Brightling

by Rebecca Lisle

  ‘Certainly, Knips. Your wish is my command,’ Tapper said, slipping the coins into his pocket. He patted them affectionately, relishing the clink they made against his leg. ‘Find her and watch her.’

  ‘You’re not going before you’ve had your tea, are you?’ his mother asked him. ‘Have you got clean underbits? A warm scarf? Aren’t you going to wait until – Oh, wait until I’ve helped you pack and made you some big meat sandwiches … ’

  Tapper pulled on his dark patchwork jacket. ‘I’m going now. Make hay while the sun shines and all that. So?’

  Betty Nash began to shuffle up to her feet to try to embrace him but he was too fast and was already halfway out of the door.

  ‘Just a moment, young man!’ Miss Knip shouted. ‘Just a moment. I’m glad you’re keen, but there’s things to sort out.’

  Tapper came back and leaned against the doorframe. He folded his arms.

  ‘Yes?’ His eyes were cold.

  ‘You will send a letter every day to me at the orphanage. Every day, Tapper, with a breakdown of your expenses and what you’ve discovered.’

  He leaped up again. ‘Got it,’ he said. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No, but –’

  But Tapper had already gone.

  12

  Miss Minter

  Sparrow was the first of the girls to fall asleep and the first to wake. She opened her eyes a fraction, wondering where she was, and then the strange events of the previous day came flooding back.

  She was in the nest.

  Grey light was coming in through the large windows. She vaguely remembered the giggling and the whispering of the girls as they had crawled into their beds alongside her, but nothing more of the previous night. Now they were still asleep; Hettie curled up in a ball in her bedclothes and grunting softly, like a little piglet.

  It wasn’t so different from any morning at the Knip and Pynch Home except it was warm; she could hear the fire crackling in the hearth. What a luxury to feel warm in the morning! Without moving, hardly opening her eyes, Sparrow saw Miss Minter standing in front of the big, gilt mirror, brushing out her long blonde hair.

  In her half-asleep, just-woken moment, Sparrow lay and watched her. Miss Minter was the most elegant, lovely woman she had ever seen; her smooth skin, peachy cheeks and bright, round eyes were perfect – and yet somehow she seemed unreal. Sparrow had the odd idea that Miss Minter’s blood would be as cold as a mountain stream, and not even red, but clear as crystal.

  Befuddled as she was, Sparrow was still highly sensitive to Miss Minter’s odd manner, the way she had already glanced several times over to where Sparrow lay, as if checking her. So Sparrow kept her eyes half-closed and gave no hint she was awake.

  Miss Minter didn’t want her to see what she was doing, and that made Sparrow want to watch her.

  Sparrow saw her take down a painting of a tree from the wall. Behind the painting was a tiny door – a safe! She opened it using a key from her bag, glancing round suspiciously as she did so. She took out a tiny, delicate glass bottle. In her hazy, dreamy state, Sparrow imagined Miss Minter had taken out a bottle of sunshine. That’s what the substance inside looked like, except it rolled and flowed as if it were a dense, heavy liquid. Whatever it was, it was incredibly brilliant, as if all the lanterns in the whole of Stollenback had been miraculously squashed inside the bottle and now they were trying to break out. Miss Minter looked at the bottle from many different angles. She shook it gently and the light shattered into a thousand fragments. Now it seemed she held a jar of bouncing, golden, shining dots, flying around, bumping against each other and fizzling, popping, exploding with an intensely brilliant light. She eased the stopper off very carefully, anxious not to let too much escape, and tipped a bead of brightness onto her finger. It wavered and danced, balancing on her fingertip, like a tiny, phosphorescent flame.

  ‘Poor old Sparkit,’ Miss Minter murmured to the blob of light. ‘Sparkit has gone for ever. Or is that you, Diamond Eyes?’ She looked at her fingertip from a different angle. ‘You were a fine fellow. Bluey? Bluey, you should have been more careful – didn’t we warn you, you poor, poor darling?’

  Then Miss Minter licked the bead of light from her finger, dreamily closing her eyes as she rolled it around in her mouth.

  Sparrow was enthralled. What was that stuff? She was just about to speak when Scaramouch nudged against her chin and stopped her. She closed her eyes and reached out to stroke him dreamily.

  ‘Sparrow!’

  ‘Yes, Miss Minter?’ Sparrow struggled up onto her elbow. ‘Oh!’ she cried in surprise. Miss Minter was leaning over her, her red mouth and flashing eyes only inches above her face.

  ‘Don’t!’ Sparrow cried.

  Miss Minter held a pot of daisies poised, as if it were a weapon, ready to smash on Sparrow’s head.

  ‘Stop it!’ Sparrow threw up her hands to protect herself. ‘Miss!’ she squeaked. ‘Don’t!’ She scrambled up to a sitting position. Scaramouch growled protectively.

  The other girls woke and sat up, alarmed.

  ‘Did you see anything?’ hissed Miss Minter through clenched teeth. ‘You saw something! What did you see? Tell me!’

  ‘No! What do you mean? I’ve just woken up,’ Sparrow said. To lie was automatic. It was important not to have seen the bright stuff – why? She didn’t know, but it was. ‘I didn’t see anything at all.’ Sparrow rubbed her eyes theatrically.

  Miss Minter breathed out loudly. She glanced round at the other girls then looked sharply at the pot in her hand, as if wondering how it had got there. Suddenly she twirled round and smacked it down on the little table by Sparrow’s bed and smiled.

  ‘Sparrow likes daisies, don’t you?’ she said. ‘There. Done. I didn’t mean to frighten you, my angel,’ she added, sitting down on the bed. ‘I am always up and down, up and down and so changeable. My father used to say I was like thistledown, blowing wherever the wind took me.’ Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. ‘I’ve had a troubled life, Sparrow,’ she went on. ‘My father was locked up in prison, and he was innocent, innocent! My mother died when I was young. The rest of my family hated me.’

  She turned and looked up through the window towards Dragon Mountain and the Academy. There was a long pause. ‘Even my cousin, my cousin disowned me.’ Then she sighed. She patted Sparrow’s arm. ‘That’s why I must help you girls,’ she said. ‘We must fight; we must be strong together. We are family.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Sparrow said. ‘I understand.’

  Miss Minter clapped her hands. ‘Time you were all up,’ she cried suddenly, waving an arm at the girls. ‘Breakfast time! Whose turn to get the bread?’

  ‘Mine,’ Connie called, leaping out of her bed. She was dressed in an instant and out of the room and clattering down the stairs.

  Sparrow calmed her breathing. Miss Minter didn’t seem to suspect her of lying. Admitting to a mistake at the orphanage – like forgetting to wash the floor behind the black stove in the kitchen – meant time locked in the coalhole or the cellar or even, once, up in the cobwebby attic with the bats. So she had learned to lie and lie well.

  Miss Minter nodded towards Scaramouch. ‘Cats look after themselves, don’t they?’ she said. ‘He’ll be all right. I don’t like animals frightfully much. Their eyes are so knowing, they seem to know something and I think they might speak and then the thought goes and they don’t speak.’ She jumped up and began to roll up her hair in a shining pleat. ‘I’m late. Come, Sparrow. Come and have breakfast. I want you to tell me all about yourself and how you came here and all about the orphanage. All my girls are orphans, you know, unwanted and unloved. It’s very sad. I love them. I can love them, can’t I? Even though I’m not truly an orphan I think I can know how it feels to be one, can’t I?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m sure you can,’ Sparrow said. She pushed Scaramouch aside gently and got out of bed.

  ‘I want you to be my special friend, Sparrow,’ Miss Minter went on, placing her slender arm aro
und Sparrow’s shoulders and brushing aside Sparrow’s thick hair. ‘You are like me, Sparrow, I can see it: you are bright and clever and the world has been against you so far. But not any more, my angel. Now Miss Minter will watch over you.’

  Sparrow smiled back warily. ‘Creepy’ was the word that sprang to mind. Miss Knip was mean and spiteful but not creepy. Miss Knip was always mean and always spiteful so you knew where you were with her, but Miss Minter was weird and changed mood all the time.

  ‘Thank you,’ Sparrow said quickly and escaped to the bathroom.

  At the Knip and Pynch Home for Waifs and Strays the water had always been cold and the soap gritty and the towels damp. Here the bathroom was warm and steamy and the other girls laughed and joked with each other as they washed.

  ‘Hello, face!’ Sparrow said, seeing her reflection in the mirror; a rare sight. ‘Hello, all that hair!’ she said, brushing out her thick hair with a proper brush for the first time in ages.

  ‘Haven’t you seen your hair before?’ Hettie cried. She was standing on a chair beside her, eager to plait it for her.

  ‘Not in a mirror,’ Sparrow said. ‘Not properly, not for months.’

  ‘My sister had long hair right down to her bottom,’ Hettie told her. ‘It was orange like a carrot. I loved it. Carroty Cari I called her. Her real name was Carina.’

  Carroty Carina must have died, Sparrow thought. She didn’t like to ask when or how.

  ‘Hurry up, Sparrow,’ Glori said, nudging her. ‘Connie’s back. Hettie, leave her alone!’

  Hettie scampered off, giggling.

  ‘She’s sweet,’ Sparrow said.

  ‘She’s lonely, that’s what.’

  ‘What happened to her sister?’ Sparrow asked her.

  ‘Mmm? Oh, look at that!’ Glori said, going across to the baths. ‘No one ever picks up a towel, do they?’ She scooped the wet towels up and hung them out to dry on the pegs. ‘Are you ready? Come on, Birdie!’

  Sparrow grinned. She liked being called Birdie. Glori was fun and at least here she wasn’t in danger of breaking one of Pynch’s new rules or disobeying an order from Miss Knip. Nor, so far, did she have a list of dull, pointless duties that she had to work through every day. Maybe, maybe she’d stay …

  Connie had brought back bags of fresh croissants as well as bread, and three jars of plum jam. The other girls had laid the big table with plates of all shapes and sizes and patterns, glasses and mugs, spoons and knives. The dark girl called Violet, who was about twelve years old, was making coffee and hot chocolate. She wore her hair in a ponytail and had round black eyes that she made darker with black makeup. Her fingernails were bitten down to stubs, half the size they should have been, like grubby little windowpanes at the ends of her fingers.

  ‘You ever had croissants before?’ said Connie or was it Dolly? They were identical. She tossed one onto her plate.

  ‘No,’ Sparrow admitted. ‘We had black bread for breakfast. Or gruel. Are they good?’

  ‘Like eating crispy clouds of butter,’ the other girl said, grinning.

  Sparrow tasted the flaky pastry. ‘That’s amazing!’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘Heavenly!’ And all the girls laughed. ‘I wish I could take some back to the Home. To the others.’

  ‘I wish you could too, darling,’ Miss Minter said without glancing up.

  Sparrow had the impression Miss Minter had no idea what Sparrow had been talking about and was just saying anything that sounded right.

  ‘Oh, look!’ Beattie added. ‘Your Scare-a-mouse has gone outside! How’d he do that?’

  They all rushed to see. Sparrow pressed her nose against the cold glass of the window. Scaramouch was tiptoeing across the point of the roof like an acrobat on a high wire. He glanced back at her over his shoulder and flicked his tail. What did that mean?

  ‘How did he get out?’ she asked.

  Hettie showed her a missing pane of glass in the huge window. ‘Through there – there’s a roof door by the kitchen too, but he doesn’t need real doors, does he? Will he come back, Sparrow?’

  ‘Oh yes, he always comes back.’ He had to come back. He would come back. ‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘He’ll be back.’

  ‘All creatures need time on their own,’ Miss Minter said, addressing her newspaper.

  ‘I wish I had a special friend like him,’ Beattie said. ‘Maybe he’ll bring some more cats home with him?’ She looked out at Scaramouch dreamily, coiling her frizzy blonde hair around her fingers. ‘We could have a cat each, couldn’t we, Miss Minter?’

  ‘Quiet now, and get on with your breakfast,’ Miss Minter said.

  ‘We have a rota for washing up,’ Agnes told Sparrow, showing her the slate where jobs were written down. ‘And one for cleaning and for shopping and match-making. Your name’s already on it, Sparrow.’

  Sparrow was surprised. She didn’t know whether to be pleased or annoyed or even scared. After all, she thought, I never said I was going to stay – but now it seemed she was.

  ‘There, see,’ Glori said, pointing to the list, ‘you and me on match-making this morning. That’s good. I can show you how to do it.’

  ‘You make matches?’

  ‘Yeah, we do,’ Glori said. ‘We’re not on breakfast or tidy up so, come on, I’ll show you.’

  ‘What about Scaramouch?’ Sparrow said, looking out of the window.

  ‘Scare-a-mouse’ll be fine. He can come in when he chooses. He can go out when he chooses. Come on, Birdie! Follow me!’

  On the floor below there was a large room divided into two by panelled, folding doors. Three tall, thin windows, thick with grime and dust, let in a feeble light at one end. The window shutters were half-closed. A long, narrow table stood centrally in each side of the room, surrounded by chairs and covered in pots and strange, small pieces of machinery. The walls had shelves and narrow cupboards on them.

  ‘What’s that smell?’ Sparrow cried, holding her nose. It was the stink she’d smelled the night before – a burning, acrid, sulphurous tang. It made her eyes smart and her nose burn.

  ‘Phosphorus,’ Glori said. ‘I know. It’s bad, isn’t it? Makes my teeth ache something terrible. It’s not so bad on the other side of the room,’ she said. ‘See, we need the phosphorus for the matches. Miss Minter wants it all secret,’ Glori told her. ‘No open windows so it can’t escape and let them know – the authorities. It’s not illegal, making matches, only she don’t pay no taxes.’

  ‘And she don’t want no one checking on us,’ Agnes said, slipping past them to take her place at the table. ‘No regulations and all that stuff.’

  The twins came in, along with another girl.

  ‘Bet you don’t remember their names,’ Glori said and, when Sparrow shook her head, Glori told her, ‘That’s Dolly. See, they’re not truly identical, Dolly’s the dumpy one –’

  ‘I am not!’ Dolly cried, patting her tummy. ‘Just padding, that is.’

  ‘And the other one’s Connie. And that’s Beattie with all the frizz.’

  ‘Blonde curls, they are,’ Beattie said, smoothing her cloud of hair. ‘Where d’you get a name like Sparrow, anyway?’ Beattie asked her.

  Sparrow shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Thought you were an orphan,’ Connie said. ‘Orphanages and homes give out names like Jane and Ann. Not Sparrow.’

  ‘Then someone called her it before she were an orphan, stupid,’ Agnes said, tying her long brown hair back over her shoulder. ‘Someone with some imagination.’

  Had it been her mother? Sparrow wondered, as she had done so many times. Her father? She hoped so.

  Agnes, Connie and Dolly sat down in the first section of the room.

  ‘We’ve drawn the short straws,’ Dolly said, making a disgusted face at the awful stench.

  ‘As usual,’ Agnes said, glancing at Sparrow. ‘Why isn’t it the new girl?’

  ‘Here we go,’ Connie said, ignoring Agnes’s comment. ‘Masks on!’ Giggling, the three girls tied scarves over the
lower part of their faces.

  ‘Blimey, what a life,’ Agnes said in a muffled voice. She pushed the pot of phosphorus further away. ‘It’s rotting my guts, that stuff is.’

  ‘I’m glad I’m not working at that table,’ Sparrow whispered to Glori.

  ‘Miss Minter changes us around from week to week,’ Glori said. ‘I’ve been here longest, I’ve had more poison than the others.’

  ‘Is it really poison?’ Sparrow asked.

  ‘Maybe not,’ Glori said vaguely.

  The smell was still awful but less so in the other half of the room. Here there was some simple hand machinery for making the wooden matchsticks – weird-looking tools, glue and wood. Sparrow wondered what it was all for. She wasn’t sure she wanted to make matches, but then what else was she to do?

  She wished Scaramouch were with her. Everything was better when he was close by.

  ‘Come on, let me show you what’s what,’ Glori said. She pointed to a pile of small wood pieces. ‘That’s the matchwood,’ she said, ‘brought up from the joiners round the corner.’

  ‘So the joiners know you make matches?’ Sparrow asked.

  ‘No – Mr Abraham thinks we burn it to keep warm!’ Beattie called over her shoulder.

  ‘This is the cutter,’ Glori said. ‘See?’ She cranked the handle on a conical machine and the wheel rotated. Thin lengths, each three inches long, popped out at the other end. ‘Ta dah! Firesticks – they’ll turn into matches.’

  Sparrow picked one up and rolled it round in her fingers. ‘We only used tinderboxes in the Home,’ she said. ‘Matches were too expensive – and dangerous. Don’t they ever explode?’

  Connie and Agnes giggled. ‘All the time!’ someone shouted.

  ‘Watch it! Hold your noses! I’m dipping!’ Connie called out as she took the lid off a jar of phosphorus and a white mist swirled up into the air. Sparrow watched it linger there like a heavy cloud above the table. The air was suddenly filled with the sharp, tangy smell of phosphorus.

  ‘What is dipping, exactly?’ Sparrow asked and quickly learned it meant dipping the end of the sticks into the jar until a little pale-yellow blob stuck to its end.