by Emma Carroll
‘Take them and let us be on our way,’ Monsieur Joseph pleads.
‘Not so fast,’ the robber growls. ‘I don’t want your jewels. And keep your hands where I can see them.’
I catch my breath. There’s one thing on this coach more valuable than rubies or silver – and I’m sat on it. The robber must be working with the English.
Footsteps approach the back of the carriage. At my left ear something clicks: the safety catch of a gun, I think, and feel a beat of terror.
‘Perhaps you didn’t hear me the first time,’ the robber says.
Slowly, pistol still at my head, he moves to face me. It’s my first proper look at him. I almost snort in surprise: why, he’s not even a full-grown man!
I still haven’t moved, either.
‘Are you completely stupid?’ the robber asks.
With his gun at my head, I know I’ve no choice but to get down. I do it slowly, mind, making it clear I’m not happy.
‘Well, well. Not a boy, after all,’ he says, as I land in front of him. His gaze flickers over my dusty frock. He’s got bright blue eyes, I notice, and blond hair that’s escaping from his hat.
‘I’m as quick and tough as any boy,’ I tell him.
‘Excellent, then you can start by unloading this luggage.’
There’s no way to do so without revealing Pierre. Or the valuables box. Fiddling with the luggage straps, I make myself look busy, though really I’m buying time. The robber is twitchy, looking up and down the road. From the side of the carriage, I hear movement. The noise gets the robber’s attention.
‘I told you to wait—’
Monsieur Etienne comes at him like a giant bear. The force knocks the air from the robber’s chest in one big gasp. They fall to the ground. Then Monsieur Joseph joins in. And Viscount Herges. I can’t believe it. Neither look like they’ve had a brawl in their life, but suddenly they’re rolling, grunting, cussing, all four locked together in one big heap. I try to get a punch in, but they’re moving so fast I can’t take aim. What worries me most is the robber’s pistol: he’s waving it dangerously at the carriage, the horses, the luggage pile, the sky.
‘Come out slowly,’ I whisper to Pierre. ‘Take Voltaire and Coco and hide up the bank behind the trees.’
Pierre does as I ask just as the four-bodied heap breaks apart. That pistol is really bothering me, though. It’s still in the robber’s hand. This time my kick hits home. Catching the pistol hard, I send it spinning high into the air. The robber yelps in surprise. The gun lands in a puff of dust some way up the road.
‘Sit on him!’ the driver cries, seeing the robber now disarmed. ‘Don’t let him reach the boxes!’
Yet before anyone can grab him again, the robber sets off after his gun. He’s got the look of someone scarpering, knowing he’s beaten. He’s also holding his wrist, which makes me think maybe I kicked more than just the gun.
‘Let’s get moving before he returns,’ Monsieur Joseph says, hurrying the other two men back into the carriage. He climbs in after them, leaning out again to speak to me. ‘Magpie, please ride inside with us.’
‘I will . . . just a minute . . . I need to . . .’ I scan the bank, trying to find Pierre. Typical. I told him to hide, not vanish from the face of the earth.
‘For heaven’s sake, get in!’ Monsieur Joseph cries, still holding the door open.
I can’t. Not without Pierre. ‘I’m coming,’ I tell him, ‘but Coco and—’
Gunshot.
My heart stops. The robber’s hit someone, I think in panic. Who? Who?
Yet when I see him he’s some way up the road. Gun recovered, he’s fired into the air in a sort of frustrated show of strength. He does it again, then steps off the road, disappearing between the trees.
The gunshots have terrified the horses. I hear the driver up at the front saying, ‘easy now’ as they fidget and prance. The carriage jolts back, then suddenly lurches forward, making the door slam shut with a bang.
It’s enough. The front horses rear straight up. There’s a squeal, the driver shouting ‘whoa!’ as the air fills with dust. By the time it clears again, the carriage is careering down the road.
‘Wait!’ I yell, waving my arms above my head. ‘Waaaaaaaait!’
Which of course is the very moment Pierre chooses to show himself, a bird under each arm. ‘Sorry, I was just . . . oh!’
We both stare helplessly after the carriage. Already, they’re so far away there’s no point even trying to catch up. As for the robber, he’s vanished completely.
Furious, I turn on Pierre. ‘Where were you? Why didn’t you come?’
‘Ask him.’ He pushes Coco back into my arms. ‘He took one look at Voltaire and ran off.’
‘You were meant to be looking after them both!’ I cry.
‘I tried! It’s not my fault if your bird’s a . . . chicken!’
‘He’s a ROOSTER!’
We glare at each other for a long, hard time.
I’m the first to speak, too desperate to be angry any more. ‘Well, the horses have bolted and the robber’s legged it. So it’s just you and me. We’ve no money, no food, no water. And Paris is miles away on foot.’
Pierre’s looking over my shoulder.
‘Are you listening?’ I ask.
‘Magpie,’ he says. ‘What’s that?’
He’s pointing at something lying in the road. It’s hard to see anything for dust at first. Then I see it. It’s a box – the box – looking even more battered now, having tumbled from the back of the carriage.
‘How did it get there?’ Pierre asks.
Just before the fight started, I’d loosened the luggage straps, hadn’t I? I’d not had chance to tighten them again.
‘It was me.’ I admit guiltily. ‘The robber wanted me to take down the boxes. I was trying to buy some time and—’
‘I’m glad you did,’ Pierre interrupts.
‘What?’
‘Remember Viscount Herges told us the King wanted everything? All Papa’s notes, all his drawings, everything? To keep it all safe from the English?’
I do.
‘So if they turn up at Versailles without what he’s asked for—’
‘They’ll still be able to fly, though,’ I say, not getting his point. ‘They’ll remember what to do. Besides, they’ve got the prototype.’
‘But the King won’t want anyone else getting hold of our designs. His order was to bring all their notes to Versailles.’
‘Maybe.’ I dig a toe in the dust, uneasy again. And not just about Monsieur Joseph, who’ll be in pieces if he thinks he’s let down the King of France. Frankly, we’re better off without this pesky box. Wherever it goes, trouble follows.
‘It’s obvious, Magpie,’ Pierre says, a bit too excitedly for my liking. ‘We’ll take the box to Versailles. Now you’ll have to come with me, after all.’
I narrow my eyes at the road ahead. I don’t fancy the walk to Paris. I fancy it even less with a heavy box to carry. But the other options aren’t pretty ones. The incident with the robber has shaken me. We need to get these notes safely to Versailles as fast as we can.
‘All right,’ I agree. ‘You grab one end of the box, I’ll grab the other.’
We set off like that, and at first it’s not too bad. We even see the funny side of our birds and their constant bickering. Voltaire insists on walking ahead like our leader. Coco tucks his head back in the sling as if he can’t bear to watch.
I don’t laugh for long, though. Every shadow, every sound now is making me start. Though I don’t tell Pierre, I’m pretty certain we’re being followed.
15
We end up walking through the night. When we stop, we sleep in shifts, though I’m too jumpy to rest for long. All the next day, we walk. And walk, the sun so hot it makes the road ahead ripple like water. The only thing to drink is what’s left in the puddles, and as for food, when we find a cherry tree, we eat too many all at once. It gives us the most vicious gut ache. Even
then, doubled up in a ditch, I keep my eyes peeled for the English.
By the time we reach the outskirts of Paris, its evening.
‘At last! We made it!’ Pierre drops his side of the box with a thump.
We stand on the roadside, dazed and blistered. The sight of the city sprawling before us is incredible. I’ve never seen anywhere so vast, with streets running off in all directions as far as the eye can see.
An enormous archway seems to be the way into the city; beyond I see buildings so fancy they could almost be palaces, or very large, expensive cakes. There are people everywhere – on foot, on horses, in carts. I wrap my feet protectively around the box. I’m not taking any chances after lugging it all this way.
So this is Paris.
I stare and stare, and still there’s more to see. After Annonay, where every crooked rooftop jostled for space, Paris seems as planned as a painting. Perhaps life on the streets here wouldn’t be so terrible. And imagine what it would look like from above, from a balloon!
‘You think we’ll reach Versailles tonight?’ Pierre asks. He’s worried: I bet his papa will be too, once he realizes the box is missing.
Trouble is, Versailles’s still ten miles away along the road that heads west around the city edge, and I’m so exhausted I can hardly put one foot in front of the other. But the longer we’ve got the box, the riskier things are.
‘Let’s get on with it, shall we?’ I agree. Only, as I pick up my end of the box again, I go all lightheaded.
‘Whoa!’ Pierre catches me as I sway.
‘I’m fine,’ I insist. But a day and night without proper food and my body’s protesting.
‘Let’s get some supper and then decide,’ Pierre says.
I don’t have the heart to remind him we’re penniless.
Once through the archway, we soon discover another Paris altogether. This one isn’t planned or beautiful but smelly and noisy, full of old timber-framed houses and people shouting in the streets.
There are stalls selling cakes and pastries, cheeses and bread. Some look delicious, some have been out in the heat all day, though I’m too hungry to care about the details. It comes back to me straight away, that twitchy, urgent feeling. In these crowds, thieving’ll be easy.
Alongside a group of people watching a man with a dancing dog, is a stall selling fruit pies. I make a beeline. Pierre, on the other end of the box, gets dragged along with me.
I ask the seller for water. ‘It’s for my poor brother, see,’ and I point to Pierre. The seller glances over my shoulder. That split-second look is all the distraction I need. A flick of my finger sends two pies tumbling off the stall’s edge into my hand. Stepping back, I rejoin the crowds.
‘What did you do that for?’ Pierre cries, once we reach a quieter bit of the street.
I offer him a squashed apple pie, but he won’t take it.
‘You stole it, didn’t you?’
‘’Course I did. I’ve got no coins. Nor have you, so here,’ I offer him the pie again, ‘Eat it.’
He folds his arms. It’s not in Pierre’s nature to refuse food. He’s doing it to make a point, I know. It’s pompous of him. And it annoys me.
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ I tell him. ‘You need to eat.’
‘You should’ve paid for those pies,’ he says stubbornly.
‘You need to stop acting like we’re still in Annonay,’ I snap back.
‘Am not.’
‘You are. Madame Verte isn’t here anymore to make your meals so if you don’t want to starve—’
‘That doesn’t make stealing right, Magpie.’
‘Well, I’m not wasting them.’ I cram his pie into my mouth straight after my own.
‘Right, that’s it,’ he announces, and before I can stop him, he strides off down the street. Voltaire waggles after him.
In seconds, the crowds swallow them and I’m too weary to go after them. Proper fed up, I drag the box off the street, push it against a wall, and perch on top of it. Pierre’ll be back in a minute, I convince myself. He won’t go far without me.
I wait.
An hour or two passes and Pierre doesn’t return. I can’t believe he’s been so pig-headed, stomping off in a grump in a place he doesn’t know. He’s bound to get stupidly lost.
As it grows dark, I stop being angry and start to worry. Something’s happened to Pierre, I’m sure of it. He’s been robbed. Or beaten. Or both.
Up and down the street cafés light their windows and put chairs and benches out on the cobbles. The sounds of the city change. A man and woman argue somewhere. Cats squawk. A violin plays sad music. There’s the spit and hiss of frying meat. Something hangs heavy in the air, something moody and dangerous that makes my shoulders tense and I clutch Coco tighter to me.
I don’t see the boy coming. It’s his voice that makes me spin round: ‘Can I help with your luggage?’
In a flash, I hook my feet tight around the box. ‘Why? Who’s asking?’
The boy’s in spotless breeches and a smart powder-blue jacket that he’s wearing loose like a cape over his shoulders. He’s too well dressed for this part of town. I’m suspicious. He senses it too.
‘Dear me, I’m not a thief you know.’ He makes a good show of sounding offended. ‘I was just passing through, and thought you looked in need of help.’
I don’t believe him. Coco doesn’t either. He aims a sly peck at the boy’s arm. He misses. Just. The boy takes the hint, though, and moves back.
‘I’m waiting for my friend. He’ll be along any moment,’ I say.
‘Perhaps I should wait with you,’ the boy replies. ‘It can be rather lively here at night.’
‘I’d worked that one out already,’ I mutter. Turning my back, I make it clear I’m not in the mood for making friends. Nor have I shaken off that sense of being followed. It’s easiest not to trust anyone. I tap my foot, impatient, wondering where the heck Pierre is. I’m going to crown him when he finally turns up. Until that happens, I’m hoping the boy will get bored and clear off.
No such luck. He’s persistent. So I end up telling him straight. ‘Go away, will you? I don’t need your—’ I stop.
Ambling up the street in his shirt sleeves is Pierre. Voltaire’s sat proudly on his shoulder. I detect a bit of swagger about them, which makes me want to wring both of their necks. I don’t of course: I jump up and down with sheer relief.
‘Oi! Over here!’ I cry, flinging my arms around Pierre when he reaches me. ‘Where have you been? Are you all right?’
‘I’ll be fine if you don’t throttle me, Magpie,’ Pierre laughs. ‘Who was that you were just talking to?’
I turn round just in time to see the stranger boy walk off. So much for him offering to carry my luggage — under his jacket, his right arm is in a sling.
16
Pierre, meanwhile, pulls a fistful of coins from his pocket. ‘See, I’m not a complete buffoon.’
In a shot, I cover his open hand. ‘Flash your coin about like that and you won’t have it for long!’
‘Sorry!’ He puts the money away. ‘But I mean it, Magpie. We’re eating supper tonight – one that we can pay for. Then we’ll find a place to stay.’
‘D’you hear that Coco?’ I say, ruffling his feathers. He’s still tense from our little encounter with the blue-coated boy. It’s not helped that Voltaire’s reappeared looking smug.
‘Extra bread for our poultry,’ Pierre confirms. ‘As much as they can eat!’
I’d planned to be cross with him for leaving me for so long, but I can’t help smiling. ‘Where’s this money come from?’
‘I, my dear Magpie, sold my jacket and a silver buckle from my shoe.’
‘What about the other buckle?’ I ask, glancing at his feet. ‘Didn’t you sell that one?’
‘That’s tomorrow’s food.’
I nod, impressed: he’s learning. Hunger changes how you see things. A silver buckle isn’t fashion, it’s food in your belly, a bed for the night. And truth
told, those fruit pies have done little to curb my appetite.
Picking the box up between us, we walk along the street until it joins another, busier one. Pierre chooses a café with steep steps leading down to a cellar. Inside it’s dark and hot, with candles stuck in bottles on tables. By Pierre’s standards it probably isn’t up to much, but I’m thrilled. We find a seat in the corner, stowing the box and our birds beneath our feet.
Supper is whole spit-roasted chicken, best eaten with your fingers. Afterwards, Pierre declares it the finest meal he’s ever eaten.
‘Don’t let Coco hear you say that,’ I reply.
I’m sneaking bread under the table to two hungry beaks when I notice the group on the table next to ours. They’re young people like us, laughing and thumping the table at jokes I don’t get. Pierre does, though, and can’t keep quiet.
‘Excuse me, I think you’ll find it’s vous, not tu,’ he says to the person nearest us.
As the young man turns round, I groan out loud. Him again – the stranger boy. Except he’s not quite a boy and not quite an adult; I’d guess he’s about fifteen.
He recognizes me too. ‘Ah, your friend returned, I see.’
I don’t answer. As Pierre offers his hand by way of greeting I hiss frantically in his ear, ‘That’s who tried to help me in the street earlier. Don’t trust him!’
Too late: they’re already shaking hands. The stranger boy, I notice, does this gingerly though, his right arm is no longer in a sling.
‘My name is Sebastien Delamere,’ he says. ‘Welcome to Paris.’
Pierre nods. ‘Pierre, Pierre Montgolfier.’
I roll my eyes: this is just what we need: people knowing who we are. Boys acting like their fathers.
‘And you are?’ Sebastien turns to me.
‘I think we should leave, Pierre,’ I mutter, ignoring him.
But no one’s listening to me anymore. Chairs are moved, cake is ordered and we find ourselves sitting at Sebastien’s table with his friends, who all look and sound as expensive as he does. We jam the box between our seats for safekeeping.
‘Keep your foot against it,’ I whisper to Pierre. ‘Don’t say a word about what’s inside it.’