by Annie Dalton
“They have betrayed me!” Chance gasped. “This letter says I am involved in a Spanish plot to kill the queen!”
Lola peeped out from behind Cat. “Mel, what’s going on?”
“The dripping tap,” I said feebly. “I think it worked.” Lola threw her arms around me and we gave each other a big hug.
A burly, weatherbeaten man joined us in the doorway.
His beard had sprouted a few more grey hairs since I last saw him. Otherwise Cat’s dad looked exactly the same, even down to the pearl earring.
He gave Chance a shrewd and very thorough looking-over.
“Catherine,” he said. “This boy needs a shot of rum.”
I don’t condone piracy obviously, but there are definite advantages to having a pirate in the family. Assuming they’re on your side, that is, and once Cat’s dad had heard Chance’s story, he was totally on his side. Plus he came up with some v. colourful suggestions for getting Nick back, mostly involving gizzards and slitting of various kinds.
In a funny way, I think it helped Chance come to terms with what had just happened. It showed him that even though his best friend had betrayed him, there were people who really cared about him.
Though his eyes were still shocked, they weren’t vague or foggy. Actually, I got the definite sense that old foggy Chance had gone for good.
And all at once he said in a totally steady voice, “Cat, could you fetch me some paper and ink? I’m going to write a letter.”
Chapter Ten
This is the most long-winded, luke-warm, lily-livered revenge in the entire history of revenges!” Cat’s father fumed. “You’ve been sitting at that table for hours, like a mouse scratching at a wainscot.”
“Hush,” said Cat. “Or he’ll smudge the ink and have to start again.”
Lola and I edged forward invisibly to get a better look. That boy was constantly surprising us. Who knew he’d turn out to have a talent for forgery!
“Why not just run the booby through with a cutlass and have done?” Cat’s dad sighed.
Chance sounded exhausted. “Because I want him to have a taste of his own medicine. And because I am sick and tired of being Nick Ducket’s fool.”
Cat’s dad shook his head. “You think too much, boy, that’s your trouble. Forget this treacherous knave. Go to sea, get some salt air into your lungs. That’s a real life for a man.”
Chance looked startled. “I’d never considered going to sea.”
“You should,” said the pirate. “It’s a golden time for English seamen. And if you should happen to sink a Spanish galleon or two, you could make yourself filthy rich, and become the master of your own ship like me.” And then he dropped a total bombshell. “Cat’s coming with me this time, aren’t you?” He smiled fondly at his daughter.
Chance blinked. “I - I didn’t know.”
“I’m only thinking about it,” Cat said. “I haven’t decided.”
“She has decided,” her dad said calmly. “I know my daughter and the sea is in her blood. Who knows, you might take to it too. You make a handsome couple, to my mind,” he added slyly.
Chance had finished forging his letter. Now he held the original in the candle flame, watching its edges slowly blacken and crumble. His eyes grew dreamy.
“Maybe I could do it,” he murmured. “Maybe I could leave England and start a new life.”
His face hardened. “I can’t think about that now. I have a letter to deliver to Greenwich. But this time I’ll do it in broad daylight.”
“I’m coming with you,” said Cat at once.
He shook his head. “No, I’ve got to go alone.”
Lola smiled mischievously at me and hummed a bar of Reuben’s little tune. I knew what she was saying. You’re not alone, Chance. Not now. Not ever.
Chance had explained his plan to Cat and her pirate dad, which of course meant that me and Lola were also in the know. It was simple but stunningly brilliant.
The old letter named Chance as a conspirator. The new letter, also signed by “Don Rodriguez”, named Nick instead, stating that Chance was an innocent pawn who had no idea what he’d got himself into.
He was still taking a terrible risk. Chance might not be believed, which meant he’d be arrested for conspiracy and probably hung, drawn and quartered. Like Michael said, the Tudors were into revenge in a big way. Merely hanging criminals was far too tame for them. They preferred to split their wrong-doers down the middle and expose their internal organs as well.
Chance looked so scared as the ferryman rowed us upriver to Greenwich, I truly thought he might be sick. I didn’t feel too good myself.
At least this time we didn’t have snake through the trees like commandos. Chance walked right up to the palace guards, where he stood peering anxiously from face to face, as if he didn’t know which one of these poker-faced heavies to address. He really was a brilliant actor.
“Excuse me, sirs,” he said in a timid little voice. “Don Rodriguez gave me a purse of gold to deliver this letter to a lady at the queen’s court. At first I wanted his gold, but now I’m scared I might be doing wrong. What if he’s plotting to harm our Royal Grace? Should we open the letter, do you think?”
As it turned out, this was the easiest part.
The hardest part was when they made Chance take them to Nick’s lodgings, then having to watch as they marched his ex-best friend away to the Tower, and hearing their boots tramp away over the cobbles. “I fear your recklessness will kill you,” Cat had told him. And she was right. I’ll never forget Nick’s face when he realised Chance had succeeded in turning the tables. His chin quivered like a little kid.
“I thought you were my friend,” he said. “And all the time you hated me.”
Chance’s voice shook with emotion. “I never hated you. But when I was with you, I sometimes hated myself.”
“And now I’m condemned to a traitor’s death,” Nick said bitterly. “How do you feel now, old friend?”
Chance’s eyes filled with sorrow. “Sad.” He hesitated. “But also free.”
On the way back in the ferry, he dozed, totally exhausted. I was knackered too. All the emotion of the past few hours had totally drained my angel strength.
And suddenly Brice was there in skin-tight jeans and a T-shirt.
Sharing a small boat with a furious PODS agent is not an experience I’d wish on anyone. But I kept my voice steady.
“I guess this is goodbye. Since you’ve dropped the Elizabethan disguise, you must be heading back to Slime City or wherever you lot hang out.”
His anger came pulsing at me in shock waves. “Don’t try to kid yourself you’ve made a difference, sweetheart,” he sneered. “You haven’t changed a thing. The Agency must be insane giving this mission to a bunch of angel brats!”
“That’s your opinion. Thanks to us, Chance won’t die a traitor’s death. Now he and Cat can go off together and start a new life. Game over.”
His lips twisted into a cold smile. “You should get a job writing daytime soaps! You really think I went to all this trouble to thwart true love? You’re even more clueless than I thought.”
But I was looking at the beautiful face Brice had borrowed from the boy I’d fancied in the days when I was just another airhead with attitude - in the days before I died and got a life. And it occurred to me that Brice was wrong. I had changed something. Me.
“Brice,” I said. “How come the Opposition sent you here, when this is a no-go zone for agents?”
He laughed. “They didn’t.”
I was bewildered. “Then who…? I mean, who else is there?”
“Oh, the Opposition like to call me in when anything interesting comes along. This little project for example,” he added with one of his chilling smiles. “But I prefer to work alone.”
I felt my skin starting to creep. Suddenly the cosmos seemed weirder and scarier than I had ever imagined. “Then what are you?” I almost whispered the words.
Brice stood up in the boat so
that he was grinning down at me.“Oh, didn’t you know, Melanie? I’m an angel. I’m an angel, just like you. Say’ hi’ to your cute girl- friend, won’t you?” he added with an evil grin.
And like a vampire in a bad movie, he vanished into thin air.
“A fallen angel?” I said to Lola that night. “So did Brice like, go to our school and hang out at Guru?” The idea was too deeply disturbing for words.
Lola shook her head. “I think the last time the Agency made that kind of mistake, it was when angels still wore long white robes. And fought with swords,” she added comfortingly.
“All the same,” I said, swallowing.
We were in Cat’s bare little attic. Cat was sorting through her few possessions. Chance was flicking through a book of Elizabethan travellers’ tales, occasionally reading the more bizarre excerpts out loud.
It was a sweet scene, but somehow I wasn’t convinced.
“Lollie, this is our second shot at a happy ending,” I said anxiously. “And I’m scared we’re going to blow it.”
“But this is so perfect,” Lola assured me. “Chance and Cat are going to have a new life in a new world.”
“But Brice seemed so sure this wasn’t a love thing, and he had no reason to lie. We’re missing something. Something he thinks I’m too bimbo-ish to see.”
Chance gave an amazed chuckle. “Cat, according to this fellow, there is one island where all the people have only one foot each! One very large foot. He says they move around surprisingly quickly!”
If only Orlando was here to give us some advice, I thought wistfully. Even a passing Earth angel would do.
But for cosmic reasons which I totally didn’t understand, me and Lola were the only angels available.
I sighed. “Lola, we had doubts before and we were right. This time we’ve got to try to help Chance do the right thing.”
“I know,” Lola admitted. “I feel the same way.”
“But how? We can’t materialise.” I pulled a face. “And I don’t think I really ought to whack anyone again!”
“There’s only one thing we can do. We totally bomb them with vibes. And trust them to find their true destinies,” my soul-mate added poetically.
I puffed out my cheeks. “Lollie, I’m trusting so hard, my trust muscles are like old knicker elastic!”
So we did what Lola said. We bombed Cat’s little attic until the air felt like tingly champagne.
After half an hour or so, Cat suddenly found her old shell necklace at the back of a drawer. She sat back on her heels, looking wistful.
“My mother gave me this,” she said. “It’s all I have of her. What a wild little girl I was. I loved the sea even then.” She darted a troubled look at Chance. “But you get seasick just watching the ships bob up and down in the dock.”
He looked startled. “I’ll soon get used to it.”
“But your job at the theatre—” she began.
“I’m a dogsbody, fetching and carrying, that’s all I do.”
“But one day you’ll be an actor! It’s what you wanted! Why throw it all away?”
Chance shut his book with a snap. “Pretending to be someone else,” he said with contempt. “What life is that for a man? No, Cat, there is no future for me here.” He looked anxious. “Don’t you want me to come?”
“Of course, but—”
“Because you are my life, Catherine,” he said passionately. “When I wake you are the first thing I think of.”
Lola and I hastily looked away. Eavesdropping is one thing, spying on couples kissing is something else.
“Keep beaming vibes,” I hissed.
And we went on and on beaming angelic vibes until gold sparkles fell like rain.
Cat went on sifting through her things. A comb, a brush, a hand mirror, a lumpy-looking sampler she’d been forced to sew when she was a little girl, some scuffed leather boots.
Then she sat fiddling with her necklace again, and I realised she’d made up her mind to tell her sweetheart some painful home truths.
“Chance, you say acting is no life for a man, yet that’s exactly what you’ve been doing ever since we met.”
He looked stricken. “Don’t say that. I never pretended with you, not when it mattered.”
“No,” she agreed softly. “Not with me, that’s true.”
“With some people, with Nick, it seemed to make things simpler. With you it’s the opposite. You’re the star I steer by, my compass! Together, we can start again. We can be whoever we want to be.”
She stroked his hair. “I don’t want to be someone else,” she said quietly. “I want to be me. You’re always starting again. You have no roots, no past, Chance. I know absolutely nothing about you. It’s time for you to stop running away from everything and stay put for a change.”
I felt a tiny twinge of recognition. I hate to admit it, but I used to be a total escape artist. Then I died and finally found something I wanted to do. But Cat was right. Chance was still all over the place.
“It’s all right for you to run away,” he said angrily. “But not for me, is that right?”
“I’m not running away. I’m following my dream. You must follow yours.”
He buried his face in his hands. “Cat, you don’t know what it’s like! There are all these different characters inside me. All these different voices. How can I tell which is me?”
Cat’s green eyes filled with tears. “You are a wonderful person, Chance, and it truly breaks my heart to - to -”
By this time Lola and me were trying hard not to cry.
“Will it make a difference if I tell you about my past?” Chance said eagerly. And all at once he was talking at top speed. “My father was a glover and my brothers followed his trade, curing the skins, and turning them into gloves. Great troughs of animal skins soaking in salted water. They stank the house out.”
The air was electric. Cat was utterly still and Lola and me hardly dared to breathe.
“A few months before I left home, my father’s business began to fail. We never really got on. I disappointed him. He said I’d never amount to anything.” Chance’s breath was coming in gasps. It was like, now he’d started to open up, he totally couldn’t stop. “Then my little sister died, her name was Ann. She was eight years old. She had five freckles on the bridge of her nose and she died.”
“Shsh,” Cat said, putting her finger to his lips. “Don’t.”
But he kept talking desperately. “Money was short. We could barely afford to put food on the table. I went poaching the local squire’s deer, and got caught. If I’d stayed I’d have brought shame on my family, so I ran away to London. I thought I’d find my fortune. Then I could go home again, only this time I’d make my father proud of me. But instead I found you, Cat, and you are my home, my heart and now I’ll lose you…”
Lola and I exchanged agonized looks. Without a word, we softly tiptoed out and left them alone.
I totally couldn’t understand Chance. Barely an hour before he was due to see Cat off, he was at the playhouse, scribbling furiously in a notebook.
Suddenly he ripped out the page. “Eyes full of fire. Hair like black wire,” he said contemptuously. “An ape could do better.” He crumpled up the paper and tossed it disgustedly into a corner.
He only just made it in the end, arriving at the docks as Cat’s father was about to help her down into the dinghy which was to row them out to her father’s ship.
Cat gave a little cry of anguish and ran to Chance, pressing something into his hand. “My shell necklace,” she said. “It’s the most precious thing I own.”
“I tried to write you a poem,” he said into her hair. “But I tore it up.”
They clung to each other, but Cat’s father gently detached her and helped her down into the boat.
Lola’s eyes were red from crying. “I don’t care if it’s unprofessional. I can’t stand to see Cat so miserable,” she snivelled. “Some happy ending this is.”
The boatman pulled
on his oars and the dinghy began to move away from the jetty.
If he reaches out now, he could still touch her, I thought. I totally couldn’t bear to believe it was over.
But Chance didn’t move.
I heard him draw a sharp breath. “I do have a farewell gift,” he shouted suddenly. “My name! I want to tell you my name!”
But the wind snatched his words away and the water was widening between them and Cat couldn’t hear.
In his desperation, he jumped on to a barrel. “Can you hear me, Catherine Darcy? I want to tell you my name!”
People were staring. Was this boy out of his mind?
Chance flung out his arms, the wind whipping at his hair and doublet.
“My name is Will Shakespeare!” he yelled. “I am Will Shakespeare and I love you. I’ll love you till I die!”
My mouth totally fell open.
Chance was laughing and crying. Something huge had happened to him. He’d said his real name aloud. He’d lost his one true love.
He looked trembly and new, like something which had just emerged from a chrysalis.
His eyes! I thought. All of him is there behind his eyes!
OK, it is just possible that I started something that rainy night, with my slightly unprofessional cosmic whack. But the important thing is that Chance finished it. He woke up all by himself, exactly like he was supposed to.
But right now the poor boy was in such a state, he didn’t know what he was doing.
He jumped down from the barrel and stumbled away. And before I knew what was happening, he’d walked right through me, like some sort of angel car wash. Then suddenly he stopped, looking around in bewilderment, almost as if he knew I was there.
I was in total bits. Every atom in my body was fizzing with the delicious shock of mingling molecules with the greatest writer who ever lived.
And at that moment, some invisible gate between Heaven and Earth was unlocked, and there was a great whoosh of light.