What Milo Saw

by Virginia MacGregor

  Milo came out of Mr Gupta’s corner shop and stuffed the pile of photocopies into his school bag. He looked up at the fuzzy lights that hung along Slipton High Street and shifted his head to take in the shapes of the shooting stars and of big-bellied Santa on his sleigh. It was only the beginning of December and already the decorations looked droopy.

  ‘Fifteen days till Christmas,’ he whispered into Hamlet’s white ear. ‘Then we’ll all be together again.’

  So what if Tripi thought the photos weren’t about Al being a dirty perv who liked looking at women’s boobs? Milo would tell Al that he’d found the pictures and that he was going to show them to Mum. Maybe that would scare him into leaving.

  And, in the meantime, he was going to find a way to get Gran out of Forget Me Not.

  Get Al out and get Gran back: a two-pronged attack as Mrs Harris had explained when they learnt about the Battle of Hastings. In 1066 William the Conqueror got his men to shoot arrows at the Normans so that they raised their shields and then the infantry came in and thrust their swords into the Normans’ unprotected bodies. Milo wished the test had been on the stories he learnt about in history rather than on words and sums.

  As he walked past the bus stop, Milo saw an advert that made him stop dead.

  No One’s Forgotten at Forget Me Not Homes, the words in a speech bubble coming out of Nurse Thornhill’s mouth.

  She smiled with her shiny white teeth and everyone else in the photo had shiny white teeth too like they’d had one of Mum’s bleachings, and the lounge wasn’t the real lounge: the one in the picture had big windows looking out onto a sunny garden with pink roses and perfect green grass. There were men and women in the photo, which wasn’t the same at the real Forget Me Not either – apart from Petros, the guy who kept hanging around Gran. And on the photo, none of them had wrinkles and there was a fuzzy white haze around them, like they were in heaven. The old people smiled at each other and drank tea out of thin white cups and held plates with cucumber sandwiches and strawberry tarts and lots of other small cakes.

  Milo supposed that was just what people did, made things look better in adverts than they looked in real life, like the houses Dad sold when he worked in Move-It on the High Street. Milo sometimes came along with Dad when he visited houses and no matter how scummy they were in real life, by the time Dad had taken out his camera and shot some pictures and passed them through his computer, they looked like the houses in Mum’s magazines: light and shiny and colourful. We’ll make your home look like a palace, he’d say to the owner as they left.

  Milo looked away from the advert and headed towards the nursing home.

  As he turned the corner a flash of yellow zoomed past the pinhole. He looked again. The cap, and under it, Petros. He took a battered leather wallet out of his pocket, emptied some coppers into the palm of his hand and counted them with his finger. Mum didn’t have enough money but even she didn’t count coppers.

  Milo didn’t think that the old people at Forget Me Not were allowed to wander around outside, not without special permission from Nurse Thornhill.

  When he walked into Forget Me Not, Milo stopped at the nurse’s station for a moment and waited for Nurse Thornhill to show up because of the rule that said you had to let someone know you were here before you visited your relative. But then Hamlet began to wriggle under his coat and when Milo looked at his watch he saw that the big black hand was on twenty past. If he was late, that would give Mrs Harris something else to see Mum about.

  ‘Just stay still until we get to Gran’s room,’ whispered Milo, stroking the top of Hamlet’s wrinkly snout. Milo’s arms ached from carrying Hamlet who was growing much faster than the micro-pig charts said on the internet. Maybe he was a fast developer.

  Out of the lounge came the smell of burnt toast and porridge and the telly was turned on so loud it made Milo’s head hurt.

  As winter sets in, the crisis in Syria worsens…

  Syria, the place that Tripi and his sister came from.

  Civil war, that’s what Tripi had called it, a country turning against itself, like an argument in a family. Milo thought of Mum and Dad and Gran and how maybe that was a bit the same. That they were in a civil war and that was why people had to leave, like Tripi had to leave Syria and Dad had to leave England and Gran had to leave her room under the roof at home.

  But Tripi was going to get Ayishah back, like Milo was going to get Gran back and maybe Ayishah would be here in time for Christmas, and they could both come home and have Christmas dinner with Mum and Gran and Hamlet.

  The old ladies didn’t seem to be eating their burnt toast or their porridge. Milo couldn’t see whether their teeth were white like on the advert because they kept their wrinkly mouths shut tight, but he suspected they’d be yellow, like most old people’s teeth. The good thing was that they were all looking at the telly. He dashed round and gave each of them a photocopy of Ayishah’s picture and told them to look out for her and to let him know if they saw anything.

  When he got to Gran’s room he knocked, excited to see her face when she realised that Hamlet was with him.

  Just as he opened the door, Nurse Heidi came out carrying a pile of sheets that smelt like Mrs Moseley’s dresses.

  Hamlet let out a small squeal.

  ‘Shhh…’

  Nurse Heidi turned round. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Milo. ‘What are you doing with Gran’s sheets?’

  ‘Oh, a little accident.’

  Gran didn’t have accidents, not when she was at home. She called for Milo and he came up and helped her to the loo.

  The nurse dashed past.

  Hamlet squealed, louder this time, and squirmed so hard that Milo dropped him.

  ‘Milo, my friend!’

  Milo spun round.

  Petros the painter guy spread his legs, caught Hamlet, swung him up in the air and walked towards Milo.

  ‘This pig yours?’ Petros chuckled. ‘The English and their pets.’

  Milo took Hamlet and wrapped him under his coat and caught that scent again: plasticky lemons. Hamlet must have picked it up too because he twitched his nose and let out a series of small, soft grunts which he did when he didn’t like the smell of something. Or someone.

  ‘I wouldn’t let Nurse Thornhill see your little friend.’ He flicked one of Hamlet’s ears. ‘Come to see the beautiful Louisa?’ asked Petros.

  Milo scrunched up his brow. No one called Gran that. Lou, that was her name. It’s French for wolf, she’d written on her pad when Milo had asked where her name came from. Though in French, the word had an extra ‘p’ at the end. It made Milo think of Red Riding Hood and how the wolf turned into a gran. Gran wrote that wolves got a bad press, that they were beautiful and intelligent and looked after each other and that they saw things other people didn’t, like Milo with his special eyes.

  And wolves love the moon, Gran had written. So you see, I was meant for Great-Gramps. Gran had taken Great-Gramps’s name even though they never got married.

  And this guy had known Gran for what, five seconds?

  Milo wrapped his arms tightly around Hamlet. He pushed past Petros, opened Gran’s door, closed it quickly behind him so that Petros got the message not to follow and walked in.

  25

  MILO

  When Milo walked into Gran’s room, everything was cold and dark. Gran’s bed was stripped and she sat asleep in her armchair by the window. He’d hoped that after he took away the dozy pills, she’d be back to her old self, but she looked tired again. Her head lolled forward.

  He switched on the lights, opened the curtains and went over to give her a kiss. Her eyes opened for a moment and she reached out to touch his cheek.

  ‘I know what you need, Gran, some sweet tea and shortbread. That will wake you up.’

  He walked over to the tray he’d set up with the mini-kettle and Gran’s tartan mug but the jar with the tea and box of shortbread had vanished.

  He knew right away w
here they were. Confiscated by that nasty Nurse Thornhill. She wouldn’t want Gran having anything nice to eat and drink. She probably took them away when Gran refused to eat those slimy dumplings and that stringy beef.

  Milo looked at his watch. If he didn’t get to school in the next few minutes, he’d miss registration, but he didn’t care, this was more important.

  ‘I’ll go and get you some,’ said Milo. ‘The corner shop will still be open.’ He went to Gran’s raincoat that hung on the back of the door to look for her purse, but her pockets were empty.

  ‘Where’s your purse, Gran?’

  Gran looked up at him, her eyes so confused he wanted to cry.

  Milo felt a wave of anger pulling up through his tummy and into his throat. It was one thing to take away Gran’s tea and her sugar bowl and her shortbread, it was another to take away her purse.

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t put it somewhere else, Gran?’

  Gran shook her head.

  ‘It’s okay, Gran, I’ll find it.’ He gave her a kiss on the cheek, picked Hamlet up off the floor and went back out into the corridor.

  The sounds of different TV channels drifted past him. He was surprised that Nurse Thornhill hadn’t banned watching the telly too, though he guessed it was to keep the old people occupied and out of the way. Mr Todds who taught 5B and wasn’t very good at getting his class to behave let them watch TV programmes in class all the time – it was the only thing that kept them quiet.

  When he got to the nurses’ station, Milo put Hamlet down on the counter and jabbed at the bell. He was going to ask Nurse Thornhill to explain why Gran was so sleepy all the time and whether it was because of those pills he found the other day and he wanted her to explain where Gran’s tea things were and to do something about Gran’s purse having been stolen. As director of Forget Me Not, it was Nurse Thornhill’s job to do something about all those things.

  When he took his finger off the bell, he noticed a drawer with big, block letters written on a piece of paper stuck to the front:

  KEEP OUT

  Milo went round and pulled at the drawer. It was locked but felt quite loose. Sometimes Mum watched Bear Grylls on TV. She said he was sexy and adventurous and went to exciting places and was the kind of man who wouldn’t leave you in the lurch. Bear Grylls could get anything open, even a rusty old can of sardines. So Milo took out the mini penknife he kept on his key ring, a freebie from a cracker last Christmas, pulled out the mini-tweezers and pushed them into the lock and yanked open the drawer.

  Mum said that Bear Grylls was resourceful; Milo hoped that she’d think he was resourceful for getting the drawer open.

  It took Milo a moment to see what was inside. He blinked a few times, rubbed his eyes and leant in closer. The smell of old leather rose up from the drawer. And then he saw them, dozens of them, all piled up on top of each other: purses and wallets and card holders.

  He rifled through them, snapping and popping and zipping them open. Apart from some old receipts and some passport photographs, every single one of them was empty.

  Milo thought of those films where people went to jail and had all their belongings taken away from them and put in a plastic bag. He reckoned they got their money nicked too.

  He looked around him quickly to check that Nurse Thornhill wasn’t coming and then he took out the phone Dad had given him, put on the flash and took three pictures of the drawer. He knew exactly who he was going to show and this time Nurse Thornhill wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

  ‘I want to see PC Stubbs.’ Milo stood on tiptoe, leaning into the reception desk at Slipton Police Station.

  Hamlet sat down at his feet. Milo didn’t know what the rule was on police stations and pets so he hoped that no one would spot him.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’ asked the receptionist, a woman with frizzy red hair.

  Milo looked at the clock on the wall behind her. He’d missed most of the first lesson already. He’d go in after lunch and explain he had a last-minute eye appointment. Mrs Harris was used to Mum being disorganised.

  ‘This is urgent,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sure.’ The woman didn’t look up, she just kept typing at her computer.

  ‘It’s my gran.’

  She pushed her wheelie chair back to a filing cabinet, yanked open the metal door and rifled through the folders.

  Milo thought of Nurse Thornhill’s KEEP OUT drawer full of all the old people’s empty purses and it made the blood surge to his ears.

  ‘You have to listen to me. There’s been a theft at Forget Me Not – we have to do something.’

  The woman with the frizzy red hair turned round.

  ‘A theft’s not urgent.’ She went back to her filing cabinet.

  Milo leant further into the reception desk, his feet off the ground now.

  ‘It is urgent. Nurse Thornhill’s stealing all the old people’s money and she makes them go to their rooms when it isn’t even bedtime just because they complain about their food, which is horrible, and I’m sure you’d complain if you had to eat it, and she gives them pills to keep them quiet —’

  The woman held up a skinny white hand in the same way the lollipop lady did outside Slipton Junior when she wanted a car to stop.

  ‘Why don’t you go home and speak to your mum. This isn’t the place for a little boy.’

  Milo sank back into his heels and stumbled backwards. Then he thought about what PC Stubbs had said: that they should all keep their eyes open to things going on in town and how he handed out cards and said that they could get in touch with him any time and he even said that Milo would be a good asset to the force. If he could find him, PC Stubbs wouldn’t tell Milo to go home and speak to his mum. He’d listen and he’d rally a whole team of policemen, all of them in their blue and white chequerboard hats and their stab vests and they’d charge into Forget Me Not and arrest Nurse Thornhill.

  Milo smiled at the lady with the frizzy red hair and stepped away from the reception desk.

  ‘Thank you for your help,’ he said.

  He waited until she’d wheeled her chair back to the filing cabinet, grabbed Hamlet and darted down the corridor into the heart of the police station.

  He didn’t have the first clue where to look for PC Stubbs but he remembered what Gran had taught him about trusting the feeling in his tummy. Plus, he knew that if he listened carefully, he’d be able to make out PC Stubbs’s low, clear voice, the one that made everyone in Class 5A shut up, even Stan.

  Milo looked through the glass windows of five different doors before he got to the interview room where PC Stubbs was talking to a teenager slouched on a chair, his skinny body floating in his big grey hoodie and his loose-slung grey jeans.

  ‘I thought I didn’t hear you go out the front door!’

  Milo felt a set of bony fingers crunch down on his shoulders. He spun round. The woman stood so close to him that all he could see through the pinhole was a frizzy ginger blur. And then it clicked: the receptionist.

  ‘And what’s that animal doing here?’

  ‘He’s my pet. I’m allowed to have him, I’ve got a licence.’

  ‘You’re not meant to be back here. I told you, you need to go home.’

  Through the pinhole, Milo looked from the woman’s red lips and back to the window of the interview room. This was his last chance.

  ‘PC Stubbs!’ he yelled.

  Hamlet squirmed.

  Frizzy ginger woman leapt back. Milo smiled inside. Maybe his voice was more like PC Stubbs’s than he thought.

  He heard the screech of PC Stubbs’s chair and then the click of the door. His heart rate shot up.

  It’s okay, he kept telling himself. He’ll listen. He’ll do something.

  PC Stubbs looked down at Milo, his brow all wrinkled up.

  ‘You came to school,’ Milo blurted out. ‘You showed us the video and I got the answers right.’

  Hamlet squealed like he was agreeing.

  Frizzy ginger woman st
epped forward. ‘I’m so sorry, PC Stubbs, I’m afraid that this young man has got rather carried away. I sent him home but he snuck past reception and made his way here. I’ll take him back now —’

  She put her bony fingers on Milo’s arms and he shook them away.

  Milo took a deep breath. It was now or never. ‘I came to find you because you said that we should come and speak to you if ever we saw something bad going on in Slipton and you said that I’d make a good policeman because I was good at spotting things and now I’ve spotted something, something really bad, and that’s why I came and you have to come with me straight away to Forget Me Not nursing home, which is where my gran is staying, because there’s this horrible nurse and she’s stealing everyone’s money and she’s really mean and punishes the old people just because she feels like it and she probably spends all their money on herself and —’