘Girls, I need one of you to go to my house and fetch me some hairspray,’ she greeted us. ‘I need it to set the charcoal on these drawings or they’ll smudge. I’ve looked upstairs but your mother doesn’t seem to have any.’ She sounded a bit irritated by that fact.
‘Yeah, well, only old ladies use hairspray these days,’ Bella muttered.
‘I’ll go,’ I offered hastily.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Bella said, ignoring our aunt’s glare.
Once we reached the house I realised why Bella had wanted to come. ‘I’m going to see what food she’s got in her kitchen,’ she told me.
‘Don’t take too
much,’ I warned her as I hurried up to the bathroom where Aunt Thecla usually kept her hairspray.
When I couldn’t find any, I decided to look in her bedroom instead. I’d glimpsed inside her bedroom before while we’d been staying here, but she usually kept the door closed and we weren’t allowed to go in without her permission. Also off limits was her art studio, though she never took any chances with that, keeping it locked the whole time we were there.
Now I had the opportunity to look around her bedroom properly I noticed that it was the lightest, most colourful room in the house. It had three bold abstract paintings on one wall, which were her own work, and which I liked a lot more than any of the paintings she’d ever given us. I looked on her dressing table for hairspray but I couldn’t see any.
The top drawer of the dressing table was partly open and I could see loose photos and what looked like a couple of small photo albums inside. Of course I knew I should close the drawer immediately but I was far too curious.
I carefully slid out a small black leather album. To my surprise it was filled with photographs of me and my sisters as babies. I returned it to the drawer and took out an envelope containing some older-looking colour photos. They were of Aunt Thecla as a girl of perhaps seventeen or eighteen. In one picture she was sitting in a field of bluebells. In another I hardly recognised her because her hair was loose – a rich dark-brown colour, flowing in waves down her back. In that one she wore a blue summer dress and she was balancing on the branch of a tree. There was another of her pulling a silly face, and another of her waving to the camera. I was surprised to see what an attractive young woman she had been.
Lastly there was a photo of a young man standing in the same field of bluebells, blowing a kiss to whoever was holding the camera (presumably Aunt Thecla?). I studied the young man’s face to see if it resembled Michael Godwin’s. I couldn’t really tell, but then I noticed the writing on the back of the photograph:
A kiss for my Bluebell, with love from M
‘WOW!’ I said out loud. I could feel butterflies in my chest, a mix of nerves and excitement. I felt like I’d found a clue in some huge and tantalising mystery.
‘Wow, what?’ Bella asked from the doorway.
I instantly wished that Tansy was here instead of Bella. I had a feeling Tansy might actually share a bit of my excitement.
‘You do know Aunt Thecla would kill you if she knew you were going through her stuff, don’t you?’ Like I already said, Bella isn’t nearly as curious as I am about other people and she’s always saying I’m way too nosy.
I hurriedly replaced the photos in the drawer. ‘I’m still looking for the hairspray,’ I said, although I couldn’t have cared less about finding that now. All I wanted to do was search through the rest of my aunt’s stuff to find more clues.
‘Oh, I already found that in the kitchen. Come on.’
I suppose I should have been grateful that she was forcing me to leave before my curiosity got the better of me. I can so relate to the saying that curiosity killed the cat. You wouldn’t think curiosity could be so dangerous but, believe me, sometimes it can pretty much choke to death any sense you’ve got and make you behave in a way that’s just plain wrong.
Sitting ready by the front door was a large carrier bag of food. ‘Bella, you can’t take all that!’
‘It’s OK. It’s all stuff from the back of her cupboards. She won’t notice – at least not for a while.’ She shoved the can of hairspray into my hand and told me to take it to our house. ‘I’m going to stash this lot at the cottage for Sam.’
Chapter Fourteen
The next few days were very busy. Dad was working from home and Mum was working full-time at her new dental practice because one of the other dentists was off sick. Bella was spending most of her time with Sam.
He’d been sleeping in the cottage for the past few days, ever since the weather had worsened. It had basically been raining non-stop, and as he hadn’t had any luck finding a job he was feeling pretty miserable.
‘Couldn’t he sell his motorbike if he needs money?’ I suggested to Bella.
‘Of course not. He’d be stranded without it. Besides, he loves that bike.’
‘But he hasn’t even got money to buy petrol,’ I pointed out.
‘I found some more money for him. It’s enough for fuel and food for a while. And he should be safe enough in the cottage, especially with the neighbours away.’
‘Where did you get the extra money?’ I asked, puzzled.
At first I thought she wasn’t going to tell me, then she shrugged as if she didn’t see the point in hiding it.
‘You know Aunt Thecla has that tin on the shelf in her kitchen? Well, the other day when we went round to get the hairspray I had a look inside. It’s stuffed with money – I counted almost a hundred pounds. I took some of that.’
‘Bella, that’s stealing!’ I was horrified.
‘It’s borrowing. I’ll put it back at some point. In any case, Aunt Thecla doesn’t need it – she has loads of money. She probably won’t even notice it’s gone.’
I frowned, struggling to feel comfortable with this. ‘I guess I could try and think of it like Robin Hood,’ I murmured, ‘stealing from the rich to give to the poor …’
‘I don’t care how you think of it,’ said Bella with a dismissive shrug. ‘Just don’t tell Sam where the money came from. He’s feeling guilty enough about still owing his uncle loads of money for his bike.’
I sighed. ‘Taking money from Aunt Thecla just feels really wrong, that’s all.’
‘Yeah, well, blame Dad, not me.’
‘Huh?’
‘He’s the one who’s backed me into this corner. If he wasn’t so mean about Sam, we could just ask him for help.’
I pulled a face, which I guess must have expressed how I felt about her logic.
She instantly glared at me and went all defensive. ‘It’s true,’ she snapped.
I didn’t respond. I actually thought that blaming Dad for what she’d done was a huge cop-out, not to mention totally ludicrous, but needless to say I wasn’t brave enough to tell her that.
The next day as she was leaving for work Mum said, ‘I’ve got Tansy Godwin coming for an appointment this afternoon. You three haven’t had check-ups in a while, so you may as well come in today too.’
‘Do we have to, Mum?’ Bella complained. I knew she’d been planning on meeting up with Sam that afternoon.
‘Yes. I’ve got some free time after Tansy. You can all come down to the surgery at four o’clock. It shouldn’t take long.’
‘How do you know it won’t take long?’ Bella grunted huffily. ‘We might need loads of fillings.’
‘You’d better not,’ Mum said. ‘And you’d better all be on your best behaviour in that waiting room today, or else!’ She glared at Bella and me. ‘That means no chatting about long needles and loud drills and dentists pulling out teeth with pliers!’
Bella and I started laughing, remembering the visit she was talking about when we’d got a bit bored waiting for her.
‘It’s not funny!’ Mum snapped. ‘Two of my clients complained, and there was a little boy who was so scared he wouldn’t open his mouth when his mother brought him in. I didn’t dare tell her you were anything to do with me.’
‘Mum, we’re never going to do that again,’ I said, pulling myself together when I saw how cross she was.
‘I’m very glad to hear it!’ she said, not seeming very glad at all as she slammed the front door behind her.
‘Oh dear,’ I murmured guiltily.
But Bella just sounded impatient as she said dismissively, ‘Honestly, it was more than a year ago! You’d really think she’d be over that by now!’
Bella and I went to collect Grace from Aunt Thecla’s house that afternoon before our dental appointment. She’d told us to come early because she had a surprise for us.
‘I bet it’s another painting,’ Bella said as we set off. ‘It’ll be something even m
ore hideous this time – you’ll see!’
Aunt Thecla had been spending a lot more time with Grace ever since she’d decided that Grace showed ‘artistic potential’. I have to confess I was a little hurt by her newfound favouritism. Previously I had always been the one she paid most attention to, mainly because she thought I was the clever one. (I’ve always had better marks than Bella in all my exams, though I think that’s probably because she never does any work, whereas I always study really hard.)
‘Grace is in the kitchen having a little snack before she goes,’ our aunt told us when we arrived. ‘I know one normally doesn’t eat before a visit to the dentist, but as it’s only your mother …’ She trailed off as if it went without question that Mum wouldn’t mind.
I was about to point out that if the snack was anything Mum might have to pick out of Grace’s teeth before she could examine them properly, then she probably would mind, but before I could speak, Aunt Thecla was ushering us into the kitchen.
On the table lay four different photographs of bluebells and four matching pastel pictures.
‘Guess which is mine,’ Grace challenged us through a mouthful of cheese sandwich.
Now you’d think it would be obvious which picture had been drawn by a six-year-old, but it actually wasn’t. The pictures were all much better than anything I could have done. In the end Grace couldn’t contain herself any longer. ‘They’re all mine!’ she squealed.
‘No way! That’s brilliant, Grace!’ I exclaimed.
She giggled in delight while our aunt smiled proudly at her.
‘Bluebells were Aunt Thecla’s favourite flower when she was a little girl,’ Grace said, like she was announcing a very important historical fact.
I made the connection then. ‘Wait, is that why Tansy’s dad called you Bluebell?’
My aunt looked flummoxed for several seconds. ‘And how would you know about that?’ she finally asked in a very guarded sort of voice.
‘Tansy told me,’ I replied, not seeing why she should be ashamed of it.