The Amber Cat
Page 11
“But Harriet didn’t finish hers!” exclaimed Mrs Brogan, stooping to look more closely at the small clear letters. “I’m sure she didn’t! She would never let Nick lend her his knife. He offered over and over again!”
(“You said, ‘Remind me never to lend you anything’!” quoted Harriet.
“That was only a joke,” said Nick.
“All right,” said Harriet. “I’ll borrow it when I start thinking it’s funny.”)
“Harriet and her borrowings!” said Mrs Brogan, and then caught sight of something in the corner of the cave and said, “Oh Harriet!” because there, carefully smoothed and folded, lay her old red jumper.
“Oh Harriet, darling!” whispered Mrs Brogan and picked it up and saw there was something small and shining underneath.
Then for a long time she stood between tears and laughter with the jumper and the knife and the ten gold coins clutched in her hands and she thought, Harriet, Harriet, Harriet, and understood how Harriet had managed to produce treasure to show her friends and how she had found enough driftwood to build a raft, not to mention a pony for Kathy to ride, in payment for the loan of her jumper. Harriet had ransacked the years to borrow so much, but in the end it had all been returned.
Outside the cave Friday, who cared for no time but the present, was barking with impatience. When Mrs Brogan came out, blinking, into the sunlight to join him, he ran in circles of delight and then, realizing that the expedition had come to an end, took charge of the situation and led the way back home.
Still half in a dream, Mrs Brogan followed him, but before she left the little beach she turned at the top of the ridge of rocks and looked back at the cave to say goodbye. It was not there. In the place where it had been was nothing but tumbled rocks.
So she borrowed that, too! thought Mrs Brogan, well past being surprised by anything else that could happen that morning, and she walked home perfectly happy.
“Where did you get them from?” demanded Sun Dance.
“I found them on the beach,” said Mrs Brogan.
“What about those burglars, then?”
“What burglars?”
“The ones Dan said you gave all that breakfast to. Didn’t they take my money?”
“No,” said Mrs Brogan.
“I know who did, then,” said Sun Dance darkly.
Robin said, “My knife! My knife!”
“Where was it?” asked Dan.
“On the beach,” said Robin’s mother. “And I found Sun Dance’s money as well. I expect he’ll be wanting you to go Christmas shopping with him tomorrow.”
But Mrs Brogan was wrong. Sun Dance had finished his Christmas shopping, ten coconuts (one for each of the inhabitants of Porridge Hall, including dogs) were hidden beneath his bed and he considered these should be more than enough to satisfy anybody. His ten pound coins spent the night under his pillow and the next morning he took them down to the beach and buried them.
“There!” he said, stamping the sand down hard, while Harriet watched. “It’s a good job I’m so nice!”
“I only borrowed them,” said Harriet, still completely unrepentant.
“Well, you’d better not have come to borrow them again,” said Sun Dance, sternly.
“I’ve come to see somebody,” said Harriet, and Sun Dance noticed for the first time that she was gazing intently up at Porridge Hall. As they watched, someone opened a door and came out.
“That’s Mrs Brogan,” remarked Sun Dance.
“I know,” said Harriet. “She used to be Kathy.”
“She still is Kathy,” Sun Dance told her.
Harriet sniffed scornfully.
“And there’s Robin,” said Sun Dance. “Nick was his father.”
“I know,” said Harriet. “He looks just like Nick, only scraggier. Was he born lucky, like Nick?”
“I don’t think so,” said Sun Dance regretfully. “Except, I’ve got him a coconut for Christmas. Does that count?”
“What have you got for everyone else?”
“Coconuts,” said Sun Dance.
“Doesn’t count then,” Harriet told him firmly.
“S’pose not,” agreed Sun Dance cheerfully.
“Who are those others?” asked Harriet.
“The one up the ladder is Beany,” said Sun Dance, watching as Beany, swaying perilously, fastened tinsel and holly to Mrs Brogan’s bed-and-breakfast sign. “And the ones holding the ladder are Perry and Ant. They’re wearing their hobbit clothes.”
“What are hobbit clothes?”
“Something for a play they were going to do at school but the teacher got chickenpox and it was cancelled, so they’re doing it at home instead. Me and Dan are going to be singing dwarfs and Charley said he’d be a wizard … Look, there’s Charley, now!”
Harriet looked and then asked, in disbelief, “Is that Charley?”
“Yes,” said Sun Dance.
“Well then, he’s got fat,” said Harriet. “Much too fat to be a wizard! He never could run!”
“Charley’s nice!” said Sun Dance defensively. “You should see the presents he’s brought!”
“Is that why you like him?”
“Of course not. Everybody likes him. Mrs Brogan said Charley was a darling. Just like me!”
Harriet collapsed into giggles.
“You’ve got a cheek,” said Sun Dance, slightly crossly. “I’ve been jolly nice about not saying anything about you burglaring my money!”
“Borrowing,” said Harriet. “It’s awful the way nobody can tell the difference between burglaring and borrowing! I’ve brought you a present.”
“A Christmas present?” asked Sun Dance, slightly alarmed at the thought of having to give her one back and mentally re-counting his coconuts.
“No.”
“Good,” said Sun Dance, relieved. “What sort of present, then?”
“Shut your eyes and hold out your hands,” ordered Harriet. “It’s a goodbye present.”
Sun Dance obediently closed his eyes and held out his hands and then opened his eyes again to say, “Don’t go!”
But it was too late. She had already gone, and Sun Dance was suddenly alone on the beach, and very cold. After a little while he looked down at his goodbye present and found he was holding a little amber cat.
Scraps of conversation floated from Porridge Hall.
“Where did you get it from?”
“Harriet on the beach.”
“Harriet is someone Mrs Brogan’s been talking about,” Dan explained to Sun Dance’s family. “A friend of hers from ages ago.”
“More of Sun Dance’s ghosts,” said Perry.
“She was a ghost,” said Sun Dance, and everybody laughed.
“Sun Dance found your little amber cat,” Robin told his uncle Charley.
“Good,” said Charley.
“He said Harriet gave it to him.”
“Perhaps she did in a way,” said Charley. “Perhaps she left it for him to find.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Robin, but he wondered and he remembered an earlier conversation:
“I do believe there are occasionally people who stray from their own time into another.”
“What for?”
“I don’t know,” his mother had replied. “Company perhaps. Curiosity. Why would anyone? Why would you?”
“I wouldn’t,” Robin remembered saying, “unless I had friends there.”
“Sun Dance,” said Mrs Brogan. “What did she look like?”
“Who?”
“The girl who gave you the little amber cat.”
“Harriet,” said Sun Dance.
“How did you know she was Harriet?”
“Of course she was Harriet,” said Sun Dance. “She looked like a girl.”
“What sort of girl?”
“Any old girl,” replied Sun Dance carelessly. “They all look the same to me.”
“Sad or happy?”
“Happy,” said Sun Dance certainly.
Other Hila
ry McKay titles:
Practically Perfect
Happy and Glorious
PARADISE HOUSE
The Zoo in the Attic
The Treasure in the Garden
The Echo in the Chimney
The Magic in the Mirror
The Surprise Party
Keeping Cotton Tail
PUDDING BAG SCHOOL
The Birthday Wish
Cold Enough for Snow
A Strong Smell of Magic
For older readers
Caddy’s World
Saffy’s Angel
Indigo’s Star
Permanent Rose
Caddy Ever After
Forever Rose
The Exiles
The Exiles at Home
The Exiles in Love
Dog Friday
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