by Hilary McKay
“I’m not Rupe,” Peter would say, and his face would become tight and pale so that the bones of his skull showed through the skin. Then his family would shut up. They knew Peter was clever. If he could be got through the summer without accident he would go to school and settle down. There was every chance that after that he would earn a scholarship for university and be well on the way to living happily ever after as a mad professor. There would be no limit then to the museums he might set up.
But first he had to go to school.
Chapter Five
At school things were becoming worse and worse. Every day Binny marched in, so defensive and grumpy that even non-enemies avoided her. Clare made remarks: “It’s actually stopped raining.” Ella exploded with giggles. Somehow the timetable in the front of her homework diary was rewritten with all the wrong rooms. She learned to check chairs for superglue before she sat down.
For a day or two, Binny tried fighting back; she could slam doors just as hard as Clare and Ella, and if Clare could say “Actually” she could say “Mummy.”
“How’s Mummy?” she asked Clare, and Clare’s eyes widened with fury and Binny was pleased.
And then she did something that was too bad.
She did it to Ella’s lunch box. Ella, despite her size, wore ballet shoes to school. Their soles were worn and slippery; Ella slithered on tiled washroom floors, and skidded when it rained. One wet morning, in an effort to cross the entrance hall quickly enough to shove Binny against a door, she lost her balance.
“Ha!” said Binny, doing a bit of shoving of her own.
Ella stumbled, papers fell, books fanned open on the damp hall floor, and her lunch box appeared at Binny’s feet.
Binny and her possessions had endured a lot from Ella. The lunch box was a gift. She gave it a good hard kick.
Tomatoes, cookies, cheese slices, and half a pork pie were scattered across the hall. Ella chased after them in her uncertain shoes. People sniggered, and not, for once, at Binny. Ella did not seem to notice. Everything she managed to grab she ate, as if to keep it safe.
Binny stood against a wall and watched and felt quite numb and uninvolved, and while that feeling lasted she was all right. But it faded very quickly, and then all morning she was tormented. Why had she not picked the lunch box up and handed it back to Ella? How would the story have gone then? She flinched from the thought of Ella’s frantic gathering.
If Clem had seen, or James, or her mother.
If Gareth had seen, or Max.
If her father . . .
At lunchtime Binny took out her lunch money and placed it on the table in front of Ella.
“You’d better have that,” she said, and walked away.
That was the worst day, and she didn’t try fighting again.
Binny had no friends. It had never happened to her before. In her other schools there had always been a group, bickering sometimes, telling secrets, going off in huffs now and then, but always coming together to listen to each other’s stories, weave complicated plans, pounce on each other to exclaim, You’ll never guess! Now there was no one. At home Binny said nothing, not even to Clem; she was ashamed to have no friends. However, one Saturday morning, out of loneliness, she told Gareth.
Gareth was not very sympathetic, but at least he understood.
“I worked it out ages ago when everyone at school was after me,” he told Binny, “and in the end I decided I wasn’t that bothered because for one thing, they were all really stupid (compared to me) . . .”
“Yes but . . .”
“And for another, it’s not surprising if nobody likes you because most people don’t like most people. It’s statistics!”
“What?” said Binny.
“Say, everyone in the world likes about ten people,” said Gareth. “And there’s about seven and a half billion people in the world. What’s the chance of ever meeting anyone you like? Or anyone who likes you?”
There was something wrong with Gareth’s logic that Binny could not quite name. Perhaps the ten people?
“Only ten people?” she asked.
“I think that’s about right,” said Gareth calmly. “There’s four people I actually like in the world, and six I quite like. (There used to be seven, but I knocked one off.) And that includes my family, as well as three dogs . . . What’s the matter? Stop it! Stop laughing!”
But for a minute the combination of relief at having told someone and Gareth’s cold-blooded statistics were too much for Binny and she could not stop laughing.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” said Gareth, who seldom did see what was so funny. “Are you just obsessed with school, or has anything else been happening?”
Binny told Gareth about the new bare house, the disappearance of Gertie, and the discovery of the old railway line with its rabbits and green shadows and possibility of foxes.
Gareth became much more human at the mention of foxes.
“If you see anything like that,” he said, “a fox or a badger or anything, don’t go telling people.”
“Why not?”
“Secret is safe. Lots of people don’t like them. They’d get rid of them if they could. So if you see them, keep it quiet. Just in case.”
“What, not even tell you?”
“Well, of course tell me!” said Gareth, sounding so shocked that Binny laughed again, and two hundred and sixty miles away Max heard her and barked in response.
“Is Max one of the four people that you really like?” asked Binny.
“’Course he is,” said Gareth. “Max, David Attenborough, someone who used to walk their alsatian where I take Max but I haven’t seen them for ages, you!”
Binny was suddenly giddy with happiness. To be one of the four! Right at the top, with Max and David Attenborough and the unknown vanished dog-walker. To be liked by one of the most antisocial people in the world! At the end of the conversation she put the phone down feeling better than she had for ages. Outdoors was a perfect autumn day, a cool blue sky and thick damp grass scattered with September leaves. Inside Binny could hear a vacuum cleaner humming, Clem’s hair dryer as she got ready to leave for her Saturday job at the café in town, and a sudden urgent knocking at her bedroom door. She opened it to find James with his arms full of cardboard and straw.
“Can I put this in your room?” he demanded.
“No you can’t!”
“Just for a little while.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got to tidy mine.”
Tidy bedrooms had been ordered that morning because once again the woman who owned the house was about to visit. This time she had left a message to say that she would be along to look at the windows. The news had left the children’s mother baffled, but firm. Clem’s room was always tidy, Binny had managed by stuffing everything into her giant-sized wardrobe and locking the door, but James’s was a terrible mess. After Binny had found the orange feathers he had begun making a luxury chicken coffin with Sellotape and cardboard and straw. He was always taking it apart to add extra treats, such as plasticine eggs, chicken food, and windows. He had done this so often that the Sellotape lost its stickiness, the sides became loose, and the straw and chicken food and other things fell out. Binny looked at the trail of coffin bits leading up to her bedroom door and said, “Take it outside and bury it.”
“Not yet. I’ve only got those few feathers. There might be more things we still haven’t found.”
“I couldn’t see any.”
“You only looked once. Can I just leave this in your room until she’s gone?”
“No of course you can’t. Shove it under your bed or something. When’s she coming?”
“She’s in the kitchen now.”
“Now!” exclaimed Binny, and grabbed her jacket and skittered down the stairs to the front door.
“Where are you going?”
“Out! To look for more feathers!” called Binny, and she was gone.
* * *
The old railway was d
ifferent that morning. Right from the first moments, Binny knew. The grit rolled under her sneakers as she skidded down the path, just as it had before. There were still brown butterflies on the bramble flowers and the flicker of rabbits in the corners of her vision. The air had the same earthy sweetness. Outwardly, it had not changed, but a week of being hunted at school had made Binny very wary.
There was a feeling of tension everywhere.
Binny remembered Gareth’s badgers and foxes. She trod very carefully and she paused often to look around. Once, amongst the bushes, she thought she saw a gentle movement, as if a shadow had turned. For a long time she stood waiting, although for what she did not know. A glimpse of russet? A stripy face? Dark eyes under branching antlers?
Nothing.
After a while she went on again, and then, in the soft mud beside a deep puddle, she found footprints. Lots of prints. There were light hesitant marks, larger than a mouse, smaller than a rabbit, blurry and pricked with tiny claws. Also quite clearly a paw print, definitely a paw; she could see the shape of the pads.
And, over all the others, massive, four-toed stampings, like the prints of a giant chicken. Binny looked, and looked again. Could they be Gertie, still alive? Were Gertie’s feet that big? Were any chicken’s? These prints were enormous. Prehistoric. Huge bird prints, that made pictures in her mind of ostriches and eagles and dinosaurs with wings.
I wish Gareth could see them, thought Binny, as she bent closer to look.
“HEY!”
The whole of Binny jumped and froze at the frightened, frightening cry.
“YOU!”
Binny’s heart banged in panic.
“YOU! HEY YOU!”
She spun round and round, searching for the source of the voice.
“CLEAR OFF!”
Oh! thought Binny, and she stared in surprise and dismay.
Small, against the dark mouth of an abandoned tunnel. Trembling with temper. Outraged. Glaring.
“GO AWAY. AND STAY AWAY!
OR ELSE!”
It was Clare shouting. Clare standing in the mouth of the tunnel, attacking with threats. “GO AWAY AND STAY AWAY OR ELSE!”
“OR ELSE WHAT?” demanded Binny, so Clare tried another attack.
“GROCKLE GIRL!”
Binny must have blinked, and in that second Clare was gone, but laughter echoed from the tunnel.
For a moment or two Binny stood, stunned. Tormented in school, and now tormented at home.
“GROCKLE GIRL! GROCKLE GIRL! GROCKLE GIRL!” called the echoes.
All at once, Binny exploded into movement. She fixed her eyes on the place where Clare had been and ran, leaping the bramble trip wires spreading across her way, pushing past the rough fencing that had once guarded the entrance to the tunnel, following a narrow path of trodden earth and gravel, charging toward the echoes.
The light in the tunnel grew dim very quickly, and Binny was forced to slow down. That was when she began to hear the noises all around. The sound of her own footsteps. A faint and high-pitched staccato of alarmed, invaded bats. The plink of water dripping into water. A breath of unfriendly laughter.
Deeper and deeper. The track became a rubble of large, loose stones, laced with ancient rubbish. The ground was damp, and then wet, and then slippery and puddled. The air smelled of soot and ammonia, sulfur and dirt and oily decay. The way curved and became utterly black.
Binny stumbled and fell very hard in the dark.
Plink-plink-plink went the water that oozed from the roof, but now, apart from Binny’s gasping breaths, there was no other sound at all. No one moved when she moaned, “Oh” and and rocked with the pain. No one sniggered as she sniffed a bit and got to her feet.
“Help!” said Binny, not loudly, but loud enough for someone helpful to hear. “Please help!” she said, much louder, groping round and round in the dark. Anyone, helpful or unhelpful, could have heard that time.
Plink! went the water, but there was no other sound.
It was a long way back to the light.
To Binny, stiff kneed, sore handed, plastered with mud, guided only by the touch of the slippery walls, it seemed to take hours. Only very gradually did the darkness become less black. After a while she discovered small arched hollows in the tunnel walls. Then she understood. Clare must have stood and waited in one of these, while she, Binny, continued into the dark.
At last the light grew brighter. She got along faster then, and presently stood at the entrance again, half dazed and staring about.
The old railway line was alive with noise. Wood pigeons clattered. A blackbird scolded. A flock of sparrows erupted from the bushes to Binny’s left.
“HEY!” shouted Binny, and a great silence fell. No birds. No answering laughter. No footsteps. No snap of twigs, nor rustle of leaves, nor breath of wind.
But, very close, a sigh.
Huff.
And on the edge of unseen, a slow amber blink.
The same careful movement of shadow in the low bushes on the left.
* * *
A pause in time.
* * *
Then the sounds came back. A small plane droning overhead, the rustle of wings in the bushes, and traffic far away. Binny was back in the everyday world again. She checked the damage from her fall and found that her head was throbbing and that while she had been standing her knees had tightened into two stiff lumps of pain. She touched the bump in her hair, and her sore hand came away sticky with blood.
Blood was impressive, but also slightly alarming. Binny decided she had better get home.
It was hard to get going, a slow climb up the zigzag path, a heavy trudge across the rough grass of the garden to the kitchen door. Only James was in the room. “Hello, don’t kiss me, I’m very busy,” he said from under the kitchen table.
“Where’s Mum?”
“Upstairs.”
“What are you doing?”
“It’s a surprise. Go away.”
“I’ve cut my hands.”
“Bleeding?” asked James, who did not like blood.
“Yes.”
“Yuck,” said James.
Binny looked at her stinging hands. She looked at her knees and was not surprised to see dark patches of blood oozing through the denim of her jeans. She tried to pull off her sneakers but their laces were in such mud soaked knots that her sore fingers could not manage them. Get clean, she thought. Find some fresh clothes.
Very slowly she began to climb the stairs.
And there in her bedroom was Clare.
Binny stood in the doorway, battered, bloody, patched, and splashed from head to feet with mud and slime, smelling of earth and drains and ooze, and shivering a little. Everyone in the room was staring at her, her mother, the woman who owned the house, and Clare.
Clare was smiling in delight.
The woman who owned the house was the first to speak.
“What have you done?” she asked. “Belinda! It’s Belinda, isn’t it?”
“Binny actually,” murmured Clare.
This was too much for Binny. “You!” she erupted. “You! What are you doing here?”
“Binny, stop!” ordered her mother, suddenly with her. “Are you hurt? Show me your hands! How have you managed to get into such a state?”
“Why is she here?”
“Clare? Clare? What on earth is the matter with you Binny? Clare has done nothing but very kindly help her mother measure for winter curtains! Why shouldn’t she be here? And where have you been?”
Binny took a great indignant breath and then stopped. If she said where she’d been she knew quite well what would happen. She’d be ordered never to go there again. She stared at her mother, speechless, trying to think, and just in time, James saved her.
He appeared behind her at the top of the stairs, all glowing with pride. “I’ve got the back off that big television that didn’t work properly!” he announced. “I found a box of screwdrivers in that cupboard they think we can’t unlock and I
. . . Oh!”
He screwed shut his eyes. He opened them again. He looked at Clare and her mother and pushed out his bottom lip. “I thought they’d gone,” he said.
So Binny was able to slink away to the bathroom and to peel off her muddy clothes, and dab her sore hands and knees and get used to the idea that the house in which she was living was owned by Clare’s family.
It was Clare’s family who lived just up the road.
It was Clare’s mother who came so often to check on them.
Then Binny remembered, with anguish, her words at school to Clare and Ella. And we’ve ended up in a freezing cold hole in the middle of nowhere that belongs to some bossy old witchy woman.
“Oh!” wailed Binny, so loudly that her mother heard and abandoned James to rush in demanding, “Now what?”
“Everything. Nothing. It doesn’t matter. The soap hurts my cuts.”
“They’re filthy! Here . . .”
Binny’s mother pushed in the bath plug, reached for a bottle of disinfectant, poured a terrible amount into the bath, and turned on both taps.
The air filled with steam and there was a smell like the school toilets on the first day of term. From downstairs came a crash and James’s voice, “I was only lifting it back!”
“In! Soak! And turn the taps off again!” ordered her mother, and shot back out of the bathroom.
* * *
Binny lay in the murky (but germ killing) water and thought, if this was a story, I would tear all the pages out, right back to the day before school. In her mind she did that, edited the fallen-leaf wish (closing school forever), took her foot off the birthday card, unflattened the birthday flowers, unsquashed the birthday cake, and arrived tidily on the pavement beside Clare in time to say, “Look at that butterfly!” and to hear Clare reply, “Oh yes.”
It was all very comforting until the bath water went cold, and then things became very uncomfortable indeed.
Summer 1913, Part 3
The museum had changed, more serious, less shared, but Clarry was still the label writer and the museum cards she made were done as carefully as ever: