by Hilary McKay
“If nothing was ever lost,” said Binny, “everyone, everywhere would have piles and piles of stuff and the shops would all go bankrupt because people would only buy things like food.”
But Gareth continued to gaze at her as if she had suddenly turned green, and he said very forcefully that it wasn’t true, it would be on the news if it was, there were no other worlds anyway, and even if there were other worlds, there were definitely no entrances to them from their own. When Binny argued back, with examples, he appalled her by giving logical explanations for spoon reflections, flames, and the Internet.
“Bin, can’t you really see what’s happened?” Gareth asked.
Binny shook her head. Five minutes before Gareth’s explanations she had understood. She had stolen a huge amount of money and lost it through a hole in the world. As if this wasn’t bad enough, a witch had seen her take it. This had been terrible, but it had made sense at least. Now she didn’t know what to think, and her only hope was Gareth, who very plainly did.
What Gareth said was shattering.
“It’s clear enough. Somebody took it.”
“Took it?”
“Yes.”
“On purpose?”
“Yes.”
“What, you think somebody came to our house and took a whole pile of money?”
It was a far stranger and more alarming idea to Binny than a hole in the world where things tumbled and vanished.
It was impossible.
“A burglar?” she asked at last. “A burglar, like Miss Piper thought had come yesterday, when we left the door open by mistake? That burglar? But that doesn’t make sense. It was already lost by then.”
Gareth smoothed the black and white fur between Max’s ears, and waited.
“A burglar before that time, then?” asked Binny. “There wasn’t a burglar on Sunday night. The house was all locked and you know Mum sleeps downstairs. And there wasn’t a burglar the day before because that was Mum’s birthday, and there were people in and out all day.”
“What people?” asked Gareth.
“Clem and James and Mum and me. Dill. Pete the builder who brought a spirit level for a birthday present. Miss Piper. She gave Mum a horrible peg doll that everyone said was wonderful. Clare and her mum. They brought pink meringues with cherries on top. What are you doing, Gareth?”
Gareth had taken his mobile phone out of his pocket and was making notes. He held it out, so that Binny could read the screen.
Clem, James, Polly Cornwallis, Bin. Dill. Builder. Piper woman. Clare, Clare’s mother.
“Why have you written all our names?”
“Because one of you took it.”
“GARETH!”
“Obviously.”
“You don’t really think that!”
“I do.” Gareth counted. “Nine. Nine suspects. Counting you.”
“Counting me? You can’t count me!”
“You stole it once,” Gareth pointed out ruthlessly. “So why not count you?”
“I didn’t mean to steal it. I just took it. I saw it and I took it.”
“Well, that’s what anyone on the list might have done.”
“But I wanted it for something special!”
“So might they. Your mum must need money. Clem always does! You told me that ages ago.”
“Only for her music,” said Binny. “But she’d never steal it. She works in the café, you know she does. The only reason she’s not doing it this vacation is because they’re redecorating to get it ready for summer.”
“Well then!” said Gareth. “See! Prime suspect number one!”
“No!”
“I think so. Prime suspect number two. Your mum. If your mum found money in the house she’d just assume it was hers that she’d put down and forgotten or something.”
A few minutes before, Gareth had stared at Binny, marveling at her madness. Now Binny stared at him the same way.
Gareth tried to explain further: “It would be like . . . You know what it’s like when you put on something you haven’t worn for ages, and there’s a tenner in the pocket?”
“No.”
“Yes you do. And you think, ‘Oh great! How long has that been there?’ That’s what your mum will have done. Not stealing. Just thinking it was hers that she’d put away and forgotten.”
Binny shook her head at such an unlikely event.
“James and Dill, then. Could easily be them. They were burying treasure on the beach, James said!”
“Not that sort of treasure!”
“You don’t know!” said Gareth impatiently. “That girl Clare and her mum . . .”
“They’re our friends! They’d never . . . I’m not even going to think about it! Clare is definitely not a burglar. She earns her own money. She’s worked for ages for her mum, painting and cleaning to help save up for the school trip tomorrow.”
“You didn’t say there was a school trip tomorrow,” exclaimed Gareth. “Are you going?”
“Of course not. It costs loads.”
“Well then, if it costs loads and Clare’s been saving, it could easily have been her that took it. Completely by accident. Saw it lying around, thought, Oh I’ve dropped my money, picked it up . . . Or her mum, if she’d been looking after it for her. It could have been either of them!”
“Never!”
“And then that Miss Piper who you said was a witch!”
“A witch! Not a burglar!”
Gareth rolled his eyes, and continued. “The builder! Pete!”
“Pete doesn’t care about money. He never wants to be paid.”
“ ’Course he does! He’s got to live!”
“He lives in a caravan up on the cliffs,” said Binny sulkily. “Free, if he keeps the grass and hedges cut on the caravan site. He told me.”
“He still needs food, doesn’t he? And diesel for his van? And tools?”
Binny glared.
“Of course, the most likely person to have it,” said Gareth, “is you.”
Chapter Ten
Tuesday Afternoon
The morning was passing. Binny, Gareth, and Max left the beach and followed the cliff path back home again. They lived in the oldest part of town where the streets were narrow and stony. Binny put Max back on his leash when they came in sight of the houses and she was glad that she had, because as they turned a corner he suddenly jumped, and pulled forward.
“Oh!” exclaimed Binny.
It was a dirty bundle of gray feathers huddled against a wall, one of the marketplace pigeons.
“Dead,” said Binny mournfully.
“It’s not,” said Gareth. “I saw it move. Keep Max away.” He handed Binny his bag of art installation, and twisted to yank off the hood of his parka jacket.
“Careful you don’t hurt it!” said Binny anxiously, but Gareth did not need the warning. He bent over, his face focused in concentration, and then relaxed.
“There!”
The pigeon had struggled against capture at the last moment, but already it was quiet, folded into the jacket hood. Binny found herself looking at Gareth in admiration. She could not have done it, not with such steady hands and quietness. She asked, “Have you done that before?”
“Done what?” said Gareth, so Binny knew that he had, and that he would never need a school trip to find himself, because he was found already.
“Shall I put this trash in a trash can?” she asked, holding it up.
“I told you, I’m keeping it. I’m donating it to the Tate.”
“It’s a funny sort of art.”
“It’ll make people think. The whole point of art is to make people think.”
“What I think, when I go to the gallery, when Clem makes me on wet Sundays,” said Binny, “is I’m glad I didn’t have to pay to get in. What are you going to do with the pigeon?”
“Don’t know till I’ve had a look at it. Maybe it’s just stunned. It’d better not die. You should have seen what crawled off a hedgehog that died in my hood la
st autumn! Not just fleas. Lice. Ticks. The minute it began to cool down . . .”
Binny moved carefully away from Gareth.
“Listen, I’ve got to take it home now, and see how it is, so can you come too? We’d better get going on finding that money. Will you drop off Max and come round?”
“Have you got an idea?”
“Not sure.” Gareth paused to peer into his hood.
“Is it dead?”
“Not sure about that either.”
“Are things crawling off it?”
“Um. Yes.”
For the rest of the way home Binny and Max walked on the opposite pavement to Gareth and his pigeon.
* * *
Pete had arrived when Binny got back. “Just a thought,” he had said, and now he was up in the attic, hammering so loudly the whole house echoed.
“What is it?” screeched Binny into the black square of the trapdoor.
“Plasterboard going up,” replied Pete, appearing in the middle of the square, looking like a disembodied head arriving into an empty frame. “Sorry about the noise. Mrs.-next-door isn’t very pleased either, although I’ve told her I’m nearly finished.”
“Are you really?”
“Got the supports up last week. Plasterboard, plaster, finish off the wiring, fix the skylight so it opens, some sort of railing, and it’ll be just right for . . .”
Pete paused and looked down at her.
“ . . . junk.”
“Does Mum know you’re nearly finished?”
“She does and she doesn’t. Why do you ask?”
“Because when you’re finished she’ll . . .” Have to pay you, Binny nearly said, caught the words back just in time, and substituted, “ . . . she’ll . . . she’ll probably . . . she’ll probably miss you!”
“Oh right,” said Pete, and grinned like a pirate, an expression he switched off immediately when Binny went on to ask, as casually as she could,
“How much will it cost?”
“I don’t know,” said Pete, not trying to hide the fact that what he really wanted to say was, Mind your own business. “What happened to your bedroom door?”
“It came off.”
“I can see that.”
“I tried to hang a hammock on it that I made out of some fishing net I found. I thought if I had a hammock then I wouldn’t need a bed and I could put something else in the space.”
“What’s more important than a bed?”
“A desk. For writing.”
“I’ve never heard anything so daft,” said Pete, “but I’ll get round to the door next time I come by.”
“No!” protested Binny hurriedly. “I like it as it is. Anyway, I could easily mend it myself.”
“Mend it yourself!” scoffed Pete rudely.
“I could. It only needs new hinges and a new bit of wood where the frame split off the wall. That wouldn’t cost much.”
Pete suddenly withdrew his head so that the picture frame emptied. The hammering began almost at once, this time with words between the whacks.
“Do you people . . . whack
think of nothing . . . whack whack
but . . . whack . . . MONEY . . . whack whack
whack . . . around here?”
* * *
Money! thought Binny, and leaving Max behind she went next door to find Gareth. This took much longer than it should have, because on the way out of the house something happened. A strange, shocking encounter, which lasted less than two minutes and left Binny blinking, as if she had looked through a gap into another world.
“Why’d you take so long?” asked Gareth, pulling open the door to her when at last she arrived.
“Things happened,” said Binny, following him as he led the way to the kitchen. “Miss Piper, and then I had to go back in and find Pete and then . . .”
The sight of Gareth’s kitchen stopped Binny in her tracks. She said, “Gareth! They’ll kill you!”
“They’re out,” said Gareth.
The lovely old pine table had been turned into a mixture of an operating theater and a pigeon cleaning station. The grapes and bananas had been dumped out of the fruit bowl to make a pigeon bath. It stood, half filled with dirty water on an inadequate rectangle of newspaper. The table itself was puddly, and all among the grapes and bananas were feathers and splodges of poo.
“There’ll be germs!” said Binny. “Millions I should think! She gets ill really easily too.”
“Stop fussing. She’s not even pregnant yet.”
“How do you know?”
“I asked,” said Gareth, calmly. “This morning. Don’t look at me like that; I was really supportive. I said I hoped it would be twins.”
“Gareth!”
“It was your idea. Come and look at the pigeon.”
It was still gray and exhausted, but somehow a less awkward shape. One eye was half open and a glimmer of life shone there, weary but enduring.
“There was something like elastic hooked over its body and round under one wing and caught tight at the top of its leg. Stretchy stuff, really strong. I’ve managed to cut it all off. That’s why there’s so many feathers about. I think the black gunge on its face is chewing gum.”
“Shouldn’t you take it to the vet?”
“I rang them and they said to bring it in tomorrow if it lasts that long.”
“Have you washed it? I think it’s meant to be white.”
“I only managed to get some muck off its feet, that’s all. I’ll get its beak clear first. It’s either been trying to eat gum, or trying to preen gum off itself. It’s all stuck up.”
“Put it in a bag and put it in the freezer,” said Binny, quoting her mother’s chewing gum solution. “NO DON’T!”
Gareth rolled his eyes.
“I forgot it was alive. Gareth, I’ve got to tell you about Miss Piper. I’ve got proof now that she’s a witch. She witched Pete’s van right in front of me a minute ago!”
“As if!” said Gareth rudely.
“She did! Listen! When I came out to come here, she was right there on the doorstep. I thought I’d try being very polite for a change so I said I was sorry if she could hear the hammering Pete was doing in the attic—”
“That hammering’s awful,” interrupted Gareth. “It’s why they’re out. They can’t stand it either. Pass me that stuff in the jug.”
“What is it?”
“Olive oil. Go on about your witch, then!”
“I could see by her smile that she wasn’t happy. I explained that Pete was nearly finished, but she didn’t seem interested except she said that she’d been hearing he was nearly finished since before Christmas. Then she said, listen to this! Was there anything worrying me that I would like to talk to her about.”
Gareth looked up and grinned.
“So I said, no, because what else could I say, and she put her head a little bit on one side and just looked at me.”
“I don’t know if you realize, Bin,” said Gareth, “but anyone can tell if you’re lying.”
“That’s just not true, Gareth. I’m a really good liar. Anyway, I haven’t finished yet. She got really witchy after that and she said perhaps I hadn’t time to consider what she meant, and meanwhile, she said, ‘About your builder. I was just coming to let him know that his van is parked perilously close to the double yellow lines—’ ”
“Perilously!” interrupted Gareth. “No one says perilously!”
“Miss Piper did. She said perilously. So just in case she was right I went back into the house and called up the stairs to Pete and told him. Miss Piper watched me from the doorstep. I could see her there, while I called to Pete, sort of out of the edge of my eye.”
“So?” asked Gareth.
“Well, Pete shouted back, ‘My van? It never is! Nothing like. I checked before I left it.’ All the time I was talking to Miss Piper, I could see the van behind her. But after I’d spoken to Pete, when she left, it was gone.”
“What?”
&nbs
p; “I couldn’t see it anymore.”
Gareth had cleared the bird’s beak and nostrils. He had wiped away the grit and dust that clogged its eyes. “That’s enough for now,” he said, lifting it back into its cardboard box. “What happened next, then?”
“Well, the van had moved. Not far, but it was a little way down the street. So I ran back in and yelled for Pete and he came out grumbling a bit, almost straightaway, hardly anytime later, but guess what? By the time we got to it his van was right on the double yellow lines with a parking ticket on the window!”
Gareth took a while to think about that.
“He must have not put the hand brake on properly,” he said at last, “and she gave it a shove.”
“No she didn’t. I’d have seen. And the hand brake was on when Pete got to it.”
“Were the doors locked?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a really old van. The brakes must have slipped.”
Binny shook her head. She was sure the brakes hadn’t slipped. It had all happened too quickly, and too neatly to be explained with logic. She asked instead, “How much do parking tickets cost?”
“Sixty pounds round here,” said Gareth promptly.
Binny seemed to go limp. “Sixty pounds!”
“Twice as much if you don’t pay them straightaway. I know, my dad’s an expert. He gets them all the time.”
“Poor, poor Pete! Now do you believe Miss Piper is a witch?”
“No,” said Gareth promptly. “His van rolled onto the yellow lines. She was pleased. Maybe she collared a traffic warden to slap a ticket on it. I can believe that much, but that’s all. And I don’t believe she saw you take that money.”
“Why not?”
“Because if she did, what’s to stop her saying, ‘I, What’s-her-name Piper . . .’ ”
“Annabelle.”
“ . . . Okay, ‘I, Annabelle Piper, saw you, Belinda Cornwallis, steal a load of money that wasn’t yours and I’m a nosy old bat so I’m going to tell your mum.’ ”
