She remembered what Quintilius Minimus had said: ‘Harmless. Easy to catch. Taste of nothing.’
A few days ago she’d’ve run a mile if she’d seen such a thing, or simply assumed she’d imagined it. But now … so much had changed. She was different now; the world was different now.
She didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but she could hear the voices in the kitchen. They thought she’d gone. She didn’t move.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ said Mr Underbridge.
‘What?’ said Nick.
‘There’s a film, apparently. On the internet. Someone’s been here. Been out there. Seen down there.’
Nick said nothing.
‘You know what I’m talking about?’
Nick said nothing.
‘How did they find out? How? Oh, I don’t suppose it matters now. They’ve had the video taken down, but God knows who’s seen it. What do we do? What do we do now? Mimi’s gone all official. She’s freaking out. She wants to close the window, Nick. She’s got a thing that will just shut it off. Seal it up, forever.’
‘But what about Mum?’
‘I know,’ said Mr Underbridge.
‘It’s not fair,’ shouted Nick, and she heard him thud off into the house.
His dad said nothing to that, but she thought she heard a sigh and someone sitting down, shuffling papers.
‘Go,’ said her stomach. ‘Get out of here.’
Frank made her way up the side of the house and out on to the pavement.
She was about to get on her bike when a voice stopped her.
‘Excuse me. Young lady?’
In the middle of the road, looking up at the Underbridges’ house, was a woman. This must be Auntie Mimi.
She looked normal enough. She was quite old, probably in her forties, with streaks of grey in her tied-back black hair. She wore a dark suit, like Frank’s mum’s, but more battered. There were scuff marks and paler patches, as if she’d rubbed up against dusty or mucky things and hadn’t sent it to the dry cleaner’s yet. She pulled off a pair of dark glasses and twiddled them in her hand. In her other hand was a briefcase.
Frank stopped where she was and said nothing.
The woman came over.
‘You don’t live here, do you?’
‘No,’ said Frank, slowly.
She could hear the sound of an amusement arcade dinging in the back of her head somewhere. She had the giddy sensation she’d just been ricocheted from one place to another, that she was still just a ball hurtling around the machine to someone else’s tune. Where was she going now?
The woman looked at Frank closely, blocking her way and not letting her past. She looked serious.
Frank thought back to how the conversation on the doorstep had ended. Mr Underbridge had sent her away, this family friend, this woman who’d babysat Nick, this Auntie Mimi, telling her she couldn’t come in, not unless she came back with a warrant.
A warrant?
Frank thought about that word. She’d heard people say it on television shows. It was what the police needed to have before they could search your house, wasn’t it? Was Auntie Mimi a policewoman? It didn’t sound like a policewoman’s name, Mimi.
‘Are you the police?’ Frank asked.
The woman laughed briefly.
‘In a manner of speaking … no,’ she said. She narrowed her eyes. ‘What makes you ask?’
‘Nick’s dad,’ Frank said. ‘He said you needed to get a warrant.’
Frank was surprised she hadn’t stuttered. This woman was making her nervous, slightly, at the very edges. She had eyes that caught hold of yours and looked into them. As much as Frank wanted to look away, as uncomfortable as she felt, she found she couldn’t.
‘You heard that?’
Frank nodded. She probably hadn’t been meant to hear it.
‘What’s your name?’ the woman asked.
‘Francesca,’ Francesca said. And then, when there was no answer to that, ‘Francesca Patel.’
‘Patel? A good strong name,’ the woman replied. ‘I like it. I’m Special Agent Jofolofski, Department of Extra-Existent Affairs.’ She flashed a card in a wallet too quickly for Frank to read anything. ‘So, you’re a friend of Nicholas?’
Frank said, ‘Yes.’ This was the first time she’d admitted it out loud. It was an easy thing to say. She didn’t know how she’d explain it to Jess or to the rest of her class come September, but at some point that had stopped being important.
‘If you want to help him, you should do something for me. Francesca, dear, you don’t need a warrant to go into the house. They like you. They’ll let you in. All you need to do is take a little thing into the cellar for me.’ She paused, tapped the arm of her dark glasses against her teeth and peered at Frank. ‘Do you know what’s down there?’
Frank found herself nodding. She hadn’t meant to, but when had that stopped her admitting things?
‘Good. Let us talk frankly then. We need to shut the leechway before someone else finds it. It’s dangerous. I’ll hold my hands up and admit it was my mistake agreeing to leave it open.’ She looked away as she said this, as if she were talking to herself or to the world instead of to Frank. ‘Will you do it? For me? For us all?’
‘Do what?’ Frank said. ‘I don’t understand what you’re asking.’
‘Take this,’ the woman said, putting her dark glasses back on, opening her briefcase and pulling out a small metal disc.
She handed it to Frank. It was about the size of a chocolate digestive, but heavier.
‘Take it down to the cellar and just put it on the ground. That’s all. After that you can go. Then the next time the leechway opens it’ll set the coagulant charge off –’ she nodded at the disc in Frank’s hand – ‘and it’ll all seal up as if there had never been an unplugged hole in the realities down there at all. No more leakage. No shadows, no smells, no dreams. No more risk. Simple.’
‘I just saw one,’ Frank said, not exactly changing the subject, and not exactly stalling for time, but just for something to say. ‘A shadow with nothing casting it. In the garden, just now.’
‘Oh, they’re not usually anything to worry about,’ Agent Jofolofski said. ‘It’ll just wander about for a bit, then fade away. Ten minutes, half an hour and they’re gone if they’re left alone. Trouble is not everyone leaves them alone, in the same way not everyone leaves a leechway alone. If you’ve got the right tools, the right abilities … it’s bad news. So, take this –’ she pointed at the metal disc in Frank’s hand – ‘and do as I ask.’
‘I’m not sure,’ Frank said. There were a lot of words to listen to, but something the woman hadn’t said kept poking at her brain. ‘This thing will take Nick’s mum away, won’t it? He’ll never see her again?’
The woman sighed.
‘Oh, child,’ she said. ‘You’re right, he won’t see her again, but this is more important than Nick and his mother. If this leechway isn’t shut and soon, Bad Things will happen. Do you know what Bad Things are, little girl? They’re not Good.’ The woman was patronising Frank now. ‘There are people out there, Bad People, who are always looking for these leechways between worlds. People who’ll take it and point it at some other other world. At somewhere more dangerous than where Nick’s from. And it won’t just be a window any more. They’ll force it open and let things out. Dangerous things. You wouldn’t want that, would you?’
‘B-b-but it’s been there for years,’ Frank said. ‘Nothing’s happened. N-n-nothing’s come out. It’s just bouncing. Nick said so. Nick said y-y-you said so.’
‘He talks too much,’ the woman said, looking like a disappointed teacher. She went on, ‘There are ways to open it again. And there are people, and things, out there who know how. Trust me on this.’
Frank believed her. She spoke as if she were sure of what she was saying, as if there really wasn’t much time, as if Bad Things were about to happen, and Frank withered under her words. She shrivelled up inside. It was her fault that thing
s had changed, that what had been normal and harmless for years and years was now broken and endangered.
She believed the woman, but she didn’t like her.
‘Look, just go back,’ the woman said. ‘Go back and drop this in the cellar and save the day, little girl. Save the world. It’s easy. Simple. The Right Thing to do.’
‘I can’t,’ Frank said, holding the metal disc out to the woman. ‘I just can’t. It’s not right. You can’t ask me to do it. It’s not my place, not my secret. She’s not my mum. I can’t do that to Nick.’
Special Agent Jofolofski pulled her dark glasses off, rubbed the bridge of her nose and looked sadly at Frank.
For a moment she was silent, then she replaced her glasses, looked away and said softly, ‘Keep it,’ pushing Frank’s hand away. ‘Keep it, just in case.’
She opened the car door and climbed inside.
‘I’ll be back tomorrow, if there is one.’
Frank pulled her bike up on to the pavement as the woman drove off, turning right at the end of the street, by her school.
She thought about throwing the disc away, just forgetting it all, but instead she slipped it into her pocket. It felt heavy against her thigh, tugged down on her belt.
‘Let’s go home,’ her stomach said, as if it had just come out from hiding.
‘Where’ve you been?’ she asked.
‘Oh, nowhere,’ it said. ‘Nowhere.’
Frank wheeled her bike slowly along by the school field, along the pavement that led to the rec. She felt like she’d fallen through a hole in the floor of the normal world and into a spy film. Or was it a science fiction film? It certainly didn’t feel like a comedy.
This woman – Auntie Mimi or Special Agent Jofolofski or whoever she was – wanted her to shut the window, wanted Frank to be the one to cut Nick off from his mum for good, and for what? To save the world from ‘Bad People’ because Noble had posted a video of the window online?
If Agent Jofolofski had really had the video taken off the internet, like Frank had overheard Nick’s dad say, then what was the problem? It couldn’t have been online for more than a few hours. Who’d’ve had a chance to see it?
Surely the secret was safe after all?
‘Yeah,’ said her stomach. (It had been listening in.) ‘Of course it’s safe now. Nothing’s wrong at all. Everything is perfect. This is just a perfectly ordinary day.’
Sarcasm dripped on to the pavement in venomous little puddles.
She wheeled her bike towards the entrance to the park.
She didn’t know what she was supposed to do. Her stomach was right, of course: you can’t make an uncovered secret secret again. Nick’s mum remained in danger, and Frank still hadn’t told Nick the truth.
What should she do? What would be best for Nick? For her?
She wanted to turn around and go back to Nick’s house. She wanted to tell him it was her fault, that she was the one who’d spilt the beans. She wanted to apologise and make it better. But then she felt the heft of the metal disc in her pocket and knew that the past couldn’t just be put back the way it was, that an apology wasn’t enough.
Frank was paying more attention to the pavement, and to the swirling insides of her head, than to the world around her. To her shock, and totally without warning, she was knocked to the ground by two hurtling figures.
The bike fell one way and she went the other, landing hard on her backside. She rolled on the damp pavement and ended up facing the way she’d come from, shaken but unhurt.
Looking up and rubbing grit off her hands, she recognised the backs of the two boys who’d knocked her down. It was Roy and Rob, or possibly Rob and Roy.
No apology was forthcoming, but there was no insult either, she remembered later, no smart Alec comment tossed over their shoulders. They just kept on running, as if knocking her down had been an accident, as if they’d hardly even noticed her. That was odd.
By the time she’d climbed to her feet, they’d gone, off round the corner. She’d never seen them move so fast. Didn’t know they had it in them. They were thick-headed and thick-footed. They always reminded her of Frankenstein’s monster, prodded into action, encouraged and sparked into life by Neil Noble’s electric words. He pressed their buttons, pulled their strings, and they danced to his will.
So, what were they doing on their own? Running like that?
Neither she nor her stomach had an answer, but they were gone and it didn’t look like they were coming back, so she started off again, heading for home.
As soon as she entered the park she realised something was wrong.
A smell like fireworks or bacon burning hung in the air, woven in with the usual scent of wet grass and anxiety.
A spider scuttled its cold feet down her spine and her stomach looked the other way.
A storm cloud was hanging over the rec. The rest of the park was sparkling in the afternoon sunshine, the grass glinting with raindrops, but no sun reached the swings or the slide or the roundabout. Just that one corner of the park was dark.
And there were voices.
Raised voices.
Naturally she looked; she couldn’t help but turn and look that way, even though she’d immediately recognised one of them as Noble’s voice and had no desire to look at him.
But for a moment she couldn’t make sense of what she saw.
She could hear Neil arguing with someone. Could hear his voice, but she couldn’t see him anywhere.
All she could see was a woman stood beside the roundabout, looking down at it.
She was young-looking, just a young mum with a smart pram, hair pulled back in a tight neat bun.
And then Frank blinked. There was something else.
It was as if she saw two pictures at once, two views of the world, one on top of the other, like when she had first seen Nick’s mum in the cellar.
Where the woman stood, aping her posture, matching her gestures, was a thinner, blacker, more stick-man-ish, scarecrow-like figure. A pale blank face and fingers like twigs. Darkness hung over the rec again; shadows twisted around the thing’s ankles.
And then Frank blinked again and all she could see, once more, was the perfectly normal-looking woman, and now she was standing up straight, turning around.
But where was Noble? Hiding in the shadows somewhere?
She had the oddest feeling that this woman, this young mum, was what Roy and Rob had been running from. That they hadn’t just been in a hurry to get somewhere, that they’d been running in fear.
Had they seen what Frank had just seen? The stick-creature? Could they see the shadows? Did they understand what was happening?
Again the air shook, shuddered, and Frank saw what was supposed to be hidden, saw the ragged stick-creature, spiderish and sharp-edged. It loomed, pointing its flat, pale, almost blank face down at the floor of the roundabout, as if examining something.
Frank stood stuck to the spot and swallowed. She was terrified in an entirely new way, a better, braver way. This thing wasn’t just some stupid boy who made her life hell; this was something entirely other, something from a real nightmare. It was right to be afraid of it.
And then she blinked and somehow the world was back to normal. The stick-figure was gone and in its place was the young woman, looking perfectly normal, perfectly human.
She didn’t think she was going mad, just that some disguises are better than others. This thing-become-woman was clearly an expert. (When had Frank become so expert at noticing this weird stuff? When had it become normal to think about monsters and other worlds and shadows without stuttering?)
Her heart held its breath as the woman, pushing her pram, came out of the fenced off rec, looked at her and smiled.
And then, with one glance behind her, the woman pushed the pram up the path through the park towards the exit that led to Frank’s estate. The opposite direction to Nick’s house.
Frank breathed a sigh of relief at that. She was worried what would happen if this woman,
this thing, found its way to the window in Nick’s cellar, found his mum. Surely, Frank reckoned, that was what it was after Neil Noble for. His face had been in the video; it must’ve tracked him down somehow. It couldn’t just be coincidence that a thing like this turned up in their rec at this particular moment, could it?
She wasn’t the sort to judge books by covers or people by their appearances, but if this was the sort of thing that was hunting for the window, that wanted to control it, then perhaps Agent Jofolofski was right to be worried.
What are you doing?’ her stomach said.
‘Just taking a look,’ she said.
Her hand was already on the metal latch of the little gate that led through the hip-high fence and into the playground.
‘We should get home before it rains,’ her stomach said.
She looked at the sky, now cloudless and deep blue. The shadows had gone.
‘This’ll only take a minute,’ she said.
She had a curiosity that needed satisfying. She had to know where Noble was.
She walked slowly across the tarmac, eyes open, searching, looking.
The swings were empty and swayed restlessly in the occasional breeze. There was no one sat in the little shelter under the slide, no one sat on the bench beside the bin Rob had pulled that carrier bag of rubbish from, pretending it was Quintilius Minimus. That had been only a few days ago, but it seemed so much longer.
She wished Quintilius Minimus would show up now, that he’d just come strolling out of the shadows and explain to her what to do next. How she could help Nick.
But the cat didn’t appear. Cats aren’t to be relied upon.
She looked over at the nettles, the deep patch of rustling nettles that were the cause of all this trouble. If she’d just left her bag in there, then none of this would have happened … but she’d had enough of looking back and wishing things otherwise, enough of trying to find a place to lay the blame.
She stopped beside the roundabout. Noble wasn’t here. He wasn’t anywhere.
The Song From Somewhere Else Page 9