This Wonderful Thing

by Adam Baron

  ‘No!’ I screamed, but that just made the helper speed up. She rushed towards the fig tree, which she’d climbed before, knowing that she could do so again, in spite of the black dress she was wearing. And she was right. She was up the tree in seconds, the branches snapping beneath her feet, though that didn’t stop her getting on to the garage roof.

  But there was something the helper didn’t know.

  The helper didn’t know about Stephan.

  The helper didn’t know that Stephan REALLY wanted to be a part of our family.

  The helper didn’t know that Stephan cared so much about my mum that he’d do anything for her.

  The helper didn’t know that this meant that he’d do anything for me too, that he’d think about my problems and work really hard to solve them for me.

  Which meant that she didn’t know about my ramp.

  Rain. It’s a pain, isn’t it? It means you can’t play outside sometimes, or your match gets cancelled because of a waterlogged pitch. Up until that day I’d hated rain, though I don’t now: because, like some other things in life that may seem bad, it can help you to the best thing of all.

  Which it did then.

  The helper didn’t see the ramp. Once on the roof, she just leapt forward, expecting to climb down the other side of the garage before running away. Without the rain she might have made it – but the ramp was slippery. Her legs started going fast, then even faster, until they were still going fast, but not on the ramp. They were going fast in the air. They shot right up while her head shot down, disappearing beneath the line of the garage roof. And then she was flying backwards, looping through the air, back towards our garden as I ran out. What I hadn’t realised was that she’d let go of Not Mr Fluffy – and, while the helper crashed down on to our flowerbeds, my second !Teddy of Most Extreme Importance! sailed through the sky like Ellen had, flying right over my head.

  Until Stephan caught him.

  YES!

  I grabbed Not Mr Fluffy from Stephan and pushed him into my face. I did it really hard, though not because I was SO pleased to see him (though I was). I did it until I could feel the lump, the hard lump, deep inside him, which sent a wash of relief flooding through me like the Thames.

  Until a groan came from the flowerbeds.

  I nodded. The helper was a bit hurt, but she was all right. Her big glasses had come off and I could really see it now – the resemblance. It was made even clearer when a horrified face peered over the garden fence.

  And Mr Fells stared down at his sister.

  The police cut Not Mr Fluffy open.

  They did it on our kitchen table after arresting Mr Fells. And his sister. Mum was back by then with Ellen, Mabel and Dad, plus the two girls (Jess and Milly), their little brother and their mum and dad. Mum got the policewoman some scissors. Mabel held Not Mr Fluffy’s hand, and told him to be brave, which he was. There was a snip, and then another snip. And there it was, little bits of fluff sticking to it but still unmistakable. The Phoenix Medal, with seven red roses and seven white ones, just as it should have had.

  And that wasn’t all.

  The police pulled out a bunch of gold rings, some jewels that looked like rubies, another necklace and three piano keys, one of which was worn down.

  ‘The Middle C!’ I exclaimed.

  So they’d been fake too.

  Mr Fells sighed, and his sister shook her head, and then the police led them both away.

  ‘Who are you?’ I said to the smaller girl, who I’d seen from the bus, holding Mr Fluffy.

  Mum said that was a bit of a rude question, but the girl didn’t mind. Neither did her parents. So she told me about living in Brighton, which is on the coast, and how they’d gone to this place called Cuckmere Haven.

  ‘Benji did a poo,’ Jessica said. ‘We chased it.’

  ‘You chased it?’

  ‘That’s right. Playing Pooh Sticks. You should have seen it go. When it stopped, we saw a teddy. It was muddy as MUDDY, and wet. Not like he is now.’

  ‘Then why did you pick him up?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t really know. Maybe because he’s special, and we could tell.’

  I couldn’t argue with that and I said so, before panicking. The helper had dropped Mr Fluffy on the ground near the Cutty Sark!

  ‘It’s okay!’ Milly said, when she saw my face. And she held Mr Fluffy up for me to see.

  Stephan called someone to come and fix our smashed bathroom window. Mum made a pot of tea. Jess’s mum said they couldn’t really stay because they were going to the Valley – to see Charlton play Brighton. Her dad laughed, though, and said they could skip it. He said that this was all far more important, and, while there isn’t much that is more important than a Charlton match, I had to agree. The police wanted to speak to them anyway. They wanted to speak to all of us. We all had to give statements – and theirs were amazing. Apparently, Mr Fells’s sister, calling herself Mrs Rose, had tried to con Jess and Milly into giving her Mr Fluffy! She’d also broken into their house to try and steal him.

  ‘One of them must have seen you drop him in the river,’ Dad said to me. ‘At Whitecross House that time. After that, they must have been keeping a watch on social media to see if he turned up.’

  Mum nodded. ‘And then Mr Fells arrived next door. It was right after that, wasn’t it? He must have found out who we were and moved here, not knowing which teddy the things were in. Yes?’

  It sounded right, but Mum’s question was properly answered an hour later. After we gave our statements, the police officers who’d taken Mr Fells and his sister off came back.

  And they’d confessed.

  ‘So what happened?’ asked Jess and Milly’s dad. ‘I have to admit that I’m baffled.’

  And what happened was this.

  Mr Fells’s sister had worked at Whitecross House for years. She was a helper, just like she then became at Hall Place. Whenever a travelling exhibition came, she took loads of pictures and gave them to her brother – Mr Fells – and he made incredibly detailed copies of them. When Mr Fells had finished the copies, his sister switched them with the real things. She then smuggled the real objects out of Whitecross House.

  ‘In teddies?’ I said.

  The policewoman nodded. ‘That’s right. And one of them was Not Mr Fluffy, as you call him.’

  ‘So how come my dad bought him? As well as Mr Fluffy?’

  ‘Well, it seems that someone else working there saw Not Mr Fluffy and thought it was stock from the shop. That’s where Miss Fells had taken Not Mr Fluffy from in the first place. That person put him back, this all happening ten years ago of course.’

  ‘And we bought him!’ Dad said, putting his hand on Mum’s arm. ‘When Cym was a baby. The Fellses must have thought they’d lost their loot forever – because you had Not Mr Fluffy. But then we went back to Whitecross House and Miss Fells was still working there. She recognised us. But she didn’t know whether it was Mr Fluffy, or Not Mr Fluffy, who you’d dropped in the river.’

  ‘And this stuff’s been inside Not Mr Fluffy all this time?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And, when Mr Fells burgled us, I had him at school, in my bag. Otherwise he’d have got him, and everything inside him. After that, he burgled Veronique’s house, thinking he might find him there, while Miss Fells focused on Mr Fluffy in Brighton.’

  ‘Right,’ the policewoman said. ‘And this morning she followed Jessica and Milly and family, from Brighton to Greenwich, looking for a chance to steal him. She also phoned your dad, Cymbeline, to get you lot down here and out of the way. When she realised that the medal wasn’t inside Mr Fluffy, she rushed back here to break in again. But now do you want to see the rest of their stuff?’

  We asked what she meant, but the policewoman just waved Mr Fells’s keys at us and disappeared. Five minutes later, she was back. ‘It’s an absolute treasure trove,’ she said. ‘And all beautifully labelled. It’s like the British Museum in there.’

  She propped her
phone on the table and showed us the film she’d just shot – in Mr Fells’s house. There were coins: Greek, Roman and early British. There were small Greek statues. There were ancient turquoise beads and pieces of pottery. There was a pen used by Oliver Cromwell and a feather from Charles I’s hat. And SO much more.

  ‘He’s got a whole workshop inside,’ the policewoman said. ‘Benches and hammers, drills and files. As for this lot, it’s worth millions.’

  ‘Millions?’ said another policewoman. ‘It’s priceless. No wonder the Fellses went to all that trouble to get it back. First Mr Fells moving in next door. Then the burglaries. Then Miss Fells following Jessica and Milly from Brighton. And it was all nearly worth it. The other stuff will have earned them a pretty packet over the years, but the Phoenix Medal would have set them up for life!’ She turned to Jess and Milly, and to Ellen and Mabel and me. ‘And you lot saved it.’

  They said the same at Whitecross House. That was two weeks later. It felt weird going back there again. It was great, though, as was the whole day. It started at school where Veronique and I were interviewed by all the newspapers and the TV stations about first seeing the Phoenix Medal at Hall Place.

  ‘It was Cymbeline,’ Veronique told the reporters. ‘He said it was a fake. I didn’t really believe him, I’m afraid. It was stupid of me. He was the one who saw it.’

  I told them about going back there with Mum and Dad. Then we went up to our classroom where loads of photographers took our picture, the whole class getting in too, including Miss Phillips who went red, and Charles Dickens (who didn’t). After that, I was allowed out of school early because Whitecross House is quite a long way away. Mum came to pick me up, but we didn’t leave straight away. We had to wait, standing outside the gates, because Dad said he was coming to Whitecross House too.

  And we waited.

  And waited.

  We stared up the empty road.

  And waited some more.

  And then Mum sighed, as I stared down at my shoes, nodding when Mum started to lead me off to the car.

  But then I heard a shout.

  ‘Sorry!’ Dad bellowed, as he sprinted towards the gates.

  And off we went, in Mum’s car, me in the back while Mum drove, Dad making her laugh all the way.

  And, when we got there, we saw the most amazing exhibition. It featured everything that had been found in the Fells’s house – including the Phoenix Medal. We met Deborah James who told us that Miss Fells had worked there for years and they’d never suspected a thing. They even threw her a party when she left – to go and live closer to her brother.

  ‘The Fellses must have taken something or other from every travelling exhibition that’s been here for fifteen years,’ she said. ‘They sold quite a bit of it, to private collectors. That’s what Mr Fells lived on. We’re in the process of recovering it. But they kept a lot too. All this.’

  ‘But why?’

  Deborah James shrugged. ‘History, I guess. To be around real things that really famous people touched in the past. It’s a bit like a drug, I think.’

  I frowned, remembering how Veronique had marvelled at those piano keys. I just couldn’t under-stand it, until I thought of something that I owned, and about which I felt EXACTLY the same.

  My Charlton shirt, which Jacky Chapman had actually worn.

  ‘I get it,’ I said. And then I turned away from Deborah James because someone was calling my name.

  ‘Cymbeline!’ Jess screamed.

  And I ran towards him, wanting to tell him the news, which Mum had just told Milly and me. It was Dad. The hospital in London had found a treatment for him! It wouldn’t make him better – he was going to have his disease forever. But the treatment would help him get through it. It would help him live his life as normally as possible.

  ‘That’s great!’ Cymbeline said. ‘That’s fantastic.’

  He wanted to know more, but we both had to be quiet. A woman was beginning to speak and what she said was almost as brilliant as hearing about Dad. She started with some boring stuff, thanking people for coming (Cymbeline did these snoring noises). She went on about all the ‘artefacts’, and how astonishing they were, though they weren’t as astonishing as us – the kids who’d brought them all back. Everyone turned to Cymbeline, and Milly and me, the crowd clapping until the woman asked us to go to the front. We were each given a lifetime’s membership to Whitecross House, and there was more clapping, and photos, and it was brilliant.

  Though it wasn’t the best thing.

  Five minutes later, we were all standing around together – Cymbeline’s family and ours. And this man came up. He started by saying how much he admired us, and we thanked him. But THEN he said what a great story it would make.

  ‘Or, rather, it will make,’ he said. ‘If you let us make it.’

  ‘What?’ said Cymbeline’s dad, suddenly looking very interested indeed. And the man explained. He worked, he said, for a TV company. A really big TV company. And they wanted to make a whole drama based on what had happened.

  ‘If you let us, that is.’

  ‘Let you?’ Mum said.

  ‘Yes. We’ll need your consent. Both families. We’d have to buy the rights to the story from you.’

  ‘For how much?’ Mum said.

  And the man took the grown-ups aside, all of us watching as, quite obviously, he told my parents, and Cymbeline’s parents, how much money he was going to pay. Cymbeline’s mum’s eyebrows shot up. Her hand went to her mouth. My mum was equally shocked, though her reaction was different. She didn’t look excited. Her face just crumpled. She bit her lip and then turned away. She held on to her stomach, folding over like she’d been punched. She fought for breath and then she started to cry. And cry.

  Dad got to her, but he couldn’t stop her crying. She just carried on, clenching and unclenching her hands, shaking her head when a waiter offered her a glass of wine in a tall glass. Then she started to thank everyone for having us. She hugged Deborah James and she hugged Cymbeline – and then told us that we had to go. Dad said that there was a party to come and that we hadn’t really looked at the exhibition yet – but Mum didn’t care. She hurried us off to the car, leaning against it and crying again, before getting herself inside. Dad put Benji in and we drove home, Mum going a bit fast until Dad made her slow down. She did, sticking to the speed limit, though we could all tell that she was impatient, but that didn’t stop her crying. Tears rolled down her face all the way home.

  Mum slammed the brakes on. Then she jumped out of the car. She ran round the bonnet before stopping and running back. She got Dad’s door open for him and helped him out, waving at us to hurry up and get out too, which we all did, Milly unstrapping Benji and me lifting him out.

  And then Mum hurried us into the garden.

  The front garden.

  Where, with one MASSIVE yank, she pulled the For Sale sign out of the ground. She threw it on the grass and took Dad’s hand in hers. In her other hand, she took Milly’s. I grabbed Dad’s hand, and then Benji’s, and Benji took hold of Milly’s.

  To form a circle.

  Of our family.

  And then we all looked down at the For Sale sign.

  And jumped on it.

  And jumped on it.

  And we jumped on it, and we jumped on it.

  And we JUMPED on it.

  And that’s it. Or nearly. The worst of times followed by the best of times, just like I said at the start. Though, now I come to think of it, I didn’t get that quite right. The worst of times was true but, actually, you can’t ever have the best of times. That’s just in fairy stories. The good that happens will always have some bad in it because, quite simply, you can’t have everything.

  Though I thought I could.

  I thought I could work out who burgled our house.

  And I did.

  I thought I could work out how the Phoenix Medal had unequal roses one day and equal ones on another.

  And I did. Mr Fells’s sister re
alised that they’d been sloppy and he painted one of the white roses red, not thinking I would ever visit Hall Place again.

  I thought I could get Veronique back to being my best friend by showing how clever I was.

  And I did, though not that way. She never stopped being my best friend. I just didn’t realise. You see, friends move on, and grow, and just because someone has another friend it doesn’t change how they feel about you. It just means your friendship has expanded to include someone else, or at least I hoped it meant that. I hoped that Veronique and I could be friends – but including Ellen too, who I now knew was fantastic. And not just for her gymnastics. Later that day she revealed that she actually really liked Subbuteo. She even had her own set of players – the England women’s team – and she beat me six times out of ten. Halfway through, she asked if I wanted her to put on some music.

  ‘No way!’ I said, but Ellen laughed.

  ‘Don’t worry. Not the Squeaky Chicks. It’s only Mabel who likes them.’

  And she put on this band called Motörhead, who are just as loud as the Squeaky Chicks, but absolutely EXCELLENT (though Mum doesn’t quite agree). All in all, I realised, now that we weren’t fighting, that Ellen was really cool, and I said this to Veronique. We were in the playground, at last play.

  ‘But are you still going to see her?’ Veronique asked.

  I frowned. ‘See her?’

  ‘And Mabel?’

  ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I see them?’

  ‘Well.’ Veronique paused. ‘It’s just that your mum …’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Well.’ Veronique winced. ‘My mum and dad were talking. I heard them. And they said that your mum had a choice to make.’

  ‘A choice?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, she does, doesn’t she?’

  And, even though Veronique didn’t say about what, I knew what she was referring to.

  And I knew that she was right.

  And I thought about that for the rest of the day, unable to concentrate on anything else. I saw Veronique again at home time and she looked sheepish, as though she shouldn’t have said what she had. I didn’t mind, though. It’s why I like Veronique. She makes me face up to the truth of things. I said I was glad she’d said it, and that I had something to ask her.