by Anna James
“All you all right, miss?” Tilly looked up into her mother’s concerned face. She waited for Bea to recognize her, but she simply held Tilly’s arm gently. “Did you bump your head, my love?”
The other children had gathered round, but Tilly barely noticed them.
“Mum?” Tilly whispered.
For a moment her mum’s eyes glazed over, before she shook her head as if trying to get rid of a persistent wasp. She took a deep breath and smiled kindly. “I don’t have any children, my dear. I’m the nanny and governess to these rascals.” She smiled warmly at the little boy who was still hovering around.
“You’re Beatrice, aren’t you?” Tilly tried again desperately.
“Why, my name is Beatrice,” she said, surprise written across her face. “How on earth did you know that? Did you overhear one of the children?”
“Look, Miss Bea,” one of the girls said. “She’s wearing a necklace just like yours!”
Tilly’s hand instinctively went to her necklace, touching the thin gold chain.
“Goodness, where did you get that from?” her mum asked. “It’s the mirror image of mine.”
“You got yours from my father! From Captain Crewe! And you had another made for me when I was born. I promise.”
At Captain Crewe’s name Bea’s eyes again went hazy, as if searching for the memory from the very back of her mind, but, again, it passed and she shook her head sadly.
“My dear, I think you must have had a nastier fall than we realized. Let me take you to Miss Minchin’s where you can lie down and I will come and see how you’re doing after I’ve taken the children to their party. I will only be half an hour.” She paused and turned to the oldest girl. “Janet, would you mind the others getting into the cab while I take this poor child across the square?”
“Of course, Miss Bea,” the girl said, guiding the little boy carefully back toward the steps of the cab.
“I’m really fine,” Tilly protested, panicking that she might be separated from her mother before she’d even had a chance to explain. “I don’t need a lie-down.” She looked over her shoulder, trying to spot Oskar, who was hovering on the other side of the street, unsure of how to help.
“I think you need a rest and a glass of water somewhere warm,” Bea said. “Where on earth is your coat? Do you know where your parents are?”
At the last question Tilly started to cry.
“Oh, come now, my dear; it’s not so bad. We’ll find them and all will be well.”
Putting her arm gently round Tilly’s shoulders, Bea guided her to the door of Miss Minchin’s school and knocked firmly. The door was opened by a pale-faced maid.
“May I speak with Miss Minchin, please?” Bea said. “This poor girl has had a nasty fall and needs to warm up. Perhaps Miss Minchin could spare some hot food and let her rest for a little while until we can help to locate her family?”
The maid led them silently into a stiflingly hot parlor, where pinch-faced Miss Minchin sat, looking imperiously over her half-moon glasses. Bea repeated the story and explained that she had to return and look after the children.
Miss Minchin gave a polite smile and nod. “Of course. Any friend of the Carmichaels is a friend of mine.”
“What? Aren’t they called the Montmorencys?” Tilly said, confused.
“I think she might have had a bit of a bang to the head. I’ll pop back very soon, I promise. Thank you for your hospitality, Miss Minchin.” Bea gave Tilly a warm hug and headed for the door.
“What did you say your name was, child?” Miss Minchin said.
“Matilda. Matilda Pages.”
The name made Bea stop with her hand on the doorknob, as if she had heard the murmur of a song she once knew, but after a beat she opened the door and left.
As soon as Bea had gone the cold smile on Miss Minchin’s face entirely vanished. “Who are your parents, Matilda? Why were you careening around the streets with no coat on, toppling into good families such as the Carmichaels?”
Tilly knew she certainly couldn’t tell Miss Minchin the truth, so she gave her grandparents’ names.
“Elsie and Archibald Pages,” she said quietly, brushing away a stray tear from her face.
“I’ve never heard of them. Where do they live?” Miss Minchin said sternly.
“North London,” Tilly said tentatively, not entirely sure where she was in London herself. Miss Minchin grimaced. “Thank you for having me, but I really don’t need to stay here,” Tilly insisted, struggling to be polite as she remembered the horrible way Miss Minchin treated Sara in the book.
“Believe me, child, I have no desire to keep you here either, but I cannot simply turn you out onto the street when the Carmichaels’ nanny will be returning to check on your health at any moment. Becky and Sara will keep an eye on you.” She rang a dainty silver bell on her desk and Becky, the girl Tilly had met in the corridor of the school on her last visit, skidded into the room.
“Stop gawping, Becky! This is Matilda. She has had a fall. Would you clean her scraped knees, please, and find her somewhere to sit in the attic while we wait for someone to retrieve her? Fetch her a glass of water, and some bread if there is any to be spared.”
Becky nodded mutely.
“Well, go on then,” Miss Minchin scolded. “I am grossly overworked and this school does not run on kindness and charity, although heaven knows I would be rich if it did.”
Tilly stood up silently and followed Becky out of the parlor.
“I’ll take you up to Miss Sara’s room,” Becky offered nervously.
“Her father died, didn’t he?” Tilly said bluntly.
“Why, yes. Did Miss Minchin tell you? She has to live up in the attic with me now, and help with the teaching and looking after the little ones, as well as all the shopping and cleaning and fetching.”
Tilly followed Becky up two steep flights of stairs; the first was covered by the same opulent carpet that was in Miss Minchin’s parlor; the second was much narrower and darker, with only a threadbare carpet underfoot. At the top of the stairs Becky pushed open a wooden door to reveal a whitewashed room with a slanting roof and very little furniture.
“This is Miss Sara’s room. I’m sure she won’t mind you sitting in here for a little bit while she’s out running errands.” Becky shepherded Tilly to an old iron bed with a very thin-looking blanket on top. “I’m sorry it ain’t warmer. I’ll get you some water and see if cook will let me have some bread for you.” She gave Tilly a small smile and closed the door behind her.
Tilly slumped back on the cold, hard bed and fought to keep more tears from coming. She knew she needed to get out of the attic, and the school, find Oskar, and get back to Pages & Co., but the thought of having to leave behind her mum, who did not even recognize her, felt too much to bear.
The sound of something being thrown at the glass skylight above her head forced her out of her melancholy. She climbed up onto a rickety-looking table under the skylight and heaved it open. Her head emerged into a different land above the rooftops of London. Brick chimneys and slate roofs were laced with curling smoke, and birds darted through the higgledy-piggledy maze of mismatched buildings. Tilly could even see the familiar dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral half hidden in the smog. Something about the glimpse of a building that was present in her London too gave her a rush of determination just as a tiny stone hit her on the head.
“Ow,” she muttered under her breath.
“Tilly!” yelled a very familiar voice. She twisted to look round and saw Oskar’s head sticking out of a skylight in the house next door.
“What are you doing?” she called across. “How did you get in there?”
“It was empty!” Oskar shouted. “I tried ringing the bell of the school, but that grumpy maid wouldn’t let me in, so I tried next door. When I knocked, the door just swung open. No one lives h
ere! Come on then!”
“What do you mean, come on?” Tilly shouted.
“Climb across!” Oskar shouted. “Look, the roof’s really flat, you’ll be fine.”
“You want me to climb across?” Tilly said in horror, looking down at the street far below, slick with rain. “I’ll fall! You know if I die in this book, it’s real, right?”
“Have you got a better plan?” he asked. “Come on. I can grab you when you’re close. We need to get home before anyone notices, or before Chalk realizes where we are.”
Tilly took a deep breath and started pulling herself up through the window by her arms.
“Excuse me, but who are you, and where are you going out of my window?” a polite voice said behind her, causing Tilly to jump and bang her head on the window frame. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Tilly dropped back down onto the table and turned to see Sara, her half-sister, standing in her threadbare dress, damp from the drizzle outside.
“I’m Matilda,” she said, not at all sure how to explain herself. “I fell over outside the school and my . . . and the nanny of the family across the square brought me here. I think she thought a school might be a slightly more welcoming place than it is . . .”
“Oh! The Large Family! That is what I call them as there are so many of them. They always seem so happy and rosy and content, don’t you think? It doesn’t surprise me at all that they have employed a thoughtful nanny, even if she was misguided in believing Miss Minchin to be a charitable woman. You mustn’t think me silly, but I like to imagine their names when I see them. I call the baby girls Ethelberta Beauchamp Montmorency and Violet Cholmondeley Montmorency. I suppose it is rather silly when I say it out loud, but telling myself stories is the way I cope with living up in this lonely, cold attic, you see. Everything is a story, really.”
“I don’t think it’s silly at all,” Tilly said.
“So why are you trying to escape? I realize that this room is hardly welcoming, but I am sure Miss Minchin would let you leave.”
“She says I have to stay until the nanny returns so she makes a good impression on the family,” Tilly explained.
“That sounds very much like her,” Sara said sadly. “Is it urgent that you get away now?”
“It is rather,” Tilly said. “My friend is waiting for me, and we have ended up quite a long way from home. The reason we came turned out to be for nothing anyway.”
“Shall we see what is to be done then?” Sara said, clambering back onto the table and popping her head out of the window.
Tilly climbed up next to her to see Oskar’s mouth form a surprised “o.” “This is Sara,” she explained.
Oskar gave her an awkward wave.
“Let me give you a hand up,” Sara said, cupping her thin hands so Tilly could get out onto the roof.
Tilly tentatively stepped up, feeling Sara’s arms shake with the effort. She held on to the window ledge incredibly tightly and perched on the edge, testing how stable the roof slates were with a toe.
“I think you should just run really fast and not look down,” Oskar said. “Or maybe just go very slowly and carefully?”
Tilly started to feel a little sick.
“If it were me,” Sara said quietly from Tilly’s side, “I would concentrate steadfastly on the friend you are trying to reach, and trust the path your feet set you on. ‘Be brave and be kind, Sara.’ That’s what my father always told me.”
“Your father told you that? My grandparents say something very similar,” Tilly said, feeling electricity pass between them as Sara held her hand. Tilly gingerly got to her feet and found her balance.
Sara nodded, gave Tilly’s hand a final squeeze, and let go. “It’s always served me well if I’m in a tight spot. Good luck, Matilda.”
Tilly took a deep breath and, one step at a time, edged along the slate roof separating her from Oskar. It was only a short distance, but the drop was high and the roof was steep. The slates were wet from the drizzle and she had very little to hold on to. She focused entirely on the window where Oskar was waiting, hands outstretched ready to pull her to safety, and tried not to let the memory of her mum cloud her mind. She froze as a slate came loose under her shoe and slithered down the roof and off the edge. Oskar winced as they heard it crack on the pavement far beneath them.
“Keep looking forward!” Oskar shouted, and she took a deep breath and another step toward him.
Tilly was only a little way from the window when she heard a yelp from Sara. She turned carefully to look over her shoulder and, to her horror, saw Enoch Chalk emerging from Sara’s window, his face white with anger.
37
Readers Are So Messy
Tilly froze. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“The question, Matilda, is what are you doing wandering in my personal library?” Chalk said, his voice full of ice.
“My mum is in here,” Tilly said. “Why is my mum in one of your books?”
“Have you found your mother, Matilda? Will you be taking her home? Did she even recognize her own daughter? She’s been here a long time, Matilda; her former life is a mere shadow now,” Chalk gloated.
“You’re supposed to be a librarian,” Tilly said in confusion. “You’re supposed to protect readers.”
“That is where you are wrong,” Chalk said. “I care very little for readers; they are so messy and yet so predictable all at the same time.”
“But you work at the Underlibrary!” Tilly said.
“Yes, and I uphold the Underlibrary’s rules. Rules your mother disobeyed. Not just disobeyed, but flagrantly flouted, in fact. Not only did she fall in love with a fictional character but she also attempted to access the Source Library and permanently damage a Source Edition. Beatrice is better off safe and out of the way here, where I can keep an eye on her. And I am beginning to suspect that I do not even realize a fraction of the damage she has done.”
“You mean, you put her in here? You’re keeping her here?” Tilly said in horror.
“Why, yes, of course. I thought you had worked that out already. You’re clearly not quite as bright as you’d like to think, a trait that seems to run in your family.”
“But how?” Tilly said.
“So many questions for one in such a precarious situation,” Chalk said. “Enough chatter. I will need to find somewhere to keep you and the boy out of trouble for the foreseeable future—can’t have you reporting back to Ms. Whisper or your dear grandfather.”
His words shocked Tilly into action and she started scrambling across the roof. Oskar grabbed her outstretched hands as soon as he could reach and yanked her through the window, ripping her dress on the splintered frame as she toppled in.
“We need to get out of here, and fast,” said Oskar. “We have to get back to Pages & Co. Now.”
“I can’t leave without my mum.”
“You have to, Tilly,” Oskar said. “When we’re back and safe we can tell your grandparents, and they’ll tell Amelia, and everything will get sorted out. But we have to leave. Where’s the book?” Oskar said, increasingly panicked.
“I don’t have it!” Tilly protested. “I gave it to you when I went to talk to my mum in the square. Didn’t I?”
They looked at each other in horror.
“Is it still down there?” Tilly said weakly.
Oskar grabbed Tilly by the wrist and dragged her toward the stairs. “We just have to get to it before Chalk does.”
They pelted downstairs and spilled out onto the street only to see Bea climbing the front steps to Miss Minchin’s front door to check on Tilly.
“Tilly, we don’t have time,” Oskar said urgently.
“I’m sorry, I have to try once more,” Tilly said, pulling away. “Get the book ready to go.”
She ran up behind her mum, who turned
at the sound of footsteps behind her.
“Oh, hello, my love. You’re obviously feeling much better! Did Miss Minchin manage to track down your parents? I see she wasn’t able to find you something warmer to wear,” Bea said, frowning.
“I need you to come with me,” Tilly said desperately. “Please, I can explain later.”
“Try to calm down, Matilda. Can you explain to me what’s going on? Are you safe?”
“You have to come with me; neither of us is safe,” Tilly said, taking hold of Bea’s hand. At that moment Chalk crashed out of the house only meters away from them. He stopped abruptly on the steps as he considered the scene in front of him, taking in Tilly tugging on Bea’s arm and Oskar flipping frantically through the pages of the book. Chalk seemed to smirk to himself as if something had clicked into place in his brain.
At the sight of Chalk, Bea blanched. “Where do I know that man from?” she said under her breath, backing away. “Do you know him, Matilda?”
“Yes!” Tilly shouted. “All of this is his fault, and we need to go. You have to come with me.”
Bea let herself be pulled toward Oskar, who was desperately smoothing out the final pages of the book as he ran toward his friend. He grabbed her and shoved the book at Tilly, who kept a tight hold of Bea with her other hand and started to read.
“No!” roared Chalk, and he lurched toward them as the damp streets of London started to fold down, and then they were standing, breathing heavily and damp from the drizzle, back in Chalk’s office in the Underlibrary. As soon as the room became solid around them Bea slumped down against the wall in a faint.
Tilly desperately shook her mum’s hand, trying to revive her so they could work out how to get back home, but the air shimmered again only moments later.
“First things first,” a familiar cold voice said. “That book does not belong to you.” And before Tilly could stop him Chalk snatched it from her.
“I knew you couldn’t be trusted the first time I laid eyes on you, Matilda. You’re just like your mother, and your grandparents—no respect for rules. And, even worse than them, I am coming to suspect that you should not even exist at all. Your family has always thought you were above the rest of us, that your self-righteous moral compass was more important than the laws laid down by people who know much better than you, always spurred on by some crooked perspective on right and wrong. Who decides what’s right and wrong anyway?”
