Caged

by Theresa Breslin

  ‘A rat!’ Magog pointed. ‘Sitting on that crate by the wall! Throw me a tin and I’ll kill it.’

  ‘No!’ shouted Darcey. ‘It’s Albert! Don’t kill him! It’s Mole’s rat. It’s Albert!’

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The crate shifted to reveal Mole.

  ‘How did you get here?’ Bird Girl asked him.

  Kai recalled the conversation between Mole and Spartacus in Tech’s den and he answered the question: ‘Mole don’t need no key to get into any storeroom.’

  Mole grinned in response. ‘Don’t need no key to get out of a storeroom neither.’ He pointed behind the crate. ‘There be loose bricks there. Air-vent shaft. Can take you topside if’n you do so want.’

  ‘Can you take me back to where I was before?’ said Darcey.

  Mole shook his head and Kai could have sworn there were tears in his eyes. ‘Baby birds do need to fly outside.’

  ‘Mole’s right.’ Bird Girl spoke to her sister. ‘The chicks would die if you kept them underground. We must go to the surface and let them be free to live in the open air.’

  ‘But, but, will I ever see Albert again?’ Darcey asked Mole.

  ‘Come a day you be a-standin’ in Tube station waitin’ for a train. An’ ye’ll see a white rat a little ways along the line. That’ll be Albert poppin’ up to say hello.’

  ‘Really? Is that a promise?’ Darcey didn’t take her eyes off Mole’s face.

  ‘Lick ’n’ spit,’ said Mole. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’

  ‘I’m not leaving this area either,’ said Leo. ‘I need to get a custodial sentence over with.’

  ‘Custody? Leo?’ said Kai. ‘I thought it was a hospital your parents wanted to put you in?’

  ‘The story Leo told us isn’t quite correct,’ said Sarema. ‘Would you like me to explain?’ she asked him.

  Leo nodded and turned his face to the wall.

  ‘Leo wasn’t being bullied at school,’ said Sarema. ‘Leo was the bully. He didn’t have his arm broken. It was he who inflicted injury on a classmate. As it had happened before, he was due to be sent to a locked institution, so he ran away. But’ – she took Leo’s hand – ‘we’ve been talking, and Leo’s decided to try to make amends.

  ‘Gita and I will also remain and speak to the detective,’ Sarema went on. ‘We’ve decided to ask for help from a women’s refuge.’

  ‘Raven?’ said Kai. ‘You coming?’

  Raven shook her head.

  ‘But you said that if you were picked up by the police, they’d send you back to the hostel with the creepy warden.’

  ‘Spartacus made me believe that’s what would happen, but I’m going to make sure the warden of that hostel is charged.’

  ‘You told me you weren’t strong enough to cope with that. You couldn’t do it on your own.’

  ‘She won’t be on her own,’ said Tech. ‘Raven will be with me.’

  ‘With you?’

  ‘Yeah. Me.’ Tech reached out and brushed Raven’s hand with his fingertips.

  Kai had seen that gesture before. In Tech’s den when Raven handed him the SD card from Bird Girl’s camera. He thought about the looks they’d exchanged, Tech saying he’d given Raven his towel to dry her hair the day they’d captured Bird Girl. Plus a dozen other little connections. Suddenly it all added up. And Kai understood the reason Raven hung around when Tech was editing.

  ‘I’ll look after her.’

  ‘Each other,’ said Raven. ‘We’ll look out for each other.’

  ‘But Tech, you’ll get done for filming something illegal.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Tech. ‘I reckon there’s not much they can charge us with. And you could claim that we’re the victims here.’

  ‘All that work for nothing.’

  ‘I don’t see it that way,’ said Tech. ‘I’ve done what I set out to do. Make a film memorial for my young sister who died on the street. I intend to tackle social justice issues.’ He glanced at Raven. ‘One case in particular to start with.’

  ‘If Tech reckons we can earn from the film and his media promotion then I’m staying too,’ said Boudicca. ‘Anyone else?’

  Everyone except Kai agreed. He looked at Bird Girl. She raised her hand in farewell. ‘Hope to see you sometime,’ she said.

  Kai hesitated.

  ‘You go, Kai,’ said Sarema. ‘You wanted to travel, so that’s what you should do. Find somewhere to hide out for long enough to grow a beard and then take off. Be happy.’

  Gita produced a snack bar from beneath her shawl.

  Kai took it and, touching his forehead, he saluted her, and all of them.

  Then he climbed into the gap in the wall.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Kai stayed in the skip for over a week before he decided to move on.

  His hair and chin stubble had grown enough to change his looks and the weather had improved so it would be easier to hitch lifts on the open road. One morning he was gathering his gear in plastic carrier bags when there was a grating noise from outside. It wasn’t made by a cat or dog or any wild animal. Someone had climbed into the skip and slid down the chute.

  Kai was trapped. His worst fear had happened. He wanted to barge past whoever it was and make a run for freedom, but a wave of sickness swept up from his stomach, rooting him to the ground.

  The hut door opened and Bird Girl stood there.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  Kai glanced towards the top of the skip. ‘Are the police or the Social with you?’

  ‘No.’ Bird Girl shook her head. ‘But I wouldn’t hang about here too long if I were you. In case you haven’t heard, they’ve arrested Spartacus. He might tell them everything and anything in order to cut some kind of deal. And I’m not sure that I fooled him that first time we met when I said that the inside of the skip was disgusting.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ said Kai. ‘Spartacus sussed that I’d made it into a bolt-hole. But he must have cared for me a bit because he warned me not to come back here. Said that as soon as one other person knew about a secret place then it was no longer safe, or secret…’ Kai tilted his head. ‘I guess it depends on the person.’

  ‘I guess so.’ Bird Girl met his eyes.

  ‘Why did you agree with Spartacus when he said that the skip was filthy inside?’

  ‘It seemed the right thing to do.’ She paused. ‘I got the feeling that it was your private place and you wouldn’t be happy for anyone to know about it.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Kai.

  She looked at his carrier bags. ‘Were you about ready to leave?’ she asked him.

  ‘I’m going away,’ said Kai. ‘For a while anyway,’ he added. ‘To clear my head.’

  ‘I thought you might need this.’ Bird Girl handed him a rucksack. ‘And…there’s something in it that belongs to you.’

  Kai opened it up and saw a box.

  A shoe box.

  Hands shaking Kai lifted it out. Inside was his model of Treasure Island.

  ‘The underground Cage Fighters for Freedom are hot news,’ said Bird Girl. ‘It’s all over the media, with details of their families if they’ve got any. I was able to find out where your mum lived and I went to see her to tell her you were OK. She gave me that in case I ever met up with you. Says she found it under your bed the day before you left and realized something was very wrong. She took it away to fix it before she spoke to you about it. Eddy tried to explain why it was smashed – gave her a whole story about your fits of bad temper. But she knew that this was the one model you’d never break, no matter what teenage strop you were in. She said she tried to mend it, but that she was never as good as you with the intricate parts.’

  Kai felt tears itching at the back of his eyes. With trembling fingers, he picked up the tiny treasure chest that sat under the broken palm trees.

  ‘Your mum also said that Eddy has moved out. Says she can live her life without having him around any more.’

  ‘
She’ll never need to rely on anyone ever again.’ Kai took some coins from his pocket. ‘Could you sell these discreetly and give her the money from me?’

  Bird Girl’s mouth rounded in astonishment as she looked at the coins. ‘These are gold sovereigns! Where did you get them?’

  ‘Mole gave them to me,’ said Kai. And he told her how, when they reached an exit from underground, he’d tried to persuade Mole to leave the tunnels.

  ‘Mole,’ Kai had said, ‘won’t you come to the surface with me?’

  ‘Can’t do that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’d be like them pit ponies. Grampa told me. A hundred years ago. Be put down mine to work. When they be taken topside, they do go blind.’

  ‘I’d get you a pair of sunglasses. Designer shades,’ Kai tried to joke. ‘You’d look cool.’

  Mole shook his head. ‘I do like to dig. Don’t know nothin’ else to do.’

  ‘Listen, Mole.’ Kai spoke carefully so as not to upset his friend. ‘I don’t think you’re ever going to find your grampa’s gold.’

  ‘I do have the gold already.’ Mole pulled a filthy rag from his trouser pocket and unfolded it. A heap of sovereigns gleamed burnished yellow.

  ‘You found the gold!’

  ‘I do discover it long ago.’

  ‘Mole!’ Kai gasped.

  ‘For you.’ Mole thrust the coins at Kai. ‘I got plenty more.’

  ‘Are you sure you won’t come with me?’ Kai asked him.

  ‘I die up there,’ Mole whispered. ‘I be safe here. I do go where nobody find me.’ And saying that, he scooped Albert into his pocket and disappeared into the darkness.

  Kai had no idea how much the coins were worth, but even selling one or two in a dodgy shop should give him a decent amount of money.

  ‘You mustn’t mention the coins to anyone,’ he told Bird Girl. ‘Not even my mum.’

  ‘I won’t,’ she assured him. ‘And I’ll suggest she doesn’t let Eddy find out that she’s got some ready cash in the house. He’s trying to win her back by attending an anger management programme and he’s promised to stop drinking.’

  ‘He’ll not do it,’ said Kai. ‘He’ll pretend he has, but he won’t.’

  ‘Well, he’s admitted he was very jealous of you and your relationship with your mum. Eddy couldn’t understand that your mum could love you and him at the same time.’ Bird Girl paused. ‘It’s hard to work through emotions. But I think it is possible to love more than one person. I love my sister, Darcey, but that doesn’t mean’ – she stole a glance at Kai – ‘that I couldn’t also fall in love with someone.’

  ‘I’m not going home,’ said Kai. ‘Well, not yet, anyway.’

  ‘Your mum said she thought you might want to travel a bit.’

  ‘That’s what I’m going to do,’ said Kai.

  ‘I’ve got something else for you,’ Bird Girl said briskly. She gave Kai a packet swaddled in a scarf. ‘Gita sent some snack bars and Sarema wrapped them up in one of her scarves.’

  Kai placed the shoe box and the scarf inside the rucksack. ‘I’d better pack the rest of my stuff and get started.’

  ‘I hope you make it to your own special island.’

  ‘I will,’ said Kai. ‘For sure.’

  ‘Send me a postcard?’

  ‘I’ll do better than that.’ Kai smiled. ‘I’ll let you know when I reach the island where the geese land when they migrate. Then you and Darcey can visit me.’

  ‘I’ll find you,’ Bird Girl whispered. ‘I’m good at finding people.’

  She came closer to him. Her blonde hair was like golden rain around her face, and around his too, as she leaned in for his kiss.

  About the Author

  THERESA BRESLIN is the Carnegie Medal winning author of over thirty books for children & young adults whose work has appeared on stage, radio and TV. Her books are hugely popular with young people, librarians and teachers. Remembrance, her top selling YA novel of youth in WW1, has now been reissued to include Book Notes. The Dream Master was shortlisted for the Children’s Book Award. Divided City was shortlisted for ten book awards, winning two outright.

  Also by Theresa Breslin

  GHOST SOLDIER

  A thrilling, poignant story of hope and loss

  set during the First World War.

  ‘Another must-read novel by one of Scotland’s finest writers’ Scotsman

  SPY FOR THE QUEEN OF SCOTS

  A story full of secrets, betrayal and murder, set in sixteenth-century

  France and Scotland.

  ‘A gripping historical thriller from the brilliant Breslin’

  The Bookseller

  PRISONER OF THE INQUISITION

  A gripping tale of fire, fury, love and revenge, set during the

  Spanish Inquisition.

  ‘Unputdownable’ The Times

  THE NOSTRADAMUS PROPHECY

  A dramatic adventure story set in sixteenth-century France.

  ‘Terrific novel…enormously enjoyable’ Guardian

  THE MEDICI SEAL

  A gloriously rich and authentic story set around the life of

  Leonardo da Vinci.

  ‘A superb historical thriller…an enchanting novel about genius,

  and a gift to an enquiring mind’ The Times

  REMEMBRANCE

  An epic tale of young lives altered by the First World War.

  ‘Immensely readable, passionately written’ Guardian

  SASKIA’S JOURNEY

  A haunting tale of self-discovery.

  ‘Mesmerising…truly memorable’ The Bookseller

  DIVIDED CITY

  Two young rival football supporters are caught up in an attack on

  an asylum seeker.

  ‘A cracking good read…this is a book with far-reaching appeal

  and universal themes that will encourage young readers to

  challenge bigotry’ Guardian

  KEZZIE AT WAR

  A spirited young girl fights to keep her family together.

  ‘A remarkable story of hope and determination’ Val Bierman

  RHCP DIGITAL

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  RHCP Digital is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  www.penguin.co.uk

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  www.ladybird.co.uk

  First published Corgi, 2016

  This ebook published 2016

  Text copyright © Theresa Breslin, 2016

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-446-47987-2

  All correspondence to:

  RHCP Digital

  Penguin Random House Children’s

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL