It was clearly too dangerous to go back into the street. Instead, Rosamund stole in the darkness down the side of the house, crossed a backyard with a clothes line, and squeezed through a broken-down fence into a lane. The laneway led past rubbish bins into a larger street. And there, on the opposite side of the road, brightly lit by orange street lamps, was the last thing she had expected to find. It was a railway station.
Rosamund sighed with relief. She had never caught a train in her life, but she had seen people do it in movies and she knew that there would be someone at the station to buy a ticket from. Without a moment’s hesitation she hurried across the road, her red pyjamas and painted fingernails showing weirdly black under the amber carpark lights. By now her bare feet were feeling very sore, for she was not used to running without shoes, and her ankles were swollen from being tied up earlier in the day. But Rosamund was not about to give up. She thought of Emily waiting for her back at Miniver House, gritted her teeth, and started to climb the enormous flight of stairs to the station overbridge.
The stairs seemed to go on forever. By the time she reached the top, Rosamund was breathless and almost crawling. Her feet were filthy and bleeding, and her beautiful pyjamas were covered in dirt, but she pressed on, though limping down the steps onto the platform was, if anything, even harder than climbing up them. Rosamund walked up to the ticket office. To her surprise the shutter on the ticket window was closed.
‘Hello?’ Her tiny voice wobbled as she called out. There was no reply. Automatic ticket and drink machines whirred under the artificial light and the clock above the platform read 4:27 a.m. Rosamund looked along the platform and noticed a phone booth. Then she glanced across the railway line and saw the kidnappers’ dark blue station wagon pulling into the carpark.
Rosamund ran to the phone booth. The receiver was out of reach above her head, and for several useless seconds she jumped frenziedly up and down, trying to reach it. Rosamund grabbed the steel ledge beside the telephone and swung back and forth. Her bare feet scrabbled for purchase on the booth walls and she somehow hooked one foot onto the ledge and hauled herself onto it. Rosamund picked up the receiver. Then she realised that to make a call, she had to put money into the telephone. She, Rosamund Miniver, the richest girl in Artemisia, did not have a penny on her.
‘No!’ Rosamund banged her fist against the keypad. Her eyes fell on a small sign. Emergency – Freecall – 000. She leaned over and punched her finger three times against the zero.
There was an unbearable delay while the telephone rang and then a voice said, ‘Which service, please?’
‘This is Rosamund Miniver. This is an emergency! Send the police! No, don’t send the police! Put me through to Miniver House immediately!’
‘Do you want police, fire brigade or ambulance?’
‘You idiot, I said put me through to Miniver House!’ yelled Rosamund. ‘On the palace exchange; it’s a priority line. Tell them I’ve been kidnapped. I’m about to be killed! This is a crisis! They’ve ambushed me!’
There was a click. For a horrible instant Rosamund thought the woman had hung up. Then, to her unbounded relief, the phone started ringing again. She muttered, ‘Come on, come on,’ and suddenly the phone was picked up at the other end and she heard a small familiar voice saying, ‘Hello?’
‘Emily!’ Rosamund shrieked, and burst into tears. ‘You’ve got to help me!’
‘Rosamund! Where are you?’
‘I’m at the station. The railway station.’
‘Which railway station?’
‘I don’t know. How should I know?’
‘There’ll be a sign, Rose, you have to look.’ Emily’s quiet, patient voice came down the line. ‘A big sign, it’ll be obvious –’
‘It isn’t there. I can’t see it. I don’t know where I am.’ Rosamund looked around frantically, and her eyes fell on a white metal plate with dark red lettering. ‘Woodlands! It’s Woodlands!’ she cried, and then the receiver was wrenched from her fingers and Emily, at the other end, heard the line go abruptly dead.
5
Two Escapes
Rough hands dragged Rosamund off the ledge where she was balanced. She screamed and heard the telephone receiver clatter to the ground, then she hit the cement with a jarring thump.
Holly’s hands twisted in the collar of her pyjamas and she was dragged out of the phone box. ‘Thought you’d get away, did you?’
‘Let me go!’ Rosamund yelled and kicked, but the more she struggled the harder Holly dragged. Rosamund clawed at the woman’s wrists with fingernails sharp as needles. Holly jerked at her collar even harder, and suddenly something totally unexpected happened. With a sound of ripping cloth, the whole top part of Rosamund’s pyjamas gave way and started sliding up over her head.
Holly made a fruitless snatch at Rosamund’s arms and fell over. With a swift twist, Rosamund slid bodily out of her top and ran in her silk singlet and pyjama pants across the platform.
‘Come back, you idiot!’ shouted Holly. ‘Come back!’ She jumped to her feet and started pelting after Rosamund, who was screaming like a steam kettle as she fled barefoot towards the stairs. A loud blare sounded. A train was coming into the station. Rosamund glanced over her shoulder and saw Holly right behind her. Without thinking, she jumped off the platform onto the tracks. She hit the clinker with an agonising crunch, then flung herself into a roll across the sleepers, landing on the inbound track just as the outbound train came pulling into the station.
For a terrified moment Rosamund lay on the tracks, watching the train go clicking past. There was a sound of brakes and then it stopped. Rosamund realised she had to move. She scrambled to her feet and ran along the tracks towards the back of the train. The train’s engine started up again. Rosamund glimpsed Holly between the carriages, running along the platform, and heard a rattling sound on the clinker up ahead.
‘Quick! Over here!’ A tall dark man was running along the track.
Rosamund ran blindly towards him. ‘Help me!’
In one second, the man had tossed her up over his shoulder like a small sack of potatoes. In another, he had scrambled up the crib wall at the side of the tracks and begun scaling the chain-wire fence that stood on top of it. The whole thing shook and rattled violently. Below her, Rosamund saw the train pulling out of the station, and Holly’s furious face looking across the tracks at her and her rescuer. A moment later they reached the top of the fence, and the man who was carrying her jumped to the ground and legged it into the night.
By the time she replaced the receiver, Emily had made up her mind what to do. ‘Milly, that was Rosamund. She’s in trouble. I have to find her.’
‘What kind of trouble?’ Millamant hovered in the bedroom doorway, dressed in her pyjamas. ‘Where is she?’
‘At Woodlands railway station. I don’t know what happened, but the call was cut off.’ Emily hurried into her dressing-room and started pulling clothes determinedly out of drawers.
Millamant followed, a look of dismay on her face. ‘They’ll never let you out! Emmie, we still don’t know what this is all about. It’s not safe. At least take me with you.’
‘I can’t.’ Emily pushed in the drawer. ‘I wish I could, but I need you here to distract Ron and the guards. You know I’m not supposed to go out by myself. If they see me leaving the grounds, they’re probably going to try and stop me. And anyway, I don’t trust Ron.’
‘But you’ll be all alone!’ cried Millamant. ‘Emily, this is terrible. There must be someone here we can trust.’
‘Who?’ said Emily, and suddenly she felt very small. ‘There’s no one, Milly. No one at all.’
Millamant’s homely face seemed to sag, and even her stiff little plaits went limp. ‘Oh, Emmie,’ she whispered. ‘Even if we find Rose, what are we going to do?’
‘We’ll have to worry about that, later.’ If she stopped to think about it now, Emily knew she would probably burst into tears. ‘Go and get ready to set off the alarms. That should b
ring the guards running.’
Millamant went. Emily found she was trembling, and tensed her muscles to still them. She pulled on some jeans and a T-shirt and added a pair of boots, and a round hat, to make her feel an inch or two taller. (‘Hats are smart,’ Rosamund had always decreed. ‘They make even the drabbest person look distinguished.’) Rosamund will need clean clothes, too, Emily thought, and she crossed into her sister’s room and wasted a couple of precious minutes filling a bag with some clothes Rosamund might like to be rescued in. Then Emily realised she had forgotten her car keys. She was scrabbling for them in her bedside table when her fingers unexpectedly encountered a small hard object.
Emily paused. She had forgotten about the half key that Papa King had sent to Rosamund, and that had caused Madame to react so strangely at the party. Her fingers closed around it now, and she took it out and examined it. It looked like a normal house key, though there were more teeth than usual, and one side was ground perfectly flat. Apart from the fact that it had come from Papa King, Emily could see nothing that might make the key important. On impulse, she shoved it into the front pocket of her jeans, slung the bag with Rosamund’s clothes over her shoulder, and ran lightly down the stairs to the underground garage.
‘I’ve found the railway station for you.’ Millamant handed Emily an open street directory and pointed to the spot on the page. ‘Take the freeway, it’ll be quickest. I’ll go upstairs now and set off the alarms. Good luck, Emmie. Take care.’
‘Good luck, Milly.’ Emily flung her arms around Millamant’s neck. They embraced so tightly that each could feel the other’s beating heart. Then Millamant pulled away. She dropped a kiss on Emily’s forehead, nodded briskly, and hurried away.
Emily got into her car and put the key into the ignition. At this moment, she was extremely glad she could drive. Because she and Rosamund were Minivers, and because Papa King was their foster father, they were allowed to do all sorts of things that ordinary girls would never have got away with. Everything inside her normal-sized bubble car had been adapted especially to suit her, from the Miniver-size steering wheel, to the seat with the electric motor that let her see over the dashboard. The brake and accelerator pedals had been especially made for her short legs. Despite this, it was a real car, and could go very fast. Rosamund had one too, but after she’d smashed hers several times, Emily had always done most of their driving.
WAAAAA! WAAAAA! WAAAAA! Even though she had been expecting it, the sound of the alarm made Emily nearly jump out of her skin. She counted a minute by the clock, drew a deep breath, and started the engine. Through the open garage door, she saw the security guards run past along the path above. Emily waited until they disappeared, then revved the car and shot out of the garage with a screech. She hit the gravel in second gear and reached the automatic gates in eleven seconds. The car roared through, the gates closed behind it, and Emily was away.
Emily drove as quickly as she dared for about twenty minutes, then turned off the freeway and found her way through the back streets to the station. The closer she got to her destination, the more nervous she felt. Saying she was going to rescue Rosamund had sounded fine and brave at Miniver House, but now it was hard to imagine how she would be able to pull that rescue off.
‘I am a Miniver,’ said Emily, under her breath, as she drove into the station carpark. ‘Minivers may be small, but we’re tough. I’ll think of something.’ She pulled up in a parking space beside the station overbridge, turned off the engine, and cautiously opened the door.
The carpark was deserted, with only a few beaten up old cars parked beneath the orange lights. Emily couldn’t see a telephone booth, so she got out of the car, and walked to the foot of the overbridge steps. The size of the enormous flight of stairs made Emily’s heart sink, but she started to climb them, and at length reached the top and crossed over to the other side. The station clock showed 5.12 a.m. as she walked down onto the platform. It too was empty, but there was a phone booth near the ticket office, and the receiver had been wrenched off its hook.
A long goods train approached the station and a warm gust of air blew across to where Emily stood. Something fluttered on the edge of the platform, a piece of dark material that lifted and rolled as the train passed, until at length it landed at Emily’s feet. She picked it up. The material was so damaged it took her a moment to realise what it was. Then she saw a familiar button and recognised the soft, silky fabric. It was Rosamund’s pyjama top.
‘Rosamund.’ A horrible taste flooded Emily’s mouth and her hands felt cold against the cloth. There were no bloodstains, but the shirt was torn to shreds and had obviously been under the wheels of a train.
Could Rosamund be dead? Emily was still numbly clutching the pyjama top, when she became aware of someone walking towards her. A tall figure in black jeans was approaching along the platform. Emily looked up with a mixture of suspicion and fear. The young man was wearing a Minivers T-shirt and looked familiar. It was not until he spoke that she realised it was Titus, the Vice-President of the Minivers Fan Club, whom she had last seen at Rosamund’s disastrous party.
‘Emily? Is that you?’
‘Titus!’ Relieved that it was somebody she knew, Emily ran to meet him. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Looking for you, of course.’ Titus went down on one knee so he could talk to her face to face. ‘Emily, we had a telephone call from Rosamund at the Minivers Fan Club Headquarters –’
‘Rosamund?’ cried Emily. ‘You mean, she’s safe?’
Titus nodded. ‘Of course she is. My friend Holly and I came straight away and collected her. You remember Holly? Dark skin, pretty eyes? She was at Rosamund’s birthday party. Rosamund’s with her now.’
‘Thank goodness!’ Emily burst into tears of relief. ‘Oh, Titus, thank you so much! Where’s Rosamund now?’
‘Holly’s taken her back to the Minivers Fan Club Headquarters,’ said Titus. ‘Rosamund told us she’d tried to phone you, too, so I stayed behind in case you turned up. I’ll take you to her now, if you like.’
‘That would be wonderful.’ Emily mopped her eyes with a tissue. ‘Oh, Titus, this is the best news I’ve had all day. Just wait until I tell Millamant. She’ll be ecstatic.’
‘You can phone her as soon as we get to the club,’ Titus promised. ‘Come on. My car’s over there, in the carpark. I’ll drive you.’
‘Thank you so much.’ Emily followed Titus back up the steps and across the overbridge.
His car, a dark blue station wagon, was parked in the furthest corner of the carpark, and as they walked towards it Titus started talking about the Minivers Fan Club. ‘Such a shame about Lindsey Smith,’ Titus said. Lindsey Smith, the club founder and Life President, had recently been very ill. The doctors had never got to the bottom of what was wrong with her, and she had finally left the city to rest up with an aunt. ‘Still, the club has a great new committee. Over the next few months, we’re planning to do a lot of new and exciting things.’
‘I’m sure you are,’ said Emily politely, though her mind was on Rosamund, and how soon she would see her. They were crossing the carpark to the station wagon when she suddenly remembered her own car.
‘How silly of me. I forgot, I drove myself here. I’ll have to follow you.’
‘Leave your car here,’ suggested Titus. ‘It will be quite safe. You can send somebody to pick it up later.’
Emily shook her head. ‘All the controls are Miniver-sized. An ordinary driver couldn’t fit inside.’ She opened her handbag and searched for her car keys. ‘Besides, I’ve got to drive Rosamund. I’ll need my car for that. It’ll be easier.’
‘I’m sure the club can arrange something,’ said Titus. ‘Honestly, Emily. It’s no trouble. No trouble at all.’
Emily looked up.
Afterwards, when she tried to think back over what happened, she could not have said what it was that made her do this. Perhaps there had been something just a shade too insistent about Titus’s voice, or perha
ps her own nerves were on edge, but she instantly knew there was something wrong. Without even thinking what she was doing, Emily reacted. As Titus’s hand reached down to grab her, she slung her heavily beaded handbag at his head. It hit with a sickening thwack and flew off into the darkness. At the same moment, the engine of the darkened station wagon roared into life.
‘Stop her, Holly! Stop her!’ Titus lurched towards Emily. She had managed to take her keys out of her bag before she had thrown it at him, and her car was not far away. But Emily’s legs were short. By the time she reached the door, there was no time to open it. The station wagon was accelerating, bearing down on her. Emily screamed. She flung herself underneath her own car, rolled through the space and emerged on the other side. Titus yelled a horrible swear word, but Emily hardly heard, for at that moment, Holly lost control of the station wagon. There was a screech of brakes and a tremendous bang as it ploughed into the bubble car. Emily’s car spun around and slammed into a light pole. A second later, the station wagon ended under it with a rending crash and was still.
If she had stopped moving for a second, Emily would have been dead; but a survival instinct she had not realised she possessed had stopped her from looking back at the critical moment. When the impact happened, she was on her feet and halfway to the street. She heard a cry behind her, but it was a cry of fury, not of pain. Emily jumped over the carpark wall onto the footpath. A taxi came bearing down around the corner, and she ran out onto the street and flagged it down.
The Minivers Page 4