by Hilary McKay
“She hasn’t said that,” admitted Binny.
“No. Either because she’s being very kind and giving you a chance to own up. Highly unlikely. Or because she doesn’t really know the truth. She just guesses. Maybe she saw you with a handful of twenties and wondered how you could have got it. Or maybe she was around when someone came back to the ATM and said, ‘Where’s my money gone?’ and she’d just seen you acting weird.”
“Well then, why doesn’t she say?”
“What, like say to your mum, ‘I, Annabelle Old Bat think maybe your daughter Belinda Cornwallis stole a load of money from an ATM. I can’t prove it, though, and I hope we are still friends because I really want you to give me first chance of buying your house. It would be perfect to knock through to mine and then I could tart it up for a vacation place and use it to fleece the tourists like everyone does around here.’ My dad says you should sell the house. And buy something much bigger out of town a bit.”
“Pete’s making our house bigger anyway,” said Binny. “He’s making the loft so we can put junk in it.”
“No wonder she witched his van,” said Gareth, grinning.
“She doesn’t like him, and she doesn’t like me,” said Binny sadly, “and I’ll never get rid of her now that money is gone. I don’t know what to do.”
“Find it.”
“How?”
Gareth got out his mobile phone, found his suspect list, and handed it to Binny.
“If you can’t find out where it is, you’d better try and find out where it isn’t,” he said. “You’d better start eliminating people.”
“Eliminating people? What do you mean, eliminating people?”
“Finding out who definitely hasn’t got it. When you know all the people who definitely haven’t got it, then you’ll know the person who has.”
Binny stared at the list, and tried to believe, as Gareth did, that on her mother’s birthday, someone, perhaps accidentally, had taken that money.
It was only possible if she remembered the perhaps accidentally.
Then, she supposed, James and Dill really could have buried it.
Her mother actually could have discovered it as Gareth had discovered the surprise ten-pound note in his pocket.
Clem might have accidentally tidied it away.
She hated the suggestion that Pete might have taken it, but she could see why Gareth had said it.
Miss Piper was a witch, who knew what a witch might do?
Clare? Clare’s mother? Binny shook her head at the thought. If anyone definitely hadn’t got it, then it was them. If she had to begin eliminating people, Binny decided, they would be the easiest. She would eliminate them first.
“I’ll go now,” she said, at last.
“Go where?” asked Gareth.
“Out to Clare’s, to eliminate them. It’ll have to be today if I’m going anyway, because Clare goes away tomorrow.”
“I’ll come with you,” offered Gareth.
“How can you?” asked Binny. “What about all this?”
“All what?”
Binny indicated the pigeon feathers, poo, poisoned fruit, soggy newspaper, and flooded kitchen table.
“I suppose you’re right,” said Gareth.
* * *
Clare lived a bus ride out of town, on a not-quite-making-it farm with her mother and her brother. When Binny’s family had lost their roof the autumn before, they had rented the vacation house belonging to the farm until they could move back home. That had been a time of trouble and secrets for Binny and Clare, but they had managed to come out of it as friends. Very good friends, alike and unalike, two sides of a spinning coin.
Binny and Max found Clare in the vacation house, earning the last of her school trip money by painting the bare, white bathroom an even brighter and barer white.
“Mum thought it was looking a bit dark,” explained Clare when she had finished hugging Max, and Binny grinned, remembering very well Clare’s mother’s love of bareness and whiteness.
“What else have you had to do?”
“Wash things,” said Clare. “All the insides of all the cupboards and drawers. All the knives and forks and china and saucepans. All the paintwork. I’ve finished now. Just one last patch of bathroom wall.”
“I could help you,” offered Binny.
“I’d rather have a paint break,” said Clare. “Come down to the kitchen. Did your mum like her birthday?”
“Yes,” said Binny, following as Clare led the way. “She said she did, anyway. Clare?”
“Mmm?” asked Clare, filling the kettle.
“At my house, on Sunday, you didn’t notice anything lying about, did you?”
“Only about twenty million things,” said Clare cheerfully, dropping teabags into mugs and opening a packet of ginger cookies. “Can Max have one of these?”
“He’d love it.”
“What’s the matter? You’ve gone all quiet. I was only joking about the twenty million things. I like your house. It’s friendly. Twenty million things lying about is good!”
“I meant money, really,” mumbled Binny, blushing to say it. “Any money lying about.”
“Money?” repeated Clare.
“I just wondered, if . . . I wondered if perhaps when you were at our house you saw some . . . Well, I wondered if you saw some money in a not very good place and you thought, or your mum did, you’d put it somewhere safe . . .”
Clare picked up the kettle, put it down again, changed her mind, and filled up the mugs with boiling water. She stood looking at the teabags as they swelled and floated.
“It’s just that I can’t seem to find . . .”
“I can’t believe you just said that,” said Clare.
“I didn’t mean it to sound bad! I didn’t mean it like it came out!”
“Me and Mum,” said Clare, her voice trembly with temper. “Me and Mum, taking your money! That’s what you’re saying!”
“I’m not! I’m not!”
“We came to your house on Sunday to be nice! Mum made meringues! We wouldn’t touch your rotten, horrible, stupid money if it was . . . if it was . . .”
“I know! I know! Of course you wouldn’t!”
“Well. Good-bye.” Clare picked up the two full mugs of tea, one in each hand, turned them upside down over the sink, clunked them down, and walked out of the kitchen.
“Clare!” exclaimed Binny.
“I’m sorry I won’t ever see Max again,” said Clare, not looking round. “But I couldn’t care less about you!”
A minute later the door of the bare white bathroom was slammed very furiously shut.
Binny was stunned. To lose a friend in the time it takes to make a mug of tea. One minute, to be welcomed with ginger cookies and the next, good-bye.
“Clare!” she shouted, and ran up to the bathroom, but the door was locked and knocking brought no reply.
“What shall I do? What shall I do?” she cried to Max, but he could not help her and the door did not open.
Chapter Eleven
Tuesday Evening
Almost as soon as Binny was back from her disastrous first attempt at eliminating people, Gareth appeared, accompanied by the pigeon in its cardboard box. As so often happened, Gareth entirely failed to notice Binny’s slumped unhappiness. Instead he listened to her account of the afternoon, fished his mobile from his pocket, deleted Clare and her mum from the list of suspects, and said, “Excellent!”
“It’s not excellent, it’s horrible. Clare is furious,” said Binny.
“Bound to be,” agreed Gareth, cheerfully unmoved. “Still, Max had a good walk back. Did he like the bus out?”
“Clare was my best friend,” said Binny. “Now she’s never speaking to me again. Don’t you care?”
“Well,” said Gareth, squinting at her through his round, rather battered glasses, “not that it matters much, but I thought I was. Your best friend. In fact at school I tell people you’re my girlfriend. Stops them asking if I’m gay.
Do you mind?”
“Mind? Mind? Why do they ask if you’re gay?”
“Haven’t a clue,” said Gareth dismissively. “The other good news is that the pigeon’s started eating. I’ve got it on grated cheese and her posh muesli. I had to bring it round with me because he’s in a storming temper again. He’s got anger management problems but he won’t go to therapy. I meant to do some tidying in the kitchen but they came back sooner than I thought they would. She said not to worry, though, so I’m not. Do you want to see it?”
“All right,” said Binny, seeing that Gareth was already lifting the lid.
“What have you got there?” asked Binny’s mother, passing through just then. “Oh Gareth, I don’t know if I want that in here, thank you! It’s not really hygienic is it? It’s bad enough, having Max!”
“Max is perfectly clean!” said Binny indignantly. “Look how white his white bits are! And he doesn’t smell. That bird smells.”
“Max does smell,” said James, coming in from the living room to look. “He smells of dog. Same as my chickens smell of chickens and Binny smells of Binny and Gareth smells of Gareth and Clem . . .”
“I do not smell,” said Clem, overhearing. “Hello Gareth!”
“Hello,” said Gareth, slightly shaken, as usual, by Clem’s golden-gilt shimmer, and her comprehending glance, as if she knew everything that he was thinking and it was as bad as she expected.
“I heard you’d got a pigeon,” said Clem. “Into birds now, are you?”
She smiled at him so innocently that he quaked and thought, I knew it. She can read my mind. I’ll never think her name again. Gareth would never have considered telling people at school that Clem was his girlfriend in order to stop them calling him gay, but yet, if he was ten years older, and very much taller, and could drive something amazing or maybe had a pilot’s license for light aircraft, and if she would stop putting up her hair so she looked so scary . . .
He was thinking of her again. Did she know? She was still smiling.
“Can I have a look?” she asked.
“Yes all right,” he agreed, rather huskily, lifting the box lid, and she looked and said, “Oh! Poor thing! A white one. I like white pigeons.”
“It smells awful,” said James, holding his nose. “Ponky. Worse than socks. Worse than Dill.”
“That’s enough of that, James!” said his mother, back again and in a rush as usual. “I’m just home for an hour, then I’ve got an extra shift this evening. Not for long, but . . . Binny, are you still invited out with Gareth and his family?”
“Yes, she is,” answered Gareth promptly. “They said to remind her. They’ve booked a table at the Indian—”
Binny gave a jump of delight, James hung his tongue out in disgust, and the children’s mother and Clem looked worriedly at each other.
“Well, that’s lovely,” said the children’s mother, looking even more harassed. “You don’t happen to know what time, do you Gareth?”
“No,” said Gareth, then caught Clem’s thoughtful eyes on him and added, “Sorry!” glanced at her again and offered (inspired), “I could go and ask,” noticed her faint nod of approval, and finished, “and I’ll take the pigeon home with me out of the way!” Then he exited, triumphant, on such a peak of helpful politeness that it seemed there should be a round of applause.
This did not happen. Instead, as he went out of the front door, there came a most dreadful shriek.
“I suppose one of us ought to go and see whether he’s murdered someone,” remarked Clem, contemplating her nails. “Or if it was just the natural reaction of a casual passerby.”
Before they could investigate, however, Gareth had dumped his pigeon and was back, eager to explain for himself.
“That old woman you call Miss Piper . . . ,” he began.
“It’s her name!” murmured Clem. “Not just something we dreamed up.”
“Miss Piper, then,” said Gareth. “Her from next door, screamed when she saw me! Did you hear?”
“Is that who it was? We heard someone.”
“I showed her the pigeon and it flapped and she went mental!”
“Oh, you haven’t upset Miss Piper, have you?” exclaimed the children’s mother, as she came in. “I wanted to ask her a favor about James!”
“About me?” asked James.
“She’s often offered. It would only be for a couple of hours. Clem’s got a party, she planned it ages ago. Binny’s going out with Gareth’s family. I’ve got work until nine. What about you?”
“I could go out too,” said James at once. “I’m not eating curry but I could go to Clem’s party.”
“Of course you could,” agreed Clem. “My friends would adore you!”
“See!” said James.
“It would be all big hugs and kisses!” said Clem, reaching out to demonstrate.
“I’ll go with Mum, then,” said James, backing away.
“Not for the evening shift,” said his mother. “Not with bedtime and all the medicines to hand out.”
“Max will look after James,” said Binny.
“Pete might,” suggested Clem.
“I’ll look after myself,” said ungrateful James, but he ended up with Miss Piper, still deeply disgusted by the sight of Gareth’s pigeon, but more than willing, she said, to take care of James and manage Max.
“Max won’t need managing,” said Binny, very distrustfully, when her mother came back from arranging this and told her the news.
“It’s just her way of talking,” said her mother, soothingly. “She’s very kind, underneath . . .”
(Binny briefly pictured Miss Piper underneath a pointed hat.) “ . . . She showed me more peg dolls she’s made. They really are very clever. She’s done a very sweet one of James, and she’s just finishing Clem.”
“I think she’s got some nerve,” said Binny, “peg-dolling people!”
“Why couldn’t I have Pete instead of Miss Piper?” demanded James. “I bet you never even asked him. He wouldn’t mind. And he’d be useful. He said he’d look at Pecker and Gertie next time he was here.”
The children’s mother, rushing to get back to work, replied that Pete was a builder, not a babysitter, and that she was sure Miss Piper would look at Gertie and Pecker if she was invited very politely. Then she kissed him (protesting) on the top of his head, and ran.
“I’ll have to ask Miss Piper, then,” said James crossly to Binny when his mother was gone. “Someone’s got to look at Pecker and Gertie. They’ve got nits.”
The thought of Miss Piper being invited to look at Pecker and Gertie’s nits stopped Binny worrying about Max while she was out with Gareth and his family. Miss Piper, she guessed, would be far too busy to notice him. It was disappointing to return home and find James very firmly asleep in bed, his slippers lined up with unnatural neatness, his clothes on his bedroom chair, folded as they had seldom been folded before. Max was curled tightly in his basket under the kitchen table, and in the garden Gertie and Pecker were crooning placidly, their feathers unruffled and their nits, it seemed, undisturbed.
“What happened with Miss Piper?” she asked her mother, who was home by then.
“Nothing at all,” said her mother, smiling. “Everyone as good as gold, I gather. Was it fun this evening?”
“We had papadums and there were rose petals on the stairs. One petal on each side of every stair, all the way up. My rice had almonds in it and there were little silver dishes all over the table. Not real silver, but still. Did you have to work very hard with the old ladies?”
“Not very. Just helping people to bed and things.”
“Things,” said Binny, groaning.
“Binny, I like my job,” said her mother firmly. “I like the kind, brave, funny people I meet. As I have told you a hundred times before! I have had a nice day. What about you?”
For Binny, already the rose petal and papadum sparkle was fading fast. It vanished completely as she remembered her day. I made a suspect list with
Gareth. I annoyed Pete by talking about money. I saw Miss Piper witching in the street. I eliminated Clare. “It’s lovely having Max here,” she said diplomatically.
“It is,” agreed her mother.
“Are you staying up till Clem comes home?”
“Perhaps. But you should go to bed, Binny.”
“Can I read if I do?”
“Of course. And I’ll be up in a few minutes to say good night. Do you remember the TuckyUp Monster?”
The TuckyUp Monster had been the children’s mother, transformed into monstrousness when the clock struck eight. It had lumbered up the stairs and into the shrieking children’s bedrooms, roaring “TuckyUp! TuckyUp! TuckyUp!” It tucked them in tight and hugged them, in the bedtimes of long ago.
“I used to love the TuckyUp Monster,” said Binny, and when she went upstairs she chose an old book from TuckyUp Monster days, Five on a Treasure Island. Soon she was so lost in the world of the Famous Five and Timmy the dog that she jumped when her mother tapped on her bedroom door, and then pushed it open.
“Binny, Bin, Belinda, Bel,” she said, as she sat down on the end of the bed, “and Max.” She reached down to rub him between his ears. “How do you like having a bedroom door again?”
“I didn’t notice I had until you knocked on it just then.”
“Wasted on you! What’s the book?”
“I’m too old for it really.” Binny turned it so that her mother could see the cover.
“Ah!” her mother said. “I remember that one! The castle on the island and the dungeons full of gold ingots!”
Binny nodded.
“Why did you hang a hammock onto your door in the first place? Pete tried to explain, but it didn’t seem to make much sense.”
The hammock idea seemed so far in the past now that for a moment Binny struggled to remember. “I thought that if I could manage without a bed I could make space for a desk,” she said eventually. “A desk or a table. Something big and flat to write on. I thought I’d rather have a desk than a bed and there isn’t room for both. It doesn’t matter now.”
