by J. C. Jones
With nothing left to eat but oranges, she showered hurriedly and made her way to the mall where she bought an egg-and-bacon burger plus juice. She munched it slowly as she plotted her next step.
She wanted to make sure that Sully was awake and capable of speaking with her before risking another visit to the hospital, so when she’d finished her breakfast, she called the hospital from the mall payphone. This time the nurse on duty was far less helpful.
‘We can’t release confidential information on patients,’ she said briskly. ‘Except to family. Are you related to Mr Sullivan?’
‘I’m his . . . I look after him,’ Pip said.
‘Pardon me, but you don’t sound old enough to look after anyone.’
Pip gritted her teeth. ‘Well, I am.’
She heard some muffled whispering before the nurse came back on the line, having changed her tone. Now, instead of being rude she was speaking in the fake-friendly voice used by adults who think kids are morons.
‘If this is Pip, why don’t you come in to visit Mr Sullivan? I’m sure he’d love to see you.’
Pip wasn’t falling for that. ‘Is he awake? Can he talk?’ she repeated.
‘Well, dear. We can discuss that when you get here.’
Yeah, right, Pip thought. And walk right into the hands of the welfare? No way.
Pip put the phone down, feeling deflated. She had been looking forward to talking with Sully and telling him about her success with Tall Poppy and finding out what rehab would cost.
She pondered the situation as she shopped for supplies in the supermarket. At the check-out, she added today’s newspaper to her pile of groceries. She would check the racing news and keep up her reading at the same time.
It was after midday when she crossed Elliott Street Park and made her way towards the house, only to stop short fifty metres away. A flag hung horizontally from the front fence with the word OPEN in big letters. A car was parked in the driveway and a further two in the street outside. Of course! The house was for sale, so people had come to look at it.
Turning on her heel, Pip returned to the park and found a bench. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. At least she hadn’t been in the house – in the shower! – when the people turned up, and she tidied up each day because it was only her hair that was messy, not her habits. But still. It would hardly escape anyone’s notice that several oranges were missing, replaced by dollar coins.
Worse, she’d left her bag in the house, hidden under the couch, expecting only to be gone for a short while.
It was impossible to know how much time had gone by, but it felt like hours before Pip finally made her way back down Elliott Street to Number 78. The flag and cars were gone as if they’d never been. To be sure no one was lying in wait, she rang the doorbell. When no one came to the door, she scuttled around the side.
Before she even touched the handle she knew that the door wouldn’t have been left unlocked a second time, and she was right. Pip’s heart sank. She pressed her nose to the window. She hadn’t even had time to watch that big TV yet! Plus, she had food that really needed a fridge.
Desperately she wondered if she should risk going back to Greene Lane, but if the hospital had told Senior Constable Dunlop about her call, she’d be watching Number 3. ‘Sure as eggs are eggs’, as Sully would say, which meant something was a sure thing.
She studied Number 78. There must be some way of getting back in. The kitchen window was too high to reach, but standing on her toes, she could just reach the two windows along the driveway, one of which looked onto the living room and the other onto the study. However, neither window would budge despite the fact she pushed and tugged as hard as her skinny arms would let her.
Finally, she slumped exhausted to the ground. She could try the front windows but with no hedge or trees to hide behind, there was a chance she’d be seen by someone.
‘Miaow.’
She looked up to see Indigo/Bruce walking down the driveway towards her, tail high and swishing lazily.
‘I’d say good afternoon, except it’s not,’ Pip told her. ‘I’ve been locked out, you see.’
The cat stopped and cocked her head to one side, and then walked right on by as though she couldn’t care less. And why should she, Pip thought, when she had a nice comfy seat to go back to?
Pip followed the cat around to the back where she stood by the glass doors as though waiting to be let in.
‘It’s locked,’ she said again.
Indigo/Bruce looked at Pip from her blue eye and gold eye before turning to a pot plant standing on the edge of the step. She headbutted it and it wobbled precariously.
‘Don’t do that!’ Pip darted over and saved it from toppling. She set it back in place and gave the cat a cross look. ‘You could have broken it!’
The cat ignored her and did it again.
‘Stop it!’ Pip grabbed the pot to move it somewhere safe, and there on the step was a key.
Amazed, she looked at the cat and it looked back, unblinking, out of those strange eyes. Pip picked up the key and replaced the pot. The cat flicked her tail airily as if to say, I’m the boss, don’t argue with me.
‘All right,’ Pip said. ‘If this works, then I’ll admit you are the smartest, coolest cat ever.’
Of course it did work, and she slid the door open and stepped in.
‘Well, Indigo/Bruce. I think Matilda was right.’ She turned around. ‘You do know ev—’ The cat was gone as suddenly as she’d appeared!
Shaking her head in astonishment, Pip crossed to the kitchen and began unpacking her shopping into the fridge. She had enough for a few days, so she wouldn’t have to go out again if she didn’t want to.
It was then that she noticed the fruit bowl on the bench. All the remaining oranges and the dollar coins had disappeared, and in their place were twelve very large, very yellow lemons.
Weird!
Even with a key in her pocket, Pip wasn’t game to go anywhere for the rest of the day. Instead, she ate her lunch, a chicken sandwich, while sitting at the kitchen bench ignoring the lemons and reading the final chapters of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Of course, she knew what happened. She’d first read it two years ago, but when Mr Blair had announced they would be reading it as a class and discussing it, she had been happy to revisit the story. It was a good one. When she was feeling a bit down, Charlie reminded her that there were kids in the world really doing it tough. And the other kids made her laugh, like Mike Teavee. He was a lot like Marco at school, who was obsessed with his PlayStation.
Before Pip had really talked to Matilda she’d thought that she was a spoilt rich kid like Veruca Salt, but now she felt ashamed. Matilda barely knew her, yet she’d been a good friend to Pip the other day – and so had her cat.
Pip finished the book, pleased all over again that it worked out so well for Charlie. He’d had to pass all those tests without any idea of what was really going on. It wasn’t like doing a spelling test where you knew exactly what was expected, so you could practise. Charlie’s tests had been about the kind of person he was inside, not how well he could spell or do maths. If she had been Charlie, she would have failed big time. She would probably have pushed Augustus Gloop into the chocolate river!
When she thought about it, she’d never given any of the kids in her class a chance to make friends with her, thinking they wouldn’t like her because she was poor. Ginger was the only other kid she felt comfortable around, because he didn’t have much either.
Thinking about the races reminded Pip that she needed to prepare for the weekend by reading the racing news. Ginger had promised he would look out for her at around midday on Saturday.
‘See you, partner,’ he’d called out after her as she had gone to get her train. It had given her a good feeling that he considered her his equal even though he was nearly a grown-up.
Pip knew Ginger had done it tough, moving every few months to a different place after his mum had stopped being able to look after
him. More than once he’d told Pip his mum was mad and he hadn’t seen his dad for a long time. But the people he’d been sent to live with had sometimes been crazy too, he said. Or they’d expected him to go to school, which was worse. Or they’d had far too many children already to look after another one. And in one place the woman had had a boyfriend who didn’t mind using his fists on Ginger.
He said he was better on his own, and Pip thought he was probably right.
Sighing, she wished she could find a good place for Ginger. She could ask him to stay here but as she’d have to move on soon, there probably wasn’t much point.
She turned to the racing pages, and soon became immersed in reading about the horses that would be running on Saturday. Tall Poppy would be there, plus a couple of others she thought might be worth a small bet.
When she’d finished she turned back to page 2 to read the news and stopped dead. There in the middle of the page was a blurry photo of her under the headline:
TEACHER IS PERSON OF INTEREST IN MISSING GIRL CASE
Right of Reply
Pip’s mouth dropped open as she scanned the article, which read:
Spring Hill Public teacher James Andrew Blair, 41, has been identified by police as a person of interest in the case of missing nine-year-old, Pip Sullivan.
It is believed Mr Blair went to police yesterday, following media reports that the Year 5 student had been seen in the company of a man at The Bean Café late on Monday afternoon.
The proprietor of the café, Mrs Linda Williams, informed police yesterday that a child she thought might have been Pip Sullivan had become upset while having afternoon tea with a middle-aged male.
‘He was buying her food and at one point he held her hand,’ she later told this reporter. ‘Most of the time I couldn’t follow what she was saying, but when he touched her hand, she pulled away and said something like, “No!” She was clearly distressed, but she left before I was able to intervene.’
Nosy old cow, Pip thought. Mr Blair was only trying to help me. You had plenty of time to ask me if I was okay, but you just stood there watching us.
Senior Constable Molly Dunlop, who first raised the alarm about the missing child, has refused to speak with media. However, Inspector Joel Carozza has revealed that the child was first reported missing after an elderly man, initially believed to be the child’s grandfather, suffered a stroke and was taken to hospital.
Inspector Carozza added that subsequent investigations had uncovered that the elderly man is not the child’s natural grandfather. Birth records for the child are believed to be missing, and police are unable to explain how she was able to be enrolled at Spring Hill Public, where she has been a student for more than five years.
‘According to our enquiries, Pip Sullivan does not exist,’ said Inspector Carozza. ‘It is a big mystery.’
Apart from a shorter article on the same page called ‘Keeping our kids safe’, which mentioned Pip but had nothing new to say, that was it. But it was enough to make Pip angry.
She was cross about Mr Blair being in trouble, especially when there was a really scary man loose on the streets. She was also annoyed at being described as only nine, although she was small and skinny. But what really made her furious was that the police said she didn’t exist!
If you were a flesh-and-blood, breathing person – or even a cat or dog – you existed. Pip had no doubt she was right on this matter. It was plain silly otherwise. Grown-ups, particularly important ones, were more inclined to say stupid things than most other people, it seemed.
Pip felt strongly that something should be done to set the record straight. The trouble was, she didn’t know what. She could phone Inspector Carozza and put him right, she supposed, or the newspaper reporter.
To keep herself busy, she washed her dirty clothes in the bathroom sink with soap as there was no washing machine or laundry detergent, and hung them over the bathtub to drip dry. Then, with excitement, she switched on the big TV but the best thing she could find was a quiz show, where she knew almost all the answers and the actual contestants know almost none. If she wasn’t on the run, being a quiz contestant would be a good way to make some money.
Annoyed, Pip switched it off and went to find the notepad and pencil that Matilda had given her. She sat on the couch thinking about how she could set the record straight. After reading the newspaper article again, she decided that she would write to Senior Constable Dunlop and ask her to clear Mr Blair’s name. She wrote:
Dear Senior Constable Molly Dunlop,
Thank you for helping me when my friend Sully had a stroke on Sunday. It made me think I would like to be a police officer when I grow up so I can drive really fast and help people.
I’m sorry I ran away from the hospital, but I do not want to live with nutters, even nice ones, only Sully. I told this to Mr Blair at The Bean Café. Mr Blair wanted me to see the welfare but I said no loudly, which is what that nosy woman heard and told the newspaper about.
Mr Blair is very nice and would not hurt anyone. You would like him if you knew him.
By the way, I am ten not nine and I do exist. Please tell the inspector that it is rude to say I don’t exist. I was born on Wednesday 6 November. Sully found me in an apple crate on the day I was born and called me Pip. He looked after me, even though he probably did not want to. When he got sick, I looked after him. I will get the money for Sully to go to rehab so please tell him not to worry and to get better soon.
I am fine and can look after myself.
Love,
Pip Sullivan
PS: I do not want to be in the paper anymore as they tell too many fibs.
PPS: The man who drives a blue car with WAD62B on his number plate is a better person of interest than Mr Blair.
PPPS: Mr Blair would make a very good boyfriend for you. He would not mind if you were late because you were helping people.
Pip read it over two times and was satisfied, although she wasn’t absolutely sure how to spell the word ‘nosy’. It looked right without an ‘e’ so she left it the way it was.
Tiredly, she tried to think about how she could deliver it without being caught, but she fell asleep on the couch before she could come up with a solution.
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
It was Friday before Pip ventured out of the house again, partly because on Thursday she had woken with a throat that felt like sandpaper. The lemons had come in very useful for making hot lemony drinks. Had the person who put them there known about her sore throat in advance? She couldn’t see how, unless they were like Indigo/Bruce and had a sixth sense.
She spent Thursday on the couch watching the big TV and reading books borrowed from the study. They were mostly reference books, but she discovered two words she liked very much – ‘abstemious’ and ‘sanguine’ – and entertained herself making up sentences that used them.
By Friday she was itching to get on with her plans, and it occurred to her that, although the photo in the paper had been very blurry, it might be a good idea to disguise herself. It was unlikely that anyone who did not know her already would recognise her, but she couldn’t take that chance.
Taking two ties from the living room curtains up to the bathroom, she pulled her hair into bunches at the sides of her head and instantly looked completely different and girly. Easy!
Over breakfast, she considered her options for getting her letter to Senior Constable Dunlop and sneaking into the hospital to see Sully. By the time she’d finished eating she still hadn’t come up with a good plan, so she decided to just make her way to the police station and hope something occurred to her once she was there.
As the police station was next to the library, Pip decided to return her book so she didn’t get a late fee. This gave her confidence for her next mission. She folded the letter twice into a small square and wrote Senior Constable Dunlop’s name on the front. As luck would have it, the postie jogged up the steps of the police station with a box of mail just as she arrived so sh
e simply smiled sweetly and asked if he would deliver her note.
‘No worries,’ he said, and it was as easy as that.
Feeling more confident by the minute, she bought a newspaper from a newsstand to see if it had anything else to say about her being missing. It wasn’t until she turned to page 8 that she found anything about herself and it was very short, although upsetting.
COUNCIL WORKERS IDENTIFY MISSING GIRL, TEACHER SUSPENDED
The case of missing Spring Hill girl, Pip Sullivan, took an intriguing twist yesterday after two council workers came forward to report contact with the nine-year-old.
Mrs Helen Gordon, 58, and Mr ‘Smurf’ (Simon) Fingelton, 25, believe the girl visited council offices on Monday, prior to her encounter with teacher Mr James Blair in a café later that day.
‘We thought she was a boy until we saw the photo in the paper,’ Mrs Gordon said. ‘Although she was not very well dressed, she was extremely polite and very helpful.’
Mr Fingelton agreed. ‘On the day I met Pip I was having a really bad time at work. Pip was really cool and her advice kind of helped.’
The pair declined to say how a nine-year-old had been able to assist them, although they claimed they had furnished police with full details.
In other developments, it is understood that Spring Hill Public has temporarily suspended James Blair, pending the outcome of police enquiries. Neither the school nor Mr Blair was available for comment yesterday.
Oh no! This was terrible. Poor Mr Blair, Pip thought. But she had faith that Senior Constable Dunlop would be able to fix things once she knew the truth. That was what the cops were for, making wrong things right again. She would know what to do.
With Mrs Gordon and Smurf having recognised her, Pip was particularly glad she had disguised herself, although she wondered if simply changing her hair was enough to get her through a visit to the hospital without being caught. She hoped so, but now people knew she was a girl, maybe what she needed to do was look more like a boy, not less.
In a pharmacy she’d never been into before, Pip bought a pair of scissors. While she was paying, the teenage kids she’d pulled the cockroach trick on swaggered past on their lunchbreak. Fortunately, they didn’t even glance her way.