Copper

by Rebecca Lisle

  For Rina Vergano

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9781448187348

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  First published in 2002 by

  Andersen Press Limited,

  20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  © 2002 by Rebecca Lisle

  The right of Rebecca Lisle to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available

  ISBN 1 84270 047 2

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright

  PART ONE: THE ORDINARY PLACE

  1 Leaving

  2 How Copper Left

  3 Copper’s Birthday

  4 The Journey

  PART TWO: THE MARBLE MOUNTAINS

  5 Spindle House

  6 The First Day

  7 Robin and Oriole

  8 The Rockers

  9 Wood and Stone

  10 Uncle Greenwood

  11 More Clues

  12 Sledging

  13 Looking for the Room at the Top of the House

  14 Copper Investigates the Dumb Waiter

  15 Copper Runs Away

  PART THREE: INSIDE THE ROCK

  16 Granite

  17 Granite’s Secret

  18 Amber

  19 Across the Lake

  20 Home Again

  21 An Extraordinary Block of Ice

  22 Copper Has to Go Back to the Rock

  23 Locked in the Rock

  24 The Mystery of the Green Vapour

  25 The Truth About Great-Grandfather Ash

  26 Brother and Sister

  27 Copper Knows What She Wants to Knit for the First Time

  PART ONE

  The Ordinary Place

  1

  Leaving

  ‘Phew! Made it.’ Copper collapsed into her train seat. The train was due to leave in three minutes. ‘Made it, made it,’ she repeated, breathlessly. ‘Now, please, train, go!’

  The train carriage alongside shifted slowly past and for a second Copper’s heart raced expectantly, thinking she was moving, but then the platform across the rails came into view and she realised what had happened.

  Hurry, hurry, she urged. We must go. We must get away.

  She stared nervously through the train window at the grey mass of people and suddenly she saw them: even though she’d never seen them before, even though she didn’t know what they looked like, she knew it was them.

  She squashed back in her seat and slithered down out of sight, peeping at the men from below the safety of the window ledge.

  They looked foreign; out of context in the busy station. They were bundled about with heavy coats and scarves and big boots. Their hair was long and tangled. Their skin was grey, as if they’d been living under a stone with the worms.

  Up and down they paced, like lions stalking prey and there was an intensity in their wild stares which sent a shiver up Copper’s back.

  Don’t let them see me, don’t let them, please.

  The massive digital clock above the platform showed there were now only 33 seconds to go. They couldn’t reach her now, could they? She peeped round the edge of the window.

  They were staring intently at the other travellers, scrutinising them, then turning away in disgust. Copper thought she could hear them shouting: That’s not her! That’s not her! their angry voices rising above the roar of the station.

  Suddenly the shorter man lunged at a small girl with red hair. He dragged her close, thrusting his face into hers. The girl screamed; her parents grabbed her and at the same moment, a whistle blew shrilly and the two men turned and ran, just as Copper’s train eased slowly out of the station with a long metallic squeal.

  Copper breathed again. ‘Safe,’ she whispered, pulling herself back upright again and relaxing her tensed arms and legs.

  ‘Oi, that’s my nose!’ said a small voice from underneath her.

  ‘Oh, Ralick, sorry,’ Copper whispered. She looked round anxiously, but no one was watching her so she pulled Ralick out and sat him on the arm of the seat. She had to be careful no one saw her talking to a toy: they’d think she was mad. ‘How did you get under me like that?’

  ‘How did you get on top of me like that, you mean.’

  Copper hushed him gently. ‘Ssh, ssh, someone will hear you. I saw them! They were there, Ralick: the men Aunt Ruby told me about. They followed us.’

  ‘Dang! I wish I’d seen them. Wish I’d got my hands on those scoundrels. I may be a stuffed toy but I’m full of fight,’ said Ralick, proudly. ‘What about you? Are you all right? You look all wobbly.’

  ‘I feel a bit wobbly,’ Copper admitted. ‘Frayed at the edges. I’m sort of excited and sad and scared all in one go. I’ll try knitting, it usually helps.’ She pulled the ball of blue wool out of her pocket and cast on some stitches. ‘How will Aunt Ruby be managing without us?’

  ‘Very well, I expect, since she was the one who sent us away,’ said Ralick.

  ‘She didn’t want to,’ said Copper.

  She began knitting, automatically the wool slipped round: pearl one, knit one, pearl one, knit one, and as the rhythm of the train and the rhythm of her knitting flowed together, her thoughts drifted back to the peculiar events that had brought her to that train on that evening, running from everything she’d ever known.

  2

  How Copper Left

  ‘I’d like to have a wolf,’ said Copper.

  She was curled up on the old sofa by the fire in her aunt’s studio with a book on her lap, watching Aunt Ruby working on a sculpture. ‘It says in this book that wolves are one of the most faithful animals in the world.’

  ‘Wolves?’ Aunt Ruby’s chisel clattered to the floor. ‘Goodness, Copper, what are you talking about wolves for?’ Aunt Ruby noisily blew some fine dust from the curves of her sculpture. ‘A wolf? You want a wolf?’

  ‘Yes. It says they’re very loyal creatures.’ She put her book down. ‘Loyal forever … I’d like a wolf.’

  ‘Ridiculous, my lamb,’ said Aunt Ruby, ‘although I did have a dragon once and she was loyal … You know how ducks get fixated on things? The first object they see when they hatch – that’s mum, whether it’s a bucket or a duck or a piece of paper. Dragons do that too and luckily mine saw me. Dragons are quite intelligent too.’

  ‘Aunt Ruby! What a lie. You couldn’t have had a dragon.’

  ‘I did. Just a teeny silvery green one called Glinty, though of course she would have grown big by now. Dragons are more faithful than wolves and she was wonderful at keeping me snug at night, puffing warm breath over me.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘It was awful …’ said Aunt Ruby, staring into the fire. ‘I’ve tried not to think about her all these years … I had a terrible fight with my brother – we argued all the time – and he dropped her down some dried-up old well.’

  ‘That’
s so cruel!’

  ‘And poor Glinty, she was too young to fly, her wings weren’t fully developed. I suppose she died, but I could never find out, I didn’t even know where the well was, though I looked … I never forgave my brother for that.’

  ‘I bet you didn’t … but is it really true? Is it all true?’

  But her aunt was finished with that topic. ‘Now, now,’ she said, tucking the chisel into a pocket on her apron. ‘That’s enough of that.’ She stood back to admire her work. ‘What do you think of this sculpture?’

  Copper knew her aunt was not going to talk about dragons again. Aunt Ruby’s stories often hinted at a place where dragons and wolves lived, where things were strangely, magically different, but she always stopped without explaining, leaving Copper desperate to know more.

  Reluctantly Copper turned her attention to the beautiful stone carving of a lion’s head that her aunt was working on.

  ‘It’s brilliant. He looks really noble and kind. I’d like to have a lion too.’

  ‘Hmm, that would be fun.’ Aunt Ruby fingered the large orange beads round her neck thoughtfully.

  Copper watched the firelight shining on her aunt, glimmering on her black hair and the sequins and beads on her skirt.

  Copper loved her aunt, adored her, even though Aunt Ruby was odd, odder than any other aunt that Copper had ever met, anyway. Which other aunt had wild, jet black hair knotted with scarves into a magnificent pile on her head? Who else wore large beads made from strange exotic stones and shining minerals never seen anywhere else?

  And Aunt Ruby was a sculptor. Copper didn’t know any other aunts who were sculptors or who had, like Aunt Ruby, a special apron with thirty-nine pockets, one for each of her sharp carving tools. She was certainly the only aunt who had ever carved the stone gateposts of an ordinary little house into eagles and the lintel above the door into a dragon.

  ‘We are a bit different from other people,’ she admitted to Copper, ‘but we must be glad of that, not ashamed. You see, we don’t come from here, we’ve got rock and wood and the ice from the mountains coursing through our veins. We are earth people. We can make things; we’ve got the knowledge. You’ll understand when you’re older.’

  ‘Older? I’m nearly ten now,’ said Copper, ‘and I don’t have any knowledge of anything. I can’t use a chisel or a hammer without bashing my fingers and anyway, I don’t think I want to be different. Do I want rocks and twigs in me? Earthy people sound dull and muddy.’

  ‘They’re wonderful,’ said Aunt Ruby, dreamily.

  But Copper wasn’t so sure. She was thinking about school. What fun was there in being different if it meant the other children ignored you or laughed at you and no one was your friend?

  ‘You can’t change what you are,’ said Aunt Ruby. ‘You’re better than anyone at knitting and I bet if that useless school of yours taught you sensible things like woodwork, you’d be top of the class at that!’

  Copper made a face. She didn’t think so.

  Aunt Ruby was right about them being different, though. Aunt Ruby had those purple eyes like amethysts, her wild black hair and skin as white as paper.

  And Copper with her long red hair and creamy skin, she was different too. Plus, Copper knitted.

  Instead of a small bag to carry her purse and keys in, Copper carried a long knitting needle bag. Instead of pens and pencils jutting out of her blazer pocket, she had crochet hooks. She had every type of knitting needle: wooden, metal and coloured plastic and every size. She had all types of wool too, thick and lumpy and thin and hairy. Copper knitted all the time, but she never finished anything. She couldn’t finish anything. Her jumpers had one sleeve, her doilies never grew beyond the size of a coin, her socks got as far as the turn in the heel and then she abandoned them.

  ‘I’m like this old three-fingered glove here. Incomplete,’ she explained to Ralick. ‘I’m half-finished and all filled up with funny feelings.’

  ‘We all are,’ said Ralick. ‘Plus, I’ve got woolly fillings filling me, too.’

  ‘I know everyone has feelings,’ said Copper, ‘but not like mine. I used to think it was normal to feel undone like this, as if someone started me but never finished me, but no one else feels like this, I’ve asked them. I’m like a half-drawn picture.’

  ‘Like a teapot without a spout?’ put in Ralick.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Like a chocolate éclair without any chocolate?’

  ‘Yes … Ralick you’re teasing me! But honestly, I just don’t feel right … And everyone else at school has at least one mother and father if not several and dozens of half- or step-sisters or brothers and I’ve only got Aunt Ruby … and you. And actually, you’re a whole family rolled into one.’

  Ralick growled gently to show he was pleased.

  ‘There’s nobody quite like you, Ralick.’

  Ralick agreed. He had brown fur rubbed bare in places and he had stiff, sticking-out legs. His nose was pointed and so were his ears and he might have been a dog or a bear or a tiger with no stripes, it was hard to say what sort of animal he was. He had round black eyes, set rather close together, which looked glassy to ordinary people, but to Copper were full of life.

  Having Ralick was another way in which Copper felt special: no one else had a talking cuddly toy, unless, perhaps they didn’t own up to it.

  There was the mystery of her birthdays too.

  Each year, somebody sent her a tiny gold charm which was so beautifully made, so intricate and delicate that when Copper was very young, she’d imagined they were made by fairies. For years Copper thought that all little girls got a gold charm for their birthday and was surprised to find they didn’t. Then as she got older, Copper was sure that the charms were sent to her by her mother. A mother who loved her and knew where she was but was kept apart from her by some cruel twist of fate.

  Copper felt sure Aunt Ruby could explain, but Aunt Ruby fended off any such question with a smile.

  Whenever Copper felt particularly incomplete (she called it her unravelled feeling), she would knit and knit and knit until she’d knitted herself back together again.

  Copper and Ralick and Aunt Ruby were happy together until Copper’s tenth birthday which is really when everything changed.

  3

  Copper’s Birthday

  On the morning of Copper’s tenth birthday, Aunt Ruby rushed into Copper’s bedroom.

  ‘Darling, are you all right?’

  Copper struggled to sit up, blinking and shoving back her curly hair.

  ‘What is it?’

  Her aunt looked so upset: her hair was hanging down with the colourful scarves all loose and tangled and there was panic in her eyes.

  ‘Oh, my angel,’ cried Aunt Ruby, gathering Copper up in a giant hug. ‘After all these years, when I thought we were so safe! But they’re here. I thought we were well hidden, and there’s never been any sign they were looking for you … Oh, why did I carve that dragon over the door? It was such a giveaway … They were out in the lane at the back. I’m sure, I’m sure it was them.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Them,’ said Aunt Ruby, grimly. ‘What will we do? Where can we go? And today is your birthday. I never thought …’

  Copper patted her aunt’s back and made soothing noises.

  Horrible, horrible, she thought. Aunt Ruby’s always been so steady. Like a rock. And now? Copper felt as though the floor was collapsing beneath them.

  ‘I shall go to the studio and think,’ said Aunt Ruby, suddenly, drying her eyes and pulling herself together. ‘It’s just been a shock to me. I’m fine. Don’t go out of the house,’ she warned Copper, ‘and don’t open the door to anyone. And don’t answer the phone. Don’t do anything until I’ve thought. When I’ve thought, we shall have a plan.’

  As soon as she had gone, Copper pulled Ralick out from where he had been squashed by Aunt Ruby.

  ‘I think she thought you were a bit of bed,’ said Copper, pulling his legs straight and twisting h
is ears back in position.

  ‘How could a stuffed toy of my superior quality feel like a bit of bed? I mean, I may be old …’

  ‘I know …’

  ‘And my ear is loose and my leg joints aren’t what they were but … I can still sing!’

  And Ralick launched into ‘Happy Birthday’.

  Copper smiled and hugged him.

  ‘You darling, darling thingy!’ she crooned. ‘Where would I be without you?’

  ‘Cuddling thin air,’ said Ralick.

  ‘Did you hear what Aunt Ruby said? About these men looking for us?’ Copper asked him. ‘I don’t know what she means – were we lost? Why’s she so upset?’

  ‘I expect we’ll find out,’ said Ralick. ‘When Aunt Ruby’s ready to tell us.’

  Since it was long past the time Copper should have set off for school, she dressed in her home clothes and had breakfast on her own. Then she tried to be useful and tidy up but she couldn’t concentrate and sat and knitted row upon row of loose open stitches instead until her aunt called her into her studio.

  Aunt Ruby was sitting at her desk and piled around her were papers and timetables, note pads and pencils. She looked up at Copper without smiling.

  ‘I’m still thinking,’ she said to Copper calmly. ‘A plan is forming. This has been a shock but we will recover.’ She took Copper’s hand and squeezed it tightly. ‘Most of all – coward that I am – I’m frightened of what you’ll find out, about me … you might think I did things wrong … You might be angry with me. But Copper … Copper, I love you as if you were my own dear daughter.’

  Copper looked out through the window. The word daughter made her want to cry too. She wasn’t anyone’s daughter.

  ‘You couldn’t ever be bad, Aunt Ruby. I love you and I’ll always love you, no matter what you’ve done.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Aunt Ruby, grimly. ‘Maybe. In the meantime, pack a small bag with plenty of warm clothes. You may be going away.’

  Copper closed the door softly and went back to Ralick. ‘I may be going away,’ she told him.

  ‘Going away?’