She led the spitfyre outside into the fresh air. All around her there were screams and shouts and bodies scrambling and shoving, but the lovely Seraphina was docile, gently puffing warm air over Glori’s head and shoulders in a comforting way.
No one stopped her. No one saw them go at all.
Glori hoped Sparrow hadn’t been too scared when the smoke whooshed into the ring and the lights went out. She hoped she’d got out quickly and was on her way back to her cosy home, wherever that might be. She didn’t know that Miss Minter had spotted her and she hadn’t seen Tapper running out with a bulky canvas bundle over his shoulder.
Moments later, Brittel and Kopernicus appeared alongside her in the cold, fresh air, and then they ran from the tent, over the field to the distant cluster of trees, leading the two spitfyres with them.
Glori felt no elation, only an enormous sadness. Seraphina had lost her sparkle; Glori had lost Sparrow. A gloom settled over her.
‘Here! Here!’ Brittel shouted to the match-girls, waiting in the trees beside a wagon and two horses. Brittel and Glori led the spitfyres into the darkest shadows. ‘Get those buckets!’
How Brittel loved ordering them about, Glori thought. He was in his element tonight, stealing the two spitfyres, bossing everyone. Miss Minter had told her that he’d worked with spitfyres once, at the Academy; that was how he knew so much about them.
The girls had been told what they had to do and carried the lidded buckets containing a thick brown liquid out from the back of the wagon.
Connie and Agnes began to slosh the brown stuff over Seraphina. Beattie and Kate covered Kopernicus’s red hide with the dye. No one spoke. They had to work fast; the alarm would be raised any minute. Their breath billowed out around them in the icy air.
‘What happened to the Director?’ Kate asked, rubbing the brown colouring over Kopernicus’s haunches.
‘Got a knock on the head,’ Brittel said.
‘And that Maud?’
‘Same.’
Tapper brought rolls of old fabric from the wagon and dropped them on the grass. ‘Here, Glori, help me, can’t you? You in a daze?’
Glori shook her head; she was. She dragged one of the rolls and laid it down alongside Seraphina, glancing back at the tent as she did so. Black smoke billowed from it. Why didn’t someone come and stop them? She’d heard what Stormy had said, the spitfyres would die – surely someone must come!
Dolly and Billie rushed up from the direction of the tent. ‘Did we get them? Oh that’s them!’ Dolly cried, staring at the spitfyres. ‘They are big next to the ordinary ones, aren’t they?’
‘Big, and they’ve got wings!’ Billie said.
‘It’s the wings we got to strap down and hide. Let’s do it!’ Brittel said.
‘Why don’t they attack us and breathe fire and all that?’ someone asked.
‘Fizzled out,’ Brittel said with a laugh. ‘My potion.’ He took off the blindfolds from the two spitfyres. ‘I’ll give them some more in a minute.’
Quickly the girls began to bandage the spitfyres’ wings to their sides with the fabric.
‘No flying for you, poor thing,’ Glori whispered to Seraphina as she gently tucked down her wings. ‘Sorry.’
‘Lucky they’re the smaller ones,’ Brittel told the girls. ‘If it’d been Sparkit or Bluey, them from the old days, them Elite spitfyres … Whoa, different matter then – we’d be fighting them right now. Huge, they were, and strong! Here, we must give them some of this.’ He looked round anxiously, pulling a brown paper bag from his pocket. ‘Before they start … ’
‘Start what?’ Kate asked.
‘Sparking,’ he said.
Brittel fed each spitfyre a handful of small orange benga-berries.
‘They can’t resist them,’ Brittel said, grinning. ‘The berries are doused in anti-spark potion. My invention. Stops them making fire.’
They got up on the wagon; a wagon that had arrived with a party of demure schoolchildren and a teacher with black curly hair, pulled by two brown horses. Now four brown horses would draw it back home again.
Brittel took up the reins and flicked them. ‘Off we go!’ he called and he guided the wagon out of the field.
In the lane beyond, three glow-worm dots of light danced. It was Miss Minter, Violet and Hettie, waving phials of Brightling.
Brittel stopped for them and they climbed up onto the front seat.
‘We missed it!’ Hettie said, forlornly. ‘The smoke came in and we missed the show.’
Glori sat her down beside her and put her arm around her. She exchanged a knowing look with Violet. ‘Never mind. I’m sure we’ll get to see them again.’ Hettie didn’t know what the match-girls had really been doing; Miss Minter said she was too young to keep their secrets.
‘Tremendous!’ Miss Minter said. ‘Well done! Perfect. Perfect.’ She laughed. ‘And well done, Violet, for spotting Sparrow!’
Violet glanced over her shoulder at Glori and smiled smugly. Glori tensed. The others had seen Sparrow too!
‘There’s something on the floor back here,’ Agnes said, nudging the canvas bag at her feet. ‘What is it? Looks like legs … ’
‘That’s our little friend,’ Miss Minter said. ‘That’s Sparrow.’
‘Sparrow!’ Glori cried. Her heart sank like a lead weight. ‘How? It can’t be!’
‘It is! Two spitfyres richer and Sparrow returned!’ Miss Minter said. ‘We had a very profitable night! And,’ she added under her breath, ‘those hateful Directors got what they deserve.’
30
A Visitor
Miss Knip stood on the pavement beside the orphanage cart and straightened her new black bonnet (made by the orphans to her specific design) and adjusted her shawl (knitted by the orphans in the finest lacy cashmere). She squeezed her shiny new krackodyle handbag against her chest. The handbag had been bought that day in Stollenback in anticipation of the reward she was going to get from the Butterworths.
‘You will wait for me here, Barton,’ she said to her driver. ‘I may be some time.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Barton nodded to the horse. ‘Me and Horace won’t budge.’
Miss Knip stood at the gate for a moment regarding the neat little house in front of her and checking that the name and number matched the ones on her letter from Gerta. Very nice house, she thought, eyeing it up and down and trying to calculate its worth. Then she stepped lightly up the path and knocked on the door.
It was not Gerta Butterworth who opened it, but a large man with a knobbly head. He glared at her.
‘Yes? What is it?’ he said roughly.
Miss Knip took a few steps back. ‘Mr Butterworth?’ she ventured.
‘I’m Otto Butterworth,’ he said, smoothing long strands of hair over his bald patch. ‘I expect you want my brother Bruno. Who are you?’
‘I’ve come to see –’
But before she could get any further, Gerta squeezed past Otto. ‘Excuse me, Otto. Sorry. I asked Miss Knip to come. You are Miss Knip?’ she said. ‘Do come in. I’m Gerta. This is Otto.’
Gerta took Miss Knip through to where her sister and brother-in-law were sitting in the parlour. Gerta seemed unsure, worried. There was an odd, tense atmosphere in the room. What was wrong? Miss Knip fretted.
Bruno stood up and shook her hand. ‘Bruno,’ he said.
‘And this is my sister Hilda,’ Gerta told her. ‘Please have a seat.’
Miss Knip chose a hard, straight-backed chair and sat down, glancing at Hilda as she did so.
Miss Knip knew the signs of grief well, having caused them many times herself in the orphanage, and she could see that Hilda had been weeping.
‘Miss Knip is from the Knip and Pynch Home, where Sparrow was. I asked her to come,’ Gerta said, ‘before … you know … ’
Again Miss Knip felt a small doubt creep in. She watched Hilda dab at her nose with a damp, lace hanky and warned herself to tread carefully.
‘That’s right,’ Miss Knip said,
removing her bonnet gently. ‘I know about the girl.’
‘Do you know where she is?’ Hilda shouted, leaping out of her seat.
Hilda gave Miss Knip such a fright that her bonnet flew up in the air and she only just managed to catch the precious thing. She laid it like an eggshell on a nearby stool, not taking her eyes off it while her brain laboured furiously, trying to work out what was going on.
Hilda was helped back to her seat, wobbling unsteadily and sobbing. ‘Now, now, dear,’ Bruno said. ‘Hush.’
‘Isn’t Sparrow here?’ Miss Knip said, composing herself and turning to Gerta. ‘You said … ’ She paused. Surely, surely her plan wasn’t going to backfire now? She stared at Gerta through narrowed eyes. ‘You said she was here.’
‘So you don’t know where she is either!’ Hilda cried with a little moan. ‘Oh, my dear girl! Where can she be?’
Miss Knip looked to Gerta for help. ‘Sparrow isn’t here with you?’
‘No, she … ’ Gerta stood up. ‘We’re all rather upset. She’s gone missing; we think she was kidnapped. And we are trying to get her back, but please, in the meantime, I want my sister to know what you know about Sparrow.’
‘Yes, do tell me – tell me everything,’ Hilda said.
Miss Knip sniffed and fished about pointlessly in her new handbag, buying time. Her reward was looking doubtful now.
‘Sparrow came to the Knip and Pynch Home ten and a half years ago,’ she told them. ‘I have the paperwork to prove it. She was brought to us by a woman called Nanny Porrit –’
Hilda’s shrill screech stopped her in her tracks.
‘Nanny Porrit? Nanny Porrit?’ cried Hilda. ‘Then we were right! She is the baby from Sampson’s. Oh my dear girl, and she’s slipped from our hands!’
‘Correct,’ Miss Knip said calmly. ‘Sparrow came from the Sampson’s nursery here in Stollenback. She’d been there since she was born … ’
‘Who was her mother?’ Bruno said.
Otto suddenly took a heavy step towards Knip. ‘Come on, woman! Her mother’s name?’
Miss Knip recoiled. What a dangerous person, she thought – slightly insane, possibly violent. She squeezed herself back in her chair and tried to look calm. ‘I had a visit from this nanny, this Miss Porrit,’ she went on, not replying to Otto, ‘and –’
‘When? When?’ Hilda cried.
Miss Knip hesitated. It wouldn’t look too good if she told them it was weeks ago and she hadn’t acted on the information received immediately. ‘Just a few days back,’ she said quickly. ‘As soon as Nanny Porrit told me about Sparrow, well, of course, I planned to contact you – Butterworth being such a well-known name in Stollenback. Then when a letter came from you, Miss Gerta … ’
‘Do you have proof? Are you saying you have proof of her identity?’ Bruno asked her. ‘Because we have our suspicions … ’
‘That she is a liar?’ Miss Knip jumped in eagerly. ‘That she is a bad, wayward girl who needs to be treated firmly and whipped to keep her in order?’ She added a little smile. ‘It works, you know.’
‘Absolutely not!’ Otto and Bruno roared together.
‘Never!’ Hilda said.
‘I thought she was bad too,’ Gerta admitted, looking embarrassed. ‘But she’s a nice girl, really she is.’
Miss Knip looked at them in silent amazement. They were mad, all of them, she thought.
‘We think she is our sister’s child,’ Bruno said, nodding to his brother.
‘When I looked across the circus ring at Sparrow it was like looking at a young Mayra,’ Otto said. ‘The girl has her green eyes and perky little way of looking at things, and that hair … It was Mayra sitting there.’
‘Which makes her our niece,’ Hilda said.
‘I am so glad,’ Miss Knip said through gritted teeth. ‘That’s wonderful … So, you recognised her!’ She patted her krackodyle handbag. ‘I have the proof. Nanny Porrit gave it to me.’
Otto banged his ham fist down on a table, sending a silver pot leaping into the air.
‘Show it to me now!’ he roared. ‘Now!’
‘Really, there is no need to shout, Mr Butterworth,’ Miss Knip said, trembling slightly. She pulled out the locket and dangled it on its chain, smiling slyly at them. ‘Obviously I am expecting some remuneration before I … ’
Otto grabbed it from her.
‘Thank you!’ Otto blasted her with such a glare she felt her skin was being roasted. He passed the locket to Hilda and they gathered behind her to look at what was inside it.
Hilda shook her head. ‘Poor Mayra,’ she said quietly, staring at the tiny portrait inside.
‘That’s definitely my sister,’ Otto said. ‘Even says so, right there – Mayra Butterworth.’
‘Nanny Porrit told me the baby’s mother had disappeared,’ Miss Knip said. ‘There was no money to feed it so Nanny Porrit brought it to us … I must say, I was expecting a warmer and more polite reception and … ’
No one was listening to her. They were handing round the locket and examining the portrait again, studying it from every angle.
‘Dear Mayra,’ Bruno said. ‘If only you’d come sooner, Miss Knip!’
Miss Knip sniffed. It was all Sparrow’s fault, she thought, her fault for leaving, for ever coming, for having that cat – why, its meowing had put her off that evening and delayed her speaking to Porrit. She sat tensely and squinted at them, pursing her lips up tight and hating them greatly.
When they went on ignoring her, Miss Knip coughed loudly.
‘What’s the matter?’ Otto asked her, giving her such a look that she was silenced again.
‘Cosmo,’ Bruno said suddenly. ‘He must have been the father.’
Otto nodded. ‘Cosmo was the circus owner,’ Otto reminded Hilda, ‘and she adored him.’ He paused. ‘I wish I’d known that my little sister had a baby. She never told us … She must have felt ashamed. She wouldn’t leave that circus. I tried so hard to bring her back.’
‘Did Cosmo abandon her?’ Hilda asked.
Bruno shrugged. ‘Who knows what went on between them?’
‘After the accident, Cosmo went wild,’ Otto reminded them. ‘Crazy. He packed up the circus and vanished abroad. Did he know about Sparrow? We must find him and tell him!’
There was silence for a few moments and Miss Knip, who didn’t care anything for their conversation, stared greedily at a silver pillbox on the sideboard. She was just about to reach for it and slip it into her pocket when Gerta whisked it away and handed it to her sister.
‘There you are, dear,’ she said to Hilda, at the same time throwing Miss Knip a dark look. ‘Time for your pill.’
‘I’m sorry to interrupt, but time is of the essence and I must be leaving soon,’ Miss Knip said. ‘Could you tell me – where is the wayward child now?’
‘She disappeared at the circus last night,’ Bruno said.
‘Hah! She was always a sly little thing –’ Miss Knip began.
‘I won’t hear a word said against her!’ Hilda cried. ‘She’d never do anything sly! She must have been kidnapped, that’s the only possible explanation.’
‘It’s probably best if you leave now, Miss Knip,’ Gerta said. ‘It was very good of you to come and to bring the locket but as it turns out, we didn’t need any proof. I have made a terrible mistake in not believing in her –’
‘But if you hadn’t, dear, and hadn’t asked Miss Knip to come, we wouldn’t have the hard evidence,’ Hilda said kindly. ‘So don’t worry about it.’
‘Yes, thank you for coming,’ Bruno said, going towards the door eagerly.
‘Perhaps you will show me out, Miss Gerta, if I can’t be of any further help,’ Miss Knip said, hugging her handbag to her bony chest, a handbag that was much lighter and emptier than she’d intended. ‘I’ve taken a whole day getting here,’ she said bitterly as she was shown into the hall. ‘I’ve come right across the swamp. I’m not young you know; it was a vile and uncomfortable journey.’
&
nbsp; ‘I made a mistake about Sparrow,’ Gerta said. ‘And I will pay for it if she never comes back … How much do I owe you?’ She opened the front door.
‘Well, I was thinking about a hundred –’
Gerta didn’t appear to hear her. ‘How will my dear sister ever forgive me?’ She looked distracted. ‘I’m sorry you had such a long journey. Here is five pounds.’ She was already closing the door. ‘Goodbye.’
31
Returned
Sparrow slowly became conscious. She remembered the circus, the beautiful spitfyres and the smoke. She remembered the strong smell of something coldly chemical and the feel of the heavy canvas bag over her head and the awful helpless feeling of having her legs knocked out from under her. She remembered feeling full of rage … Screaming and kicking.
Very slowly she opened her eyes. A headache was beginning to pound in her temples.
‘Scaramouch?’ Her fingers patted the top of the bed, searching, searching.
‘Hello, Sparrow.’ It was Glori, looking down at her as if from the other end of a long, long funnel.
Sparrow shut her eyes again. ‘Where’s Scaramouch? I was dreaming about him … Is that really you, Glori?’ she asked, keeping her eyes shut. ‘Are you … ? Am I back in the nest?’
‘Yeah, you’re back. Are you OK, Birdie? It’s just you and me here. You’ve been out cold. It’s Sunday night and they’ve all gone to see some dancing. What d’you need? Can I help you? You’re white as a blooming sheet.’
‘What happened?’ Sparrow opened her eyes again. She squinted at the light. ‘What about Hilda?’
‘Who’s Hilda? Miss Minter gave you knock-out drops,’ Glori said. ‘I swear I didn’t know they was going to do it. Told you Miss Minter didn’t want you to leave!’
‘But how did they know I’d be there?’
‘Didn’t,’ Glori said. ‘Luck or bad luck or something.’ She grinned lopsidedly. ‘Nice to have you back, Birdie. There’s some hot pie here if –’
‘Scaramouch?’ Sparrow gasped, struggling up. ‘Where is he?’
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