Dear Scarlett (8 page)

Uncle Derek sticks his head over the side of the roof and tells me to come down.

I think about saying nothing.

He’s not my dad. He can’t tell me what to do.

“Scarlett.” His face is all serious.

“So?”

But he’s actually looking me in the eye. And he actually looks quite worried.

“Scarlett, if you stay up there, I’ll be forced to tell your mum,” he says.

So I come down, and he helps me, and he doesn’t get cross, just pats me on the back, and I follow
Mrs Gayton and Mrs Mason into Mrs Mason’s office.

I’ve still got Ellie’s rabbit stuffed down my trousers.

I should have given it to Uncle Derek.

Rats.

“But they took Ellie’s rabbit, and they threw it on the roof!” I shout for the millionth time.

Mrs Mason sighs, leans back and stares at something she obviously finds really interesting on her desk. “That’s not the point, Scarlett. The point is that you can’t possibly go clambering around on the roof. Yes, I concede that it was wrong to throw the rabbit there in the first place, and I will have a word with Jessica and Melissa, but you just can’t go around taking the law into your own hands.” She slaps her hands on her desk as if to make her point. “I’d have thought you would already have learned that with the penguin episode.”

Mrs Gayton’s perched on the windowsill, nodding her head to every word. She’s still wearing her PE kit.

“It’s simply not your job,” says Mrs Mason, smiling at me.

“But what about Ellie’s rabbit – she can’t sleep without it – who would have climbed up to get it?” I stare at Mrs Gayton.

“Me? Oh no,” she squawks.

I imagine her climbing the ladder, giving us all a view up her army shorts.

Ugh.

“The caretaker would have gone to get it,” says Mrs Mason.

“Oh yeah – in about another month? All that stuff I found up there’s been there forever.”

“Oh, Scarlett.” Mrs Mason flaps her hand at me and looks really tired.

“But what would happen to Ellie? She can’t manage without it. She wouldn’t sleep at all. She hasn’t got a mum.”

“Calm down, Scarlett. Go back and finish your lunch, and I’ll have a word with the other girls.” She stands. “Go on, off you go.”

“Aren’t you going to punish her?” is the last thing I hear from Mrs Gayton, as the door closes behind me.

I head towards the door into the playground and I’ve just about made it outside when I feel a hand on my shoulder.

“Rabbit. Give it here.” It’s Mrs Gayton.

“What?”

She sticks out her bony hand. “Here, rabbit, now.”

“No.”

“Yes,” she says, licking her lips.

“I won’t, Mrs Mason didn’t say I had to.”

“Well, I say you do.”

“What if I don’t?”

But Mrs Gayton’s faster than she looks and she grabs the rabbit right out of my trouser belt.

“Hey!” I yelp.

“Serve you both right,” she snaps. “You and your … your friend. I’m confiscating it.”

“You can’t!”

“I can, and did. Come and see me tomorrow to have it returned. Now go back to your lunch.”

When I get home, so angry I can hardly speak, Mum’s sitting outside with Syd. She’s filling pots with compost and sticking green things in them; Syd’s emptying them into his paddling pool and making mud.

I throw down my school bag and stomp into the house. I’m imagining Mrs Gayton in Antarctica without a map.

Or a compass.

Or thick socks.

Or a woolly hat.

Or her favourite teddy.

“What’s the matter, Scarlett?” Mum’s leaning in the doorway.

“Everything. Nothing.”

“Oh?”

So I tell her about Mrs Gayton and the rabbit. I don’t tell her it was on the roof and that Uncle Derek came to get me down.

Mum comes to sit next to me. “I agree that it does sound wrong – she was never very nice, even when I was at school – but I suspect that you’re not telling me the whole story.”

“Uncle Derek told you?”

Mum shakes her head. “Not really. Mrs Mason rang.”

“Oh,” I say. “But did Uncle Derek tell you too?”

“Almost, not exactly.”

So he did tell her.

Rats. Dad was right, I shouldn’t trust just anyone.

I imagine Uncle Derek in the Antarctic.

Without his policeman’s uniform.

Or his stopwatch.

Without Ellie.

“But it was still wrong,” I say. “Poor Ellie – she’s devastated.”

“It was wrong of someone to throw the rabbit
on the roof, and it was probably wrong of Mrs Gayton to confiscate it, but it wasn’t necessarily right for you to climb up and get it. It was almost right, but not completely right.”

“But, Mum.” I’m starting to feel really cross. “Things are either right or wrong.”

“There are grey areas.”

“Oh yeah – I’ve heard about grey areas from Ellie – does not telling me that Dad was a spy come into ‘grey areas’?”

Mum goes pink. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that Uncle Derek – not you – told me about Dad. That Dad was really working as a sort of spy, and not a criminal after all.” Mum tries to interrupt me but I’m not going to let her. “I’ve grown up all these years thinking he was a thief, and you let me… And you let THEM, beastly Mrs Gayton and the Coven and all of them, you let them think Dad was a thief and they’ve been attacking me with it ever since. You should have told me, then I could have ignored them. That would have been the right thing to do.”

Mum looks like she’s about to cry. “I’m sorry, I was just…”

“Uncle Derek has told me more about my dad
than you’ve ever done.”

“Oh, Scarlett, that’s not fair.”

“None of this is fair.” I sit back on the sofa.

“I was just…”

I stare at her. “Doing what you were told?”

Mum sinks on to the sofa next to me and curls her finger in my hair, but I pull away. “Mum, not now.” I’m too angry.

She stands up and walks to the window. “I was probably scared of breaking the rules, yes, that and all the rumours about the diamonds. When you were little, how could I stop you going to school and blurting it out? Then we’d have been in trouble. I know you might think that’s really silly and unimportant, but it wasn’t; after your dad died there was so much speculation. People wanted to know where the diamonds were, and I didn’t know, because I don’t think they ever existed. All kinds of rumours went round about the way he died, and some of them were horrible.” She traces her finger across the glass.

“I didn’t want you to hear any of it, I wanted us to stay away – I wanted all of them to leave us alone. To hide here, away from it all. But there were inquests and endless police enquiries, and the
men from MI5 and MI6 who couldn’t stop asking questions. And I just had to stay silent and hope it would all die down, which, until now, it did.”

“What about Uncle Derek?”

“What about him?”

“Is he a coincidence? Or…”

“He came because he was sent, love. But since then, things have changed.”

“How?”

“He could go, if he wanted to, there’s no danger any more.”

I chew my lip. “Would you want him to?”

Mum sniffs and rearranges a cushion. “Scarlett, I’m sorry, you know – I’m really sorry I lied to you, told you that your dad was in prison, let you think he was a criminal.” She looks up, meets my eye. “But you have to understand that I had to. I’d have loved to have told you the truth – I’d much rather you were proud of your dad. Of course I would, he was a wonderful human being…”

She sniffs again and, facing away from me, punches the cushion.

“But I needed to keep you safe.”

We've gone to bed. Ellie and me. But she's got no rabbit and I can hear her crying under the covers. She's sleeping over again because Mum's on early morning duty at the care home.

Ellie wouldn't tell her dad about Mrs Gayton stealing the rabbit, so I got Mum to promise not to either, although she said she'd like to throttle Mrs Gayton and would have a word with Mrs Mason.

This is my chance to tell Ellie about the lady mayoress and her suited driver, but I don't think she's in the mood to listen. It's funny, but I want to talk to her now, I want her to know everything I
know, because although she dresses like a My Little Pony, and knows everything, and puts smiley faces over her “i”s, I like her being around. It's almost as if she's family.

I trust her. She's lied for me and I know she won't split.

“Ellie?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to break into the school and get your rabbit back?”

“No.”

“I could, you know. It'd be easy.”

“No. You'll get into worse trouble. Thanks, but no. Anyway, your mum's got the tools, so you can't.”

Shame. I know where the tools are now: under Mum's bed. I could break into the school anyway and write things about Mrs Gayton all over the gym wall.

Mrs Gayton smells.

Mrs Gayton smells worse than the boys' toilets.

Mrs Gayton is really an alien.

I could write it in green alien blood.

Then I have a picture of the two from the lady mayoress's car, watching me write on the wall.

And I shiver.

Anyway, I am supposed to be being good; I am supposed to be doing the right thing.

“Ellie?”

“Yes.” There's a rustling and a cloud of
washing-powder
pong floats up into the room, although I don't mind it so much now. I've almost grown to like it.

“Would you rather…”

“What?” she says.

“Would you rather go on holiday with Mrs Gayton for a week or go for a run every day?”

“Go for a run.”

“OK – would you rather go on holiday with Mrs Gayton, or sing ‘Over the Rainbow' naked on stage, to the whole school?”

“Sing ‘Over the Rainbow'. I'd even dance as well.”

“OK.” I think. “Would you rather go on holiday with her, or eat a slug?”

“Eat a slug.”

“Two slugs?”

“I'd rather eat three slugs.”

“A whole jug of slugs?”

“Yeurgh, a slug jug!” Ellie laughs.

“Ellie,” I say, jumping up and banging my head on the top bunk. “The mayoress's driver, the man
we saw in the butterfly house, tried to blackmail me the day after the penguins. He's got CCTV footage of me at the sweet shop.”

Ellie's eyes are even bigger without glasses.

“Who?”

“The driver talked about clues, I don't know who he is.” I remember the lady mayoress too, she wasn't exactly comforting. “And her, she talked about ‘her diamonds' as if my dad took things from her.”

“Dad said there was something odd about them.”

“There is, they're creepy, and they keep appearing – or their car does.”

“What do they want?” asks Ellie, her eyes glistening in the dark.

“The box. They want Dad's box.”

We sit on the floor with my bedside light about a nanocentimetre from the rug so that the light doesn’t show from outside.

We do not need a visit from Mum, or Uncle Derek.

Ellie spreads out the postcards, separating the photos and stacking them on one side.

“What are we looking for?” she asks.

“I don’t know.” I lay out the rest of the things from the box. “Anything we haven’t seen before.”

Gone with the Wind
, turned down at page
thirty-nine
.

Key.

Message in a roll.

I could get the picklocks back from Mum’s room, and put them in my school bag. We’re not allowed sharp things at school, but if Mrs Gayton tries to take them away from me I’ll play the Dead Dad card.

I don’t know what I’ll do if she pins me to the wall in a commando death grip. Give them to her, I suppose.

I flick through the photos, and a yellowed card pocket, about the size of a credit card, pokes out of the side.
Dampmouth Bay Library, Reference borrower’s card.

I hand it to Ellie. She squints under her glasses. “It’s got Richard McNally written in pencil. Look.”

I grab it off her – I can see what she means. Really faded pencil, in neat joined-up handwriting. Dad’s?

I sniff it. It smells of old men’s offices. How disappointing.

I peer inside; jammed at the bottom is a folded piece of pink paper.

My fingers won’t fit, so I jab at it with a pencil, until Ellie takes off her glasses and we use the
hooky piece that goes over her ear to drag it out.

It was obviously once the same size and shape as the card pocket. I flatten it against the rug.

On request.
Letter Boxes, Dead and Live,
by G. G. Krimpas.

“On request?” I say, staring at Ellie.

She stares back. “Library,” she says firmly.

And I say, “Before school.”

Uncle Derek’s quiet this morning. He keeps looking at me, as if I might go off in some way. Presumably he’s keeping an eye, like he said he would. He’s not dressed, just wearing a pair of manly blue pyjamas that smell of fabric softener, and make the kitchen stink. I wonder if he washes his moustache with fabric softener to make it less scratchy.

He makes us perfect packed lunches, with neat pieces of ham, white bread and things in packets. Mum always gives me leftovers from the night before, sometimes delicious, but mostly embarrassing. It is not cool to bring a box of lentils and brown rice to
school, no matter how yummy.

Not that I’m bothered.

“We’re going early, Dad,” says Ellie, shovelling in a last spoonful of cereal.

“I’ll walk with you,” says Mum. “Take Syd to nursery in the pushchair.”

Ellie looks at me. “We’re going to the library,” I say.

“To look something up for homework,” she adds quickly.

“That’s fine,” says Mum. “I’ll come too.”

We walk along by the airfield. Mum chats to Ellie and I walk ahead. I wish they’d hurry up, but I don’t quite know how we’re going to shake Mum off at the library. She’s bound to ask questions.

We come out of the airfield on to the lane that leads across to the centre of town.

We walk for about two minutes before a car pulls up alongside us.

“Fancy a lift?” It’s the lady mayoress’s car. The driver’s hanging out of the window in a
cheery-chappy
sort of way. “Going into town?”

“No,” I say.

“Oh yes, town centre?” says Mum. “That would
be lovely, so kind. In you get, girls.”

Ellie’s frozen; so am I.

“Come on,” says Mum, shoving Syd and his pushchair in through the rear door. “This is very kind of you.”

“No problem, dearie,” says the huge woman, making
coo-chee-coo
faces at Syd. “All public money, might as well use it for the public to enjoy – anyway, we all know about these two.”

“Oh – yes, the penguins,” says Mum, turning red. “Come on in, girls.”

So we climb in.

“That was quite a thing, with those birds in your garden,” says the lady mayoress.

“Wasn’t it,” says Mum. “Did you see it on the telly?”

“’Engy…” says Syd, wiping his hands on the lady mayoress’s skirt.

She gives him a sharp look before her face slides back into a smile. “We did, oh yes, we did – we saw you all on the telly, didn’t we, Gerald?”

The driver grunts.

“We went to visit the penguins too, after – seeing as they’d become celebrities. Still, no harm done, eh?”

The car rolls silently through the lanes.

I’m jammed in between the lady mayoress and Mum. I can hardly breathe. Ellie’s on a funny little seat that comes out of the back of the driver’s. The driver should be sealed up in a glass cabin at the front, but the window’s open so that he can hear us. It’s like a proper black taxi inside, but much bigger. In fact, it’s so big, you could put the whole of Golden Class in there.

And Mrs Gayton, and Mrs Mason.

“When did you move here?” asks Mum. “About three years ago?”

“Yes, I suppose it was,” says the lady mayoress, fiddling with her handbag. She smells of make-up and thick perfume and theatres. She doesn’t sound like a mayoress, she sounds more like the woman who runs the ghost train on the pier.

“How do you like it in Dampington?” asks Mum.

“Oh – well, it’s been very pleasant, hasn’t it, Gerald?”

The driver grunts in agreement.

“But you’re from … London?”

“Oh, yes.” The lady mayoress looks uncomfortable. “We are – originally, but we like to think of ourselves as locals – don’t we, Gerald?”

The driver grunts again.

“Where exactly are you going, dears?”

“Oh,” says Mum. “The girls are off to the library to do some homework; I’m taking Syd to nursery.”

“What a coincidence! We’ve got an appointment at the library this morning, haven’t we, Gerald?” The lady mayoress calls through the car to the driver.

“Yes, dear, how convenient, we could take the girls all the way there.”

Dear? Is that how the chauffeur addresses the lady mayoress? I wonder how she ever got elected. I look up at her, towering over me. She probably smothered the other candidates.

“That would be lovely,” says Mum.

“No it wouldn’t,” I say, really quietly.

Mum pokes me. “Scarlett!”

I stare at the floor. This is really, really,
really
bad.

Mum strokes the sides of the car. “Lovely car, this.”

“Oh yes, isn’t it – look!” The lady mayoress presses a button and a door slides open. There’s a little cupboard full of lit-up bottles and sparkly glasses.

“Oh,” laughs Mum. “Wonderful.”

Syd claps his hands. “’Gain, ’gain.”

“Isn’t it lovely – means I can sneak a snifter between engagements.” The huge woman laughs and her body laughs with her. I shake too; I’ve no choice, I’m so caught up in her pillowy sides.

She opens her handbag and pulls out a tube of sweets. “Like one?” she says, thrusting it under my nose. I refuse, but Syd takes three and crams them all in his mouth at once.

The car glides through the edge of town and pulls up silently by the library steps.

The driver springs round to open the door and we all pile out, Mum first, the lady mayoress last. Though she practically needs a hoist she’s so big.

“Thank you so much.” Mum beams and Syd waves as they push off down the road towards the nursery.

“Mum…” I call.

Mum turns round and blows a kiss. “See you later, Scarlett.”

“Come on, girls,” says the huge woman. “Up the steps.”

Inside the library, I can hardly breathe. I’m clutching the little yellow pocket, and wondering quite how
we can find anything out. The lady mayoress has gone to talk to the librarian.

The driver, on the other hand, is with us.

“Looking for books, are we?” he says.

“Yes.” Ellie goes over to the reference section and crouches down by the bookstand in the middle of the room. I join her, pulling random books out and flicking through them, trying to look interested.

The driver goes behind the shelf and leans on it, his head hanging down over us.

“So, Scarlett – had a little think?”

I stay silent.

“Only we’re getting a little impatient on our side of the deal, so I thought I’d up my offer, so to speak.”

I rearrange the books in front of me.
Ghengis Khan, a Biography; A Brief History of Fish Paste.
Ellie’s actually searching the shelves, but the man’s not looking at her, he’s staring at the top of my head, I can feel it.

“Now we’ve met your lovely mum, and your cute little brother, I thought perhaps we could get to know them better.” He takes off his cap and twiddles it around on his forefinger. He’s got almost no hair. For a second I think about landing
a really heavy book on it.
50 Ways to Make Compost,
perhaps?

Ellie makes a small squeak. I don’t look at her. I daren’t.

“Anyway,” the man goes on. “They’re very nice, your family, and they fit in our car very nicely. They seem to trust us.” He stands up and walks towards the main desk. “Shame if anything should happen to them.”