“It pays to know,” he panted, “which chimney pots are coming loose. Gérard, help me!”
Sophie understood then why they had called Gérard a fighter. His legs, which had looked so awkward on Notre Dame, were strong, and dangerous. He kicked two boys in the eyes, raking at their faces with a flint held between his toes. But four to one are bad odds, and he was panting, and clutching at his left arm.
He called, “Matteo!”
Matteo fought the way a cat fights. He darted in and out, aiming his shard of bone and his fists at the boys’ eyes, their ears, their lips. In any playground, against any child, Matteo and Gérard would have won, but the gariers were not children. They were rooftoppers, and vicious. Gérard slipped and hit the back of his head against the roof. One of the boys made as if to kick him in the face.
Sophie scrambled on the rooftop for a weapon. She had no idea if fighting was difficult, but sitting crouched here was impossible. She jumped up and ran, headfirst, at the boy. He shouted and staggered, but he was up before she had wiped the dust and hair from her eyes. He stood over her, and she raised her knee and kicked him in the crotch. He groaned and collapsed.
Sophie retreated and ducked behind the chimney pot again. As she watched, the tallest boy pulled a knife from his belt, a plain kitchen knife with a wooden handle. She used one like it at home to peel potatoes. He moved toward Anastasia. Sophie let out a noise that was half shriek and half roar. She jerked a slate from the roof and threw it at the boy. It cut at his knuckles, and he swore and dropped the knife. Anastasia grabbed it and dropped it down a chimney. The boy ran at Sophie. She gasped and tried to punch him, but swung at nothing. He spat something in French. She ducked his fist.
“He says, ‘Punch like you mean it,’ ” said a voice.
Sophie turned, but she already knew it wasn’t Matteo. A flat palm on her shoulder pushed her out of the way, and Safi’s fist connected with the bridge of the boy’s nose. Blood spattered the rooftop.
“Kick him if you can’t punch him,” said Safi. Her voice was soft, but the expression on her face was not soft at all. “Kicking is less personal.” Safi brought up a sharp knee and slammed the heel of her hand into the boy’s eye. “You have to mean it.” He rolled to the roof, choking, and she vaulted over him.
“Where’s Stasia?” said Safi.
“I’m here.” Anastasia scrambled toward them on hands and knees. “Sophie! On your left!”
Sophie had always found it difficult under pressure to remember which was left and which right. Luckily, so did Anastasia. Sophie’s hair was in her face and mouth, and she kicked out blindly to the right, and felt her foot connect with a shin. Safi jerked an elbow at the boy’s face as he went down.
There was only one garier standing now. Gérard was hunched over on the slate, coughing, and Matteo was leading the garier away from him. Matteo was white. He had a scrap of bone in each hand, but the boy had a piece of pipe and was backing Matteo toward the edge of the roof.
Safi took a stone from her pocket, squinted into the dark, and flung it. It hit the boy on the temple. He screamed and whipped round.
He saw the three girls standing, unblinking, in the night air. Two unconscious boys lay at their feet. Sophie whispered, “Do not mess with a mother-hunter. Do not mess with rooftoppers.” She whispered, “Do not underestimate children. Do not underestimate girls.”
The garier vaulted onto the next rooftop, turned, spat, and disappeared into the dark.
“Let’s go,” said Matteo to Sophie. He was standing behind her. “Quick. I don’t want to be here when they wake up.”
“Are you sure? You can go back if you need to. I can go on alone.” The girls looked so fragile now, in the moonlight. They looked like china dolls. “Will you be safe?”
China dolls do not wipe their noses on their hair. Anastasia did so, and grinned. “Come on, before it gets light. We’ll be fine, Sophie. We’re rooftoppers.”
29
RUE DE L’ESPOIR was deserted. Charles was waiting, stamping his feet, in front of the apartment block. Sophie leaned over the edge of the building and whistled down to him.
“You were longer than I expected,” he said. Then he saw Gérard’s bleeding temple and Matteo’s hands. He said nothing, only strapped the cello more securely to his back and climbed up the drainpipe to join them.
They sat, the six of them, under the stars. It was a beautiful night, but it was too silent. There was not a single cat, drunkard, or piece of litter. Sophie peered down at the street.
“Where is everybody?”
“There was cholera here, three times in four years,” said Gérard.
Anastasia added, “That’s why the gariers like it. Nobody will live here. People think it’s cursed.”
Matteo snorted. “People are stupid. Shall we break into the apartment block?”
“No,” said Sophie. “We’ll call her.” Sophie cupped her hands to her mouth and then hesitated. What should she shout? “Maman?” she called. “Mother?”
Matteo shook his head. “Half the women in Paris are called Maman.”
“Vivienne?” called Sophie. “Everybody, try together. On three. One, two, three—” All six of them bellowed, “Vivienne!”
There was no answer, and no sound except the tin drum of Sophie’s heart.
Charles handed her the cello. “Here. Play the Requiem.”
“Why? Charles, I can’t.” She felt awkward. To her surprise, the other rooftoppers were nodding.
“Play,” said Safi.
“Why, though?”
Anastasia said, “Music will work the same way as magic does, sometimes.”
Matteo nodded. “Only an idiot doesn’t know that. Play, Sophie.”
Sophie had never been so nervous. Her heart had migrated down into her stomach, and her fingers felt thick on the strings. They were shaking. Play, she told herself. Remember how it sounds when you dream. The first notes were flat, and Gérard winced. Charles did not seem to notice.
“Yes!” he said. “Quicker, Sophie!”
Sophie spat on the roof and straightened her back. She played quicker.
“Louder!” said Matteo.
Anastasia kicked and spun on the spot. “Quicker!” she called.
Sophie did not hear them. She played on, willing her fingers to go faster. Come on, she thought. Please.
When her arm ached too much to keep bowing, she stopped. Matteo clapped. Charles whistled. Safi and Anastasia whooped. The stars stopped spinning.
The music, though, kept going.
30
IS THAT . . . AN echo?” sophie looked round for Charles. “Is it?” Her voice hurt her own ears. “I can’t hear it!” she cried. “Has it stopped?”
It hadn’t stopped. It had only grown fainter.
“It sounds like no echo I have heard,” said Charles. “Echoes do not change key.”
It was Matteo who jerked them out of their shock. He shoved Sophie in the small of the back. She almost dropped her cello. “Go! Now! Vite! Mon Dieu, are you deaf? Go!”
“Where’s it coming from?” she said. “Where? Quick!”
“It’s coming from the northwest,” said Anastasia. She started to run, pulling Sophie along. “Go west first.”
“Which way is west?” cried Sophie. “Left or right?”
“Left!” said Safi. “There, the roof with the black weather vane. Then the public baths, and then you have to jump.” Sophie turned and ran; Charles thundered after her. The slates under her feet cracked. The steps of the others faded.
“Sophie!” called Matteo. “You’re going too fast!”
Sophie was not, in her own opinion, going too fast. She was going not fast enough, and the music was swooping, as though to an end. She jumped two feet to the bathhouse; then there was a solid street’s worth of pointed rooftops, and she ran, not bothering to keep low, along them. Anyone looking up would have seen a dark, soft-shoed blur.
“Sophie! Stop!”
Sophie came t
o a sudden halt. There was a side street between her rooftop and the next. The next rooftop was flat, but the gap was twice as long as her own body. It would be so great an anticlimax, to die now.
She stopped, choking on her own breath. She tried to prepare to jump, but her legs would not bend. “I can’t,” she whispered.
“You can.” Suddenly Charles was behind her. “I’ll throw you across. Curl into a ball.”
She couldn’t understand him. “What?”
“Crouch!” He sounded like a sergeant major. Sophie crouched.
He said, “Make sure to land on your feet and hands, not your knees. Knees are brittle. Not your knees, you understand, Sophie?”
Sophie nodded. “Quick!” The music was fading.
“On three, Sophie. One. Two—” Charles hefted her in his arms and swung her backward. “Three.”
Sophie had not known that Charles was so strong. He had always looked spindly, but he lifted her with ease, and now the wind bit at her face, and then she hit the opposite rooftop with a thud and felt the skin scrape off her palms.
There was another shout of “Three!” and a thump. Matteo landed next to her.
“You! How did you get here?” Sophie asked.
“I thought I’d catch you up,” he said. “I didn’t want to miss it.”
Then Charles jumped, with his legs outstretched, silhouetted against the streetlamp. He landed on one knee, awkwardly, and brushed some dust out of his eyebrows. He spoke gruffly. “I suggest, Sophie, that you don’t mention this to the educational authorities. Throwing children across rooftops is frowned upon, I believe.”
Sophie stared at him.
“Go!” he cried.
Sophie ran on. Sometimes her panting covered the music, and she thought it had stopped; but it kept playing, and always quicker, even when quicker should have been impossible.
Matteo was limping on his left foot, and she could hear him grunting in pain, but his face was steady.
Then Sophie heard Matteo gasp, and she turned back just in time to see his legs slip from under him. Charles was closer—he thrust his umbrella at Matteo as he slid, and Matteo grasped the hooked end. “Hold tight,” said Charles. He tugged Matteo back up the slope, hauling hand over hand.
“You—are—more—substantial—than—you—look,” Charles grunted.
Using Charles like a stepladder, Matteo clambered to his feet. Charles must have seen how white the boy’s face was, because he smiled through the strain. “An Englishman without an umbrella is less than half a man,” he said.
Matteo stood, and as he did so, a tile slipped down from under him and smashed in the street. Someone below shouted and pointed. Charles said, “Speed would be ideal here, I think.”
Sophie ran.
Music was not as easy to follow as she had imagined it would be, but surely, now, it was sharpening? It was coming from somewhere nearby. It was beautiful.
Then a voice, singing in French, was added to the music. Stars, Sophie told herself, do not sing, except in bad poetry; otherwise, she would have said the stars themselves were singing.
Sophie scrambled over the tip of a sloping roof, and stopped.
On the rooftop opposite, a single leap away, there was a woman. She sat with her back to Sophie. She sat on an upturned box amongst pots of red geraniums, and she held the dark curve of a cello against her body.
Even in the dark, Sophie could see that the woman had hair the color of lightning.
31
SOPHIE FELT HER heart physically shiver. “Charles!” she cried. Her voice came out cracked and unfamiliar. She sounded starved. “Charles! Is it her? Is that her?”
What if it wasn’t her, she thought. She felt sick. What if it was?
“Go on, Sophie.” Charles pushed her forward, very gently. “Carefully. Mind how you jump. We’ll wait here.”
Sophie jumped. Her left knee cracked against the tiles as she landed, and a rivulet of blood ran ankleward. She ignored it.
She realized she hadn’t thought about what she would say. She had never gotten further than this in her imagination, but she would have to say something. What did you say? “Good evening”? “I love you”? “What excellent weather”?
She need not have worried. The years of living with Charles meant Sophie stood as upright as a weather vane and as courteous as a cat as she walked toward the back of the cello player.
Sophie said, “Excuse me?”
The playing continued. Sophie stepped a pace closer and laid a trembling finger on the woman’s arm. “Excuse me,” said Sophie. “Excuse me? Bonsoir? Excuse me.”
The playing stopped. The woman turned round.
Sophie said, “Hello.” She swallowed. “I’m . . . I’m hunting. I’m mother-hunting. I think you might be the thing I’ve been looking for.”
The moon shone down on them. The woman’s eyes and nose and lips were Sophie’s eyes and nose and lips. She smelled of resin, and roses. She had the sort of face, Sophie thought, that looked as if it had been around the world two dozen times. Her eyes were a color that you do not expect to see outside of dreams.
Charles watched from the opposite rooftop. He saw the woman cry out—and then bend and stare. He saw her kiss Sophie’s ears and eyes and forehead, and then he saw the woman swing Sophie into her arms and spin round and round until they looked less like two strangers and more like one single laughing body.
Charles squatted down against the chimney pots. “Sit, Matteo.” He patted the rooftop beside him and fished in his pocket for his pipe. It took two attempts to light—the first match was extinguished by the tears inexplicably running down his nose.
“Sit, come. Here, next to me. Have a puff of pipe. No? Let’s leave them for a little while.”
The music must have stopped, Charles knew, because the cello was lying on the rooftop, forgotten, but there seemed to be music still playing, somewhere, faster and faster, double time.
KATHERINE RUNDELL
grew up in
AFRICA AND EUROPE
and is a fellow in English
literature at All Souls
College, Oxford.
SHE BEGINS EACH DAY
WITH A CARTWHEEL
and believes that
reading is almost exactly
the same as cartwheeling:
it turns the world upside down
and leaves you breathless.
ROOFTOPPERS
was inspired by summers
WORKING IN PARIS
and by
NIGHTTIME TRESPASSING
ON THE ROOFTOPS
of Oxford colleges.
SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
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Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Terry-Fan
SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2013 by Katherine Rundell
Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Terry Fan
A slightly different version was published in 2013 in Great Britain by Faber and Faber Limited.
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Book design by Lizzy Bromley
Jacket design by Lizzy Bromley
Jacket illustrations by Terry Fa
Author photo © by Blair Mowat
The text for this book is set in Bell.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rundell, Katherine.
Rooftoppers / Katherine Rundell. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: When authorities threaten to take Sophie, twelve, from Charles, who has been her guardian since she was one and both survived a shipwreck, the pair goes to Paris to try to find Sophie’s mother, and they are aided by Matteo and his band of “rooftoppers.”
ISBN 978-1-4424-9058-1 (hardcover) —
ISBN 978-1-4424-9060-4 (ebook)
[1. Guardian and ward—Fiction. 2. Missing persons—Fiction. 3. Homeless persons—Fiction. 4. Roofs—Fiction. 5. Paris (France)—Fiction. 6. France—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.R88827Roo 2013
[Fic]—dc23
2012049469
Rooftoppers Page 16
