by Julia Jones
“A myth! So he doesn’t have a great aunt at all?”
Donny recognised the voice. That wasn’t TV. That was Gerald. And the other one had been Wendy.
But they couldn’t be discussing …him?
“Well, technically he may have had one once. Leeds Social Services had been doing some fairly thorough research before the boy and his mother left. To see whether there was anyone else who could take responsibility. There was a consensus that the mother would break down sooner or later. As of course she has.”
“But did they find an aunt? A great aunt, I mean. Or is she just his fantasy?”
Fantasy!
Donny had to grab onto the bottom of the banisters to stop himself from barging in and starting to shout all over again. They thought Granny’s sister was his fantasy? Inside the study, the voices carried on.
“Edith Walker, the boy’s grandmother – if she really was his grandmother – was one of five. Three sisters and two brothers. Both the brothers were casualties and the files close on the middle sister sometime in the mid-fiftes. Not long after the mother was born … poor creature …”
“Hereditary problem?”
Donny’s face was burning and his hands clammy with sweat. He couldn’t believe that this was his family they were discussing. Probably over a nice hot cup of Horlicks.
Maybe it wasn’t. Granny hadn’t really had all those sisters and brothers. Had she?
“Hard to be certain … Leeds found Edith Walker very difficult to deal with. Paranoid secrecy about her family affairs. She made them take new names, you know.”
There was a pause. For head shaking probably. Or swigging.
Donny was frozen to the spot. What did they mean about names? Did the Social Services know how they’d sometimes called each other ‘Nokomis’, ‘Minnehaha’, ‘Hiawatha’? Donny couldn’t believe Granny would have told them that. It was private! Anyway that was Skye, not Granny.
Rev. Wendy hadn’t finished. “It was extraordinary that she managed to persuade them to let her keep the boy when that poor mother got pregnant … spent everything she had on lawyers, apparently.”
“No father there either, I suppose?” Gerald asked as if he already knew the answer.
“No trace of one …” Her voice dropped and there was the sound of spoon on saucer. “I know you thought Inspector Flint was being a little harsh, dear, but one can’t leave anything to chance in these difficult times. I understand, from Denise, that the Inspector plays a vital role in our protection.”
Gerald mumbled something that Donny couldn’t hear. It didn’t sound like a protest. Then Wendy carried on as if she was catching him up on the first episode of a Sunday night serial.
“The only trace they’ve found, you know, is an inclusion in the Foreign Office Undesirable Aliens list.”
“So, let me get this quite clear. Denise Tune’s Assessment suggests that either the boy or the mother concocted this story when they realised that Leeds were about to section her? But … a story like that … in those circumstances … seems almost rational! All this talk of Shotley – and Shanghai?”
“Fantasists often provide a surprising level of detail, Denise Tune says. And she is the Professional. I believe she’s leading a research project into children’s rescue myths.” Had Wendy needed convincing? “Or the grandmother – if that’s what she was – may have planted the idea when she knew she couldn’t look after them any more. Perhaps she thought they’d get an easier ride down here. The boy claims some arrangement has been made but there’s simply no hard evidence …”
Donny was shaking with fury now. Hard evidence! He had Great Aunt Ellen’s telegram upstairs. Granny had written a letter and Great Aunt Ellen had answered. That’s why they’d come. Not to get an ‘easy ride’ … What a joke that was! Why couldn’t these people just shut up and listen?
His hunger was gone. He turned and started pounding back upstairs to fetch his piece of paper so he could shove it in their faces.
Two at a time. He didn’t care how much noise he made.
But as he reached the landing and climbed hastily over the safety-gate, the baby started its high abandoned wailing. The study door opened, spilling light into the hall. He could hear one of the carers coming up the stairs and the other one heading for the kitchen.
There was someone else at the end of the landing. A pale figure dodging out of view. Donny couldn’t see properly. The only upstairs light was a floor-level low-wattage bulb glowing dimly beside the bathroom. He hurried into his own room and closed the door. Quietly.
Had he been watched all the time he’d been standing outside the study? Would the other person have heard what was being said?
He hoped it was another child. But they hadn’t been coming from the bathroom. Maybe they’d been visiting each other. He didn’t know where anyone slept. He wasn’t even sure how many there were. Or whose side they would be on. He hadn’t spoken to anyone yet.
Only shouted.
Donny sprawled awkwardly across his narrow bed. No chance of sleep. He could read Swallows and Amazons, he supposed, but what good would that do?
He’d put so much trust in Granny – childish, unthinking trust. After today he felt as if the person he thought he’d known was twisting away from him faster than the smoke from the burning grave-post. Sisters and brothers she’d never mentioned? Some sort of phobia about water that she’d never admitted? An old-fashioned story-book about kids and boats – with a secret?
Skye had said they needed to let Granny go. And that’s what he’d tried to do.
Now he was beginning to wonder what was left? A few flakes of wood-ash in a garden that he’d never see again?
No return. The bungalow wasn’t his home any more. That was a shocking thought. They’d lived there all his life and he’d left as casually as if he were going on a school day-trip.
Donny squeezed his eyes shut.
Skye had told him about walking in the mind. He’d see if he could get back home to the bungalow again, find if there was something he’d forgotten. Something helpful Granny might have left for them.
Their quiet road was empty and the garden gate was closed. No one saw Donny lift the latch and imagine himself onto the path. The new people hadn’t arrived and the grass either side of the pebbles had grown stalky and dry in the summer sun. There were seed-pods too. He wished he could pick some and bring them back with him for Skye to use in her weaving. It was time to make new dream-catchers for the winter nights ahead.
He didn’t hang about in the garden. He probably couldn’t keep this up for long. He was glad to find the old blackened camping kettle in its place beside the door. (That meant he must be dreaming because he knew Skye had packed it safely in the camper van. )
But there it was, in his mind, with the house key safe inside. So he let himself in quickly and went straight to Granny’s room.
The best way to find something missing was to retrace your steps, go back to where you last remembered having it and start your search from there. That’s what Granny had said.
And it worked.
He went over to her desk and started pulling open drawers.
It wasn’t there.
The letter that proved that Granny had cared for them. Her Last Wishes. With Great Aunt Ellen’s name and address written on it.
Donny had posted it but the small man had seen it first. Had picked it up. Wanted to take it.
Then, when he came back from the letterbox, the small man was gone and so was Granny’s address book and diary.
Wouldn’t he have checked the address book? Told other people in the Social Services? Granny would have written her sister’s address. Donny was sure of that. She liked lists.
So why didn’t Wendy and Gerald know that there was someone else who might take him off their hands? Why had they been told that Great Aunt Ellen was a Myth?
Social Service people kept copies of everything. They carried enough paper around. So what about the fat policemen and Denise
Tune? Were they really as ignorant as they made out? They were so suspicious, so angry ...
And what was an Undesirable Aliens list? That sounded really weird. Did they think Granny’s sister was from Mars?
CHAPTER SIX
Awful Anna
Thursday, September 14th
It was neither light nor dark in the vicarage bedroom. Not night any more but surely not yet time for another day? Donny tried to read the un-illuminated clock. He didn’t want to be awake.
Half-five. Reluctantly he tiptoed along the cold wooden floor to the bathroom. He had a pee and then, because he’d woken up with Granny in his head, he brushed his teeth. She had always managed to make him feel guilty if he’d gone to bed without washing properly. She didn’t even have to say anything. He hoped that Great Aunt Ellen wouldn’t be quite so hot on tooth-brushing but it was probably too late. He’d never be able to kick that habit now.
The terrible thing about being called a fantasist – or a scrounger and a liar – thought Donny, climbing gloomily back into bed, was that you might have to spend a stupid amount of time proving that you weren’t. Like having to sign a formal declaration every day to swear you’d really scrubbed for the full two minutes. And offering to take disclosing tablet tests.
Denise Tune would obviously have told Mrs Ribiero all her Professional theories about Great Aunt Ellen being Donny’s ‘rescue myth’ or him and Skye having come here for an ‘easy ride’. So that was the end of that friendship. Because he wasn’t going to bother proving stuff. No disclosing tablets. Either they believed him or they didn’t.
Donny sighed. He really needed to see Skye. He fetched his pencils and spent the next hour or so drawing more pages of her picture-letter. He still didn’t know where she was but somebody must.
“We’ve asked Anna to be responsible for you on the bus,” Wendy said at breakfast.
Anna, a small girl with mousy hair and a pale, pointy face, did not look up from her Weetabix.
“We’re a little disappointed that she didn’t show more initiative yesterday. But of course we forgive her. It’s early days for her too. She’s working through her resentment at her Maternal Rejection.”
Including Donny there were five children round the vicarage breakfast table. They were all foster children – ‘looked after’ children, as Sandra called them. They didn’t talk to each other much except for the two fair-haired boys, obviously brothers, who kicked and argued with each other constantly and glared menacingly at everyone else. Donny got the impression that the other four children were related in some way but he wasn’t sure how. He imagined them wearing evacuee labels but with ‘fantasist’ or ‘reject’ written on them instead of names and addresses.
Rev. Wendy hardly had time to sit down. She was an older middle-aged woman with a round face and rosy cheeks. She looked as if she should naturally have been plump and jolly but instead she was thin and self-controlled. She was always gathering papers for some meeting or moving to the study to take phone calls. When she wasn’t doing that she stood beside the table being Understanding. Donny noticed that she always seemed to pause for a moment before she spoke, as if thinking carefully how she should phrase some unpleasant truth. Unfortunately she only seemed to think about the phrasing.
Neither foster parent looked as if fun played a big part in their lives. Gerald was tall and lean and lined. He worked from home and did all the food preparation and baby care. Wendy explained to Donny that Gerald would always Be There for him.
Donny was glad he’d overheard their private conversation. Otherwise he might have wasted his time trying to like them. “Were you on the bus yesterday?” he asked Anna, as they walked the half-mile of road to the pick-up point. It seemed mean that she’d had to be ‘forgiven’ when it was him who’d bunked off.
She nodded. “You didn’t notice me. You were talking to those two girls.”
“Not all the time,” said Donny. “They weren’t on the bus all the time. They got on later. Where were you at the beginning? As in now, for instance?”
“I was here. Wendy didn’t offer to give me a lift so I went down early and waited on the other side of the shelter where you wouldn’t see me. I don’t like other people so I keep out of the way.”
“But now you have to be looking out for me all the time or you’re in trouble. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t smile back. Her face stayed expressionless and pale under her scattering of freckles. She looked as if she had been sad for always.
“I saw you bunk off,” she said. “But I didn’t tell anyone. I never tell. Even at House Meetings.”
“Thanks,” said Donny.
They stood a few steps apart at the collection point.
“Er ... what are House Meetings?”
“Wendy and Gerald have them at the end of every week. On Fridays. We all have to sit round the table and say things about each other. It’s supposed to help us be more open about our feelings. I think Denise Tune told them to do it. Then they report back and tell her what we’ve said.”
They waited in silence till the bus came.
“Do you mind if I sit beside you?” he asked her as they climbed on board.
“Suit yourself,” she answered.
The seats around them had been filled by the time Xanthe and Maggi got on. “Hi, Donny,” they called, amongst a flurry of other greetings, though not, he noticed, including Anna.
As soon as they reached the school Anna walked quickly inside. She didn’t speak to anyone or look at them. Maggi was deep in conversation with three or four friends but Xanthe hung back.
“You go ahead,” she told her sister, “I need to talk to this guy.”
She lowered her voice as they walked the short distance from the turning circle to the school entrance. She looked worried and kind.
“Hey, Donny, what happened? We saw you shouting at that policeman but we couldn’t hear. You looked well upset. Mum was in such a moody when she came back. Said that the policeman was completely out of order. Said she’d never seen a situation handled so badly. Then she clammed. Are you okay?”
Donny didn’t know how to begin to answer. He’d stuffed his second-hand school blazer into a locker before he’d bunked off and he wasn’t quite sure whether he’d find it again. He couldn’t be late for registration today.
“Yeah, I’m okay. Look, I’ve got to go. If I get in trouble they’ll blame Anna.”
“Awful Anna? That grumpy-guts? What’s it to do with her?”
“She’s being made to be responsible for me. And she’s not awful. She’s miserable. So would you be if you were her! You don’t get it. Not at all.”
“Sorr-ee!”
But Donny had already gone.
Once he’d found his blazer and knew he was going to make it to registration he wished he hadn’t said all that. As if he couldn’t talk to anyone without snapping. Xanthe was only being friendly. Anna had said she didn’t like anybody so it wasn’t exactly surprising that no-one liked her.
She didn’t give the impression that she liked him either. So why risk falling out with the Ribieros? Their mum hadn’t bad- mouthed him after last night and there was something so important that he wanted to ask them.
“Hmm, it’s the Boy Who Missed the Bus is it?” said a snowy- bearded teacher who had to be Donny’s tutor, Mr McMullen. “Well, you’re not the first and I don’t suppose you’ll be the last. Nevertheless a Higher Authority informs me that I’ve got to keep you on report for the rest of the week. That means you’re to call and see me at first break and before lunch and at the end of the day – as well as the normal registration periods at the beginning of every session. And you’re to carry a card for staff to sign. You may feel that it’s lucky for you that it’s Thursday already. Alternatively you might decide that it’d be useful if we got to know each other better?”
He looked inquiringly at Donny then he shook his head. “Your choice.”
The tutor seemed genial enough but being on report was a pain. Do
nny’d planned to spend all his spare time in the library. Not looking out of the window at the reservoir. Well, not all the time. He wanted to check out their local studies section for stuff about Shotley, in case it gave him any clues why Great Aunt Ellen wanted to meet there.
In other circs he’d probably have asked. But, however laid back Mr McMullen sounded, he was not currently to be trusted. He’d said he’d ‘been told’ to put Donny on report. So someone had got to him already. If Donny started asking Mr McMullen if he knew anything interesting about Shotley, they’d assume he was seeking more ‘detail’ for his ‘fantasies’.
Mr McMullen didn’t bother making Donny do tests: he’d rung his previous school and got all the levels from them. So Donny was straight off into lessons plus reporting back to the DT block at regular intervals to tell the tutor he was still on site. He didn’t see Anna or Xanthe all day but did meet Maggi coming out of the dining hall as he was finally trailing in.
“Could you tell your sister I’m really sorry about this morning?” Maggi looked a bit surprised but nodded cheerfully enough.
“Yeah, sure, whatever ...”
He made it to the library as well. Eating was quick when you didn’t have anyone to talk to. There was quite a lot of info about Shotley – mainly some old battle at a place called Bloody Point – but the bit that was good from Donny’s point of view was that Shotley had once had a naval training base. He thought that Granny’s brother might have been in the Navy.
Or was he getting muddled with Swallows and Amazons? That had Navy in it.
As he swiped his card in the library monitoring system and set off yet again for the DT block, Donny thought about Granny and about letting go. Skye had said that you mustn’t weigh down your loved ones with your grief or they’d never reach the place of peace. Problem was that you couldn’t let stuff go if you didn’t know what you’d got in the first place. Maybe that was why Skye had broken down, so soon after they had bought their copy of Granny’s secret book.