by Hilary McKay
Then he woke up and found himself on the floor, and remembered that this was the day he was taking Rose to New York. Rose, not Samantha.
I have no choice, thought Bill. What else could I do? Let her go home? Now she knows about Saffron?
He went across the hall to look at Rose, asleep in his bed. The clothes that Samantha had bought her were laid in loving piles around the pillows. The new trainers made lumps under the quilt. The dinosaur sponge was hugged under her chin, like a teddy bear. She looked so completely contented that it was a shame to wake her up, but even as he looked at her she opened her eyes and asked, ‘Is it time to go?’
‘Yes,’ said Bill. ‘Nearly. Nearly time to go.’
Chapter Twelve
Rose thought, I never guessed on Monday morning that on Friday morning I would be sitting on an aeroplane ready to fly to Tom-in-New-York. I never guessed it on Tuesday morning either. Or Wednesday. Or Thursday.
The plane had just begun to move. Rose was trying very hard not to be frightened.
She had a seat with a window, a small rectangle hardly bigger than her face. Through it she watched the airport buildings become smaller as the plane chugged (at the speed of an old town bus) to the end of the runway. She could not imagine how they would ever fly.
Then the tremendous acceleration began. Her ears hurt and an enormous force pushed her into the back of her seat. Beyond the window the ground tilted away, the earth turned sideways and the window filled with a blur of dingy-coloured patchwork, menacingly close.
Fear washed over Rose like a great cold wave. She cried, ‘Daddy!’ as she went under, and from somewhere as far away as another world she felt him take her hand.
‘All right, Rosy Pose?’ said Bill.
Rose could only gasp.
‘Open your eyes.’
Rose opened her eyes. Amazing. Blue sky outside, and the earth back where it should be, far, far below.
For a minute Rose had thought it was going to come charging in through the window.
‘Perfectly safe,’ said Bill, but he still held her small cold hand firmly in his warm brown one. ‘Remember how the planes look, crossing the sky?’
Rose nodded.
‘All those jet trail white lines?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thousands of people fly all over the world every day.’
‘I know,’ said Rose, and she thought, Tom did. Just like this.
‘Are we making a white line right now?’ she asked.
‘I expect so.’
Rose wished she could see it: her own line drawn across the sky. Her biggest picture ever, an immense white stroke sweeping across a clear blue background. Only God drew bigger pictures than aeroplanes. She imagined him (surely at this height not far overhead), stooping down to admire her work, wondering how it would end.
Silently, in her head, she commanded God, Step over it! It’s not finished yet!
It will end with Tom, Rose thought.
Friday morning at the Casson house was not good. Saffron and Sarah came home to a tremendous fuss. Nobody was dressed and everybody was talking at once. Too many things had to be explained: the sudden reappearance of Caddy (who was supposed to be looking after Rose in London), the dumping of Michael and the exit of Samantha. Worst of all, the fact that even now Rose was on an eight o’clock flight from Heathrow in London to JFK airport in New York, in the confident belief that she would find Tom there waiting for her.
‘I should never have stayed at Sarah’s!’ said Saffy. ‘If I’d spoken to Rose I would not have let her go! Fancy giving the phone to that dope David, Indigo! You know it was David who sent her off after Caddy in the first place!’
‘I should never have left her in London!’ moaned Caddy. ‘All I could think of was Michael…’
‘I can’t believe you’ve dumped Michael!’ said Indigo as he headed to the shower.
‘Neither can I!’ said Caddy, and started crying again.
Only Eve was in any way happy. She knew she should not be, but she could not help it. The news of Samantha made her feel much less of a single mother. Nor was she as disturbed as the rest at the thought of Rose’s desolate, Tom-less arrival in New York. Like Rose, she could not imagine such a possibility. She said, ‘Bill will take care of Rose. Darling Bill! Saffy, I don’t think it would have made any difference if you had been here, Rose would still have gone…Is that the door? Yes, it is! It’s that boy MarcusJoshPatrick! And Indy is in the shower and nobody is dressed except Saffron and Sarah, and he always stays for ages! Saffy darling, do you think you could go down and very kindly and tactfully get rid of him?’
Saffron gave a great groan.
‘I’ll go!’ offered Sarah, scrambling to her feet and setting off with her wobbly mermaid walk to the top of the stairs. ‘I’m brilliant at getting rid of people; I do it all the time at home!’ (She tobogganed swiftly down the stairs on her bottom.) ‘Just wait and see!’
A minute later, she had crossed the kitchen, pulled open the door, hooked it closed behind her, and toppled forward into David’s arms, causing him to take several steps backwards and temporarily forget everything that had ever happened to him in the preceding thirteen years.
‘Crikey!’ said David, clutching Sarah as if she was an unexpected gift of the gods, dropped down from the sky. ‘Crikey, I never…I didn’t know you…Is this nearly like snogging? No, no! I never said that!’
‘Yes you did and no it isn’t,’ said Sarah, unwrapping herself from his arms. ‘Nothing like snogging as I am sure you will one day discover (although not with me). You can let go now. I will not fall over. Now then, why are you here?’
‘I came to see what was happening,’ said David. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about Rose and wondering if she was OK. So I thought I’d come round early and see.’
‘So did I,’ said Sarah. ‘But it’s no good. I was glad to get out (you were a perfect excuse, David). They are not dressed and seriously stressed and things are not happy. They don’t want visitors. What were you thinking of, zooming Rose away to London like that, and then letting her take off for New York?’
‘She said she was going to find Tom.’
‘She won’t find Tom. That’s mostly what they are all so upset about in there.’ Sarah nodded towards the closed door. ‘Come on, we’ll go to my house, Saffron left my chair outside. You can help push if you like (you don’t know how you are honoured). David, think of Rose arriving in New York and no Tom!’
‘Well, he doesn’t know she’s coming, does he?’ asked David, feeling very self-conscious as he steered Sarah out on to the street. ‘He’d be there if he knew.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘He’d go to the airport. Are you sure it’s all right me doing this? Pushing you?’
‘Of course it is!’
‘I feel like a girl burglar!’
Sarah laughed, and then asked, ‘Do you really think Tom would go and meet Rose if he knew? Saffy and I thought he’d just gone back home and forgotten everyone. No one’s heard a word since he went.’
David thought about this all the way to Sarah’s front gate. Then he said, ‘Tom’s not heard from no one then neither.’
‘No,’ agreed Sarah, after translating this observation into English in her head.
‘Someone ought to tell him about Rose.’
‘How? No one knows where he is.’
‘Someone must.’
‘Not here. He never told anyone. Not Indigo and Rose. Not the people at the music shop. And the house where he stayed is empty. His grandmother has gone too.’
‘Doesn’t anyone know where she’s gone, either?’
‘No. Indigo asked the neighbours, and all they knew was America. And he asked the postman and he said he couldn’t tell him if he’d known. Confidential. Do you want to come inside or stop in the garden?’
‘Stop in the garden,’ said David, parking Sarah by the picnic table. ‘I like your garden. It looked nice last night with the lights.’
> ‘Yes.’
‘And it looks nice now as well, with the rubbish picked up…Sarah, who knows where you live?’
‘What?’ asked Sarah, surprised.
‘Who’d have it written down?’
‘Oh, I see what you mean! Loads of people. I’d be easy to track down. Family. Friends. The hospital. The swimming pool because I have a season ticket. The library. Drama club. Every time you join something you have to give an address! But I don’t think Tom joined things when he was here. Who would know where you live, David, if they wanted to track you down?’
David thought and thought. Who did? His mum. His grandad. He had never been in hospital, and he didn’t join things any more than Tom had done.
‘The police would be able to track me down,’ he said regretfully. ‘From when I got a Caution. But that’s no help because Tom never got in trouble with the police. He got in trouble at school though…’
‘School!’ exclaimed Sarah. ‘School! You are right! They will have his address! Why didn’t we think of school! Come on!’
‘But it’s still the holidays!’
‘If you think schools are shut all through the holidays you are wrong,’ said Sarah. ‘My mother is at her school right now, getting ready for next term. School will be open! The secretary will be there! They will have Tom’s address! They keep stuff like that for years and years! Brilliant clever you! Don’t just stand there! Get off to school and get it!’
‘How?’
‘Ask.
‘Go to school and ask for Tom’s address?’
‘Yes of course! Quickly! And then come back here! Oh, I wish I could run!’
The frustration in Sarah’s voice when she said that was what finally set David running. He ran for five minutes. Then he turned round and ran back. Sarah was still where he had left her, her hands gripped together as if she was praying. She looked horrified to see him return so soon. She wailed, ‘Oh, why have you come back?’
‘I had to. They’d never tell me Tom’s address.’
‘You didn’t even try!’
‘Because I know! That secretary doesn’t like me. She thinks I’m rubbish. I’ve took stuff from that office. She caught me at it once. I bet she remembers!’
‘Of course she won’t!’
‘So I came back for you,’ said David, ‘I bet she likes you!’ and before Sarah could reply he had seized the handles of her wheelchair and begun pushing her to school.
‘David pushed you all the way to school?’ asked Saffron when Sarah reached this point in her narration of the events of that morning.
‘Yes.’
‘You made him.’
‘No, I didn’t. And that’s nothing to what he did next.’
When they arrived at school at last, David saw that Sarah had been right. It was open. Strangely clean, strangely silent, strangely empty, but open. There were people about; voices in the staff room, the caretaker at the door, ignoring David (who he always said was Trouble) but smiling at Sarah and saying, ‘Couldn’t you wait till Monday then, Madam? I’ve had a new grandson since I saw you last and one of these days I will bring him in and you can see what a champion he is!’
Nobody, thought David, ever talked to him like that, and if they had he would not have known how to answer as Sarah did, inserting the right replies at the right moments, ‘That’s right, I couldn’t wait. Oh, a new baby! What’s he called? Oliver? Oliver is my favourite name! You’ve got to bring him in, everyone will want to see him! I could give him a ride in my chair and we will get him a present: I will do a collection as soon as we are back! I saw tiny weeny newborn-baby-size football boots in a shop in town; they would be perfect! Come on, David! We’ll just rush in and then when we come out you can have thought whether boots would be all right. Soft boots, of course. No studs. Come on, David!’
Then, after all that thinking and hoping, and running and talking, there was no one in the office. Sarah knocked, and called, ‘Mrs Smith, it’s only me! Sarah! Hullo! Anyone in?’ and then said, ‘Perhaps she’s on the phone,’ and pushed open the door, and said, ‘Mrs Smith? Oh! Oh look, David!’
There was a note on the secretary’s desk:
TO ALL STAFF!
MRS SMITH WILL BE IN FROM 2–3.30PM
ONLY UNTIL TERM RECOMMENCES.
‘Bother!’ said Sarah. ‘We cannot possibly wait until two o’clock! If Rose left early this morning she will be nearly in New York by then! Let’s try the staff room!’
On the staff room door was another notice:
MEETING IN PROGRESS
‘Let’s go back to the caretaker,’ said Sarah. ‘Maybe he could help.’
But the caretaker had wandered off to talk to his daughter on his mobile about football boots for the baby.
‘Well,’ said Sarah. ‘There’s nothing else for it. We will have to crash the staff meeting. I hope you are feeling brave!’
There was no reply. She looked round, and discovered she was suddenly alone.
‘David!’ she called crossly, and when there was no reply she called again.
‘Shut up!’
He was back again, tugging urgently at her chair.
‘We’ll have to go and ask the staff room,’ she told him.
‘No, we won’t! Why won’t this thing go?’
‘Brake! Hey! What are you doing?’
‘Running,’ said David, running.
‘But what about…’
‘Shut up!’
‘David!’
‘Shut up, please!’ begged David, already half way down the drive.
‘David, what about your brilliant idea? I promise I’ll do all the talking…David, stop!’
David ran faster, right out of the school grounds and down the road.
‘Stop, or I’ll scream for help!’
‘All right.’
David crossed two pedestrian crossings, turned a corner, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the front of his T-shirt, carried on another few hundred yards to be on the safe side, parked Sarah beside a waste bin and leaned over the handles of the wheelchair, wheezing and grunting.
‘David! Whatever is the matter?’
‘Bye, that was scary,’ said David, sounding exactly like his grandad, and then he began rooting about in the front of his jeans.
‘David! Stop it! That is totally gross…Good grief !’
David had produced a sheet of paper. A form. Green. With a heading: Student Information (Confidential). And subheadings:
Name, D. O. B. , Nationality, Contact telephone numbers, Addresses (at least two to be provided, Relationship to Student, parent/guardian/other), Any known medical problems, Allergies. NB asthma sufferers please see section on reverse of form, Other relevant information…
David did not allow Sarah to read very much. He merely pointed to the first subheading: Name: Thomas Levin.
‘Nicked it out the office,’ said David, stuffed it back down his jeans, and started running again, and this time Sarah did not complain. In fact she tried to make herself lighter. Streamlined, she thought, and held on tight and faced bravely into the wind.
Nicked it! she marvelled as they sped along. What a hero! How brave! How cool! How totally the right thing to do!
David did not stop running (if it could be called running, more of a sodden gallop really and if he had not had the wheelchair to hold on to he would certainly have fallen over) until they were back at Sarah’s house.
‘I thought pinching it would be quickest,’ he explained, collapsing down at the picnic table, as limp and soaked and exhausted as a person pulled from a bog. ‘I knew where they were in that big filing cabinet. Saw them put mine in there the time I had to have a new one when we moved house. It’s got his phone number on and everything. In New York. As well as his gran’s here. It’s got where he lives. Everything.’
Then Sarah said, ‘You nicked it! What a hero! How brave! How cool! How totally the right thing to do!’
David knew then, just for a moment, what it felt lik
e to be giddy with happiness.
‘So go in and telephone right now!’ said Sarah, bringing him down.
‘What, me?’ asked David, aghast.
‘There’s a phone in my mum’s office and I will guard the door but actually there is no one in except Mrs Silver who cleans.’
‘What, me?’ said David again. ‘Me telephone Tom in New York!’
‘And explain that Rose is on her way right now and will be at the airport in four-and-a-half hours’ time. (It’s a seven-hour flight, Caddy looked it up.)’
‘Me!’
‘And he must be there. Somehow. He must, because poor little Rose if he isn’t…But he will be when he knows. You said so yourself! Come on! I’ll show you the phone!’
‘Why me?’
‘Gosh, David,’ said Sarah astonished, as she led him inside. ‘Didn’t you work out how to find him? And go and pinch his address! And run all the way back with it, pushing me. (You must have lost pounds!) You are a hero! Just like in Indigo’s book. Here’s the telephone…Sit down…That’s right! Aren’t you the knight in shining armour, charging to the rescue? Of course you are!’ said Sarah, giving him a hug. ‘There! Dial! Good grief, it’s ringing, it’s ringing! I can’t bear it, I’m not as brave as you. I’ll be right outside!’
‘Hello, hello,’ she heard him say, from the other side of the door. ‘It’s someone called David from England…David…Yes, for Tom. It’s important. Did I wake up the baby? I’m sorry. If you told Tom it was about Rose…Yes, Rose…Hello, Tom?’
That was how David (of all shining heroes, of all gallant knights, the most unlikely) managed to find Tom again for Rose.
Just as he had imagined doing once before, in the hot empty garden with the lost ring, and the dead cat, where he had found her searching for Tom. And also, just as he had imagined, when the quest was achieved, when Tom was produced (with as much of a flourish as he could manage from three and a half thousand miles away), Rose did not give one thought to David.