Zoran was looking really confused.
“But he was asleep at home when I left!”
“Did you check on him?” I asked.
“I just assumed,” he admitted. Poor Zoran was shaking. Gloria took command.
“Where do you think he has gone?” she demanded.
“SPAIN!” Flora howled. “By boat! Today!”
Twig nodded and said. “The Portsmouth Santander service.”
“How do you know that?” Gloria asked.
“I have spent a lot of time recently studying transportation,” Twig replied.
Zoran looked like he did when he lost Twig on the train last year, only much, much worse. Gloria said, “We have to find out from which station and when trains leave for Portsmouth.”
“Trains to Portsmouth Harbor leave from Waterloo,” Twig said. “There are trains all the time. The next one leaves at ten, and gets in at eleven thirty-three. Of course, he might have caught the bus, which is cheaper, but slower. I don’t know the bus timetables. The ferries leave at different times every day, depending on the tides. If someone gives me a smartphone, I can look up today’s sailing time.”
“Thank goodness for Maisie’s little brother,” Zoran muttered as he copied down train times. His phone rang. “Maybe it’s Zach,” Zoran said hopefully, then he looked at the number. “Oh ****, it’s his grandfather.”
He walked away from us to take the call.
Gloria raised an eyebrow at me. “Zach is the boy from the performance?”
“Yes.”
“And his grandfather?”
“Is in hospital. Zoran is supposed to be looking after Zach.”
“And the reason it’s a bad thing Zach is with his mother?”
“She’s a witch,” said Flora. “She keeps running away, and she tried to kill Mum.”
“I see,” Gloria said. “And are Zach and Zoran related?”
“Not even a little bit,” I said. “Zoran’s just a very, very nice person.”
Gloria smiled.
Zoran came back from talking to Mr. Rudowski, looking shaken but also quite determined. “He wanted to know if we’d found his daughter.”
“What did he say when you said you’d lost his grandson?” asked Twig.
“He was understandably very upset,” Zoran said. “This time he said we should call the police.”
“And tell them what?” Gloria asked. “That a boy has run away with his mother?”
“It’s all my fault!” cried Flora. “I was mean to him! Zoran, you have to do something! He can’t run away with her, she’s evil!”
“I don’t think she’s evil,” Zoran said slowly. “But I agree he can’t go with her.”
He was holding his phone to his ear again. “Straight to answerphone.” He started tapping out a text.
“How can you text at a time like this!”
I’ve never seen Flora so hysterical.
“It’s important. He might read a text, even if he’s not answering his phone.”
“We have to do something, Zoran!” Flora begged
“Yes, but what?” Zoran said.
“Find him of course,” said Bill. Everyone turned around and looked at him like he was mad, or a genius, or maybe both.
“How?” asked Zoran.
Unlike Dad, Bill copes beautifully in a crisis.
“The train station, the bus station, and the harbor,” he said. “Chances are he’s left town already, but you never know. Gloria’ll take Waterloo, I’ll go to Victoria, you get yourself down to Portsmouth.”
“By train?” Zoran looked confused.
“Don’t be daft, man! By bike!”
We all looked a little bit skeptically across to where Zoran’s electric scooter was parked under the chestnut tree.
“Not that thing!” Bill grunted. He shuffled across the yard to the box right at the end of the row and threw the doors open. Inside stood what I have since discovered is a gleaming vintage Harley-Davidson.
“Mine, from a long time ago,” Bill said. “Still goes like the wind, though you’ll have to top up the fuel. You’d better get going.”
“But you? How will you get to Waterloo? To Victoria? By train?”
Bill laughed then, a real laugh, not a wheeze.
“How do you think we’ll get there?” he roared. “On horseback!”
And suddenly they were all running around like headless chickens.
“I’m coming with you!” Flora yelled as Zoran pulled his helmet on.
“I cannot take responsibility . . .”
“Bill, have you got a spare helmet? Leathers? Can I have some riding boots?”
“You go to Victoria, Gloria, I’ll take Waterloo!”
“Flora,” I said, “oh, for God’s sake, just get on!”
“I called my friend Penny who helps me sometimes,” Gloria cried, dashing past with a bridle and saddle. “She’ll be here in about twenty minutes. Until then I’m leaving you kids in charge.”
Zoran gazed at her in admiration.
“Move!” Flora screeched.
They were all gone in less than ten minutes, in a cloud of diesel fumes and a clatter of hooves. I’m not sure it’s good for horses to gallop down streets. I’m pretty certain it’s illegal. But I do know I’ve never seen Bill look so happy.
“Do you think he really did used to be a jockey?” Jas sat on the floor, cuddling Ron and Hermione, while Flopsy nibbled her sweatshirt.
“Looks like it,” I said.
“Who do you think will find him?” asked Twig.
We started to try to guess—Gloria, because she’s so cool! Bill, because he’s the fastest!—but our conversation was cut short when our car shrieked into the yard and Dad threw open the door, demanding to know why he had just seen Flora riding off down the street on the back of a motorbike.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, LATER
I had to stop writing because I was feeling sick. I have never been so fast in a car, ever.
It only took Dad about five minutes to get the whole story out of us. The minute he heard what Flora and Zoran were doing, he yelled that he was going after them. Then he realized he had no idea how to get to Portsmouth Harbor, and needed Twig to go with him because Twig is the only one who understands how to use the SatNav. I said I wanted to go too, which meant Jas also had to come because she’s too small to be left alone.
“But we have to wait for Penny,” Jas said, partly because she is a very responsible stable hand but also because she was buying time for Zoran and Flora to get away.
Once we were finally off, Dad drove like a lunatic, yelling out random sentences like, “I only came to find you because I felt bad about the kittens!” and “Spain! Portsmouth! Motorbikes! Jesus!” and “WhyOWhyOWhy are we having another baby?”
“I still don’t understand why we are going after them,” Twig said as we roared onto the motorway.
“They might have an accident!” Dad shouted. “Zach’s mother is a maniac! Flora might run away to Spain! ANYTHING MIGHT HAPPEN!”
Dad swerved to avoid a lorry. Twig screamed.
“I am just doing what any parent would do!” Dad yelled.
“Is Daddy being a hero?” Jas whispered to me.
“In a way,” I whispered back.
We caught up with Zoran and Flora as they pulled out of a gas station on the motorway.
“I thought motorbikes were really fast,” Jas remarked. “How come they’re not farther ahead?”
“Zoran is a very responsible driver,” I said. Dad gave a short laugh, swerved again and swore.
“You can’t slow down,” Twig told him. “The ferry sails in less than an hour.”
We kept them in our sights right up until the turnoff for Portsmouth, but we lost them in the queue to the harbor, mainly becaus
e Zoran managed to avoid the traffic by riding his motorbike down the oncoming lane, which was empty. Then, when we arrived at the entrance to the harbor, Dad had to explain that we were looking for the ferry to Spain, but that we didn’t have any tickets and nor did we want to buy any.
“I am looking for my daughter!” Dad cried. “She has run away on a motorbike to find her boyfriend.”
The ticket man, whose badge said he was called Percy Williams, said that was the most exciting thing he’d heard all day, but that boarding for the Queen Sofia had already closed.
“We’re too late!” Jas wailed.
“Let us through!” Dad snarled at Percy. “My daughter is somewhere in this precinct and I mean to bring her home!”
Percy said he sympathized because he also had daughters, but in his experience there was not a blind bit of use trying to stop them falling in love with unsuitable boyfriends.
“You’ve just got to let it run its course,” Percy advised. Behind us, a long line of cars were honking their horns. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave now.”
Dad reversed out of the line, parked the car on the side of the road, and tore back past Percy’s hut at a sprint, with the rest of us right behind him. Quite a few people were watching by now and a group of kids on a school trip even started to cheer.
“There’s no more boat until tomorrow!” Percy shouted after us, but Dad didn’t listen. He ran, and we ran after him, all the way to the waterfront, and then he stopped so suddenly we all bumped into him, because there, sitting on a pillar on the quayside, looking out to sea with his rucksack at his feet and his guitar still on his back, watching the Queen Sofia pull out of Portsmouth Harbor, was Zach. And there also, walking toward him, clad in leather and carrying their helmets and looking like something out of a Hollywood movie, were Zoran and Flora.
Zach looked up when he heard footsteps behind him. Zoran and Flora both reached out to touch him. Zach said something we couldn’t hear. Flora flung her arms around him. Zoran put his arms around them both.
Dad sniffed loudly.
Jas announced, “Daddy, I don’t care what you say about us not being allowed to talk to Zach,” and marched over toward the hugging, huddled heap that was Zach and Zoran and Flora. Twig and I followed.
“You missed the boat,” Jas said.
“No, I didn’t,” Zach whispered.
Like Grandma says, there’s always a choice. Zach’s choice was whether to leave or stay. And when he switched his phone back on and read Zoran’s text, he made his decision.
Zoran’s text said: “Ask Wanda to tell you the truth about why she left you.”
So he did. And I don’t know what he said to her, but for once Wanda did tell him the truth.
After Zach’s Gran died, Mr. Rudowski gave Wanda a choice: stay at home with them and get medical help, or leave. He said if she stayed he would help her, but that things couldn’t go on as they had before, that it wasn’t fair to Zach.
“The doctors would have put me on drugs,” Wanda told Zach. “I didn’t want that.”
Mr. Rudowski didn’t kick her out. Wanda chose to leave.
“Witch,” Flora said fiercely.
“She’s not a witch,” Zach said softly. “She’s frightened.”
Flora snorted. Zoran frowned at her and she stopped.
“But why did you run away?” Jas wanted to know.
“She asked me to go with her.” Zach said.
Suddenly I remembered how lost he looked at Zoran’s concert, when he realized Wanda hadn’t come after all. I pictured him as a little boy, laughing with his mum at one of her crazy picnics. And then I thought of him and Mr. Rudowski, living alone in the old house by the river, both missing people who weren’t there, and I understood.
I guess a part of Zach will always want to be with his mum.
So Zach left. He went home to Zoran’s flat, said nothing, waited till Zoran was sleeping, and crept back to his grandfather’s house in the early morning.
“I was going to do it,” he said. “All the way down on the train Mum kept talking about the mountains, about fig and apricot and almond trees, goats and beaches and blue sky. I knew even then that it was crazy, but she made it sound wonderful. Then we arrived, and I switched on my phone, and there was Zoran’s text. After Mum told me the truth, all I could think about was Grandad. He lied for her. He let me believe he’d kicked her out so I didn’t know she’d chosen to leave me. And he’s old and sick, he’s completely lost without Grandma, and I’ve been so angry with him. So I said I wasn’t going with her. And Mum—Mum decided to leave.”
Zach’s voice wobbled, but he didn’t cry. Flora hugged him even closer.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Me too,” he replied. “As someone very wise once explained to me—it’s the people who stay who really matter.”
He looked at me when he said that, and I felt all happy inside.
Far out at sea, the Queen Sofia had disappeared. We were all watching it: Twig, Jas, and me with our feet dangling over the water, Zach on one pillar with his arms around Flora, Zoran on another. It was a big moment.
“The ones who stay, and the ones who come after you.”
Dad had crept up on us without any of us hearing.
“I’m glad you stayed, son,” he said.
Slowly, slowly, Zach smiled his amazing smile.
“Come on,” Zoran said. “I’ll buy you all something to eat.”
We turned our backs on the sea and walked across the empty quayside to the entrance to the embarkation lot.
“No way is that yours!” Zach said, when we stopped at Bill’s Harley.
“It’s a long story,” Zoran said.
Twig’s phone rang while we were arguing about who should ride into town with Zoran. “It’s for you,” he said, handing me the phone. “It’s that mad cow you call your best friend.”
“Tell Twig I heard that,” Dodi said. “And where are you?”
“Portsmouth,” I grinned.
“What? Where even is that? Listen, Jake’s had an idea.”
I let Dodi talk. Flora and Zach were sitting together on the motorbike. Dad was on the phone to Mum, trying to explain what had happened, and Jas was talking to Gloria on Zoran’s phone. Flora wrapped her arms around Zach and whispered something in his ear. They both laughed. The sun was shining. The sea was blue. It was perfect.
“Tomorrow then,” Dodi was saying.
“Sure,” I smiled, and gave the phone back to Twig.
Zoran rode into town with Zach, and we all followed behind.
THE FILM DIARIES OF BLUEBELL GADSBY
SCENE TEN (TRANSCRIPT)
CRIMINAL ACTIVITY
EXTERIOR. PREDAWN. THE PLAYGROUND OF CLARENDON FREE SCHOOL.
JAKE, COLIN, SAM, DODI, and CAMERAMAN (BLUE) have just scaled the school gates and huddle beneath the window of the staff common room.
CAMERAMAN (BLUE)
Won’t it be locked?
JAKE
(proud of himself)
Shouldn’t be. I slipped in during Saturday detention and stole the window bolts.
CAMERAMAN
But isn’t there an alarm?
DODI
Blue, stop being so negative! Jake’s thought of everything! He’s got thirty seconds before it goes off.
CAMERAMAN
Thirty seconds!
JAKE
(assuming the air of a commando officer and brandishing a pair of wire cutters)
All right, lads. I’m going in.
Colin gives him a leg up to the windowsill. Jake crouches on the ledge. It looks for a moment as if he will lose his balance and fall, but then he grins down at his friends on the ground and they realize that he is showing off. He pushes the sash open and reaches down for the camera.
CAMERAMAN (JAKE)
And so our intrepid explorer ventures into the scary depths of the Staff Common Room. This is the den where Math teachers lurk, the natural habitat of child-eating French teachers . . . And here, if our bold adventurer is not mistaken, is said French teacher’s locker.
Picture is reduced to blurred image of common room floor as Jake fumbles in his rucksack. Off camera, there is the sound of heavy breathing, and a sharp click as metal cutters cut through a padlock.
CAMERAMAN (JAKE)
Eureka!
A pair of gloved hands picks through the contents of the locker—books, notebooks, a printed scarf, perfume, two bottles of Evian, a packet of crackers, and a cardboard box containing lipsticks, tissues, and an assortment of confiscated telephones. Jake grabs the lot and stuffs them into his rucksack. The screech of a burglar alarm splits the air. Picture goes mad as Jake vaults out of the window.
CAMERAMAN (JAKE)
RUN!
SUNDAY, JANUARY 26
I’ve never run so fast or laughed so much while I was running. We raced to the school gate, scrambled over it, and kept on running until we reached the park, where we collapsed on a bench, panting and still laughing. Jake reached into his rucksack and pulled out Madame Gilbert’s box of lipsticks and telephones.
“One of these is yours, I believe, milady,” he said.
“I can’t believe you just did that!” I said, taking the box.
“Anything for you, Blue,” Jake said, and that is when I noticed the way that Dodi was looking at him, like he was some kind of superhero.
Dodi likes Jake. I can’t believe I never realized before.
Mum came downstairs today. Now that Dad has developed a taste for being heroic, he wanted to carry her down from her bedroom, but she wouldn’t let him. Instead he has been driving her mad with his fussing, but you can see that she actually loves it. And Zoran came around on his way back from the stables. His excuse for going over was to pick up his scooter and also to pay the fines Gloria and Bill got for galloping their horses across London looking for Zach, but when he came back he couldn’t stop grinning.
Gloria is going to give him riding lessons.
Following Flora Page 15