The Amber Cat

by Hilary McKay

  “Thank God for that,” said Mrs Brogan.

  “I learned something today,” said Beany gravely.

  “What?”

  “A poem,” said Beany, and stood up solemnly to recite:

  “Mary had a little lamb,

  She took it to the vicar’s.

  It climbed into his knicker drawer

  And ate his holey knickers.”

  “So much for education!” said Mrs Brogan.

  “I learned another one as well,” said Beany, yawning, “but it’s too rude. Have you found out what’s living under our stairs yet, Sun Dance?”

  “Nothing is,” said Sun Dance. “I’ve looked and looked.”

  “Move in Ningsy and Dead Cat,” suggested Dan.

  “I’ve tried, they won’t.”

  “Swim Man, then?”

  “Too squashed,” said Sun Dance.

  “Milko?”

  “No milk.”

  “The Lady?”

  “No phone.”

  “What’s the matter with plain old-fashioned dark?” asked Mrs Brogan.

  “Boring!” said everyone.

  It was an enormously cheerful afternoon. Beany was allowed to check the bed-and-breakfast reservations, a favourite treat. Ever since the previous summer, when she had produced a three-course evening meal for unexpected guests during Mrs Brogan’s absence, she had felt tremendously responsible for the business.

  “Tell Mrs Brogan about the fleas you were saving for her,” suggested Perry wickedly, and Beany obligingly did so, thus allowing Mrs Brogan an opportunity to decline with thanks (and horror) the use of any future occupants of Old Blanket’s ears. Perry and Ant, reeling under the influence of too many pancakes and too much laughter, climbed on to the table and did their hobbit dance (to colossal applause).

  “Do we have to go home?” asked Sun Dance, when Mrs Robinson finally arrived to collect her family.

  “Of course you do,” replied his mother. “All good things come to an end and, anyway, Robin and Dan look absolutely shattered!”

  “I could sit quiet and not say anything,” said Sun Dance. “I wouldn’t be a bother.”

  Mrs Brogan and Mrs Robinson glanced at each other. Sun Dance had pulled aside the curtains and was staring worriedly into the night sky.

  “It’s clouded over,” said his mother. “No stars. No moon.”

  “Oh,” said Sun Dance. “Good.”

  Even so, Robin and Dan and Mrs Brogan noticed that he kept a tight hold on his mother’s hand as they crossed the gardens to go home.

  “He’s still frightened,” said Dan. “Fancy being frightened of the moon! I’ve never heard anything like it!”

  “He says he’s going to start warning people when he gets back to school,” said Robin. “I hope he doesn’t. He’ll only get laughed at and he hates that.”

  “He’s begun already,” said Dan. “He started with a girl who was in the road when we went out to catch the twins.”

  “I didn’t see anyone,” said Robin.

  “Neither did I,” said Dan. “I wasn’t watching Sun Dance. But he told me when he came in.”

  “What did she say?” asked Robin.

  “He didn’t tell me that,” said Dan.

  They were back in the living room, Robin and his mother sharing the sofa and Dan on the hearthrug comfortably scorching his back. Mrs Brogan looked preoccupied as she stared into the flames, and Robin, wondering if she was worrying about Sun Dance, said, “Perhaps they’ll understand at school what he’s talking about.”

  “’Course they won’t,” said Dan. “Scared of the moon! Have you ever met anyone who was scared of the moon?”

  “No,” said Robin, “but people used to worship the moon. Perhaps they were scared of it, too.”

  “Who used to worship the moon?” asked Dan sceptically.

  “Olden days people. Didn’t they, Mum?”

  Mrs Brogan did not reply for a moment, although it was obvious that she had heard the question. She looked from Robin to Dan and Dan to Robin like somebody gradually coming awake.

  “Didn’t who?” she asked.

  “Didn’t people used to worship the moon?”

  “I expect so,” she said vaguely.

  “So perhaps they were frightened of it too, like Sun Dance?”

  “Yes, perhaps they were.”

  “And Harriet,” said Robin.

  “Robin!” exclaimed his mother. “How on earth did you know that?”

  “I could see you thinking,” said Robin. “Your face looks different when you’re thinking about Harriet.”

  “I’d nearly forgotten her,” said Mrs Brogan. “Charley writing suddenly brought it all back to me.”

  “Brought what back?” asked Robin.

  Chapter Five

  “Harriet!”

  Nick yelled and waved and Harriet came running up the beach to meet them.

  “We’ve been looking for you for ages,” said Kathy.

  “All day yesterday,” added Charley. “Where were you?”

  “I was here,” said Harriet.

  “We didn’t see you.”

  “I didn’t see you!” said Harriet.

  “Were you looking for us?”

  “No,” said Harriet cheerfully. “What did you want me for?”

  “We thought we’d teach you to play cricket,” said Nick, displaying an ancient cricket bat that Kathy’s father had unearthed for them. “So we could play two-a-side; Kathy and you against me and Charley. Kathy’s quite good. Or Kathy and Charley against you and me. Charley hardly ever manages to hit the ball properly.”

  “I’ll be on Charley’s side,” said Harriet.

  “It wouldn’t be a fair game at all, then,” said Nick.

  “I should like to be on Harriet’s side,” remarked Charley.

  “Good,” said Harriet. “Me and you will be a team.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Nick told them impatiently.

  “I’m not arguing,” said Harriet.

  “Oh all right,” said Nick crossly. “But you’d better have Kathy as well. Three on to one isn’t very fair, but I expect I shall manage.”

  “You are the vainest person I’ve ever met,” Harriet told him.

  “And you are the stubbornest I’ve ever met,” replied Nick.

  “Come on!” ordered Kathy. “Stop arguing! Charley and Harriet against you and me, Nick. We can always swop round later.”

  “Oh all right then,” agreed Nick. “Their runs had better count for double, that is, if they make any runs, and no saying it’s not fair when we’re halfway through the game.”

  “We’ll hit first,” said Harriet.

  “Bat,” said Nick.

  “Bat,” repeated Harriet, and held out her hand for the cricket bat.

  Nick rolled his eyes up to heaven, passed it over, paced out the pitch, announced that he would bowl, and got rid of the last of his bad temper by hurling the ball at Harriet as hard as he possibly could. Harriet hit it a tremendous whack and it landed in the sea.

  “Twelve!” shouted Harriet.

  An hour and a half later the game was still in progress and Harriet and Charley were winning by one hundred and twenty-two runs to fourteen. Even allowing for Nick’s generous double scoring, it was a tremendous total. Nor had it all been achieved by Harriet. She had explained to Charley that cricket was mainly a matter of courage and never taking your eyes off the ball and he had suddenly blossomed into a cricketer.

  “I don’t know why I never used to like playing!” he said. “It’s a brilliant game! I could play all day!”

  “You would melt!” Nick replied. “I’m melting already!” And he collapsed into a pool of water.

  “Why have you stopped playing?” Harriet asked him. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing now,” said Nick rolling on to his back.

  Kathy flopped into the pool beside him and said, “If I have to fetch one more ball out of that horrible soft sand, my legs will drop off.”
/>   “Aren’t you cold?” asked Charley, regarding Nick and Kathy with concern. “You’re getting soaked!”

  “Cold!” exclaimed Nick. “I wish it would snow! I’m boiling to bits! Get into another pool, Kathy, you’re hotting this one up too much! Where on earth did you learn to play cricket, Harriet?”

  “School,” said Harriet.

  “Where’s school?”

  “I went to a boarding school near London.”

  “Boarding school!” exclaimed Kathy, sitting up in excitement. “Oh Harriet, you lucky thing! I’ve always wanted to go to boarding school!”

  “It’s the worst place in the world,” said Harriet.

  “How can it be!” asked Kathy. “I’ve read about it in books! Sleeping in dormitories and playing jokes on the teachers …”

  “Mistresses,” corrected Harriet. “You’d get in trouble if they heard you calling them teachers. And dormitories stink!”

  “Stink! What of?”

  “People. Shoes. Clothes. Something they clean the floors with at the beginning of term.”

  “Didn’t you play brilliant jokes and have midnight feasts?”

  “What do you mean, midnight feasts?”

  “Smuggle in food and eat it in the middle of the night?”

  “No,” said Harriet. “How could anybody do that?”

  “Well, they always do in books,” said Kathy. “Relations send them hampers or they buy things from shops and sneak them in to share.”

  “I never heard of anyone whose relations sent them hampers,” said Harriet, “and people were hardly ever allowed out to the shops. And, anyway, no one would smuggle in food to share. They’d eat it themselves. I would, anyway.”

  “Oh, Harriet!” said Charley, distressed. “Did you get hungry? Was it awful?”

  “It was awful,” answered Harriet, “but there was plenty of food. Horrible school cooking, but plenty of it. Stacks. Piles. Mountains. That wasn’t why I didn’t like school.”

  “Why didn’t you, then?” asked Kathy.

  “Oh, too many rules and too many girls and it was so dull and stuffy and boring. I always wanted to be here when I was there.”

  “You’ll have to go back in September,” Nick pointed out.

  “I won’t,” replied Harriet.

  “Your parents will make you.”

  “They won’t.”

  “Perhaps you could come to my school,” suggested Kathy.

  “I’ve had enough of school,” said Harriet stubbornly. “I’m never going to school anywhere again!”

  “You have to,” Kathy told her. “It’s the law.”

  “I don’t care if it is,” said Harriet.

  “You can’t just do as you like.”

  “I can,” said Harriet.

  “Shut up, you two!” ordered Nick. “It’s much too hot to argue.”

  “I’m not arguing,” said Harriet, with a look on her face that they were already beginning to recognize as Harriet’s not-arguing expression.

  “Oh well,” said Kathy lazily. “Who cares? It’s a waste of summer to talk about school! What shall we do now?”

  “Cricket,” said Charley.

  Nick and Kathy groaned.

  “We’ve worn them out,” remarked Harriet. She was lying on her stomach, idly sifting through a patch of pebbles and she said, “Look, I’ve found a bit of agate!”

  “What is agate?” asked Charley. “Treasure?”

  “No,” said Nick. “Ten gold coins is treasure. Nothing less.”

  “Agate is very nearly treasure,” said Harriet and she showed Charley her stone, translucent and ringed with gold and red and white.

  “I’ve got a little amber cat at home,” Charley told her.

  “An amber cat would be real treasure,” said Harriet.

  There was no more cricket that afternoon. Nick, when called upon to decide what they should do next, sleepily suggested that they shut up and lie on their backs and look at the sky. One by one they dozed off and woke to find the tide nearly high and a cold wind blowing. Harriet was gone and they discovered that they were each wearing a crown of sticky black seaweed, studded with cockle shells.

  “Bother that kid!” grumbled Nick. “Mine’s dried on and stuck!”

  “They make a sort of glue out of seaweed,” remarked Kathy, laughing at his struggles.

  “I thought they made soup,” said Charley.

  “You’re thinking of birds’ nests,” Kathy told him. “Bird’s nest soup! It must be disgusting, all sticks and mud!”

  “P’raps they sieve it,” suggested Charley, after a moment’s thought.

  “STOP talking rubbish and come and help me unpick this muck!” ordered Nick. “It’s stuck much worse than yours was! Harriet is a pest!”

  “It’s not Harriet’s fault your hair is curly,” said Kathy.

  “S’not mine either!” replied Nick and yelled as Charley removed his crown by the simple method of yanking hard. A lot of hair came off with it and Nick said, “Wait till I see her in the morning!”

  But in the morning there was no Harriet to be found. They searched their patch of beach from end to end, eventually making their way to the cave that was Harriet’s special place and were astonished by the disappointment they felt when they found that she was not there. Charley lay on his back, disconsolately gnawing the cricket bat, while Nick and Kathy passed the time squabbling in the back of the cave, where Nick was using his pocket knife to carve his name on the wall.

  “It was my idea,” said Kathy crossly when Nick, having accomplished the first three letters of his name, glanced provokingly at her and began on an H instead of a K. “Nobody calls you Nicholas! You are a pig!”

  “Nicholas Jonathan is my name,” remarked Nick. “Shall I do the Jonathan or shall I miss it out …”

  “Who cares?” said Kathy.

  “If I was a pig I would do it,” said Nick.

  Kathy did not reply.

  “I’m glad I don’t sulk,” said Nick. “I’d rather be a pig than sulk …”

  “I’m thinking,” said Kathy.

  “Not that I am a pig,” added Nick.

  “I hope Harriet doesn’t mind you hacking your name in letters six feet high on the back of her cave,” remarked Kathy.

  “’Tisn’t hers,” said Nick.

  “It is!” announced Harriet, appearing suddenly from nowhere. “It’s mine, I told you before and if you cut yourself I shall be sick!”

  “Harriet!” exclaimed Charley. “I didn’t see you coming!”

  “Hello,” said Kathy. “You’re always appearing and disappearing!”

  “So are you,” said Harriet, looking critically at Nick’s handiwork. “Did you like your crowns?”

  “We could hardly bear to part with them,” Nick told her.

  “That O you’ve done is smaller than the other letters,” said Harriet.

  “Os are hard,” said Nick.

  “S will be worse,” remarked Harriet. “Kathy will be easy to do. All straight lines.”

  “If Nick ever finishes with the knife,” put in Kathy.

  “Kathy’s sulking,” explained Nick.

  “Thinking,” said Kathy. “Shut up being so aggravating, Nick! I’ve had a lovely idea!”

  “Spit it out, then!” ordered Nick. “Better out than in! Ouch, my thumb! Don’t look, Harriet!”

  Harriet turned away hastily, and Kathy hurried to distract her attention.

  “I looked out of the window last night after we’d gone to bed and it was a beautiful full moon,” she said. “Bright silver. It lit up all the beach. What about if we have a midnight feast by the sea?”

  “Oh, brilliant!” exclaimed Charley. “Here, in this cave?”

  “It would be a perfect place,” said Kathy. “We could sneak out and meet up here …”

  “Good old Kathy!” said Nick. “What a brain! Let’s do it tonight!”

  “Could you come?” Kathy asked Harriet.

  Harriet stared at her, looking abs
olutely appalled.

  “If you don’t want to walk here on your own, we could come to your house and meet you,” suggested Kathy.

  “Here?” asked Harriet. “At night? With a full moon?”

  “It wouldn’t be a bit dark,” Kathy told her.

  “It would be no good without you,” Charley added.

  “You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?” asked Nick.

  “No,” said Harriet.

  “Anyway, we could come and meet you,” Charley offered. “That would be much better. Where’s your house?”

  “I’m not coming out in moonlight,” said Harriet.

  “What?” demanded Nick. “Why not? What’s wrong with moonlight?”

  “The moon’s not safe,” said Harriet.

  “What do you mean?” asked Kathy.

  “People can get caught by the moon,” said Harriet. “Caught and trapped and dragged away. I know someone it happened to.”

  “What absolute tripe!” exclaimed Nick.

  “You don’t know everything,” said Harriet. “You don’t know anything! And you can’t bowl, either!”

  “Harriet,” said Kathy. “Thousands of people go out in moonlight. Millions! They don’t get caught and trapped and dragged away.”

  “How do you know they don’t?”

  “How do you know they do?”

  “They do,” argued Harriet stubbornly. “Some of them do.”

  Nothing they could say would convince her otherwise. They argued and cajoled and persuaded until they caught sight of a brightness in her eyes that might have been tears. Then Kathy said, “Let’s chuck it,” and Charley (most untruthfully) added that he would be frightened, too.

  “Yes, forget it,” agreed Nick. “Poor old Harriet. Come and do your name. Kathy’s finished at last. You can borrow my knife!”

  “It’s Charley’s turn and I’m not poor,” said Harriet.

  “Of course you’re not,” answered Nick. “Sorry! Well, come on then, Charley.”

  Charley took the knife in silence while Kathy remarked, too brightly, “People are frightened of much stupider things than the moon.”

  Harriet sniffed.

  “Come and show me what an agate looks like,” said Nick, persuasively.

  But Harriet would not be persuaded. Nick being nice was infinitely harder to bear than Nick being aggravating and she knew quite well what they were thinking. They were sorry for her. She was frightened. She was poor. She hadn’t given Kathy her jumper back because she didn’t have another one to wear and if she appeared without one they would know that. She sat hunched up and miserable and a horrible uncomfortable silence filled the cave until Charley said, “There!”