by Sylvia Waugh
‘What if your brother looks inside it?’
‘He won’t. It’s just a family habit to hang on to the boxes during the guarantee period in case anything has to be taken back to the shop. Just before next Christmas, Mum will have a clearance and they’ll all be crushed up and put in the wheelie bin. We’re a very methodical family!’
‘Did you get the train ticket?’ asked Nesta, worried in case there had not been enough money left to pay for it.
Amy looked aghast for a moment, just long enough to fool her friend. Then she said, ‘Look, Nesta, don’t you know by now that I always do what I set out to do?’
From Nesta’s purse she produced the ticket with a flourish, ‘One return to Casselton: seat booked for the journey there, journey home any time within one month. I hope you are impressed.’
She handed the purse back to Nesta.
‘And I have spent less than half your money.’
They left the bags on the garage floor and went indoors for a repeat of yesterday’s effort. They drank Coke, made sandwiches and then hurried to hide the evidence.
Nesta was just replacing a tea towel on the rack; Amy was putting the glasses away in the cupboard; then both girls suddenly froze. There was a noise from the front of the house. A door opened. Amy took one look at Nesta then bustled her out of the back door, closing it behind her. After one quick look round for anything they might have missed, she went out into the hall, calling, ‘We’re running short of milk, Mum. Shall I go to the corner shop and get some?’
‘No need, love,’ said her mother. ‘I went to Tesco’s on the way home. I knew the milk was low.’
Amy went forward and took her mother’s shopping bags.
‘You should be more help, Gerry,’ she said to her younger brother. ‘You’re big enough to carry these.’
‘Don’t start an argument,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘I have not had the best of days. I could do with a little peace now I’m home!’
Nesta, meantime, had rushed down the back steps with such haste that, like a latter-day Cinderella, she lost a shoe. She dashed to retrieve it and, carrying it in her hand, she let herself into the garage and stood for several moments with her back to the door. Then, when her heart had stopped beating too fast, she went straight into the lavatory closet, not venturing to put anything away or try anything on till much, much later. She just sat on the cushioned seat, with the greatcoat wrapped round her, expecting to be hauled out of her hiding place and praying hard that she wouldn’t be. As time passed, she felt more secure. But still she did not move. She just sat in the dark going over her plans for the following day.
She would have to go through the yard and leave by the yard door to get into the lane: opening the big garage doors was out of the question. Then she would get to the bus stop on Maple Terrace and take the first bus that came, whether it was going to the station or not. She had time to fill in and a bus is warmer than a bus queue. She knew how to end up at the station in time and that was all that mattered.
Once at the station, she would get herself some breakfast at the Upper Crust. In her new clothes, she would not look conspicuously young; she was sure she could pass for fifteen or even sixteen. She was quite tall for her age, and the fleece with the thick jumper underneath would give her slight build a deceiving bulk. She was glad she had not bought a child’s ticket for the train.
As the night drew on, however, she became less sanguine. It stuck in her like a dart that, so far as either she or Amy knew, her parents were making no attempt to find her. At her instigation, Amy had rung her home number. As planned, when the phone was answered, Amy had said in as grown-up a voice as she could manage, ‘Is that not Gaby’s Hairdressing? . . . I’m sorry, I must have got the wrong number.’
It was Matthew who answered the phone and he had accepted Amy’s words without any suspicion. He had seized the receiver so hopefully, and was deeply disappointed. ‘Just a wrong number,’ he said. ‘Somebody wanting that hair salon again.’
‘So,’ Amy had said as they were sitting in the kitchen, ‘at least we know that they haven’t gone to London.’
That was on Thursday.
Now it was Friday: just one night before the spaceship would take off. Nesta began to feel utterly forlorn. Her parents would surely hang on till the very last minute, hoping she would join them. But Nesta, alone in the darkness with only Grandpa’s greatcoat for comfort, was not so sure now that they would choose to remain on Earth for good. She did have some idea after all of what she was hoping they would do. She even realized what a sacrifice they would be making. Why should they do that for me when I would not do as much for them?
She began to weep quietly into the collar of the greatcoat, making it damp with her tears. I was once an ordinary person with a mom and dad, like lots of other people. Now I feel as if I belong to nobody.
You belong to yourself, said the coat. You make your own decisions.
There was a momentary temptation to surrender – to return to Linden Drive and accept the journey into space. Then the horror of that outweighed her agony and loneliness. I am of the Earth, she sobbed, and I shall stay on the Earth. If after Sunday I am left all alone in this world, I shall just have to brave it out.
Then – hopes have to be pinned somewhere – Nesta began to pin all of hers on the visit to Casselton and Belthorp. There she would find people who knew a child from Ormingat and who might welcome another young person linked to that planet.
But I am Earthborn. If those people knew about Ormingat and if they helped that boy to go, they should help me to stay. There was Jamie who offered help to Tonitheen, and Stella Dalrymple who spoke so mysteriously of ‘starlight’. They were in some nebulous region between those who knew the secret and those who could not even hope to guess. I must not tell because to tell is wrong; I must not tell because I would not be believed. Here though were people who might not need to be told. Here were people who might already know.
CHAPTER 25
* * *
Friday in Linden Drive
The Gwynns were up and dressed well before daybreak. Matthew hesitated, and then plugged in the clock radio again.
‘Some use that is!’ said Alison.
‘We might still get help from home,’ he said sheepishly. ‘They are bound to know what a quandary we are in.’
Alison shrugged. As far as she was concerned the argument was over.
‘We’ll ring the police, as agreed,’ she said flatly. ‘That at least is in our control.’
‘Well, let’s think it out first,’ said Matthew, still hoping for some sort of last minute reprieve. ‘Let’s plan what we are going to say.’
Loyalty to Ormingat made them both determined to do nothing that would betray their mother planet. So, between them, they constructed as logical a story as they could manage. They went over it again and again. It was late morning before they finally called the police. A very calm voice asked their name and address and a few questions, and then promised that someone would be sent round within the next few hours to take further particulars. It was impossible to tell what the man behind the voice was thinking, but there seemed no sense of urgency.
‘You say she disappeared on Wednesday?’ said the sergeant who came round in answer to their call.
‘Yes,’ said Alison. ‘She went to school on Wednesday as usual and did not come home at tea-time.’
‘But, Mrs Gwynn,’ said the policeman, ‘it is now four-thirty on Friday. Why have you not called us before now?’
Alison opened her mouth to protest that they had reported Nesta’s disappearance five hours ago, but Matthew held up his hand to silence her. Such a quibble could lead nowhere.
‘We thought you wouldn’t bother, and perhaps rightly so,’ he said hastily. ‘Nesta is not an infant. She is nearly thirteen. She took money with her and she left a note. We expected her to come back as soon as she realized how foolish she’d been.’
‘If I might see the note?’ said the officer, still doubtful ab
out the lateness of their report.
‘I have it here,’ said Alison, handing him a folded paper.
He opened and read,
Dear Mom and Dad,
I need to get away for a few days. I don’t want to go to Boston. I want to stay here in York. This is where I was born. I’ll come home soon. I want to give you time to think it over. I don’t want to live anywhere else.
Your loving daughter,
Nesta
‘What does she mean about going to Boston?’ said the sergeant.
‘That is where we came from – before Nesta was born. We have been talking recently about the possibility of going back there,’ said Alison as smoothly as she could.
‘She writes with a mature hand,’ said the sergeant, looking critically at Alison’s forgery. The young constable with him sat silent, watching.
‘She is bright for her age,’ said Matthew. ‘We think she will know what she is doing, but as the time goes on we are clearly more anxious than at first. We thought she would have come home by now. Really, all we need to know is that no harm has come to her.’
‘We have had no reports of any incidents involving a young person fitting your daughter’s description,’ said the policeman coldly. ‘We will naturally check with other forces in the area and do the usual hospital checks to make sure that she has not been admitted anywhere. We can also get her photograph into tomorrow’s papers, with your consent.’
He knew that there was something here that did not quite ring true. The woman looked distraught enough and her husband was clearly worried, but there was not that usual anxiety to shift the burden, to insist, however unrealistically, that the police should work flat out to find their daughter, abandoning all else.
‘Do you mind if my colleague and I have a look round the house? It is normal procedure. We might see something you have missed.’
Like blood stains on the carpet, or a body in the attic . . .
‘Now we’ll just have a scout round the garden,’ said the sergeant after they had pounded up and down the stairs finding nothing.
He caught the worried look Alison gave her husband and was intrigued.
‘That won’t be a problem, will it?’ he said.
Alison shook her head mutely.
The two policemen went out of the front door into darkness. Their torches made pools of light as they went round the side of the house into the back garden. They inspected carefully the high hedge that separated the Gwynns from their neighbours, the Marwoods. Between the Gwynn house and Mrs Jolly’s there was a two-metre fence covered with a tangle of rambling rose bushes. At the bottom of the garden was the pond, and beyond that three tall old trees that predated the house. There were places to hide, but Nesta was not hidden there.
‘Wow!’ said the younger policeman as he shone his torch on the frog in the middle of the pond. ‘That’s some piece of sculpture! It’s big enough to stand outside the Town Hall! I wouldn’t want it in my back garden.’
On the grass beside the pond there was a large circle of flattened blades that looked as if something heavy and symmetrical had rested there recently. The older policeman looked down at it and shuddered. There was something wrong here and he did not know what it was. Part of him did not want to know, not if it meant that a child was dead.
They went back into the house.
‘The grass near your pond has a flattened patch,’ said the sergeant, coming straight to the point. ‘Have you any idea what made it?’
‘The roller,’ said Matthew quickly. ‘I had to turn it on its side when it got jammed. It’s a hefty thing but it does make a good job of the lawn.’
‘In January?’ said the sergeant, getting more and more worried.
‘No,’ said Matthew with a nervous laugh, ‘of course not. That happened in September. I sprained my wrist turning it over and it was left there for a few days. I know it sounds a stupid thing to do. Every time I look at that stunted grass I wonder if it will ever come right again without replanting.’
There was really no more the sergeant could say. After all, there was no evidence of digging or burial, just a fairy ring of flattened grass. Matthew looked sheepish enough to make the explanation sound true.
‘Well,’ said the policeman, putting his notebook away in his pocket, ‘if you can give me a recent photograph of your daughter, we’ll see it gets circulated. And what about the newspapers?’
‘Yes,’ said Alison. ‘Put it in the paper – with the message that we want her to return home and that we have changed our mind about leaving York. We wouldn’t want to do anything that would make her so seriously unhappy.’
The sergeant looked at her anxious face and felt reassured. It takes all sorts to make a world. If this pair were rather odd, perhaps it was to do with them being foreigners. They were foreigners. You could tell by the accent, though it wasn’t very pronounced. And all that about going to Boston pointed to their being American. Americans, he believed, could be very cool customers!
‘We’ll keep you informed,’ he said. ‘And if your daughter does turn up, you will naturally let us know straight away.’
‘Of course,’ said Matthew. He showed them to the door and breathed a sigh of relief after it closed behind them.
‘I’m glad he didn’t ask to see the roller,’ he said.
‘We haven’t got one,’ said Alison. ‘There’s only the lawnmower.’
‘Precisely,’ said Matthew, smiling weakly.
‘If they ask about the roller again,’ he added, thinking rapidly, ‘I’ll have to say I got rid of it because it was too heavy.’
CHAPTER 26
* * *
Snow!
Early on Saturday morning, Nesta looked out of the garage window into the yard. There was a light covering of snow illuminated by the lamplight shining in from the lane. Nesta shivered. Only a week ago she had sat with Amy in Sampson Square on a day that seemed to promise an early spring. Now winter had returned and just at the wrong time. Still, thought Nesta, it could be worse; at least it has stopped snowing and that snow isn’t deep.
Methodically, she cleared up, as far as possible, all trace of her having lodged there. Rubbish was put into plastic bags and placed in the Scalextrix box, ready for Amy to pick up at a later, safer time. Grandpa’s greatcoat was carefully, and lovingly, folded and put into the Karaoke box, the only box big enough to take it. Then Nesta put on the red coat, pulling the hood over her head so that it hid her hair and most of her face. In the new clothes, she felt very different and hoped that this would mean that she looked different too. She double-checked everything: her purse, her ticket, loose change in her pocket, and the watch on her wrist that pointed to seven twenty-five. Already a grey dawn was beginning to creep. Nesta wished she had started her preparations sooner.
She opened the door into the yard. Holding her breath, she stepped out of the garage and looked up fearfully at the back bedroom windows, but the curtains were closed and there was no sign of life. As she turned away, a curtain twitched just too late for her to see it.
It was Amy. She had got up and now she watched from above as her friend made good her retreat. She felt like tapping on the window to let Nesta know that she was not alone, but thought better of it. Seconds later, a bedroom door opened on the landing. Amy’s heart was in her mouth! That would surely be her mother. Any minute now she might go downstairs, into the kitchen. She would pull up the blinds and see a stranger in the backyard!
Amy said silently and urgently, Hurry, Nesta, hurry!
But Nesta was standing still, puzzling what to do. Between her and the door that led to the lane was a stretch of concrete covered in a powdering of snow. So she had the problem of covering her tracks in a very literal way. Footprints would be suspect. Returning to the garage, she retrieved a plastic carrier bag from the Scalextrix box. Then she walked backwards across the yard smudging her footprints as she went.
Amy watched her.
Inside the house, there were footsteps on the st
aircase, going down to the floor below. For goodness’ sake, Nesta, get a move on!
She had to unbolt the yard door, which she and Amy had decided was a minor problem. A little less satisfactory was the mark the door made on the snow as she opened it. Still, that could not be helped. Nesta carried the plastic bag away with her, to be disposed of later. Opening the Browns’ wheelie bin was out of the question: that would have disturbed the coating of snow on top of it.
Amy ran to her bedroom door and called down to her mother, ‘Mum, is that you?’
‘And who else would it be?’ said her mother, looking up the well of the staircase.
‘I don’t know,’ said Amy. ‘I’ve had a terrible dream. Someone had broken in and you were fighting them off with Jack’s cricket bat and Dad was lying unconscious ‘cos they’d hit him first.’
‘Come down and have a cup of tea,’ said her mother, turning towards the kitchen. ‘I am just going to make one.’
‘Make sure the front door’s shut first,’ said Amy desperately. ‘It seemed so real.’
Mrs Brown shrugged, turned to the front door and gave it a push.
‘Satisfied?’ she said.
‘Maybe it was the cat making a noise,’ said Amy. ‘Maybe he’s got shut in the cupboard under the stairs.’
‘Amy Brown!’ said her mother in exasperation. ‘What’s got into you? You would think you were three instead of thirteen. Stop being so stupid.’
No help for it now. Mum was opening the kitchen door with the ratchet key. Amy was glad that her parents were security conscious. She just wished she had thought of hiding that key! She could have gone down and helped to look for it!
The kitchen door creaked relentlessly open on its unoiled hinges. In seconds the kitchen blind would be raised . . .
And just in time, only just in time, Nesta closed the yard door behind her.