by Hilary McKay
Naomi, horrified, had grabbed her books off the counter, stuffed them back into her bags, yanked open the door and disappeared.
‘Good heavens!’ repeated the bookshop owner again. ‘No more than I guessed, though!’ and he gazed regretfully for a minute out of the window. It was a pity about the annuals, he thought.
Peter, very dirty around the knees from playing Omelette, sat in his high chair and ate his egg as beautifully as he had been taught by the Italian waiter. Having finished it, he seized the shell, turned it upside-down and pounded it flat on his tray.
‘Good dog?’ he asked, looking at his mother out of the corner of his eye.
‘Bad dog!’ said Mrs Collingwood. ‘Sorry, darling! I mean Bad Peter! You didn’t learn to do that in Italy! Or anywhere else, for that matter! Naughty Peter! Drink your milk!’
‘Woof did,’ remarked Peter, wiping eggshell into his hair.
Mrs Collingwood looked at him in amazement. ‘I’m sure she didn’t, if you said what I think you said!’
‘Woof did,’ Peter told himself quietly, reaching for his milk and sticking his tongue in it like Josh did. ‘Woof did! Woof did!’ and he sneezed very hard into his mug.
‘That’s not the way to drink!’ said Mrs Collingwood. ‘Really, Peter! What a mess! You’ve never done that before!’
Peter looked up with the expression of one determined to see justice done.
‘Nayo does!’ he said, and bent to try and lap out of his mug again.
‘Peter!’ exclaimed Mrs Collingwood, just managing to seize it as it tipped.
‘Nayo,’ said Peter firmly, ‘does!’
Mrs Collingwood said nothing, but looked at him very oddly as she unstrapped him and dumped him on the floor. He dropped to his knees immediately and started playing Omelette round and round the kitchen table.
‘Peter,’ said Mrs Collingwood, ‘that is a horrid, noisy game. Who plays it with you? Martin? Nursery?’
‘Omelette, omelette, omelette!’ shouted Peter. ‘Woof and Nayo play! Woof!’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Collingwood.
‘And Nayo!’ said Peter triumphantly.
Naomi ran and ran, her breath coming in painful jerks, the heavy bags of books knocking her shins. When she had given in to the impulse to sell their christening presents, she had forgotten all about their names being inside. Now her only hope was to reach home before the bookshop owner could telephone her parents. Perhaps she could answer the phone herself and, disguising her voice, deny all knowledge of Naomi Conroy.
I’ve done this before, she realised, remembering the run from Ruth’s pavement artist adventure, and she forced herself to slow down to a walk as she came up to the church. At the gate the vicar stood, talking to a party of visitors, and Naomi hoped she would not be recognised as the shabby little man who had robbed her sister only a few weeks before. Strange to see those paving stones bare again! Naomi, walking as quickly and inconspicuously as possible, had a sudden mental image of herself, the dark little man, haunting that spot a hundred years into the future, while Ruth, a shadowy, kneeling ghost, perpetually chalked vanishing pictures on to the pavement.
‘Hey, Naomi! Wake up!’ called a familiar voice, and Naomi looked up to see Gavin grinning down at her from a shining new bike and looking most un-Gavinishly cheerful.
‘Nearly ran you over!’ said Gavin.
‘I’m in an awful rush.’
‘I’ll walk with you a bit. I’d take your bags only my carrier’s full already!’ Gavin proudly indicated an enormous bulging heap of flasks, rugs, binoculars, waterproofs and wellington boots, all strapped into a bundle on to the back of his bike.
‘Going bird-watching,’ he said casually.
Naomi thought it looked more like he was going round the world, and would have said so, if she’d had breath enough to speak.
‘Guess how I got the bike,’ said Gavin.
‘Birthday?’
‘No. Congratulations present from Dad for dumping Wendy! Anyway, see you!’ and he rode off before Naomi could begin to reply
Wendy dumped him! she thought, slightly resentfully, as she began to run again, and she thought how strange it was to feel sorry for Egg-Yolk Wendy.
Above her head the church clock struck three. How long had it been since she left the bookshop, she wondered? More than ten minutes? Time for him to have found her telephone number yet? Nothing to do but carry on running, while all the time her hands grew more sore and numb from the bumping bags of books.
Nearly home. Past Rachel and Phoebe’s school, and the Earnest One’s house, where the Earnest One was actually swinging on the gate. He peered eagerly into Naomi’s bags as she passed and asked, ‘Where’s Rachel and Phoebe?’
‘Probably eating enormous sandwiches somewhere,’ replied Naomi cruelly, and hurried on.
‘Wait for me!’
Naomi turned crossly and saw that he had left his gate and was panting after her.
‘Can I come home with you?’
‘No you can’t! What for?’
‘A sandwich?’ he said hopefully.
‘No you definitely can’t! No wonder you’re s . . .’
Naomi stopped, just in time.
‘What?’ he demanded suspiciously.
‘Such a bother,’ said Naomi, and to shake him off she dashed into the Post Office and then out again as the counter staff all burst into laughter and threw their hands up in the air.
Tottering with exhaustion, Naomi jogged slowly past the Collingwoods’ house, arrived thankfully at her own, and came to a sudden, dismayed halt.
Something was happening. Mrs Collingwood was in the front garden, talking earnestly to Ruth, who was looking uncomfortable. Their mother was listening with a very grim expression on her face. From the Conroys’ open front door came the sudden sound of the telephone ringing, and Mrs Conroy disappeared inside to answer it.
‘Nayo!’ cried Peter, suddenly catching sight of his friend and bouncing with delight. Naomi, after one startled glance, turned and fled, pursued by cries of ‘Nayo! Nayo! Nayo!’ faint and plaintive, hunting her through the streets.
Confused and horrible thoughts pounded through Naomi’s head as she struggled along. The bookshop owner had found her number and telephoned her mother, and she had been seen, caught red-handed with her arms full of evidence. No chance of slipping in quietly now. Ruth was in trouble, that was clear, and Peter had learned to talk! It was impossible not to imagine that the facts were unconnected. What on earth should she do with these horrible books? And, for that matter, what on earth should she do with herself?
All at once, the solution came to her. She would go to Toby and Emma’s and leave the books in their garden shed, and then she would go to the bungalow and sit in their quiet, bare room and do nothing. Rest. Not even think. And Toby and Emma, with whom no secrets were necessary, would let her.
With the exhausted, peaceful feeling of waking from a nightmare, Naomi wandered through the streets to where Toby and Emma lived.
‘We ought to cut the grass,’ she said to herself as she came within sight of the bungalow. The lawn was beginning to look ragged and shaggy, scattered with fallen leaves. Autumn had arrived in the garden. The borders, although still bright with flowers, had a tumbled, tangled look. Recent winds had brought small, yellow apples down from the apple tree and they littered the ground and path.
‘I’ll pick them up before I go in,’ decided Naomi, pleased to think of one useful thing she could manage that day. It was strange not to find Emma in the garden. Lately, she had spent every bright afternoon nodding by the flower-beds, tucked up in layers of rugs and blankets against the chilly wind.
Naomi glanced across at the windows to see if anyone was looking out. Nobody was there, but the front door opened and Mrs Reed appeared. It was only then that Naomi noticed the cars parked outside the fence.
‘Have they got visitors?’ she asked Mrs Reed, surprised.
Mrs Reed, catching sight of Naomi for the first time, st
ared at her in concern. ‘Yes, visitors,’ she agreed after a moment. ‘Shouldn’t you be at home?’
‘Why?’ asked Naomi. “It’s Saturday! We always come and see them at the weekend but if they’ve got people there, I’ll just leave these bags in the shed.’
Mrs Reed, however, seemed to think otherwise, and with a hand on Naomi’s back, she steered her away from Toby and Emma’s gate. Naomi tried to wriggle away, but Mrs Reed, a headmistress, was an expert at steering unwilling people. Over the years, with that firm hand between the shoulders, she had steered hundreds of reluctant people in directions they did not wish to take: sinners to teachers’ desks to confess, the unwashed to cloakrooms, heroes and heroines on to public stages to receive prizes, sworn enemies to make up with each other. Now she steered Naomi to her car, opened the door, took possession of the bags of books and stowed them, together with her outraged and ungrateful passenger, into the front seat.
‘I’ll drop you off at home,’ she said. ‘I need to see your mother.’
Another person complaining, thought Naomi, alarmed, and glanced at Mrs Reed apprehensively.
She did not look angry; tired and worried, perhaps, but kindly.
‘I don’t want to go home yet,’ Naomi told her. ‘I really wanted to leave these things in the shed. I could have easily waited there until their visitors were gone. I wanted to get the apples picked up, too; they’ve fallen all over the path.’
Mrs Reed did not answer for a minute, and when she did all she would say was, ‘Don’t worry about the apples, Naomi.’
Naomi, subsiding sulkily into her seat, wondered what awaited her at home. As the car pulled up outside the Conroys’ gate, she was relieved to see that there was no one in the garden. Mrs Collingwood and Peter had disappeared, but Ruth stood at their bedroom window, staring out into the street, looking unhappy and mutinous. She jumped as she saw Mrs Reed and Naomi climb out of the car, and then, as Mrs Reed hurried ahead to the front door, she caught Naomi’s eye, pointed firmly at herself and then her sister, and drew a horizontal line across her throat with her finger.
Both of us in trouble, then, thought Naomi, as she sidled in behind Mrs Reed.
‘Mrs Reed!’ exclaimed Naomi’s mother, answering the front door, and then, catching sight of her daughter skulking in the background, ‘Naomi!’ in a tone that bode no good at all for Naomi. She got no further, however. Mrs Reed laid a gentle hand on Mrs Conroy’s arm, shook her head slightly and asked if she might have a quick word. Naomi seized the opportunity to escape upstairs to Ruth.
‘You got away quickly!’ said Ruth, as she opened the door. ‘Mum’s planning to kill you, when she’s done me! What did Mrs Reed want? Are Rachel and Phoebe in trouble too?’
Naomi dropped the bags of books with a sigh of relief. ‘Feels like I’ve been carrying them for years,’ she remarked, kicking them under her bed. ‘I don’t know the answers to any of your questions,’ and she flopped down wearily on to her quilt.
‘A man from a bookshop rang up about you!’ Rachel and Phoebe burst into the room. ‘What’s Mrs Reed doing here?’
‘She’s probably come about you,’ said Ruth. ‘What have you done?’
‘Nothing at all,’ said Phoebe.
‘Lately,’ said Rachel, ‘I don’t think. It’s getting hard to remember everything people say we’ve done wrong. Do you want to know what the man from the bookshop said about you?’
‘No.’ Naomi rolled over on to her back and closed her eyes.
‘Well, don’t you want to know what Peter went and said?’
‘No. I don’t care. I’ve given up caring!’
‘What about?’
‘Everything,’ said Naomi dreamily. ‘It’s a lovely feeling!’
Ruth, Rachel and Phoebe stared at her crossly. They had no intention of leaving her to wallow in lovely, non-caring feelings while they suffered with their consciences.
‘The man from the bookshop said you were trying to sell books that didn’t seem to belong to you!’
‘They didn’t,’ agreed Naomi placidly, ‘so he was right. They were mostly yours, actually.’
‘And he said you ran off very guiltily. He hoped you got home all right. Mum said she’d send you round to apologize for wasting his time. She’s furious!’
‘Poor Mum,’ said Naomi, still with her eyes shut.
‘And Peter’s told Mrs Collingwood we taught him to play Omelette. And that I showed him how to bash up his egg shells and you showed him how to lap up milk, like a dog. And Mrs Collingwood said she wasn’t angry . . .’
‘Well then,’ said Naomi, ‘what’s it matter?’
‘But very puzzled. And Mum said we weren’t to be trusted.’
‘Well, I s’pose she’s right,’ agreed Naomi.
‘Don’t you care what happens to us?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know why Mrs Reed is here?’ asked Rachel, who had been very quiet, trying to work out which of her many recent sins might have come to her headmistress’s attention. ‘I don’t suppose you care about that, either!’
‘Not a bit,’ agreed Naomi, cheerfully.
‘How are we going to get Joseck’s money? Or don’t you care?’
‘I don’t know. Someone else will have to think of something. I’ve run out of ideas.’
‘Where did Mrs Reed grab you?’
‘Toby and Emma’s.’
‘I thought we might go tomorrow,’ said Ruth. ‘Are they all right?’
Naomi opened her eyes and sat up, suddenly remembering something she did still care about.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t see them. Mrs Reed grabbed me at the gate and I couldn’t get away. There were cars outside and she said they had visitors.’
‘They couldn’t have,’ said Phoebe, ‘they never do. Emma says she can’t be bothered with people who treat her like she’s old . . .’
At that moment the bedroom door was pushed open and Mrs Reed came in, followed by Mrs Conroy.
‘Treat who like she’s old?’ asked Mrs Reed, sitting down on Naomi’s bed.
‘Emma.’ Phoebe stared at her headmistress in astonishment. ‘But we never do. Why?’
‘I just wondered who you were talking about,’ said Mrs Reed, ‘I’m sure you never did. That’s why she loved having you there so much.’
Startled by something they could not name, Ruth and Naomi glanced at each other and then at their mother. For the first time they noticed her eyes.
‘Emma died this morning,’ said Mrs Conroy, and all the jigsaw puzzle pieces of Naomi’s afternoon fell slowly into place.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Conroy girls were in disgrace. It was not the familiar shabby state of disgrace in which one or another of them had spent so much of the spring and summer, and from which they might soon emerge, forgotten, forgiven and reinstated into family life. This was bad, awful, dire disgrace. Their mother was ashamed of them. She felt she could neither help or understand her daughters. She treated them with furious bewilderment.
This had been going on ever since she and Mrs Reed waited anxiously in Ruth and Naomi’s bedroom for the reaction to the news of Emma’s death.
‘Emma dead?’ exclaimed Ruth in dismay. Her thoughts flew wildly. Emma! Toby and Emma and planting the garden. For weeks now they’d done it entirely for love. They’d begun it for money, but they hadn’t let Toby pay them for ages.
‘Emma . . . oh no!’ Ten pounds a month was never far from Ruth’s worries, and that’s why she said, hardly knowing she’d said it. ‘I suppose it won’t make any difference!’
Poor Mrs Conroy was utterly shocked.
Then Naomi made everything very much worse by pulling her pillow over her head and saying she just didn’t care.
‘I don’t care,’ repeated Naomi, ‘I don’t care, I don’t care. I’ve stopped caring about everything!’
Phoebe remarked cheerfully, ‘It’s not true and I don’t believe it!’
No amount of explanations had been able to conv
ince her. The only tears shed that afternoon had been by Rachel; and she, on closer inspection, was found to be crying over a jam jar of money.
‘Things will get better.’ Mr Conroy repeated this hope over and over again to his wife. ‘They’re good girls. It’s shock. Things will get better, you’ll see.’
As far as Mrs Conroy could see, they got worse.
‘You’d think there’d be tears,’ she said. She had been proud of the girls, and the way they had worked to make the bright, shabby, patchwork garden. She wept herself now, for Ruth and Naomi’s blank-faced calm, as much as for Toby and Emma.
Mr Conroy understood a little. ‘Beyond tears,’ he suggested and he was right.
For the first few hours they were beyond tears. Except for Phoebe, they were so unhappy it ached like a strong dull pain. It was bigger than they were and they didn’t know how to deal with it. After their mother and Mrs Reed had left them alone, they lay on their beds, curled up like hedgehogs, all prickles and darkness and fear.
It was Ruth who uncurled first.
‘Look,’ she said, late on Saturday night, ‘we’re not doing any good like this. We ought to go straight down to see poor Toby. It’s too late now, but we could go tomorrow.’
On Sunday, however, Mrs Conroy flatly refused to let them out of the house. Ruth and Naomi didn’t argue, but the next morning they missed the bus for school.
‘If there’s someone there already, we’ll come away,’ said Naomi, ‘or if he looks like he wants to be on his own.’
But there was no one there, and Toby, who seemed to have been expecting them, showed no signs of wanting to be alone.
‘Tell us when you want us to go,’ said Ruth. ‘We thought you might be lonely.’
‘What about school?’ asked Toby.
‘Blow school,’ said Naomi briefly.
‘Ay well, it does get like that sometimes,’ Toby agreed, and said no more on the subject. He seemed so pleased to have someone to talk to, that Ruth and Naomi stayed until their usual time for leaving school, returned home, and repeated the performance for the next two days.