Rose Campion and the Curse of the Doomstone
Page 20
In one hand Olivia held a battered, bulging suitcase out of which poked a sodden, slightly muddy pyjama leg and the end of a thick wire; in the other she was holding the hand of Eel, her little sister. Eel hadn’t been christened Eel, of course, but had acquired the nickname soon after birth because she was such a wriggly little thing, never still for a minute. She was jiggling around now, pulling on Olivia’s hand, but Olivia only held on tighter.
“Cut it out, Eel! Anyone would think you were seven months old, not seven years,” said Olivia irritably.
A few passers-by eyed them curiously, and one smartly dressed woman crossed over the road as if to avoid the raggle-taggle group.
“Bet she thinks that we’re going to beg for money or mug her,” muttered Olivia fiercely.
“You can’t blame her,” said Eel sadly, shaking her chestnut curls like a dog and spraying Olivia’s face with more water. “We look rubbish. We probably pong too,” she said, sniffing herself like a bloodhound. She was wrong about that, but they did look a mess. Olivia’s hair was stuck damply to her face while Eel had a big smudge on her forehead and her skirt was torn after an unfortunate encounter with the ticket barriers at the Tube station. Eel had never seen ticket barriers before and had decided she never wanted to see them again. They had appeared determined to gobble her up.
“Come on, girls,” said Jack, abandoning his tussle with the umbrella. “We’ll be soaked through if we stand here any longer. Let’s just walk fast. It’s not very far.” They set off at a brisk pace, even though it made Jack limp badly, and as they turned the corner of the street, an imposing red-brick building came into view. At the front of the building a sign written in large black letters declared “The Swan Academy of Theatre and Dance”. In smaller letters below it said “An academic and performing arts education for talented children aged 7–16”. Underneath that was written in italics: “Proprietor: Alicia Swan”.
“Here we are,” said Jack, coming to a halt opposite the building and dragging them into a shop doorway for shelter.
Olivia’s mouth fell open as she read the sign, and then she turned to her father and said accusingly, “It’s a stage school. You said that we were going to stay with our grandmother and go to her school. You didn’t tell us that she runs a stage school.” Olivia spat out the words “stage school” as if they had a nasty taste.
Jack looked like a small boy who had just been caught with his fingers in the sweet jar. “Didn’t I? I must have forgotten to mention it.”
Olivia glared at him. “But you’ve always said that you hate all that fake theatre stuff, and so do we.”
“Not me,” piped up Eel. “I’ve always wanted to learn to dance but we’ve never stayed anywhere long enough to have lessons.” She tried to do a little twirl and got tangled up with Olivia, who was still gripping her hand. “I’ll be a great dancer. The bestest.”
“You can’t say bestest,” said Olivia witheringly.
“I can if I want,” said Eel, but she looked as if she might cry.
“I’m sure you’ll be a fantastic dancer,” said Jack soothingly, but Olivia detected a note of false cheerfulness in his tone.
“But what about me?” demanded Olivia. “I can’t dance and I won’t dance, and I don’t want to go to stage school either. I want to stay with you and carry on walking the high-wire. I’m a circus artist, not a stage-school brat.”
Jack looked at his elder daughter, at her determined mouth and flashing eyes, and for a moment thought that his beloved wife, Toni, had suddenly come back to life. He shook his head sadly before swallowing hard and declaring a little too heartily, “Well, there is a choice. It’s stage school or the orphanage run by a wicked old witch who eats children for breakfast.”
“Well I vote for stage school,” said Eel, hopping from one leg to another, “and Livy will have to come too because she’s superglued herself to me and is holding my hand so hard it hurts.”
“That’s because you can’t be trusted!” said Olivia, the words exploding out of her mouth like a stuck cork suddenly released from the neck of a bottle. “It’s all your fault that we’re in this situation. If you hadn’t…” She tailed off as she saw Eel and Jack’s faces, white with shock. Olivia’s anger evaporated as quickly as it had materialised and she burst into loud, guilty tears.
“Oh Eel, I didn’t mean it! I’m really, really sorry,” she sobbed. “I know it was an accident. It’s just everything feels so miserable, and I’m tired of pretending everything is all right when it’s not.”
Eel hugged her and said tearfully, “It’s OK, Livy. But we’ve got to make the best of things.” She moved her head close to Olivia’s and whispered, “We’ve got to be as brave as llamas and very cheerful. For Dad’s sake, cos he hardly ever smiles now.”
“I think you mean lions, Eel. Llamas probably aren’t that brave. But you’re right, Dad is so sad and defeated all the time.” And, as if somebody had turned on a hosepipe, Olivia’s tears started flowing again.
“He looks just like my teddy bear looked after he accidentally got put in the washing machine on an extra-hot wash,” replied Eel sadly. “If it was an accident,” she added ominously.
“It’s nobody’s fault,” said Jack firmly. “We’ve just had some bad luck, my lovelies, but our luck will change.”
“Look,” said Eel, sniffing and pointing at the sky, “it’s changing already. It’s stopped raining and the sun has come out. I might even dry out if Livy would only stop crying all over me.” Olivia gave a wan smile and hiccupped…