by Anne Digby
The party was now winding up the steep rough road on the other side that led to Mulberry Castle.
'Doctor Charles thinks his mother's right, too,' said Sue. 'I can tell.'
'So do I,' said Rebecca. 'I think she's right.'
They dropped down into Trebizon Bay.
'Mr Johnson doesn't though, does he?' said Tish suddenly. 'Tommy spotted it straight away.'
'Yes, he did, didn't he,' nodded Rebecca. 'I think Tommy Carter's pretty sharp.'
'You can say that again,' said Elf. She pretended to groan. 'I wonder what trouble he's got into today?'
'Let's hope a tiger hasn't eaten him up,' said Sue.
Tommy had had only an averagely troublesome day. He'd been in two fights. One with a small boy he'd met at the nature park and one on the coach coming home. He'd lost his anorak and then found it again. He'd sworn at Miss Peabody when she wouldn't let him have a second ice cream and been given a lecture. Apart from all that, the day had passed peacefully.
Just after the coach had deposited all the children back at the camp, he greeted Rebecca exuberantly. He was bright and smiling, as though a huge load had been lifted from his mind. He was obviously pleased to see Blackie again, who was barking and wagging his tail and jumping up at him. But it was more than that.
'Having a good birthday, miss?'
'Very!' said Rebecca, slightly surprised.
'Find any treasure?'
'Fraid not.'
But Tommy was still looking pleased with himself. He screwed up his nose.
'Mmm. Soup! Good eh?'
Rebecca was one of a group in charge of a big cauldron of oxtail soup on the camp fire.
'Have some.' She ladled it out into a bowl. 'There's some rolls over there.'
She was looking forward to her party that night. The others had discussed it with Miss Peabody and it had finally been decided to make it a barbecue down on the beach. That way there'd be no danger of keeping the children awake after their long and tiring day. The next hour was spent giving the children their supper, then getting them washed and into bed. They were all ready for an early night – even Tommy.
'Guess what, miss,' said Tommy, as Rebecca zipped him into his sleeping bag.
'What, Tommy?' He was still looking incredibly pleased with himself and Rebecca couldn't think what it was all about.
'I got it now. Your present.'
'My – my present?'
He rummaged under his sleeping bag and pulled out his anorak, then took something out of the pocket, something that had been jammed in, wrapped in a crumpled paper bag.
'Tommy.' Rebecca swallowed hard. So this was why he'd been so embarrassed about her birthday, this morning! He'd been wanting to give her a present and –
'Sorry it's late, miss. The shop didn't have none yesterday, but I got 'em today instead. At the nature park!' He put the crumpled bag in her hands and eyed her expectantly. 'Open it!'
Rebecca pulled off the wrapping. It was the third surprise of the day.
They were very small and rather cheap looking. But, nonetheless –
'A pair of binoculars!' Rebecca exclaimed.
'They work, miss! They work really good! I saw the tigers wiv 'em – and an elephant!'
'And –and you paid for these, Tommy? With your pocket money?'
He nodded vigorously.
"Course I did, miss.' He could hear some of Rebecca's friends coming. It was nearly time for her party. 'Don't tell no one, will you?'
Rebecca nodded and put the binoculars safely under her sleeping bag. 'It's getting late now. I'll try them out in the morning. Oh, Tommy. You shouldn't have got me a present.' She was deeply touched. She bent over him and kissed him on the cheek. 'Night. Go to sleep.'
'Night, miss.' He was exhausted, but content. 'Was it a good surprise?'
'Just about the best of the day,' whispered Rebecca.
She had no idea then how much trouble it would lead to.
NINE
THE BEGINNINGS OF A GUILTY CONSCIENCE
Unhappily for Tommy, Rebecca found out about the binoculars the very next day.
The six friends were enjoying some off duty time before lunch. After a busy Monday morning playing beach games and swimming and paddling with the children, they were lazing on the grass outside Rebecca's tent. It was good to lie on their backs and to see clear blue skies again after yesterday's cloud. Rebecca noticed that her arms were getting brown.
'Wasn't it fun last night?' yawned Tish. 'You certainly had a good birthday, Rebeck.'
'Terrific!' agreed Rebecca.
They talked about the beach party. The two students from the dig had come. Jake had brought his guitar and played it and sung songs. Thomas had brought a local fisherman along with a haul of small tasty fish. They'd slowly grilled them all on the barbecue and then eaten them with great relish, under the stars. After that they'd cooked jacket potatoes and sung innumerable songs, with Sue and Moyra and Jake playing their instruments from time to time. They'd polished off the rest of the fruit cake and all of the shortbread as well, washed down with plenty of lemonade and apple juice.
Now they were all rather tired.
'I wouldn't mind a sleep,' giggled Sue.
'That's an unusual looking butterfly,' observed Rebecca, watching it alight on a nearby bush.
'Have a look at it through your binoculars,' suggested Elf.
Rebecca hadn't really been able to keep Tommy's present a secret from the rest of the six. She crawled into the tent but by the time she emerged with the binoculars the butterfly had fluttered away. So she idly focussed them on Tish's feet, instead.
'There's an ant crawling up your big toe,' she observed.
She swung them round towards the trees.
'Here comes Blackie. What's he been up to?'
Blackie came over to them, growling and snorting and waving his head about. There was a little rattling, clicking noise against his teeth. They all laughed.
'Oh, Blackie, not again!' exclaimed Mara.
The dog loved picking up small objects, twigs, buttons, small stones. He would carry them around in his mouth until he found somebody worthy to give them to. It was a bad habit because sometimes they got stuck in between his teeth and he couldn't get them out.
'Come on, Tish, you're the expert at this,' said Margot.
Gently Tish took hold of the dog's jaws, prised his mouth open so that his teeth were bared, then expertly extracted a tiny stone that was stuck between two of his teeth.
'You silly animal!' she laughed, then flicked the stone away.
'Woof!' said Blackie gratefully.
They continued to sprawl and chatter, Rebecca idly sweeping her binoculars backwards and forwards across the surrounding scenery.
'What date reads the same upside down as the right way up?' asked Elf.
'Oh, Elf,' protested Mara. 'My brain's on holiday.'
There were the inevitable comments and wisecracks about that – 'What brain?' – 'Isn't it too small to go on holiday?' – and so on.
But Tish frowned in concentration.
'The first of January, 1911,' she suggested.
'Eh?' said Elf. 'How come?'
'Well – 1.1.11, of course,' said Tish.
'No!' replied Elf. 'The answer's 1961.'
They argued about it for a while.
'All right then,' said Tish, deciding to get her own back. 'What's the longest–living animal – vertebrate that is –'
'Elephant?' asked Margot.
But Rebecca knew the answer to that.
'Tortoise!'
'Correct,' said Tish. Then, seeing one of her small girls approach: 'What's the matter, Janine?'
The little girl was pointing to the binoculars in Rebecca's hand.
'Ooh, Tishy. She shouldn't have those! They belong to the nature park. You're only s'posed to borrer them!'
The six exchanged startled glances.
'How do you mean?' Rebecca asked the little girl, gently.
'Well,
you put twenty pence in a slot see? – and get them out to look at the animals, but then you're s'posed to put them back.' Her eyes grew round with interest. 'Did Tommy Carter pinch them, miss?'
Rebecca rammed the small binoculars in the pocket of her shorts and got to her feet.
'I think I'll go and find Tommy,' she said.
Blackie followed her.
The other five surrounded the little girl.
'Now don't you go spreading this around, Janine. Promise?'
'D'you think he did pinch them?' she repeated.
'You just leave it to us, Janine. We'll get it sorted out.'
Rebecca ran out of the little gate, up and over the sand dunes. A game of beach cricket had just finished and Donald was blowing a whistle to call the children in. Blackie was the first to spot Tommy. He was in the far distance, down by the shore, ignoring the whistle and idly skimming stones on the water.
Blackie streaked across the sands. Rebecca took it at a walk.
'Hallo, Tommy,' she said, coming up behind him. He'd thrown a stick in the water for Blackie and the dog was gamely chasing it as it bobbed on the little waves.
'Oh, hiya,' he said, grinning with pleasure as he turned round and saw Rebecca.
He didn't grin for long.
'I thought you said you paid for these, Tommy,' she said, taking the binoculars out of her pocket. 'With your pocket money.'
He scowled.
'I did . . . well, sort of. It was me pocket money.'
'What was your pocket money, Tommy?'
Silence.
'The twenty pence you put in the slot?'
He nodded, slowly, looking down at the ground.
'But that was just to hire them, wasn't it, Tommy? You were supposed to lock them back in their case, after you'd finished with them. Ready for the next person to come along and put twenty pence in. Lots of people want to hire binoculars to watch the wild animals.'
He shrugged, still refusing to meet her eye.
'There were loads of pairs.'
'But there wouldn't be any at all if everyone did what you did, would there?'
He set his lips sullenly. Rebecca could feel spots of colour burning in her cheeks. She was furious with him – and furious with herself for accepting the gift without really thinking about the cost, even of a cheap pair of binoculars like these. She swallowed hard.
'Put your hand out.'
Automatically he obeyed and she placed the binoculars in his hand.
'Have them back, Tommy. I don't want them. Maybe some time you'd like to send them back where they belong. I don't want anything to do with them. I don't want to know.'
She turned on her heel. She heard him curse. She turned back and looked at him.
'I don't like you when you steal. I don't like you when you tell lies.. And I don't like you when you swear. I like you the rest of the time. In f-fact, Tommy,' her voice tripped slightly, 'the rest of the time I actually like you a lot.'
Her last glimpse of him was a small silhouette, standing down by the shore, Blackie beside him. He had the binoculars in his hand and she had the feeling he might have been crying.
As she walked across the sands she thought she heard the distant sound of a splash, behind her, as though he'd thrown something in the sea. Donald passed close by her, blowing his whistle. 'Come on, Tommy. Lunch time. Come on – are you deaf?'
She forced herself not to look back and returned to camp. Tommy went and sat in the tent for a while after lunch and Elf found him there, sitting in the shadows.
'Look, Tommy, Rebecca's told me a bit about it. I've been and got brown paper and string from Miss Morgan. We can make a parcel of them. I'll help you. I'll help you write the address and then we can get some stamps –'
'I chucked them away,' said Tommy sullenly. 'I chucked them in the sea. I bet they're miles away by now.'
'Oh,' said Elf.
But not long after she'd left the tent, Blackie came bounding in. He deposited something at Tommy's feet and barked and wagged his tail.
Tommy found himself staring at the binoculars, which were wet and sandy and had seaweed sticking to them.
'I don't want 'em, Blackie!' he said furiously.
They lay there, lenses uppermost, like a pair of eyes reproaching him. Guiltily, he looked around the tent. Then he snatched up his anorak, stuffed the binoculars into the pocket and then bundled the anorak under his sleeping bag.
'I'll just forget about 'em now,' he thought fiercely. 'Forget all about it.'
But it wasn't going to be as easy as that.
TEN
REBECCA'S EXCITING DISCOVERY
As far as the six were concerned, the binoculars had been washed away to sea. So that was that.
There was nothing Rebecca could do about it so she put it out of her mind. She'd no idea that they were, in fact, hidden in the tent. Tommy made sure that she never found out.
As far as Tommy was concerned, he tried to put the binoculars out of his mind, too. But sometimes, tidying up the tent in the morning, or wearing his anorak on cool evenings, he would feel the hard knobble in the pocket and feel guilty. He disliked this feeling very much, this stab of conscience, and would try to banish it as quickly as possible. He couldn't actually bring himself to do anything about it.
It wasn't as though he wanted to keep the binoculars for himself. He was beginning to hate them. Their presence in the tent was an embarrassment, coming between him and Rebecca somehow. He'd have liked to have gone and thrown them in the sea again, but his conscience wouldn't let him do that now, either.
So, in spite of the many happy days that followed, there was a kind of small barrier between Tommy and Rebecca and it was all on Tommy's side.
'I don't think he's ever really forgiven me for handing his present back to him,' she said to Tish one day. 'But I had to, didn't I?'
Tish nodded. She looked thoughtful.
'I'm not sure it's that. He looks guilty when he sees you sometimes. Whatever you said to him, I think it made an impression on him. He's much better behaved. I haven't heard him swear for days.'
'Oh, I'm sure that's Uncle Charlie and Aunty An's influence!' smiled Rebecca. 'Not mine.'
One of the most surprising aspects of the summer camp was the way that Tommy Carter, such a plain little boy and entirely lacking in good manners, had appealed instantly to Doctor Charles Lazarus and his wife, who were, to put it mildly, a very well-bred couple. With Miss Peabody's permission he was spending more and more time in their company, together with Blackie, and was even making himself useful on the dig. To Rebecca's chagrin, because the six had regular camp chores to do, he was able to keep more closely in touch with events at Mulberry Cove than any of them and often she had to ask him for the latest news. However the exciting discovery was going to be Rebecca's alone.
Two people who weren't too surprised about the unlikely relationship between Tommy and the Lazaruses were Miss Peabody and her assistant Donald. They knew the reason and being experienced case workers they'd seen this sort of thing before.
'I think we're taking a risk, Sheila,' Donald said to Miss Peabody one day. 'Antonia Lazarus makes no bones about it. Little Carter reminds her of the son she lost – Paul, wasn't it – and it's all getting a bit intense. Tommy's a substitute. When she looks at him she's not really seeing Tommy Carter at all but her own son, Paul Lazarus.'
'Well?' said Miss Peabody. She glowered.
'Don't you think . . .' Donald hesitated, then decided to stick to his guns. 'Tommy's behaving so far. Enjoying all the attention. But sooner or later he'll start playing them up. He always does. It'll hit them – bingo. He's not Paul Lazarus whose name was down for Eton and all that. He's a little nuisance called Tommy Carter. And if they reject him –'
'I think they've got more sense than you give them credit for,' Miss Peabody cut in.
'Yes, but it is a risk –'
'Tommy's at risk anyway. He's sharp as a needle and full of cunning. If he doesn't get a family of his o
wn and some love and discipline soon, he'll go the way his type always does. Petty crime, then juvenile court, then Borstal. Get your head out of the text books, Donald. Tommy Carter needs a good home . . .'
She brought the discussion abruptly to a close.
' . . .this friendship with the Lazaruses just might lead somewhere.'
Rebecca wasn't worried about Tommy. True, there was the occasional friction between the boy and Miss Peabody over Blackie – especially one day when Blackie pulled one of the tents down. The supervisor's dislike of having the dog on the camp was deep-seated. But that apart, Tommy was probably having the happiest fortnight of his life.
But Rebecca began to get worried about Mrs Lazarus.
They went over and helped with the dig whenever they could and on the second Sunday she, Tish and Sue spent the whole afternoon there. The other three were needed to supervise Under-10 swimming in the school sports centre's indoor pool. It had turned rough in Trebizon Bay with big breakers – perfect for surfing but not for small swimmers.
The three girls threw themselves into the work as enthusiastically as ever, working along the trenches on hands and knees, raking and trowelling and sieving the piles of sand and spoil. It had been misty the previous night and today the weather was humid and thundery. Rebecca and her two best friends, coming to Mulberry Cove fresh after a break of two days, were as hopeful as ever – always expectant that today might be the lucky day.
But amongst the full-time diggers, tempers were wearing a little thin: the weather didn't help. Of the area that had been staked off, some two-thirds had now been covered.
'Another four days should see the back of this job,' Mr Johnson said to the students at one point. 'I expect you'll be glad to get home.'
Rebecca saw a flash of annoyance cross Mrs Lazarus's face.
'You make it quite obvious that you will be, Clifford.'
'I think Clifford is now convinced that he'll be going back to the Midlands empty-handed, mother,' said Charles Lazarus, drily. 'That your theory is far-fetched, that my calculations are highly suspect and the whole project – in short – has been a waste of their valuable resources.'
He spoke lightly, but the strain showed on his face.