by Hilary McKay
But the body was dark silk thread wound round and round and the right-hand wing was thin pale card. It was a paper butterfly, half finished.
So then Binny opened the others, the Silver Spotted Skipper, the Purple Hairstreak, the White Admiral, the Large Blue.
And they were painted too.
* * *
“Go away Binny!” complained Clem. “It’s the middle of the night!”
“Clem, Clem, they’re painted!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Clarry’s butterflies, the ones in the little round boxes. They’re not real, they never were, she made them out of paper.”
“Well. Good. That’s good. Night night.”
“I’ve got them here to show you. Sit up and look!”
“I really, really don’t want to do,” said Clem, but all the same she did and when she had looked she said, “Gorgeous!”
“They were paper all the time,” said Binny. “I thought she’d killed them. Or bought dead ones from someone else who killed them for her.”
“Well, you were wrong, weren’t you?” Clem tilted the Swallowtail in its box, admiring the skill of the careful modeling. “You should have thought harder. She was cleverer than that.”
“Yes,” agreed Binny.
“You’d have known if you’d looked properly.”
“I didn’t want to. I don’t like dead things.”
“Well, obviously neither did Clarry.”
Binny was silent as this thought sank in.
“I don’t believe she took that bird either,” said Clem. “And I think that other box of butterflies was nothing to do with her, except she drew the key. I don’t suppose she ever hurt anything in her life.” Clem put the lid back on the Swallowtail box, and yawned and yawned because she had been up since six that morning. “Shut the door as you go back to bed. Sweet dreams!”
“What? Oh! Night night then Clem. Thank you for waking up,” said Binny, and went.
* * *
Pretend butterflies instead of real ones, thought sleepy Binny. I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong.
Well, she admitted a little time later, I often am wrong. In the dark she whispered aloud, “Sorry Clarry. Not like Clare at all.”
Clare and her pretend paw prints, thought Binny. Much worse, Clare and her own, Binny’s, one real paw print, lost the day that Clare reached over her shoulder in the library and picked up her mobile phone. She had wiped the picture and hidden the memory of it in taunting chains of chalk and paint and ink and mud. Why?
To torment me, thought Binny.
But she thought this thought less confidently than she had before. The Swallowtail butterfly on the table beside her made her suddenly uncertain. She remembered Clem’s “You should have thought harder.”
Binny thought hard for a long time, starting with the shove against the wall the first time she and Clare had met, remembering the dreadful days at school, the girl who had enticed her into the tunnel, the girl who tagged along with her gun-carrying brother at every chance she got. But how else to stop him shooting? How else to take Binny away from a revealing paw print? How better to hide a secret than in a tangle of jokes and paw prints?
It was utterly dark outside. The window was open but there was nothing to be seen except the outlines of trees against the starry sky. Inside there was a great peace in Binny’s world because she had no one left to hate.
“Stay safe,” whispered Binny, to all foxes and jagulars and mythical beasts that might be wandering the night. The stars took off like butterflies and the night flew by and she fell asleep at last.
* * *
Pecker woke her. Pecker squawking, and in moments Binny was out of bed and racing down the stairs. She woke up properly only when she reached the shed door. In the dusty darkness inside, Pecker was frantic with fear.
It was here again, thought Binny. It was here just now. “Hush Pecker,” she murmured to comfort her. “Hush, hush Pecker, it’s all safe again. What was it? What did you hear?”
Once again she felt the clawed grooves on the door.
Mark believed it to be a fox.
Mark.
We felt responsible. We wouldn’t have him upset again for the world.
Saturday tomorrow.
No need to be up early.
Mark had plans for it being a fox, and today was Saturday, no need to be awake early, and who would want James upset again? Not Mark.
Mark and his gun.
Binny understood now all that Mark had not quite told her.
Mark had seen the claw marks as deep as a carved signature, but he hadn’t seen the paw print, nor the tufted ears or carved lion profile. He believed it to be a fox because he couldn’t imagine it to be anything else.
Whatever else it was.
Binny tiptoed back into the house and found her phone. With Gareth it didn’t matter that it was three o’clock in the morning.
“What is it?” she demanded. “I know you know! That’s why you never talk about it anymore.”
“You went quiet too,” said Gareth.
“You have to tell me now.”
“It’s a lynx. I think it’s a lynx.”
“Is it safe?”
“As long as nobody knows.”
That was not what Binny had meant at all. Is it safe for me? she had meant. For me to hunt out in this gray dark landscape? For me, all alone, to chase far, far away from Mark and his gun?
“Not that sort of safe,” she said. “Safe for . . . for people. If it met them. Or they met it.”
“Oh, that sort of safe?” said Gareth, dismissively. “Yeah. Well probably. I think.”
Binny sighed with relief.
“Why?” asked Gareth.
It occurred to Binny that perhaps it would be best if Gareth did not know why, so she became very brisk. “Good night now!” she said as firmly as if Gareth had called her at such a terrible time, instead of the other way round. “It’s the middle of the night . . . No, it’s worse than that! It’s nearly three o’clock in the morning! Go to sleep!”
“Oy! Binny!”
“Good night,” said Binny.
Then, by the light of her bedside lamp, Binny pulled on socks, jeans over her pajamas, a woolly sweater over her top, picked up her old sneakers and her flashlight, and found that she was trembling.
Poised on her bedside table the Swallowtail butterfly cast a shadow as sharp and clear as a star.
What Binny would have given, for a companion like Clarry.
Or Clare, thought Binny. When this is over I’ll tell Clare. Perhaps we’ll be able to start again, and be friends.
The idea gave her courage as she crept down the stairs and out of the kitchen. As quietly as she could, she closed the door behind her and looked out into the darkness. Her courage was not so strong then.
She thought, I can’t. Not on my own.
Clare’s room was the one over the farmhouse front door. Binny remembered that James had seen her there when he posted his sorry letter. In stories, people threw stones at windows to wake the sleepers inside, but that seemed a risky idea to Binny. Instead she took the brush that James had used to sweep the henhouse. It was long enough to reach the base of the window.
It scratched against the glass and after an arm-aching few minutes a white figure appeared on the other side. It looked at Binny, raised a finger to its lips, and vanished.
Binny retreated to the shadows to wait.
There was not one light to be seen, but the night was no longer completely black. Instead it was the darkest velvet gray. Every star had vanished, except one quite close to the ground. A wavering pearly star that was crossing the garden toward her.
“Clare!”
“Shush!”
“I had to wake you up.”
“I wasn’t asleep. I was wondering what to do.”
“I couldn’t think how to manage on my own.”
“Neither could I.”
They looked at each other. It was ha
rd to release the secret they had guarded so carefully. Clare began by saying cautiously, “Mark’s worried about a fox. He says a big fox has found where your brother has his hen and he said it was too dark tonight to do anything about it but tomorrow . . .”
“It’s not a fox,” said Binny.
“No.”
“I’ve seen it.”
“I have too. Do you know what it is?”
“It’s a lynx,” said Binny, plunging bravely to the truth. “And we’ve got to move it. Now, before morning. Before Mark comes out with his gun.”
“It took me ages to work out it was a lynx,” said Clare. “I did it with books from the school library, as soon as term began. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you with the same books, spread out all over your table. And the photo open on your screen for anyone to see!”
“I didn’t think.”
“And then you came down talking about paw prints!”
“Well, you made it so no one would listen if I did. Prints everywhere. Even my bedroom.”
“I had to. It made it safer.”
“I hated it.”
“Sorry.”
Binny did not reply to that except to say, “Let’s go fast.”
They were already walking back along the road, but now they began to really hurry. “Sorry,” said Clare again, a little breathlessly now. “I really am.”
“Well I am too,” admitted Binny at last. “Especially about your mum. Her birthday cake and the flowers and card. And the things I said. I was horrible.”
“Never mind. The tunnel. Your pencil case.”
“Ella’s lunch box.”
They were silent again until Binny asked, “Can we really make the lynx move? How far does that old track go?”
“Miles, after the tunnel, right across the moor.”
“Come on, then!” said Binny. “It will be a million times easier with two of us.”
“Aren’t you scared?”
“Not so much as I was. Are you?”
“Me?” said Clare. “Not really. Not anymore.”
They were moving very quietly now, with long pauses to listen, making their way down the zigzag path.
“Would it be better without flashlights?” asked Clare, and they switched them off, just in case. The thick autumn grass muffled their footsteps, and the night wind blowing in their faces meant their human smell went behind them.
“Listen!” whispered Binny.
A rabbit had thumped an alarm. They stood without moving and heard another and then nearly turned and fled as a pheasant took off with a great rattling screech.
“It’s here,” said Clare, in a voice that was only a breath louder than silence, and Binny nodded. Somewhere between themselves and the tunnel something was moving.
Together they went forward, pausing between steps to listen. The rabbits made no more noise, but a blackbird scolded, farther down the line than the pheasant.
“It’s going the right way,” murmured Binny.
“I hope it’s all right in the tunnel.”
“I hope we are too,” said Binny, and felt a comforting hand reach out of the dark to squeeze hers.
“There’s two of us,” said Clare.
“What if it doubles back and slips past us?” asked Binny.
“It won’t pass our flashlights.”
They switched on the flashlights as they came up to the tunnel, and Binny saw for the first time the blackened brick and stone, glistening with water, and the stony, gravelly mud of the floor. She looked hopefully for paw prints until Clare whispered, “Hurry!”
“We’re not even sure it’s here,” said Binny, but twenty yards into the tunnel that changed. Her light suddenly trembled on a dappled bronze coat, and then flew wildly in her shaking hand but returned to find first huge feathered paws and then two yellowy green cat’s eyes.
Blink, and they were gone.
Binny and Clare found they were standing very close to each other and their hearts were thumping so loudly that it seemed the tunnel must echo with the sound.
It was a minute before it became possible to breathe again.
“Fast, now,” said Clare, and they hurried.
Because there was no light to look out for at the end, the tunnel seemed much longer than it was. It ended almost unexpectedly just at the point when Binny had begun counting her footsteps to stop herself panicking.
It was wonderful to escape the heavy blackness, to come out at the other side and find the air clear and lovely, to feel the breeze and see the beginnings of dawn in the sky.
“Have you ever been this far before?” asked Binny.
“Not by the tunnel,” admitted Clare. “Only by road. But I know that there’s miles to go yet.”
The old rail line was not as deep as it had been, but the sides were still steep and rocky. It still made a hidden track across farmland and wood, and the lynx was still ahead of them. Now and then they saw a swift shadow cross a lighter patch of gray, or heard the crack of a dry twig, or the frightened rush of small birds, disturbed half asleep. They traveled much faster now, but the way was level and easy, gravel and grass-buried sleepers.
“How long can you keep going?” asked Clare.
“For a hundred years.”
Clare laughed.
They left the farmland behind them and the air smelled different.
“We’re on the moors,” said Clare.
Later still, they found the land was opening out around them. There were gorse bushes and heather, blackberry and bilberry. Half a dozen small sheep bolted across their path, and farther away others raised their heads to watch.
“Did you see it, then?” asked Clare.
“No. Just the sheep. Did you?”
“I thought so. For a moment.”
There were rocks and deep stony hollows, rabbits on a nearby slope. It was morning, with colors where there had only been lightness and dark. Since the sheep, there had been no sign of the lynx.
Binny rubbed her eyes like a person waking from a dream. “It’s gone, hasn’t it?” she said. “We’re not following it anymore.”
“No. But that’s all right. That’s what we wanted.”
“Could it live out here?”
“I think so. Lynx used to live in this country, thousands of years ago. As long as it doesn’t come back.”
“It would have to come through the tunnel.”
“I know,” said Clare. “I wish the entrance was blocked. It’s supposed to be.”
“We could do it.”
“We couldn’t make it strong enough.”
“Mark could. Would he?”
“I’d have to tell him it was open.”
“Tell him, then!” said Binny cheerfully. “Tell him you’ve been through and I’ve been through.”
“He’d go mad!”
“Who cares? Tell him . . . tell him . . . James might go through!”
“That’s a brilliant idea. He wouldn’t wait a moment to close it if he thought that might happen. Where are you going?”
Binny was scrambling up a slope to shade her eyes and look around. Clare waited until she shook her head and slid back down again.
“Gone,” she said, a little sadly.
“Yes.”
“What next?”
“Home,” said Clare.
June 1914
There won’t be any Cornwall this summer, Clarry had written to Peter, along with a Silver Spotted Skipper, to save him from despair. The grandparents say we are too old. Father says, “Blame Rupe.”
Rupert would finish school that term, but what would he do next? Clarry’s father told Clarry that he was the first member of the family for three generations not to aim for university. “Obviously not counting the girls,” he added.
“Why obviously not counting the girls?” asked Clarry, and her father looked at her with mild surprise. “Don’t be silly, Clarry,” he said.
* * *
The end of term came.
Peter returned ho
me to Plymouth. Rupe vanished. No one had any idea where he was until a postcard arrived for Clarry. It came from Ireland. (“Ah!” said Peter, remembering the fiery-headed footballer who had won the Latin prize.) Having a lovely time, wish you were here, wrote Rupe. Lots of love and DON’T WORRY!
In August he reappeared for one day only, having triumphantly avoided university by joining the army, along with several of his friends. Even Clarry and Peter’s father was shaken into emotion by this. “Spoiled, arrogant, underhand, ungrateful, ignorant, and ridiculous!” he said.
“He is not any of those things!” flared Clarry. “You don’t know him and I do and he is clever and kind and funny and lovely!”
“Let us hope he changes, then,” said Clarry’s father. “Since I don’t see those qualities being very useful to him in his chosen career.”
Clarry turned to Peter for help in this battle, and was startled to see his face. “What?” she asked. “What is it?”
A year ago Peter would have said what he was thinking without hesitation, but now he was growing up too. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing to worry about yet.”
Rupe was not worrying. He was jubilant. He wrote to Clarry and Peter that he had never had such fun, made so many friends, known a brighter summer.
The grown-ups were not jubilant. The grandparents came to Plymouth and acted like it was the end of the world. It was 1914 and Britain was at war with Germany.
“At war?” asked Clarry. “War? Why? Who said?”
Peter explained, “Germany declared war on Russia, and France joined in on the Russians’ side.”
“Why?” asked Clarry.
“They’d promised. So then Germany set out to capture Paris . . .”
“What for? How could they? You can’t just . . .”
“. . . and the quickest way to Paris from Germany is through Belgium,” continued Peter, ignoring Clarry’s protests. “So now Germany have invaded Belgium . . .”
“Couldn’t they have gone round?”
“That wouldn’t have been sensible . . .”
“Sensible! Sensible!”
“Shut up. Listen. Belgium and Britain are allies . . .”
“What?”