by Ali Sparkes
‘Better get some sticking plasters,’ he muttered and Rachel nodded, feeling sick. She didn’t know if she could keep this secret. It was getting worse.
Two of Freddy’s fingernails had completely fallen off.
When she had found some plasters she went upstairs to find Freddy in the bathroom. He was leaning against the window, his forehead on the cool pane. ‘Come on—show me,’ said Rachel and he turned round, keeping his face down. Maybe he was crying. She wouldn’t blame him.
He wouldn’t let her put the plasters on for him, but just took them in his good hand, which was shaking.
‘We have to tell someone … call a doctor,’ she said.
‘No! Don’t be an idiot,’ he said. He glanced up at her and his eyes were red-rimmed.
‘But this is serious … more serious than a nosebleed,’ she insisted. ‘You could be … I mean …’
‘Look, you don’t have to pussyfoot around it,’ he said. ‘I’m getting ill, like Father’s rats—that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’
Rachel bit her lip. She didn’t want to say it. She felt sick and scared. Freddy scrubbed hard at his eyes and then turned his attention to getting the plaster on one of his fingers. He struggled one-handed and eventually Rachel stepped across and did it for him and this time he allowed her. The fingers without nails looked red and puffy and he winced as she wound the plasters around them.
‘Look, Rachel, you’re all right,’ he said, when she’d done the second one. ‘I’m sorry I called you an idiot. It’s just that … I’ve got to find out what happened to Father. And if you call anyone to look at my fingers, the whole game will be up and I don’t know what’s going to happen to Polly and me then. Please … let’s just wait until JJ gets back tomorrow. I’m sure he will be back tomorrow and then he can call a doctor and we’ll see what can be done.’
Rachel nodded. ‘OK. We wait one more day.’
‘Good girl,’ he grinned, wonkily, and she felt a pang. He was brave. Too brave.
There was no question that they were in for it after school. Roly O’Neal and the Pincer twins made menacing noises and gestures at Freddy and Ben all morning. In the dining hall at lunchtime, Rachel and Polly came close to having their heads ducked into the warm grey-tinged water where the dirty cutlery was dropped. Lorraine simply grabbed them both from behind and dragged them along to it by their hair, intending to acquaint them with the bits of old baked bean and fish finger which drifted around beneath the soaking knives and forks. She would have managed it too, for both Polly and Rachel were too shocked to even squeak—and the dirty cutlery bowl was behind a screen and out of view of any teachers or dinner ladies. Happily for them, a Year Ten boy stepped around the screen and brought his hand down in a karate-style crack on Lorraine’s wrists. She let them both go and spun around hissing, but then stopped and simpered, ‘Oh—hi, Wangu …’ before just shrugging and walking away.
Rachel and Polly stared in amazement. Wangu grinned widely and winked one of his dark brown eyes. ‘Thanks, Wangu,’ whispered Rachel while Polly just stared and stared and stared. She had never seen anyone from Malawi before. Rachel nudged her. ‘Say thanks!’ But Polly continued to stare, her mouth open.
‘Watch out, Super Girl,’ chuckled Wangu. ‘Something’ll fly in, in a minute.’ He reached over a hand and helped Polly’s jaw to shut with a little clunk, and then shrugged and went on his way.
‘He—he—he,’ gasped Polly, in a kind of slow motion titter. ‘He’s really, really—’
‘Cute?’ said Rachel, pulling her across to the lunch queue and keeping a careful eye out for the return of Lorraine. ‘Cool? Black?’
Polly’s eyes widened. ‘You can’t say that! You say coloured. Black isn’t polite.’
‘No—black is fine. And Wangu’s the coolest guy in the school—that’s why Lorraine went all soppy. Lucky for us! Polly, don’t say “coloured” again. Please.’
‘I’ve never seen anyone like him!’ Polly looked quite pink. ‘He’s … he’s wonderful.’ She instinctively went to tidy her hair as she watched the Year Ten boy walk away.
‘Oi! Where did that come from?’ Rachel narrowed her eyes at her great-aunt.
Polly had just slid a neat pink clip, with a tiny rose on it, into the side of her hair. She pouted. ‘It’s nice. I like to look … tidy. Like a girl!’
‘Hand it over,’ sighed Rachel and Polly pulled the clip out and handed it over. She looked a little sulky.
‘Now just remember—you’re twelve! Not three!’ Rachel shoved the clip into her trouser pocket. ‘If anyone sees you with that in, they’ll all be queuing up to dunk your head in the washing-up bowl!’
Ben and Freddy managed to keep a corridor or two between themselves and Roly and the Pincer twins and skidded into the dining hall in time to see Rachel and Polly eating spaghetti Bolognese at the teachers’ table, talking a little too brightly to Miss Janaway, with the occasional nervous glance across the tables to the far corner where Lorraine Kingsley now sat staring at them, gnawing on a chicken leg in a threatening way.
‘Keeping your head down then, are you?’ Ben muttered in Rachel’s ear, as he and Freddy sauntered by to get their own lunch.
‘What else could we do?’ winced Rachel, stepping away from her food to talk to Ben and Freddy in a low voice, as Polly chatted on to Miss Janaway. She would never have dreamed of sitting at one of the teachers’ tables before today, but anywhere else was just too dangerous. She told them about the cutlery bowl and their lucky rescue by Wangu. ‘But it can’t last! She’s going to get us sooner or later. We’ve offered to help out after school—clear out the stationery cupboard. It should take at least an hour, so with any luck Lorraine and Roly and everyone will have pushed off and we’ll get out alive. You need to do the same.’
‘Nah—we’ve sorted it out already—we’re getting off early!’
‘How’d you manage that?!’
‘Sports session. We get to go out in Year Nine, so we’re going to do bowls. At the Crown Green.’
‘Bowls? What—like those old people in white clothes?’
‘Yep. It was the only one we could be sure Roly and the Pincers wouldn’t sign up for. We’re leaving our bikes here and going in the minibus, so they won’t have a chance to get us. And they let you go straight home from the bowls club afterwards if you want to, so we can just nip into town and find out where old Percy lives. You two had better get back for Bessie.’
Rachel nodded. She didn’t like being left out of looking for Percy, but she felt bad about poor Bessie being left alone all day. She sat back down with Polly just in time to hear her telling a bemused Miss Janaway that actually, Max Bygraves was really quite a dish … in his youth.
‘Max Bygraves?’ echoed the astonished teacher. ‘Polly … I think it’s a good thing you’ve been let out of the commune … Now, have you seen any posters of Johnny Depp yet?’
The plan seemed to have worked when Rachel and Polly left school an hour late that day. There was nobody left at the gate. Rachel wasn’t that surprised. Lorraine Kingsley knew there would be another chance tomorrow. And another chance the day after that. Just how much injury she was planning for them was difficult to guess at. After all, actually killing or seriously maiming one of them would get her excluded … but a compass point through the hand or a swift nose-break could both seem like accidents … There would be hockey on Friday. Rachel sighed. She rather liked her nose the shape it was.
They stopped at a convenience shop and got more food with some of the old record money, keeping an eye out all the time for Lorraine, but she’d obviously gone home for tea.
Poor Bessie was whining when they got back home and the hallway smelt awful. Rachel insisted she would clear up this time, and sent Polly out into the garden with Bessie, but not before surreptitiously checking the puppy’s paws. She’d had a nasty, uneasy feeling inside her all night and throughout the day every time she thought of Freddy’s fingernails. As promised, she hadn’t said a w
ord to Polly about it, but had decided she would speak to Ben as soon as she got him alone. She just couldn’t deal with Freddy’s illness on her own any more. Bessie’s paws looked fine but, alone in the hallway, Rachel felt sure she could see little splatters of blood on the newspaper around the dog basket. She leant her forehead against the cold radiator in the hallway and closed her eyes. ‘Oh, Uncle Jerome … please come back soon. Please.’
‘Sir—we’ve just intercepted a message for Jerome Emerson.’ Travis ran in once again without knocking, but Chambers let it go. ‘Anonymous. We’re tracing it now— but get this, it was warning him about us! That we’re covering up something. Left on his work voicemail, would you believe?’
Chambers snorted. ‘I don’t suppose it gave any detail of what we were covering up? Jerome Emerson still isn’t saying a word apart from that family tree research nonsense—or Shakespeare. It’s really most unsettling when a secret service doesn’t know what secret it’s got!’
‘No—no detail, sir. Chapman says everything’s normal in the town too. Nothing out of the ordinary. But … but, sir.’
‘What, Travis?’
‘Something’s a bit odd. I checked at the school where Jerome’s nephew and niece go—just to see if there was any chatter––and they say they’ve got cousins who’ve just started there this week. Kids called Robertson.’
‘Cousins? Where from?’
‘Well, that’s what I thought. I checked their family— the only cousins Ben and Rachel Corder have are full grown adults. The other thing is, the Corder kids’ parents are out of the country—and Jerome is supposed to be their guardian. So what’s he doing up in London, leaving them and these “cousins” on their own—just to research his family tree?’
‘Well, I suppose it’s time to ask him,’ said Chambers.
‘Sir—one more thing,’ said Travis.
‘Yes?’
‘Isn’t it a bit strange … that Chapman hasn’t reported any of that to you? I mean … isn’t that her job?’
‘Yes … what is Chapman’s job?’ Chambers picked up his pen and began clicking it ferociously. ‘Travis,’ he said, ‘you’re a clever young man. And I’m an idiot.’
‘We could ask that nice librarian to help,’ said Freddy, as he and Ben checked in their bowling shoes and left the club. A few elderly men and women waved to them. Freddy, with his posh accent and perfect manners, had made quite an impression on them. They’d urged him to join the juniors.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Ben.
‘Why ever not? She liked us. She’d be glad to help—she said so.’
Ben shook his head. He didn’t know why but he felt uneasy about the librarian. Her eyes were a little too sharp when she’d looked at Freddy in the high street yesterday. Of course, she couldn’t possibly guess their odd secret, but even so … Ben’s instincts about people were good. He was a fairly quiet boy, mainly because of his tendency to stammer, and while he was saying little he was listening a lot. And observing a lot. He didn’t know why he didn’t want to go back to the library—he just knew it.
‘The town council building will have lists of people and where they live, for voting and all that,’ he said to Freddy. ‘Let’s try there first. Or we might get a phone book—he might be in there, although loads of people are ex-directory these days, what with all the sales calls.’
‘Sales calls?’ said Freddy, hitching his schoolbag up on his shoulder. ‘You mean salesmen actually telephone you now? That’s a bit much!’
They arrived at the town council building, which was on the other side of the road from the library in a very similar building, and made their way first to the public telephone hood inside it. This was where a small magistrates’ court was held, so the phones were there for the public to use, because mobiles weren’t allowed in the building. To Ben’s immense surprise he found an almost whole phone book chained to the shelf beneath the plastic hood.
‘Shaw—that’s his surname—Percival Shaw,’ said Freddy, while Ben thumbed through to the Ss. He found quite a number of Shaws but only two P. Shaws. One was in a district some miles away, so he guessed the more local one would be where Percy lived. If it was Percy at all.
‘Twenty-one Riverside Close,’ said Ben. ‘It’s not too far from here—just the other side of the park. Come on.’
‘You’re sure that’s him?’ asked Freddy, prodding the phone book. ‘Perhaps you should telephone him.’
Ben nodded. He punched the number from the book onto the grimy metal keypad and listened for ringing—but the number fed back one long note.
‘Number unobtainable,’ muttered Ben. He re-dialled to be sure, but it was the same.
‘Well, it’s the only P. Shaw there, and it’s within walking distance of Darkwell House and the woods on the top of the hill, where Percy goes every day. What’s up with your fingers?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ said Freddy, curling his plasters away into his palm. Ben stared at him. The boy was colouring up slightly.
‘What? What did you do?’
‘Just bent back my fingernails … doing that wretched washing up business, that’s all. Come on— are we going or aren’t we?’
Ben hesitated. They could ask to see the electoral rolls, to be certain where Percy lived, but again the nagging feeling of unease rose inside him. It would attract attention. Best hope that this was the right P. Shaw.
They set off again, along the high street. Ben noticed that Freddy didn’t give all the mad 2009 stuff a second glance now. He marvelled at how quickly the boy seemed to have adapted to it all. There was no denying it—Freddy was infinitely cooler than he was. Ben didn’t mind though. He was definitely going to get Freddy to give him roller skating lessons. He’d always been a bit too cautious to do really well at skating—Freddy couldn’t be more different. They reached the park beside the river inside ten minutes and would have been over the bridge and into Riverside Close in another four. But Ben stopped dead as soon as they got into the park. Quickly he pulled Freddy behind the public toilets. ‘What?’ said Freddy.
‘Over on the bridge! Oh hell—it’s Roly! And …’ he peered quickly around the brick corner and then pulled back again, ‘yeah—the Pincer twins, Jim Lewis … and a couple of others, I think, from Roly’s posse. We can’t get over that bridge!’
‘Is there another way we can go?’ asked Freddy, also darting his head around the corner now, and bringing it back with a grim expression.
‘No, this is the only way over to Riverside Close. We could go up the valley and backtrack along the A road from Silchester, but it would take us hours. We’ll just have to wait until they go … although they hang around there for hours sometimes. They like to throw things at the ducks.’
Freddy pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. Then he grinned. ‘Righto, then—we’ll go across the river.’
‘What? Didn’t you see them? We’ll never make it. We’ll be mashed potato before we even get halfway. We haven’t got skates on today, either!’
‘Don’t need skates—just bathers—or shorts,’ said Freddy.
‘You what?’
‘Well, you have got some, haven’t you? Your PE shorts? Let’s nip in here and get them on. We’re going across the river. Down by that bend there. It shouldn’t take five minutes to swim it.’
‘Swim it? Swim the river?’ Ben gaped at him. ‘Are you mad? We can’t swim it!’
‘Why ever not? We used to swim it all the time in 1956.’
‘But—but …’ Ben stared down to the river bank on the far side of the park. The river was not fast but it was very wide along the Amhill valley and quite deep in the middle. People did paddle at the edges sometimes, but kids were always being warned not to bathe in it. There were big signs forbidding it. He didn’t know why. Probably so the local council didn’t have to worry about being sued if somebody stood on a broken bottle. Freddy had already nipped inside the public toilets and was even now coming back out with his black PE shorts on, stuffing his clothes and s
hoes into his school bag.
‘We can leave these here, till we get back,’ he said, swinging his bag up on top of the toilets’ roof. ‘Nobody will see them there. Come on—what are you waiting for? I say, you can swim, can’t you?’
‘Yes—yes, of course I c-can,’ gulped Ben and it was the stammer that made him do it. The second it twitched across his tongue he got angry. He was not going to let Freddy think he was afraid … even though he was.
Two minutes later they were at the river bank, ignoring the little kids and their mums in the play area and stepping down into the pebbly shallows of the River Am. ‘Brrrr!’ said Freddy brightly, wading in up to his knees. Ben followed, feeling goosebumps prickle up his legs. It was a very warm September day, but the river was still cold. ‘Right then,’ said Freddy, now up to his waist in rippling blue-green river, ‘nice and quick does the trick!’ And he launched himself straight out across the surface of the water and began to execute fast over-arm strokes through the water, causing some alarm to the nearby ducks.
Ben took a deep breath and followed him. The shock nearly made him shriek, but he knew that the boys on the bridge could look round and see them by now, and if he made any noise it wouldn’t help. He hoped he and Freddy were far enough downstream to be unrecognizable. Certainly, not one of them would ever expect to see him swimming across the River Am.
The current was worryingly strong by the time he reached the middle of the river and the first unwelcome tingle of panic moved in Ben’s stomach—but through the splashes his hands were making he could see Freddy, still powering through the water like a champion, and he was determined not to be left behind. He’d just thrown caution to the wind, hadn’t he? There was no going back. The far side of the river reached out to them now—a protruding bank with trees and shrubs, ready to hide them when they reached the bank. He heard a shout from the bridge—then a whistle. But he realized, even through the rush of the disturbed water all around him, that these were not hostile noises—they were curious, even impressed noises. He must remember not to look up towards those noises when he got to shore.