by Hilary McKay
‘And are you two all right?’
‘Very all right,’ said Rachel, taking a bite of Ruth’s egg to prove it.
Except for a temporary loss of appetite at breakfast time, both Rachel and Phoebe continued to be all right. Ruth and Naomi spent the day in bed.
‘Tummy upsets,’ said Mrs Conroy, and ordered Rachel and Phoebe to stay out of the way. However, Rachel visited the invalids on Monday morning and returned looking pleased with herself.
‘I’ve taken their Easter eggs to look after,’ she told Phoebe.
‘Do they know?’ asked Phoebe.
‘I didn’t tell them because they hate talking about food so much.’
When they weren’t any better by Tuesday the doctor came and said, ‘Gastric flu. Lucky the other two have escaped.’
‘Escaped what?’ asked Rachel.
‘Catching what your big sisters have gone down with,’ said the doctor, who was an old friend of Rachel’s. ‘Stick your tongue out. Give me your wrist, jump up and down a bit, say “Ah!”’
‘Ah! Ah! Am I all right?’ demanded Rachel.
‘Sound as a bell,’ said the doctor, handing Mrs Conroy a sheaf of prescriptions. ‘And how’s Phoebe, the wonder child? Still top of the class?’
‘Yes,’ said Phoebe, not very modestly. ‘Do you think I have gastric flu?’
‘Not noticeably,’ said the doctor.
‘How much longer do you think it’s going to last?’ asked Naomi wearily on Thursday. Her head was hot and thumping and her back was shaking cold and when she tried to write a note to Toby, she found herself going dizzy.
Dear Toby and Emma,
I am sorry we have not been but we have flu. Will come as soon as we can.
Love, Naomi and Ruth
It took her all afternoon, in bits and pieces, to write it. Ruth, staggering out of bed to look for a stamp, suddenly slipped and bashed her head on the windowsill.
‘Are you getting better?’ asked Phoebe, through a crack in the door.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Ruth. ‘Will you post a letter for us?’
‘Has it got germs on?’
‘Probably.’
‘Wait,’ commanded Phoebe, and came back wearing her winter mittens as protection.
‘The doctor said it wasn’t the paint we put on your eggs,’ she said, grabbing the letter and going out again very quickly.
’No, I know.’
‘And the egg up Old Teddy’s jumper couldn’t have made anyone as sick as this.’
‘No.’
‘I’m sorry, but me and Rachel have sort of eaten your Easter eggs.’
‘Oh well,’ said Ruth, ‘we knew you probably would. Go and borrow Josh, so Martin doesn’t forget he said we could share him, and post this letter for us.’
‘They’ve all gone to Italy and poor Josh is in kennels.’
‘Oh yes, I forgot.’
‘Mum said we’d go to the park after lunch,’ said Phoebe. ‘We’ll post it on the way. We’re taking bubbles because it’s lovely and windy. When are you going to get better?’
Ruth said she didn’t know. It felt like they’d been ill for months. However, by the weekend they had progressed to dry toast and orange juice and could sit up and read without feeling that their heads might explode at any minute. The next day they staggered downstairs and managed scrambled eggs for tea.
‘You look a pair of little ghosts,’ remarked Mr Conroy.
‘You’ve wasted all the holidays,’ said Phoebe, ‘school again on Monday.’
‘Not for these two,’ said their mother. ‘They’re going up to Grandma’s for a few days of fresh air! They’re still far from fit for school; they’d pick up the first thing that was going around.’
‘It’s not fair,’ said Rachel bitterly that afternoon in the garden. ‘You two always leave me and Phoebe out of everything!’
‘We don’t!’
‘You do. You’re getting all stuck-up and bossy. Aren’t they, Phoebe?’
‘Like Egg-Yolk Wendy,’ agreed Phoebe.
‘WE’RE NOT!’
‘You didn’t care that we ate your Easter eggs! You were poorly without us and now you’re going to sneak off to Big Grandma’s and we’ll be left behind! You even write letters to people we don’t know, and,’ concluded Rachel, gratified to find that real tears of frustration were rolling down her cheeks, ‘you’ve had a huge, great big money secret without us for ages now! It’s not fair!’
Naomi stared at Rachel in amazement and remarked briefly that she was cracked.
‘Yes, you are,’ agreed Ruth. ‘We’re only going to Big Grandma’s because we were ill. You could have come and caught it if you’d wanted to! You never came near us, except to pinch our Easter eggs!’
‘I didn’t know about missing school and going to Big Grandma’s then,’ said Rachel, sniffing.
‘And how do you know we’ve got money secrets? And if we had, why should we tell you? You’d tell everyone and you wouldn’t help!’
‘I would!’ Another tear trickled down Rachel’s face and she wiped her nose on her knees and tried to look pathetic.
‘You would what?’ asked Naomi suddenly. ‘Help? Or tell everyone?’ Once again she and Ruth were worrying about Joseck’s money. It was obvious that very little, if any, could be earned that month. Two weeks had gone already and all their savings had been spent on the Easter eggs.
‘I wouldn’t tell anyone,’ said Rachel hopefully, ‘I would help. Promise!’
‘Promise for ever?’
‘Promise for ever,’ agreed Rachel, her tears drying up like magic.
‘What about you, Phoebe?’
‘I’ll promise not to tell anyone,’ agreed Phoebe, who never told anyone anything anyway, ‘but,’ she added cautiously, ‘I don’t promise to help!’
‘Typical,’ said Naomi. ‘Anyway, listen.’
Ruth began. About the cold day in the library when she had read about Africa to get warm. About Joseck and his school. About saying she was eighteen when she wasn’t. And in between there was Peter and Toby and Emma, goats on roofs, and chickens. Manchester United and being a sponsor. Halfway through she fetched Joseck’s photograph and his letter, and that made it easier.
Then Naomi took over, and explained about the charity that arranged it all, and the ten pounds a month that was so hard to find.
‘What will happen if you don’t send the money?’ asked Phoebe. ‘I mean, except for Ruth getting arrested for saying she was eighteen?’
‘Oh, thank you for caring,’ said Ruth.
‘We don’t know,’ Naomi said. ‘Perhaps they’ll just tell him we’re not bothering any more. Perhaps they might even stop him going to school. Then he will feel awful.’
‘He might be glad,’ said Rachel. ‘I would be.’
‘He likes school, he’s clever. I bet he’d be miserable. And we’re supposed to be his friends.’
‘You have to send his money,’ said Phoebe firmly, ‘or else you will be mean pigs and I will bury your cage in the garden and worms will come and live with you!’
‘But we spent all our money on Easter eggs, and then we got ill and we couldn’t earn any more and now we’ve got to go to Big Grandma’s,’ said Ruth miserably.
‘Well, me and Rachel will help,’ said Phoebe grandly, ignoring Rachel’s alarmed expression. ‘You should have asked us before!’
Two days later found Rachel staring at the envelope Ruth and Naomi had left behind, and feeling completely unheroic.
‘It’s addressed and got a stamp on and everything,’ Ruth had said. ‘All you have to do is put a ten pound postal order inside, or a ten pound note if that’s easier.’
Nothing was easy about the task. But it was too late now; Ruth and Naomi were gone, Rachel had promised, and Phoebe’s train had refused to yield its riches.
I suppose, thought Rachel, wriggling with horror at the thought, I suppose I’ll have to rob the Post Office.
It was the only solution she could think
of, and because worrying about robbing the Post Office somehow felt even more alarming than actually doing the deed, Rachel stowed Ruth’s envelope in her usual hiding place and set off at a nervous trot to commit the crime.
There was a queue at the counter. One position was closed, and at the other, where Rachel’s nice cashier was sitting, two old ladies waited to draw their pensions. The cashier recognized Rachel at once and cheerfully waved a ten pound note at her. Pretending not to notice, Rachel lined up behind the old ladies. It would have been comforting to be in disguise, but then the whole success of Rachel’s plan depended on the fact that the cashier would know who she was. The first old lady moved away and Rachel’s hands tightened on her quaking stomach.
It isn’t really crime, she thought, feeling unburglarish, It’s my money. It’s not my fault they won’t give it to me without a grown-up. They should have told me that, before I put it in. I never would have then; they’re the burglars, not me. I’m only getting it back. It’s my money! She found herself standing at the counter and realized she had spoken aloud.
‘Of course it is,’ agreed the cashier. ‘Did you think I’d spent it? There you are,’ and he slapped a ten pound note down on his side of the counter.
‘That’s not mine,’ said Rachel, determined to take only what was her own. ‘You know it isn’t. Mine was much newer and had a bent corner.’
‘How could I have forgotten?’ asked the cashier, reaching down and producing a new, bent-cornered one. ‘There it is!’
Rachel’s hand, damp and grubby and cold with fear, but small enough to achieve her purpose, shot beneath the grille, grabbed the ten pound note, and the next moment she was running, running as fast as she could, out of the Post Office, and round the corner to the letter-box that stood at the end of the street. Here she paused and looked back. She had expected to be pursued, but no one had given chase. Hastily she retrieved the envelope from her front, stuffed the ten pound note inside and posted it.
Now Joseck’s safe! she thought, and the feeling of relief and achievement was so great that she hugged herself with delight. A second later her happiness left her. If Joseck was safe, it was equally certain that she, Rachel, definitely wasn’t. Why hadn’t the cashier run after her, she wondered? Or perhaps he had, but she’d been too fast. Perhaps he had simply called the police and they were at her home, waiting for her, or tracking her footsteps with Alsation dogs on leads. Rachel looked down at her dusty trainers and wondered if she should take them off, to baffle the dogs. It seemed a sensible idea.
Cautiously, in her socks, she retraced her footsteps to the corner and looked round. There was the Post Office, she could see the red and yellow sign, but nobody was outside looking for her. Except for two small boys on bikes and a tortoiseshell cat, the street was empty.
No policemen waited for her at the Post Office door. Rachel, tiptoeing past, listened for the sound of voices, unaware that inside, the manager and the cashier were laughing and laughing. They had not called the police, or prepared an ambush or given chase because they had another plan. It was to have a word with Rachel’s mother.
Weak with relief, Rachel reached her home and noticed with satisfaction that no police vans were parked outside. It looked unbelievably normal. Her mother was potting up seedlings in the shed.
‘I’ve grown far too many,’ she remarked to Rachel, not seeming to notice that her daughter had turned into a criminal. ‘Perhaps Naomi will take a few to her old people when she gets back from Big Grandma’s.’
It was as if the past hour had been a dream. Mr Conroy sat in his usual chair, reading gloomily through a pile of bills.
‘Where’s Phoebe?’ asked Rachel.
‘Upstairs, as far as I know.’
Phoebe was sitting on her bunk bed, looking very guilty. As Rachel entered, she jumped and stuffed something under her pillow.
‘I’ve robbed the Post Office,’ said Rachel.
‘I’ve broken my train,’ said Phoebe.
There was a small silence while they glared at each other.
‘You’ll get in awful trouble,’ said Rachel, not without a certain amount of satisfaction.
‘So will you.’
Side by side they sat on Phoebe’s bed and contemplated the tattered remains of the Post Office book, and the shattered china of Phoebe’s train.
‘Just proves,’ remarked Rachel eventually, ‘how stupid it is to save money. I never will again. Look what happens!’
‘Was it hard, robbing the Post Office?’ enquired Phoebe presently.
‘Terrible. Horriblest thing I’ve ever done.’
Phoebe, remembering with awe all the horrible things Rachel had ever done, things which included setting fire to Big Grandma’s house and being accidently sick into someone else’s desk (‘Well, at least it wasn’t your own,’ Naomi had remarked at the time), shuddered in sympathy.
‘You needn’t have done it, now I’ve broken my train.’
‘You needn’t have broken your train now I’ve robbed the Post Office.’
‘Listen!’ said Phoebe.
Downstairs there was a sudden clamour of voices: Mrs Conroy’s raised, exclaiming, and Mr Conroy’s and at least one stranger’s.
‘Rachel!’ shouted Mrs Conroy up the stairs. ‘I think you’ve got some explaining to do, young lady!’
‘Come with me,’ begged Rachel, ‘before they come up here and see your train.’
‘Just keep saying sorry,’ advised Phoebe, and, ‘Sorry I robbed the Post Office!’ said Rachel over and over again, to her dissatisfied parents and the Post Office manager, who had arrived as soon as he was able to manage.
Nothing could persuade her to say any more, to explain why she had done it, or how she had disposed of the money. Backed loyally by Phoebe, she repeated that she was sorry, she wished she hadn’t, and she never would do it again.
‘Try and cry a bit,’ suggested Phoebe, in a whisper that was unfortunately overheard. She was sent from the room, and Rachel, without her support, really did manage to burst into tears – loud, noisy roaring ones, drowning the sound of all further questions.
‘What are you doing to her?’ enquired Phoebe, returning to the room after concealing the remains of her train.
‘Nobody is doing anything to her,’ said Mrs Conroy crossly, and eventually they gave up and sent her to bed, where she slept soundly and awoke to a day of bright sunshine and the cheerful thought that the worst was over.
‘You’re in disgrace,’ her father told her.
‘I know,’ agreed Rachel, staring at her knees, but she did not feel disgraced. She felt noble.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Two days after Ruth and Naomi arrived in Cumbria, a grubby envelope was delivered to them.
Dear R and N,
We have don it now.
Love, Phoebe
Underneath this unreassuring remark, Phoebe, using an enormous amount of black pencil and spit, had drawn a detailed and dramatic picture of recent events in Lincolnshire. Even by Phoebe’s standards the illustration was complicated, and realizing this the artist had carefully added footnotes.
‘Rachel’ she had written on one side of the picture, and ‘prizon’ on the other. ‘Do not xplane this to B G’, she had added as an afterthought.
‘She’s put Rachel in her zoo,’ guessed Naomi.
‘Rachel’s in it already,’ Ruth pointed out, ‘and what about “We have done it now”? She might mean anything!’
‘Do not explain this to Big Grandma,’ repeated Naomi. ‘As if anyone could!’ There was a day of anxious waiting and then another letter arrived, this time from Rachel.
Dear Ruth and Naomi,
I hope you are having a nice time, I wish I was there too. Even for gastrick floo. Phoebe says she wrote and told you about me having to rob the post office. I never told anyone why but Im not going in again to buy stamps so I know you shouldnt post letters without but they get there anyway.
Love, Rachel
Ruth, who had been
forced to part with nearly a whole week’s pocket money to secure this masterpiece, groaned, and handed it to Naomi.
‘Well, it’s perfectly clear,’ said Naomi, ‘Rachel’s robbed the Post Office so she doesn’t want to go in and buy stamps, so she posted this without one and you had to pay eighty pence instead.’
‘I can understand that bit,’ answered Ruth. ‘What I can’t understand is how Rachel robbed the Post Office and what Phoebe’s picture meant and who the prison was for.’
‘I don’t feel safe these days,’ said Naomi. ‘I wish we hadn’t told them and then had to come away.’
‘People who feel safe,’ remarked Big Grandma, appearing from nowhere, ‘are usually mistaken. Sorry to make you jump like that! You people are very tense this week, I’ve noticed!’
Dear Ruth and Naomi, (said a postcard from Mrs Conroy)
I do hope you are feeling better now. We will be glad to have you back. Goodness knows what the Little Ones have been up to lately, I’m afraid Rachel has been very naughty but that’s all over now. The inevitable has happened and Phoebe has broken her little train. Dad says see you on Sunday!
Love from both of us,
Mum and Dad
‘Poor old Phoebe!’ said Ruth. ‘They must have used her train money for Joseck.’
‘Must have done,’ agreed Naomi, ‘I wonder what Rachel’s been up to, and I’m worried about Toby and Emma. We’ll have missed three visits.’
‘Write to them,’ suggested Ruth.
Dear Toby and Emma,
We are nearly better now so we will be coming back as soon as we can so do not get anyone else.
I hope you are well.
Love, Naomi
Dear Girls, (came back a reply by return of post)
Don’t you worry yourselves my dears your flowers are all through fighting fit.
Toby
Lovely as springtime was in Cumbria, a feeling of urgency began to grow on Ruth and Naomi.
‘A letter might arrive from Joseck,’ worried Ruth. ‘I never thought to tell those two to watch the post.’