Poppy's Hero

by Rachel Billington

  Then the bell for the end of break rang.

  Somehow Poppy had to get through the rest of the day.

  At lunch, she avoided all her friends and went to sit on her own. Of course, she didn’t believe a word Jude had said, but she needed to work out why she’d said it and what it was all about.

  She was staring at her fish and chips, knowing she couldn’t manage a bite, when Will came over.

  ‘Can I sit here?’

  Poppy moved over to give him room. He didn’t seem to know anything, although he must have wondered why she wasn’t sitting with her usual friends. She looked at his narrow face with the fair hair falling over his hazel eyes, and suddenly he seemed like the one person she could talk to honestly.

  She pushed away her food. ‘Jude and the others say my dad’s in prison. Wherever could they have got such a stupid idea?’

  ‘Oh.’ Will stared down at his lunch box and Poppy saw he’d gone bright red.

  ‘It’s obviously totally stupid,’ she repeated to herself. ‘I just can’t think why Jude would make up something like that.’ She looked at Will appealingly. Why didn’t he say anything?

  He closed the lid of his box. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, not looking at her and still scarlet. ‘It must be a horrible feeling.’

  Poppy pushed her chair back and stood up. Without saying anything more, she hurried to the toilets and locked herself in. She thought she was going to be sick.

  After a few minutes, she heard voices by the basins.

  ‘I think she came in here,’ said Tania.

  ‘I suppose she wants to be alone,’ said Amber.

  ‘Then perhaps we’d better go,’ said Tania, sounding relieved.

  Poppy heard their footsteps going away. She decided to stay locked in until the bell rang for lessons. Why did people invent such horrible things? It almost looked as if Jude was jealous of Big Frank. Tears pricked in her eyes; one ran down her cheek. Grabbing a piece of toilet paper, she brushed it away angrily.

  Even that long school day had to come to an end. Poppy stood waiting for her mum outside the school gates; she hadn’t felt so keen to see her for months – years. Even if her mum couldn’t be Big Frank, she knew she loved her. She would put things right.

  The sun was shining brightly and Poppy rubbed her eyes which were sore from crying earlier. Well, she wouldn’t be so feeble again.

  Out of the dazzle, she saw Jude approaching. How did she dare! Poppy thought. If Jude had any sense, she’d stay well out of her way.

  But Jude kept on coming. Poppy saw she had a newspaper in her hand. When did any of them read a newspaper?

  Poppy stood her ground. She wasn’t going to run away from her so-called best friend. She did wish her mum would come. Her legs had begun to tremble.

  ‘Hi,’ said Jude. Her face still looked odd, although more anxious now, less cocky.

  ‘Hi,’ said Poppy.

  ‘I thought I should be the one to tell you,’ said Jude, her voice a bit hoarse. ‘I know you’ll think I’m mean, but soon everyone will know except you, and you wouldn’t want that.’

  Poppy stared at her, then at the paper. ‘Why have you bought that?’

  ‘Because you didn’t believe me. Rico saw it over the weekend. He showed me.’

  ‘Give it to me!’

  Jude held out the newspaper. Poppy snatched it away and turned her back. She looked down. The paper had been folded to page five. There was a photo, not very big, of a smiling, curly-haired man. It was Big Frank, taken some years earlier.

  Poppy read what was written underneath: Arrested at Heathrow airport.

  ‘Poppy! Poppy!’ Poppy heard her mother’s voice as if in a dream. Charged and held on remand in Her Majesty’s Prison, Grisewood Slops.

  ‘Darling, I’m so sorry I’m late.’

  Silently, Poppy held out the paper to her mother. Now her hands were trembling too.

  Chapter Three

  Irena took the newspaper and quickly folded it away in her handbag.

  ‘No need for that,’ she said decisively.

  They started the walk home all on their own, as if everyone had decided they had an infectious disease. Poppy felt very hot and sweat trickled down her face and back.

  After a few moments, Irena opened her bag again and offered Poppy a swig of water. For a second, Poppy caught sight of her dad’s face again and the water went down the wrong way.

  Irena patted her back. When the bottle was put away, she said, ‘We talk about it when we get home.’

  ‘All right.’ Poppy felt too confused and miserable to object.

  ‘Let’s go in here,’ said her mum the moment they’d opened the front door. She pointed to the little sitting-room crowded with boxes and papers from her dad’s work where they almost never sat. Poppy thought it was like going into the headmaster’s study.

  ‘Yes,’ said her mum, frowning from the sofa – Poppy was perched uncomfortably on a little stool. ‘Your father is in prison.’

  ‘But Mum. . .’ interrupted Poppy. Irena held up her hand in a rather foreign way she had. Sometimes Poppy couldn’t help wishing she had an English mother who spoke without an accent. Irena couldn’t even pronounce ‘father’ properly.

  ‘Please. I finish first. Now I see I should tell you. You are too old for it to stay secret. I am very, very sorry. You are quite right to be angry.’

  Poppy tried to think if she was angry. She had been before, when she didn’t know anything, but now she just felt anxious and unhappy. Why was her dad in prison? Arrested at Heathrow, like the paper had said. Her mum had taken it away before she’d read any more.

  ‘I suppose it’s a mistake,’ she said miserably. She thought what she needed most was a big hug, but the person she most wanted to give it wasn’t here. Her mother, on the other hand, had a distracted, non-hugging look about her.

  I suppose that is so.’ Irena’s voice was stiff. ‘He is in prison. Although not convicted. You understand that?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘He has not been found guilty,’ said her mum.

  ‘Of course he’s not guilty!’ cried Poppy. ‘But if he’s not guilty, why’s he in prison?’

  ‘I know. I know. Your English law is very bad. They like locking people up even when they’re innocent.’ Poppy saw her mum’s lower lip was trembling as if she was about to cry.

  ‘He’ll get out, then, when they realise they’ve got it wrong,’ she said hastily.

  ‘Your dad’s a good man,’ said Irena, ‘but sometimes he does things without thinking. Some of his friends are not so very good.’

  ‘Then people get the wrong idea,’ said Poppy, trying to understand. What she did understand was that her mother thought Big Frank was innocent, and she thought that it must be true because up to this last week her mum had always been a very truthful person.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said her mum, pulling herself up and making the effort to be bright and bustling. ‘I cook all your favourite things for tea.’

  Without waiting for an answer, she hurried to the kitchen.

  Poppy realised the conversation about her dad was finished and in a way she wasn’t sorry.

  ‘Take some money from my bag,’ called her mum, ‘and buy a couple of Mars Bars.’

  So it was to be a rice pudding and Mars Bar sauce. It seemed odd after what they’d been talking about. Guilty and not guilty. Innocent, like her dad.

  Poppy walked slowly to the corner shop. The sun was still warm. It was a beautiful evening when people expected to have a nice time and be happy. But how was she supposed to feel, when her dad was in some horrible prison cell which she couldn’t even really imagine? He wouldn’t be eating rice pudding and Mars Bars sauce.

  The shop was crowded, so Poppy didn’t notice Jude immediately – then she saw she was hiding at the end of one of the aisles.

  ‘Two Mars Bars, please, Zita.’ Poppy paid her money and marched out of the shop. The alternative was to go over and slap Jude hard. If Jude wante
d to play it this way, then she wasn’t going to go begging for her company. All the same, she had a sad, lonely feeling. How was she going to cope, with no one to talk to?

  Some time between six and seven, when Poppy had gone up to her bedroom feeling rather sick after all the tea she’d eaten to please her mum, the doorbell rang.

  Poppy jumped off the bed and stood by her door, heart pounding. Wildly, she imagined her dad standing outside, all this silliness forgotten, his big presence and loud voice filling their flat. Then she realised he would have let himself in, so instead, she imagined two policemen had come to tell them – but there her imagination failed her. Perhaps they’d tell them that Big Frank would be let out tomorrow.

  ‘Poppy!’ her mother called from below, ‘Will’s come to see you.’

  Poppy’s first thought was not to go down. Why would she want to see Will? He wasn’t even a proper friend. On the other hand, he would be someone to talk to, and anything was better than lying around worrying.

  ‘Send him up!’ she shouted.

  Will came into the room, looking surprised. ‘You’ve got a piano in your bedroom!’ he said.

  ‘My mum is a piano teacher,’ replied Poppy. It felt good to be a little sharp.

  ‘It’s nice,’ said Will. ‘Gives a special atmosphere. Do you play?’

  ‘Like an elephant plays. I’m a disappointment to my mum.’

  ‘Join the club,’ said Will, sitting on the piano stool. ‘My mum would like me to be the sort of fit and healthy person who plans to climb Everest.’

  There was a silence. Poppy hesitated. She looked at Will’s pale face with its high forehead overhung by a lock of beige-coloured hair. Perhaps it was because he had his own problems – always had, she supposed – but he seemed more sympathetic than any of her friends.

  ‘I’ve talked to my mum,’ she said, ‘about my dad.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Will looked away, blushing a bit. He didn’t have that horrid sly look she still remembered from when Jude had come up to her.

  ‘It is true. He is in prison. But he’s innocent. They’re just keeping him there until he can prove it.’

  ‘I thought he was innocent,’ said Will, and this time Poppy found herself blushing too, but with pleasure, not embarrassment. ‘He’s so great,’ continued Will. ‘My dad left home when I was two. My mum says it was when I was having my big operation. You’re lucky to have such a great dad.’ I think so!’ Poppy found she was smiling, actually smiling! ‘He shouldn’t be in prison at all.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ agreed Will, looking serious. ‘I suppose we could try and get him out.’

  ‘What?’ Poppy, who’d been lounging on the bed, sat upright.

  ‘You know, help him escape.’ Will’s voice rose. ‘The other day I watched a TV film about prisoners of war escaping from a great moated castle in the middle of nowhere. It was called Colditz. If they can do that, then surely we can get your dad out of Grisewood Slops. I suppose he is in Grisewood Slops?’

  Poppy, who hadn’t really thought about it, remembered that the name in the newspaper had been Grisewood Slops. ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Well, it’s only along the road. Not far.’ said Will, sounding more and more excited. ‘I’ve seen it from the number 745 bus. I mean, it’s not in the middle of a wild moorland or something.’

  Poppy tried to take in the idea that her dad wasn’t in some remote unimaginable place but near a number 745 bus stop. A vague memory stirred. ‘Isn’t it somewhere near the hospital?’

  ‘Yes. That’s why I know it. I’ve spent more time in

  ‘that hospital than at home. At the back of the prison there are playing fields. Anyone can go there.’

  ‘Oh!’ was all Poppy could think of to say. Here was quiet, shy, ‘Wimpy’ Will filled with all sorts of info and positive planning. ‘He shouldn’t be held captive,’ she said a bit feebly.

  ‘No. That’s what I think.’

  ‘Do you seriously believe we can get him out?’

  ‘Those POWs dug tunnels, climbed over roofs and some of them even built a glider plane in an attic nobody knew about. And they were in danger of being shot by the Nazis. At least nobody would shoot us.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Poppy a little doubtfully. She’d been taken to the House of Commons. The policemen outside had looked a fearsome lot with nasty big guns. On the other hand, it felt so much better to be involved in a plan rather than lying on her bed feeling miserable.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ asked Will.

  ‘I’m on for it!’ shouted Poppy, and as she spoke, she was filled with such a rush of energy that she jumped off the bed. ‘So where do we start? Mapping the place, I’d say. After school tomorrow. We’ll need pens, a ruler, a hard-backed pad.’ Poppy!’ called Irena from downstairs. ‘Have you done your homework yet?’

  ‘In a moment,’ lied Poppy. How important was homework, when you were involved in a rescue plan to spring your dad from prison?

  The big man stands in the middle of his small cell. He is waiting to be unlocked so he can go and have a shower. He has a small towel and a bar of soap held to his chest.

  Behind him, his cell-mate lies half asleep on his bunk.

  ‘They like keeping you waiting,’ he says in a weasly voice.

  The big man doesn’t bother to answer, as if he doesn’t care what his cell-mate thinks.

  Clumping footsteps approach from outside the cell. A key is inserted in the lock and noisily turned. The big man stares at the door as if it holds some secret.

  The heavy door is pulled slowly open. A man in white shirt with epaulettes and dark trousers looks in. He frowns at the weasly-voiced man, then inclines his head towards the big man. Clearly, he can’t be bothered to speak.

  The big man comes out of the cell and walks down the green corridor.

  Chapter Four

  ‘I’m going home with Will,’ Poppy told her mother the next morning.

  Irena looked surprised. She was also surprised that Poppy seemed quite cheerful, ate a huge bowl of cereal, then took a banana and some biscuits.

  ‘In case I’m hungry at break,’ she explained airily. She and Will had it all worked out. After school, they’d catch the number 745 bus and go and do a recce on the prison. They’d obviously need extra supplies to eat. Poppy felt quite sorry for her mum, who was all sad and hopeless and wasn’t trying to do anything. Grown-ups were like that, she thought, good at seeing the gloomy side and useless at taking positive action. In her back-pack she had a pad of paper and a fine pen she’d found in the living room. ‘We’ve got to do this thing professionally,’ Will had said, and she agreed. Big Frank’s happiness was at stake.

  With all this on her mind, Poppy wasn’t worried about school or how Jude and the other girls might behave. So she was surprised when Jude sidled up to her in break.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘That’s OK,’ replied Poppy automatically.

  But it wasn’t OK. Jude had let her down when she needed her most and now she had other fish to fry.

  Poppy moved away.

  The less good moment was when the class were asked to hand in their homework and she hadn’t done hers.

  ‘Poppy?’ questioned Miss Bavani, who was quite young and wore surprisingly trendy T-shirts.

  ‘Sorry, Miss,’

  ‘Sorry, meaning you haven’t done it, or sorry, meaning you don’t feel like handing it in?’ Miss Bavani was being sarcastic but not really cross, because Poppy was one of her best students and was never late with her homework.

  ‘Sorry, because I didn’t do it because I wasn’t feeling well.’ Well, that was true enough.

  ‘Don’t let it happen again.’

  ‘No, Miss.’ Poppy caught sight of Will, who was giving an under-the-table thumbs up.

  After that the day went on as usual, although Poppy felt her excitement growing every minute. She and Will had agreed to slip away separately from the school gates and meet at the bus stop.

  Poppy was fir
st and she watched Will arrive, noticing his skinny body and laboured breath. He didn’t look like a daring adventurer. But then, she supposed she didn’t either.

  It was an overcast, warm day and both decks of the bus were crowded and stuffy. Luckily Poppy and Will found two seats together on top at the back.

  ‘It’s six or seven stops,’ said Will, sounding nervous.

  ‘OK.’ Poppy felt her heart pounding and thought, if they were both so tense when all they were doing was looking at the prison, what would they be like when they were actually trying to get her dad out?

  ‘Oh. That’s it!’ cried Will suddenly. Poppy peered across him and saw a row of small grey houses and then tall gates and two tall towers.

  They piled down the stairs. But it was too late. They’d missed the bus stop.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Will, as they finally got out. ‘From here, we’d be best going round the back of the prison first.’

  ‘Good idea,’ agreed Poppy, who’d found the sight of the gates and towers and walls frightening, although of course she wasn’t going to show it. ‘I’ve often been past here,’ she added, ‘but never noticed the prison before. Now my dad’s inside and it’s as if he’s invisible too.’

  But Will wasn’t listening. ‘I think it’s this way,’ he said, pointing.

  It wasn’t easy to get to the back of the prison. The high walls with their rolls of barbed wire on top were easy enough to see, but they had a network of small houses and roads all around them.

  ‘Are you sure there’s a park at the back?’ asked Poppy.

  ‘Definite,’ said Will. ‘I’ve been there.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to live so close to a prison,’ said Poppy, as they went down yet another dead end with little houses on either side.

  ‘Probably the people who live here work at the prison.’

  ‘But these houses look quite ordinary,’ said Poppy as they passed a garden filled with pots of red and white geraniums.

  ‘Well, I suppose some quite ordinary people work there,’ Will answered irritably.