Run, Zan, Run

by Cathy MacPhail

  ‘Where have you moved to? I’ve been looking for you!’

  ‘I’ve found a great place.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘An old warehouse on the edge of town.’

  Katie knew exactly where she meant. ‘But that’s falling to bits. It’s dangerous. No one ever goes near there …’

  ‘I know,’ Zan said triumphantly. ‘Perfect!’

  ‘So why did you move?’

  ‘Never stay anywhere too long. Safer to move. What are you doing here?’

  Quickly, Katie told her story.

  ‘So,’ Zan said when she’d finished, ‘you’ve left home?’

  Katie held up her suitcase. ‘Why do you think I brought this?’ Zan began to laugh as if she’d never stop.

  Katie was a little annoyed. ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘You run away from home. You’re going to live rough. And you bring luggage! What have you got in there, your hairdrier?’

  She was very glad Zan couldn’t see her red face in the darkness of the close. That was exactly what she had brought. And her mousse and deodorant. And lots and lots of clean underwear.

  ‘What did you come back for?’ Katie asked.

  Zan held up an old cracked alarm clock. ‘It’s mine!’ she said possessively. ‘Forgot it. I wasn’t leaving it for him.’ She gestured up to where the old tramp lay sleeping. ‘Come on, let’s go home. Have you eaten?’

  Katie shook her head.

  ‘Bring any food?’

  ‘I didn’t think.’

  Zan threw up her hands in despair. ‘You didn’t think! You’ll have to start thinking if you’re going to live rough. Come on, I’ve got something. We’ll have to run.’ She pulled Katie to her feet. ‘That rain’s not going to let up.’

  No matter how fast they ran, and in Katie’s case that wasn’t very fast, they were still drenched by the time they reached the old warehouse. It was silhouetted against the lights from the town, and reminded Katie of something out of a horror movie.

  ‘Aren’t you ever afraid living in places like this?’

  ‘Sometimes there’s things a lot scarier. Come on, I’m up here.’

  ‘Up here’ was a long shaky metal ladder hanging from a platform high in the loft. Katie froze, but Zan rose like a monkey.

  ‘Why on earth do you have to be away up there?’ Katie called after her.

  ‘It’s safer. And warmer. Come on up.’

  One rung at a time, Katie climbed. If only she didn’t have this daft case. If only she hadn’t worn so many clothes. If only she wasn’t a total dimwit, she wouldn’t be here in the first place.

  ‘Hand me the case.’ Zan’s face peered over the platform, her hand extended. Katie was too frightened to look up. To look down. To move. Shaking, she passed the case up to Zan. ‘One more step and you’re here!’

  Katie collapsed on to the platform. ‘I’m never going to leave here. I’m going to grow old here, and I’m going to die here.’

  Zan fell about laughing. ‘Of hunger probably,’ she said through a giggle. ‘Here, look what I’ve got.’ She plunged her hand inside her anorak and brought out a fish supper. Squashed and cold.

  ‘I wondered what the smell was,’ Katie said. ‘Where did you get the money for that?’ Zan looked at her blankly. ‘You didn’t steal it?’ Katie could never eat stolen property, she decided. No matter how hungry she was.

  ‘Of course I didn’t steal it.’ Zan sounded affronted. Then she added. ‘Not this time. Someone threw it away.’

  This was even worse than stealing it!

  ‘People do that all the time,’ Zan continued. ‘They waste so much. Eat a couple of chips, then throw it down. Well seen they’ve never been really hungry.’

  ‘You took it out of a bin?’

  ‘It’s all right. It’s fresh made. Look, there’s two pieces of fish. Have one.’ She held out a squashed battered haddock to Katie. Katie shrank back.

  Zan shrugged. ‘Please yourself. Fish is very good for you. Gives you brains. Though I always think if they were so smart they wouldn’t get caught in the first place, would they?’ She popped a piece of fish in her mouth.

  ‘I don’t know how you could eat that,’ Katie said.

  ‘Because I’m hungry, Katie. And when you’re hungry and homeless, you’ll eat anything.’

  Katie thought she’d draw the line at cold fish suppers.

  Zan leaned towards her. ‘You’ve seen homeless people picking through litter bins looking for scraps of food.’

  Katie nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘You think that’s the way they like to eat? They’re desperate, Katie. Starving. You’d die if I told you some of the things I’ve eaten.’

  ‘I don’t think I want to know.’

  ‘You’ll eat them too, if you come on the road with me.’

  ‘I never will,’ Katie said with assurance.

  ‘That’s what I said too,’ Zan replied. ‘But you’ll do a lot of things. You have to. Just to survive. Begging’s the worst.’

  ‘I’ll never beg!’ Katie said at once.

  ‘There you go again. But you will. And you’ll hate it. People walking past you with their noses in the air.’ Zan’s voice grew thoughtful. ‘There’s some people generous, especially when you’re young, like me. But there’s always someone who takes too much interest. Wants to help too much, contact social services … and I have to run again.’ It was as if Zan was talking to herself now. Remembering with shame those moments.

  Katie was thinking she wasn’t going to be very good at this kind of life.

  ‘What’s that noise?’ She jumped. Someone was in the loft with them. Rain battered against the broken roof, drips splashed on to the floor below them. Here on the platform they were dry.

  ‘I’m not the only one who knows this is a good place to be.’

  ‘You share this with someone else?’ In a second she knew who that someone else was. A rat suddenly scurried along a beam behind them. Katie screamed and stood up. Zan laughed.

  ‘They’re more afraid of you than you are of them.’

  Katie sat down again and wrapped her arms around herself. ‘How can you bear it, Zan?’

  Zan lay back against some old sacking dreamily. ‘Didn’t think I’d ever get used to it. There were nights I’d lie so cold, so hungry …’

  ‘Why didn’t you just go home?’

  Zan took a while to answer. ‘Maybe I had no home to go to.’

  ‘Why don’t you ever answer my questions? You can trust me, you know that.’

  ‘It wouldn’t do you, or me, any good if I told you.’

  ‘I’m so cold, Zan.’ Katie wanted to cry, but couldn’t. Katie lived like this all the time. She’d only been on the road two hours and she’d already had enough.

  ‘And you’ll get colder and hungrier. It’s not an adventure living like this. No one does it because they want to.’

  ‘I don’t want to either,’ Katie said. ‘I have to. My dad said he never wanted to see me again.’

  ‘He didn’t mean that.’

  ‘You’re sticking up for my dad?’

  ‘You’ve been lying to him. How’s he supposed to feel? And it’s all my fault. You’ve had nothing but trouble since you met me, Katie. Maybe I didn’t help you at all.’

  ‘Don’t ever say that,’ Katie said at once. ‘You did. I tell you, Zan … you’re the best thing that ever happened to me.’

  Zan was inordinately pleased. ‘Goodness, I’ve never been the best thing that happened to anyone before.’ The girls smiled at each other, and there, high in the cold dark warehouse, all worries were forgotten for a moment.

  ‘I never really thanked you for what you did for me, Katie.’

  ‘I was only paying you back. We’re even now.’

  ‘You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.’ Zan said as if it was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do.

  Katie grinned. ‘I’m the only friend you’ve ever had.’

  ‘Yes. I forgot.’ Tha
t set them both laughing again. Their laughter echoing eerily through the warehouse. Then, suddenly, Zan was serious again. ‘You don’t really want to run away. Your mother and father care about you. You know that. They’re good people.’

  ‘You said my dad is a typical do-gooder.’

  ‘He is. But at least he’s trying to do something to help homeless people. I hear them talking. He’s trying to find some of them real homes in the town.’

  ‘You could live in a real home, Zan. In fact, you could come and live with me. My mum and dad would adopt you. We could be like sisters. I’ll go back home if you come with me. You’re all the proof I need. Come home with me, Zan.’

  For a moment Zan said nothing. Katie could make out her face, thoughtful, thinking over everything Katie had said. Was she thinking the same thing as Katie, seeing the same pictures? The two of them sharing a bedroom, laughing, having fun, going on family holidays in the Algarve, like sisters. Like twins. And even in the dark Katie could see Zan’s eyes fill with tears. Zan crying? It was unbelievable.

  ‘Can’t ever be, Katie. I’ll always have to hide. Don’t ask me to explain.’

  ‘Then I’ll never leave you,’ Katie said with determination.

  Zan sniffed and wiped her grimy face with her sleeve. ‘You’re going home,’ she said. ‘You know you are.’

  And Katie knew she was right. She wasn’t cut out for this. She would just have to go back and face up to everything.

  ‘I’ll be in even more trouble when I go back,’ she groaned.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Zan said, ‘it takes even more courage to go back.’

  Once more a police car was sitting outside her house when she turned into her street. It was almost four in the morning. Zan had come with her to the corner, and gave her an encouraging push. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘You can do it.’

  As she pushed open the front door they all turned to stare at her. Her dad, her mum, and those same two policemen, Blue-eyes and Ginger. Her parents ran and scooped her up in their arms.

  ‘Oh, Katie, Katie, where have you been? I’ve been so worried,’ her mother said, crying.

  ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ There was pain in her father’s voice, and worry. He hadn’t understood before, and he understood even less now. But he looked drawn and pale with worry about her. Nothing had changed. She still couldn’t tell the truth. They still didn’t understand. Yet she knew she would never run away again. Here was where she belonged.

  She was safely tucked up in bed, snug and warm, before she cried. She cried for Zan sitting high in the old warehouse with the rats, neither snug nor warm. Her mother came into the room, saw her tears and ran to her.

  ‘Don’t cry.’ She hugged her close. ‘You’re back and that’s all that matters. Your father has been so upset. And you can’t blame him, Katie. He’s so worried.’

  ‘Worried I might spoil his chances for re-election?’

  She felt her mother tense. ‘Don’t say that! You know it isn’t true. We were worried sick you might have gone off with this other girl.’

  This time it was Katie who tensed. ‘But … there is no other girl. Remember?’

  ‘Perhaps you don’t know her, but there is another girl. Mr Whittaker had an answer to his advert. Someone can prove she does exist and that she’s living here in town.’

  Katie’s heart pounded. Not this. Not now.

  ‘He came tonight to tell us. And when we found you were gone … oh …’

  ‘But why should you be so worried? I don’t know this girl.’

  ‘He said he hadn’t been able to tell us before. Still couldn’t tell the police. Just in case this isn’t the girl he’s looking for. But in the circumstances … you gone … he’d break the rule just for us. We were so afraid for you.’

  ‘Afraid? I don’t understand. What did he say?’

  Her mother pulled her tighter against her, and it was a moment before she spoke. ‘This girl is dangerous, Katie. She burned down her house, while her parents were asleep inside! They died, Katie! They died!’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Katie wouldn’t believe it. She tossed and turned during all that was left of the night, and she still wouldn’t believe it. Yet it explained so much. Why Zan would never talk of her past. Why she could never go back. But Zan … do anything so horrific? No. If no one else would believe her, Katie would. Always. The girl Mr Whittaker was looking for had to be someone else.

  So someone had answered his advert.

  Who?

  She awoke to the smell of smoked bacon and eggs wafting up from the kitchen. Her mother was singing out of tune along with Whitney Houston. What was Zan waking up to, high up in her loft? Pigeons nesting in the roof, rats scuttling along creaky old beams. The remnants of a cold fish supper for breakfast. Katie shivered, glad she was home. With all her problems, so glad to be warm and safe again.

  ‘Your father’s still not talking to you,’ her mother informed her as she plated her ham and eggs. ‘He wanted me to get you up for school. Don’t think because I didn’t, that I’m pleased with you either.’ Her mother’s relief at her safe return had been replaced by anger at her going in the first place. ‘I mean, running away, Katie! Haven’t we taught you anything? Running away never solves anything.’

  That’s what Zan had done, run away, Katie thought. Had it solved anything for her?

  ‘The girl Mr Whittaker’s looking for,’ Katie asked later. ‘How does he know she did … that …’ She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  ‘It happened over a year ago. He’s been on her trail ever since. Even the police have given up looking.’

  ‘So why is he still?’

  ‘His clients are the girl’s family. An aunt and uncle. They know she needs treatment. They want her found, cared for.’

  ‘She’d be put away.’

  Zan without her freedom. Unthinkable.

  ‘Until she’s better. Look. Katie, do you know anything about this girl?’

  Katie shook her head quickly. ‘No. Honest.’ And knew it sounded like the lie it was.

  ‘She’s dangerous. Can’t you understand that!’

  ‘Why would anyone do such a terrible thing?’

  ‘She was always a problem child. Always running away. Resented her parents. The wee girl’s probably sick in the mind. She needs help. If you know anything, Katie …’

  ‘I don’t. I told you.’

  Her mother shrugged. ‘Oh, well, they’ll find her. Don’t you worry. She won’t be able to hide for long.’

  She had to help Zan get away. She had to warn her. Most of all, she had to ask her for the truth. The truth at last. But how?

  As if reading her thoughts, her mother said, ‘You’re still grounded, remember. You’re staying in all day. And so am I, just to make sure.’

  Katie couldn’t settle herself all day. The net was closing in on Zan and she was sitting about the house helplessly. She comforted herself that they’d never find Zan in the warehouse. From her lofty vantage point she could spot any danger. If only she could get out of the house to warn her.

  *

  It was four o’clock and the door was being pounded as if someone was trying to break in. When her mother didn’t answer at once Katie glanced out of her window and saw that she was at the back of the garden chatting over the fence to the woman next door. Katie hurried downstairs. Nazeem almost fell into the hallway as she pulled open the door. Breathlessly, she struggled to get up.

  ‘She told me to tell you …’ Nazeem began – she could still hardly catch her breath. She looked as if she had run all the way there.

  ‘Tell me what?’ Katie said. ‘Who? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Ivy!’ Nazeem’s voice was almost a scream. ‘Ivy told me …’ Katie could see she was trying to remember the exact words. ‘She said … she’d got you. At last. She’s found out where Zan is. She answered Mr Whittaker’s advert, and she’s going to take him there. Oh, Katie, that’s that nasty man with the face.’


  Katie was trying to take all this in.

  ‘And they’re going to catch her. And you can’t do anything to stop her, ’cause you’re grounded. And nobody would believe you anyway.’ Nazeem took a deep breath. ‘And she said to tell you, she’d won.’

  Ivy knew where Zan was? But how? They were going to trap her. How? Oh, what did it matter! Ivy knew, and soon so would Whittaker.

  ‘But there isn’t another girl. Katie. Zan is you. Everybody knows that.’ Nazeem didn’t sound so sure now. ‘What are you going to do, Katie?’

  Katie was too busy thinking to answer. She had to help Zan. Warn her. Ivy thought she’d won! Well, she’d show Ivy!

  ‘I can’t explain right now,’ Katie said. ‘You’ve got to trust me. I have to go.’

  ‘But you’re grounded, Katie,’ Nazeem reminded her.

  She called back as she ran down the path. ‘Tell my mother … Oh, tell her something, will you?’

  Nazeem shouted after her. ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know, think of something.’

  And then she ran as she had never run before. Down the well-lit street, with Christmas trees lighting up the windows, past shops full of warmth and light. She ran into the empty streets, leaving the warmth and light behind. She ran into the blackness to warn Zan.

  It was pitch black in the warehouse as Katie moved stealthily inside. ‘Zan,’ she called. ‘Are you in there?’

  There was a sudden movement from above. She hoped it was Zan and not one of those blinking rats.

  ‘Katie?’ There was surprise in Zan’s voice. ‘What are you doing here? You’re not running away again, I hope?’

  ‘Zan. You’re in trouble.’

  It was hard calling up. Hard for Zan to hear. ‘Best come up,’ Zan said.

  Up that ladder? Katie took a deep breath and began to climb.

  ‘They’re coming to get you.’ She began to talk to take her mind off her fear. ‘Ivy knows where you are. She’s bringing Whittaker. Tonight. We have to hurry.’

  ‘But how? How did she find out?’

  ‘What does it matter? She knows. Just take what you can carry. Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘I … I can’t get caught, Katie.’ Something in the way she said it made Katie stop climbing and look up. Zan’s face was grimy and unsmiling as she peered over the platform. She was reminded suddenly of the Zan she had first met on the dump. The one who had frightened her.