‘Bingo,’ she said happily.
Cora jumped up high, reaching as far as her arm could go. But the tips of her fingers went nowhere near the latch. She jumped again and again. And then, after a few more tries, she stopped, out of breath.
I might need a ladder, she thought.
Cora looked around her. Then she remembered seeing an old bookcase in one of the rooms. She found it and pushed it across the floor with both hands, as it creaked and groaned.
When it was positioned right underneath the latch, Cora stepped up carefully, until she could reach the tiny, broken latch on the ceiling. She pulled it and the door in the ceiling opened. She coughed and spluttered as dust fell onto her. Then she climbed the rest of the shelves and pulled herself up and into the hidden attic.
‘Yes!’ Cora cheered quietly. She held her hands up in the air at clapping from an invisible crowd. Then she took a bow.
Inside the attic stood a few pieces of old furniture: a desk, a lamp and a table. She checked the desk drawers but they were empty. She checked the lamp for a bulb but it was missing — as was the bulb from the ceiling light above. A little wooden clock sat on the table. Cora recognised it as being a cuckoo clock. She had seen one in one of Dot’s books.
Gently, she moved one of the hands on the face of the clock. Then the clock suddenly sprang to life! Cora jumped in shock as music filled the attic and a little bird popped out of a pair of doors.
‘Cuckoo!’ it chirped. ‘Cuckoo!’
Cora grabbed the wooden clock and pushed the bird back inside. The music stopped.
Be quick and be silent, Dot had said. Cora flinched at her words. She paused. She listened and waited, still holding the wooden cuckoo clock in a pair of now shaking hands. When there was only silence, Cora placed the clock back on the table as carefully as she could.
Scattered beneath the table were a few cardboard boxes. Cora rifled through the first one. In it was a collection of old crumpled-up newspapers.
‘The Urt Chronicle,’ Cora read as she flicked through the newspapers. Each of them was older than she was. And in the top right-hand corner of each was a picture of a man with an elaborately curled moustache. Edwaldo Urt. Cora was about to put the newspapers back in the box when she spotted something sitting at the bottom. It was a tiny, circular tin.
Cora’s eyes widened. Her heart leapt. Picking it up, she turned it over and saw the words she had hoped were stamped across the front in fine, gold, cursive script.
‘Toe Tippins Shoe Polish,’ she breathed.
Cora ran her hand over the letters. She had done it! She had actually done it! Cora couldn’t wait to race back home and show Dot. Standing up, she pushed the box back under the table and held on tightly to the shoe-polish tin in her hands. Maybe they could take it to the Mill Town trader together.
‘Well, isn’t this a surprise,’ came a voice from behind her.
Chapter Four
Cora froze in place. All the joy she had felt from finding the shoe polish drained from her like water down a sink. She could have kicked herself. The cuckoo clock. Someone must have heard it. Swiftly, Cora pushed the shoe-polish tin up her coat sleeve and turned around.
Standing near the attic door was a short man and two teenage boys. Scavengers. Cora could tell straight away from their clothes. They were torn, dirty and either too big or too small for them. The short man had long, straggly hair and wore an old orange vest covered in buttons. He grinned at Cora and she noticed that a few of his teeth were black. The teenage boy next to him was round and had no hair at all. He wore a jacket that looked like it belonged to a man three times his size. The other boy had dark hair that fell over the left side of his face. His dark eyes peeked out at her in a cold stare.
‘What have you got there, pretty?’ asked the man in the orange vest.
Cora smiled her best smile. ‘Just a box of old newspapers,’ she said, kicking it to the side. She felt her voice shake as she spoke. Stay calm, she told herself.
‘You’re outnumbered, pretty,’ said the man. ‘Just hand over what you’ve found.’
‘I haven’t found anything,’ she said. She did her best to try to sound believable.
The man took a step forward towards her. ‘Then, what is that?’ he asked, pointing at the cuckoo clock on the table.
There was a silence as all four of them looked over at the small, intricate timepiece.
‘It looks like a clock, Eggs,’ said the bald boy. ‘To tell the time.’
The man shot him an agitated look. ‘I know what a clock looks like, Knuckle!’
‘Then why did you say —’ the boy continued confused.
‘Oh, never mind!’ the man grumbled. ‘Go and get it!’
Cora watched as the bald teenager walked over to the cuckoo clock. He held it up and looked at it. Then he did as Cora had done and pushed one of the hands on the clock face. Music filled the attic once more and the bird popped out of the doors.
‘That should fetch a nice price,’ the man said. ‘Take it.’
The bald boy threw the cuckoo clock carelessly into the bag on his back.
‘But I . . .’ Cora tried before stopping helplessly as she watched the cuckoo clock disappear from sight. She felt a small pang of sadness. She had hoped to take the clock back home to Dot. The man was right. It would definitely fetch a nice price. Maybe even enough for a whole month’s worth of oats. And the boy had just thrown it recklessly into his bag. Cora pressed her lips together but said nothing.
‘How did you know this was up here, pretty?’ asked the man. He squinted at her.
Cora shrugged. The less she said the better.
‘You two cleaned this place out months ago, didn’t you, Stink?’ the man asked.
The boy with dark hair nodded. His eyes were on Cora. She tried to pay him no mind. Some people couldn’t help but stare. It just needed a little getting used to, she felt like telling him.
‘So a little girl found something you two couldn’t.’
The teenagers straightened.
‘And not only that,’ the man continued, ‘a little girl with one eye.’
‘But —’ the bald boy began.
‘How were —’ the one with long hair tried.
‘Quiet!’ the man yelled.
The teenagers glared at Cora.
‘Look in the boxes, Knuckle,’ the man barked, pointing to them at her feet. ‘And this time try to use both your eyes.’
Cora took a step back.
The bald boy crouched down and pulled out the newspapers from the first box roughly. Then he searched the other boxes but only found the same.
The man’s eyes rested on her once more. ‘What else have you found?’ he asked.
‘Nothing else,’ Cora said.
‘Are you sure?’ the man pressed.
Cora nodded.
‘You wouldn’t lie to me, pretty?’ he asked, taking a few more steps towards her. Cora could see that in the man’s belt three sharp knives glinted. Then out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that the boy with the long dark hair had also moved closer towards her. The bald boy did the same. She was being cornered.
Cora thought of Dot. What would she do? She took a step backwards. Then, with a heartbreaking clank, the Toe Tippins Shoe Polish fell from her sleeve and bounced onto the attic floor.
No.
Time seemed to slow as Cora watched the precious tin skate out of reach along the attic floor and stop at the scavengers’ feet.
The three of them looked curiously down at the tin on the ground before the man in the orange vest bent and picked it up. He turned it over and smiled a black-toothed smile. Then he put the shoe-polish tin swiftly in his vest pocket. ‘Thank you, pretty.’
No, no, no.
‘Please,’ Cora croaked. ‘Not that.’ She tried to think quickly. What could she offer them? Then she remembered. ‘Take these instead.’ Hurriedly, Cora pulled out what was in her pockets. The half a bar of soap, the button and the twine she had found. �
�For the shoe polish.’
Cora stood there with her items in her outstretched hands. It wasn’t much but it might be enough. She hoped it was enough.
The man peered at her offering, before swiping the items from her palms and pocketing them. He smirked and then all three scavengers turned and headed for the attic door.
‘Hey, where are you going?’ Cora asked.
‘Mill Town,’ said the man. ‘Shoe polish is in high demand.’
‘Wait,’ Cora said.
‘Rule one of scavenging, pretty: never trust another scavenger,’ said the man over his shoulder. The teenage boys laughed.
Cora felt sick in her stomach. She had just been tricked. Duped. Hoodwinked.
By the time she realised what had happened, the teenagers had already descended the bookcase. She ran across the attic towards the man in the orange vest, who had two feet on the bookcase.
‘You can’t,’ she said, desperately grabbing onto his hand. ‘Please.’
The man paused and opened his vests, showing her the knives on his belt. ‘You don’t want to do that, pretty,’ he said warningly.
Cora let go of the man’s hand, defeated. She couldn’t do anything but watch as the last scavenger descended the bookcase, pushed it to the floor and then laughed as the three of them disappeared from view with not just her shoe polish and her cuckoo clock but also her half a bar of soap, her button and her twine.
Crud. Dot is going to be so mad.
Chapter Five
Cora dragged her feet as she walked. Her ankle was sore from having jumped down from the attic. She sighed. She had the shoe polish. She had it right in her hands! And she just . . . let it get away. What was she going to say to Dot? That she had found the Toe Tippins Shoe Polish but then three mean scavengers took it from her after it had somehow fallen from where she had it hidden up her sleeve? And then she tried to trade it for the other things she had found but they took them too? She replayed the moment over in her mind. One minute the shoe polish was safely up her sleeve and the next minute it wasn’t.
‘Eugh!’ Cora groaned. She kicked a stone on the road with her foot and watched it scuttle down the pavement as she walked over to the next house.
She stared up at it, squaring her shoulders. Cora remembered how Dot’s eyes had glistened with confidence in her. She wasn’t going to give up. She would find the shoe polish. Even if she had to look in every single house in the outer boroughs.
As Cora entered the next house, she made extra sure she was quick and quiet, and reminded herself not to touch anything she didn’t need to. Especially clocks.
This house was an old house, the kind that creaked on its own. She searched it, room by room, paying extra attention to where she stepped. It didn’t take long to find that the house was completely empty. She was in and out of there in minutes. Dot would have been impressed.
Soon, minutes turned into hours and the next house in the street turned into the seventh, and still there was no sign of Toe Tippins Shoe Polish.
When the seventh house came up empty, Cora sat down on the two back steps. It was well past lunchtime. She pulled out the last hickory bun from her pack. As she ate it, she briefly imagined herself searching for the scavengers who had taken the shoe polish from her, outsmarting them and then taking it back. She would say something clever such as, ‘Looks like having one eye isn’t so bad’ or ‘You’ve messed with the wrong girl’ or ‘What kind of name is Eggs anyway?’ before vanishing into the night. But she wouldn’t know where to even begin to track them down. And she wouldn’t know how to outsmart them. And Dot would definitely not approve. And one of them had knives.
As the day went on, Cora continued to search the outer boroughs. House after house, room after room. When she reached the last house in the last borough, she began to think that the scavengers must have taken the only shoe polish left in Urt. Either that, or the people who lived in the outer boroughs never wore shoes.
Cora entered the last house in the street. It looked different from all the rest. The door and windows were round instead of square and the front garden still had tufts of green grass scattered by the path.
As she entered the house, there was an odd smell. It didn’t smell bad. In fact, it smelt rather nice. Like something yummy was in the oven. But, looking around, the house was just as empty and falling apart as the previous houses she had searched.
Cora walked through the living room. On the floor sat a broken mirror. She looked down at it. Her quizzical reflection stared back. Then a green glimmer darted across the mirror’s surface. Cora stopped and rubbed her eye. When the glimmer didn’t return, she stepped over the mirror and into the kitchen.
She checked all the drawers and they turned up empty. The pantry that sat nearby was almost as tall as the ceiling. She craned her neck upwards, checking the shelves as best she could. But the top two shelves were too high up. She climbed the shelves of the pantry. When she reached the third shelf, the pantry shelves groaned with her weight. Cora reached up to the top shelf and ran her hand along it. She felt nothing but dust and dirt and cobwebs. And then, she felt something else. She grabbed hold of it with her hand and pulled it out. Cora looked at the dusty old shoebox she held in her hand.
What is a shoebox doing hidden inside a pantry? she wondered.
Excitedly, Cora jumped down from the pantry shelf. She lifted the lid off the shoebox and sitting inside it was . . . a pair of pointed, red leather shoes. Cora stared at them. They looked just like the ones from her memory. And there, sitting in the corner of the shoebox . . . was a tin of Toe Tippins Shoe Polish.
Cora bounced up and down on the spot happily. Then she closed the shoebox and placed it carefully in her pack. This time, she wasn’t taking any chances. She needed to get home fast. No dawdling, as Dot would say.
As she walked back through the living room, her boot kicked something on the ground. It scuttled across the floor.
Cora stopped. What was that?
Curious, Cora walked over and sitting upturned on the floor was a small, square, wooden box.
She bent down and picked it up. It was made from a dark-coloured wood that was almost black, and the box itself was smaller than her palm. She had never seen anything like it.
‘What are you?’ she asked, looking it over with her eye. On one side of the box she found a white symbol burnt into the wood. She ran her finger over it. Then, as if she had pushed a button, one of the sides of the box popped open! Cora turned it over and looked inside but she couldn’t see anything. Tentatively, she put her finger inside the box, grabbed and pulled something out. It was a piece of paper, rolled up in a tight scroll.
Carefully, Cora opened it. Written across the scroll in a neat font were words. At least, she thought they were words. They were looped and dotted in a way she couldn’t understand. She tried to pronounce them.
‘Hegr howr ith,’ she said. ‘Hegwer how er ith?’
It was definitely another language. Maybe Dot would know how to read it? She placed the scroll back inside the box and closed it tight. Then she put the box in her pocket. At least she could go home with something more than the shoes and shoe polish . . . even if she didn’t know what it was.
Chapter Six
When Cora left the house, she saw that the sun had already begun to set. She didn’t want to be finding her way home in the city at night. She walked fast, taking the main road back to the wall. Cora was so happy that she had found the shoe polish that she could have run all the way home. She could have skipped. But there were a few people around and she didn’t want to draw attention to herself.
Cora turned down a street to her right. As she turned the corner, she stopped. Two people walked her way down the road. And they weren’t just any two people. Cora saw with alarm that they wore long black cloaks. Trappers. Panic filled her up. The shoe polish. If they saw her, they would surely take everything she had. And who knows what else? This wasn’t like coming across a group of scavengers. This was worse. Much
worse.
Cora walked backwards slowly until she was behind the street corner once more. She looked around. She had to hide and fast. It wouldn’t be long until the Trappers turned the corner, too. Nearby was a pile of rubbish. It was not big enough to hide in. Next to the rubbish was a grate that led to the sewers. It would have to do. She pulled the grate up and stepped inside, closing it above her. She looked around the tunnel. It was dark and cramped, and she was stepping in something wet and it stank. It stank worse than the time she and Dot had found Scratch’s hidden collection of dead mice.
Above her, the Trappers turned the corner. Cora waited but they didn’t keep walking. They stopped right near the grate.
Crud.
Both of them spoke in hushed whispers. Cora could only make out the odd word like ‘shipment’ and ‘careful’ and ‘red’.
She had worked out that ‘red’ must have been one of the Trappers’ names when she heard a hissing sound below her. Cora looked down. A fat rat crawled over her boot! She stifled a gasp and tried to shake it off but her other foot slipped in the water with a slosh. She lost her balance. Quickly, she put a hand on the side of the tunnel, saving herself from falling.
The Trappers stopped their whispers. Heart racing, Cora put a hand over her mouth and stayed very still. Had they heard her? She waited.
Then, thankfully, the Trappers walked away.
Phew. That was close.
Cora glared at the rat as it waddled unbothered down the tunnel. She remembered what Dot had taught her if ever she needed to hide from Trappers: always make sure they have gone. She stayed where she was for a few minutes longer just to be safe.
When Cora crawled out of the grate, the sun had almost completely set. She hurried, this time peeking around the corners of the streets before walking down them. She wasn’t far from home. That is, if she didn’t run into any more Trappers.
Cora turned down the main street in Urt. Unlike this morning it was now almost empty. The traders had packed up and gone. The factory and dockyard were closed. She couldn’t wait to show Dot the shoe polish. She pictured her face lighting up. She pictured all the things the shoe polish would buy. Maybe she could get some new boots or a toy for Scratch.
Jinxed!: The Curious Curse of Cora Bell Page 2