Leave it to Eva (10 page)

Mrs Armitage pulled away, smiling weakly. She patted Ruby on the back.

‘What an amazing transformation,’ she said. ‘I think it’s safe to say that we’re going to be seeing a lot of Ruby Miller over the next couple of years.’

‘So I’m getting a scholarship?’ said Ruby, going even redder than before.

‘We just need to sort out the paperwork, and we’ll send your family all the necessary documents next week. But basically, yes, you’re in.’

Then Ruby shrieked and grabbed me and hugged me one more time, and even though my best top was now forever ruined from chlorine and water, I didn’t care at all.

Chapter Fifteen

T
he next morning we got up really early.

‘It’s your last day in London,’ said Jenny, ‘so I’ve taken the day off. Now what are we going to do?’

For a minute I thought of all the things I did with my parents when we visited London the last time, back when we had lots of money.

But we couldn’t afford any of this now, and besides, I had another idea.

‘There is one thing. I’d kind of like to …’ I began, but then stopped. My idea was a bit crazy, and I wasn’t sure how to continue.

Jenny and Ruby stared at me, and I could feel my face going red.

‘This has got something to do with your secretive trips to the library, hasn’t it?’ asked Ruby.

I nodded, and then I took a deep breath and told them the whole story.

‘So basically, you’re trying to track down Kate’s dad and ask him to take care of her?’ said Jenny, when I’d finished. ‘That’s really kind of you, Eva, but isn’t it a bit risky? What if he says “no”? Won’t Kate be devastated?’

I sighed. ‘I’m not an idiot. I haven’t told Kate anything about my plan.’

‘But he’s been gone for years, hasn’t he?’ said Ruby gently.

I nodded. ‘Yes. And I know I’m probably wasting my time. But for Kate’s sake, I have to give it a try. And if her dad doesn’t want to help her, well at least Kate will never know what happened.’

‘Right,’ said Jenny. ‘Tell us what you’ve discovered so far.’

I sighed.

‘Not a whole lot. I’ve spent hours on the internet, but I haven’t made any progress at all. Why couldn’t Kate’s dad have a helpful name like Nathaniel Chippenbottom or something? Do you have any idea how many Patrick Ryan’s there are in London?’

‘How many?’ asked Ruby.

I shrugged. ‘I can’t say for sure, but I know it’s a lot – hundreds.’

‘Well, that’s not going to be a help,’ said Jenny. ‘It’s a pity you don’t have a photograph of him.’

I grinned. ‘Actually I do.’

I ran and got the photo of Kate’s dad that I had ‘borrowed’ from her house the day I’d sneaked in there.

‘He looks nice,’ said Ruby, as she examined the photo. ‘He’s got a friendly smile.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘And Kate has lots of happy
memories of him. But if he’s so nice, why did he vanish from her life like that?’

‘You never know what’s going on in someone else’s life,’ said Jenny. ‘Maybe he had problems that Kate never knew about.’

‘Anyway,’ said Ruby. ‘None of this is helping us to find him. We have his name and a photograph, but he’s not a lost dog. We can hardly stick up “missing” posters all over London. Do you know anything else about him, Eva?’

I sighed. ‘Hardly anything. Kate never says a whole lot about him.’

‘Do you know what he does for a living?’ asked Jenny.

I shook my head. ‘No idea, I’m afraid. When Kate does mention him she usually just talks about all the time they spent together in their special field.’

‘When I met Kate last year, she told me that her dad was big into nature,’ said Ruby suddenly.

‘Yeah, but loads of people are big into nature,’
I said. ‘We can hardly wander around every park in London, hoping to find Kate’s dad hugging a tree, or reciting a love poem to a rose bush.’

‘What else was he interested in?’ asked Jenny, giggling.

And then it came to me. ‘Stars,’ I said. ‘He was really, really into stars.’

‘Football stars? Movie stars?’ asked Jenny.

‘Not that kind of star. I meant real stars – the ones in the sky. Kate knows all about them, because her father was kind of obsessed with them.’

‘That’s where we start then,’ said Jenny. ‘Get your coats, girls, we’re going on a mission.’

I jumped up quickly and hugged Jenny. ‘What was that for?’ she asked, looking surprised and pleased.

Because you’re so cool and funny?

Because now that you’re involved, I think this plan might actually work?

Because instead of finding a hundred reasons not
to do this you’ve just decided to get stuck in?

Because I would so much love to have a brilliant big sister like you?

But all those things would have sounded much too weird and embarrassing, so I said, ‘Just because. Now let’s go. We can’t afford to waste any time.’

An hour later we were standing outside the head office of Astronomy UK.

‘You know they’re going to think we’re totally crazy?’ said Ruby.

‘And we care because?’ said Jenny pushing open the door. ‘Now remember, we don’t need to give away too many details. We’ll just say we’re looking for this man. We won’t say why, and hopefully they won’t ask.’

The friendly receptionist didn’t recognise Patrick from the photograph, but she put his name through the computer, and I was very
hopeful for about three seconds, until she said, ‘Sorry, girls. There’s no Patrick Ryan on our membership list.’

‘Oh,’ I said so sadly that she smiled at me.

‘Don’t worry. That just means that he’s not signed up. Lots of people come to our meetings without ever formally registering. Why don’t you come along to our next gathering and you might see him then?’

‘When is your next gathering?’ asked Jenny.

The woman consulted a calendar. ‘Six weeks time.’

I sighed. We barely had six hours left.

We thanked the woman and were walking away when she called us back. ‘You know there are three smaller, local astronomy groups in London. Maybe your friend is part of one of them?’

I felt like kissing her as she wrote down the names and contact details of the leaders of the three smaller groups.

‘I feel like a proper detective,’ said Ruby as we set off to track down the first person on the list. ‘Who’d have thought that searching for a lost person could be so much fun?’

Chapter Sixteen

T
hree hours later, the search didn’t seem like so much fun any more. We had made no progress at all, and we were getting tired. I wondered how tv detectives managed to solve their cases in an hour – with ad-breaks.

It had taken us ages to find the first person on the list. When we did find him, he turned out to be really mean and grumpy and he didn’t know anything about Kate’s dad either.

When we finally got to the apartment of the second person, her flatmate told us that she wasn’t there.

‘Will she be back soon?’ I asked hopefully.

The flatmate shook her head. ‘Sorry. She’s gone on an astronomy tour of South America. She won’t be back for months. I don’t suppose you’d like to sublet her room? I can’t afford the rent on my own.’

We assured her that we weren’t looking for a home, and then left, feeling totally fed up.

By the time we knocked on the door of the third group leader, I didn’t dare to feel hopeful any more. I felt that I was messing up our last day in London, and it was all going to be for nothing.

The man who answered the door was suspicious when we asked him if he knew Patrick Ryan.

‘I don’t know him,’ he said. ‘And even if I did, I’m not sure I’d tell you. Does he owe you money or something?’

‘No,’ said Ruby quickly. ‘It’s nothing like that. Patrick is an old friend, and we want to give him some good news about his family.’

I wasn’t sure what part of
Your mother is sick and it’s looking like your daughter will have to go into care
was good news.

Still, I couldn’t worry about details like that now. This was our last chance to help Kate, and I had to make the most of it. I pulled out the photograph.

‘This is him,’ I said. ‘Has he ever been to any of your meetings?’

The man looked at the photograph for a long time. ‘He does look kind of familiar, but I don’t know who he is. You should find Peggy. She’s a regular at our meetings, and she knows everything about everyone. If anyone knows your friend, she will. She lives down on Bridge Street, right next to the flower shop.’

I wasn’t sure if he was really trying to be helpful, or if he just wanted to get rid of us, but all of a sudden I didn’t care.

Before we’d finished thanking him, he had closed the door in our faces.

‘Charming,’ said Ruby, as we walked away.

When we got to Peggy’s house, the front door was opened by a thin woman with neat grey hair. Before we even had time to explain what we wanted, she had invited us in for tea. Tea sounded nice, but Jenny refused.

‘Thanks very much,’ she said. ‘But we’re just here to see if you know this man.’

Peggy smiled when I showed her the photograph. ‘I don’t think this was taken any time recently,’ she said. ‘But I definitely know that man. He’s a regular at our monthly astronomy meetings. He’s not very talkative, is he?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ I said, before Jenny poked me in the ribs. ‘I mean, I know,’ I said quickly.

‘Anyway,’ said Jenny. ‘Do you know where he lives?’

Peggy shook her head. ‘Like I said, he doesn’t
say much. But I can give him a message when I see him if you like. We have a meeting in three weeks time and I’m sure he’ll be there.’

‘Thanks, but that’s too late for us,’ I said as we turned to go.

We’d reached a dead end. It was time to face up to the fact that there was nothing I could do to help Kate.

Just then a small black dog came running from the back of the house.

‘My little baby,’ said Peggy scooping him up. ‘Come and meet the nice girls.’

I had the awful feeling that the woman was lonely, and didn’t want us to leave.

‘Isn’t he a darling?’ she asked, grabbing one of his skinny paws and waving it at us.

‘He’s lovely,’ said Ruby politely, even though he was the ugliest, scrawniest dog I’d ever seen.

‘What’s his name?’ I asked, jumping backwards as the dog puffed a stinky waft of dog-breath into my face.

‘This is Edgar,’ said Peggy. ‘And goodness gracious, why didn’t I remember this before?’

‘Remember what?’ I asked, bracing myself for a long boring story about her darling dog.

‘That man you’re looking for – Patrick,’ said Peggy. ‘One day while we were waiting for the astronomy meeting to start, I was telling him about Edgar’s toenail operation, and Patrick didn’t seem very interested, I have to say, but when I was finished he did mention that “Edgar” was an unusual name for a dog, and I told him that Edgar was called after the writer Edgar Allen Poe, because my late father was a big fan of his and ……’

She rattled on for a long time, and even though I felt sorry for the lonely old lady, I had a feeling that she was just wasting our time. But then, amazingly, she finally got to the point.

‘…… and then Patrick said that he lived on a street with the same name as my dog.’

‘So he lives on Edgar Street?’ said Jenny. ‘Do
you happen to know where that is?’

‘Actually, I do,’ said Peggy. ‘My aunt Julia used to work near there, and sometimes when I was a little girl, I went to her office on my way home from school. Julia was a nice old lady, but a bit disorganised. One day she …..’

What felt like hours later, we’d got directions to Edgar Street, and we thanked Peggy and set off on the next step of our journey.

Luckily, Edgar Street was small, with only a few houses on it. The woman in the first house was very helpful when we showed her the photograph.

‘I don’t know his name,’ she said. ‘But he lives just across there, in the house with the blue door.’

‘I can’t believe we’ve actually done this,’ said Ruby as we crossed the road. ‘Don’t you feel proud and clever and grown-up, Eva?’

I shook my head. I didn’t feel any of those things – I just felt sick and nervous.

‘What are we going to do if he’s not there?’ asked Jenny.

‘What are we going to do if he is there?’ I asked.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Jenny.

I stopped on the footpath, and sighed. ‘This was a totally stupid idea. I don’t know why we’ve bothered. Patrick knows where Kate is. If he cared about her, he’d have come home years ago. Nothing we say will make any difference to him. I’m sorry, Ruby and Jenny. I’ve messed up your day for nothing.’

‘Hey,’ said Jenny putting her arm around me. ‘This isn’t like you, Eva. You helped Mum and Ruby last year, and you helped Kate too. I know you’re not going to give up now – not when we’re so close.’

I wasn’t sure she was right, but before I could answer her, she was marching up the driveway
and knocking on the door.

‘Come on, Eva,’ she said. ‘Don’t let me do this all on my own.’

So Ruby and I ran up the driveway and arrived just as the door was pulled open. I was bracing myself for my first look at Kate’s long-lost father and was totally surprised to see a pretty woman, with long brown hair, and kind eyes. She was wearing jeans and a big baggy jumper, and in her arms was a totally cute, curly-haired baby.

The woman smiled and spoke in an American accent, ‘Hello girls,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you all?’

I was embarrassed.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘We didn’t mean to bother you. We were looking for someone, but I think we’ve come to the wrong place.’

I was turning to walk away, when Ruby grabbed my arm.

‘Show her the photograph, Eva,’ she said.

‘Yes, do show me the photograph,’ said the
woman. ‘If your friend lives around here, maybe I can help you to find them.’

He’s no friend of ours,
I felt like shouting.

I was cross now. I was wasting my time, and ruining the last day of Ruby’s trip.

But everyone was staring at me and waiting, so I pulled the photograph from its envelope and held it towards the woman. The baby grabbed for it, and the woman pulled it away from him.

‘No, Simon,’ she said. ‘That’s not your dinner.’ She looked at the photograph and gave a big laugh. ‘Oh my!’ she said. ‘Look at that, Simon. It’s your daddy!’

I could feel the blood draining from my face. ‘But it can’t be,’ I said.

The woman laughed again. ‘I’ve never seen him with such a bad haircut, but there’s no mistaking that smile. That’s my husband, Patrick.’