The Great Escape

by Natalie Haynes

  ‘OK,’ said Jake.

  ‘Sorry,’ added Ben.

  They both started to giggle.

  ‘Thank you for helping to rescue Celeste,’ Max finished, looking at them all with a stern expression.

  ‘Any time,’ said Millie, whose nostrils were now flaring suspiciously.

  ‘A bientôt,’ said Celeste, as she and Max began to walk away.

  ‘Not if we see them first,’ Max muttered.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  That evening, Celeste had already begun her journey home and Max would say nothing about her, except that she lived very near to Brussels, and that they had arranged to meet again soon. He and Millie were at home, watching the late news. The director of Playmatic had resigned, saying he needed to spend more time with his family. The board had followed. All their families had been pining for them too, it seemed. Arthur Shepard was revealed to be in the Maldives, applying frantically, but unsuccessfully, for new jobs. Elaine Peters’s cat burglary did not make even the local papers.

  Over the next few days, to Millie’s great surprise, none of the cats’ owners appeared in the news claiming their cats had been made to talk.

  ‘Why do you think that is?’ she asked Max, having puzzled over it for some time.

  ‘I don’t think they’ll have said anything,’ said Max.

  ‘The owners?’

  ‘The cats. I wouldn’t have, if it hadn’t been an emergency. Cats aren’t meant to talk. We don’t really like it. Well,’ he corrected himself, ‘I quite like it. But only because it’s been interesting here with you. If I was just in someone’s house, saying, “Where’s the cat food? No, I didn’t leave that mouse there,” it would be pretty boring. Plus, the reward was only for the first cat, I think. And they’ve probably been watching the television and seeing what’s happened to Ariston.’ Ariston was now slated to front a show called When Good Pets Go Bad. Max had put his head in his paws for some moments when he heard about it.

  ‘I still can’t quite believe we did it,’ said Millie.

  ‘I know. There’s only one more thing left to do.’

  ‘What’s that? Oh.’ Her face fell. ‘Of course. We need to get you home.’

  Max and Millie spent several days trying to work out how she could return him to Brussels. She considered inventing a pen pal who urgently needed her to visit (a sudden desire to improve vernacular English, or only three weeks to live, for example), but realised her dad wasn’t an idiot. She hinted that they should maybe go on some sort of brief holiday before she went back to school in two weeks. Her dad didn’t seem interested. She even thought of waiting till she was back at school and then proposing it as a school trip, before she gloomily accepted that by the time it had been organised, Max’s family would probably have given him up for dead.

  They began to plan instead for him to try and get home alone, by Eurostar. But Millie didn’t want him to have to get around London on his own. She tried suggesting that a day trip to London would be nice, but her dad was buried in papers and muttered that it would have to wait. Anyway, she really wasn’t convinced that Max would be able to get through the security there – it would be like an airport, surely. She still thought a ferry would be easier, although she understood his dislike of the water. But then, how would he get to Dover, and then from Calais to Brussels? Max wasn’t so worried about the travelling, but he very much wanted her to come with him and meet Stef and Sofie. They gave themselves one more week to come up with something and then they would give in, and Max would go home on his own. Millie looked desolate at the prospect.

  ‘I’ll write,’ promised Max.

  ‘You don’t have thumbs. You’re not a big reader.’

  ‘I’ll email. I’ve been practising. I can tap a computer key with my paw, look.’ Max illustrated his new-found skills.

  ‘OK, you can email me,’ she sniffed. ‘But it won’t be the same. And I bet your spelling’s awful.’

  ‘Something could still happen,’ he said sagely.

  And something did.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The day before Max was due to head off alone, Millie’s dad bounded in through the front door.

  ‘Dad,’ said Millie, alarmed. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m better than all right,’ he said, picking her up and swing-ing her around.

  Millie had begun to accept that she might never be tall enough for this not to happen, unless she moved to a country populated entirely by Snow White’s friends.

  ‘Put me down. What is it?’

  ‘I’ve got a new job.’

  ‘Really? Where?’

  ‘Anywhere I like! The bank manager has just given my freelance business the go-ahead.’

  ‘Freelance what?’

  ‘Well, I suppose I should have told you before, but you know when I lost my job?’

  Millie nodded, astonished. Her dad never mentioned this by choice.

  ‘Well, I didn’t lose it because they didn’t need me. I lost it because there was a fault in their system, a back door, which they thought I should have noticed – it left them open to hackers.’

  ‘You would never have made that kind of mistake,’ Millie snapped.

  Her dad beamed at her. ‘No,’ he continued. ‘It turns out I didn’t. They had someone inside the department who made the back door deliberately. He was passing on information to a rival company.’

  ‘What a creep.’ Millie couldn’t help wishing she’d met Ben a bit sooner.

  ‘Quite. I spent two weeks after they kicked me out trying to work out what had happened, and I realised that was the only answer. But it was difficult to convince them that it wasn’t just me trying to protect my reputation.’

  ‘Oh! Is that what you were doing?’ Millie asked, feeling a light bulb come on over her head again. This really had been an educational summer.

  ‘Yes, of course it was.’ He looked surprised. ‘Why? What did you think I was doing?’

  ‘Dunno. I thought you’d gone a bit mental.’

  ‘Cheek.’ Her dad pretended to clip her round the ear as she leaped out of reach and stuck out her tongue.

  ‘Very mature,’ he said loftily.

  ‘You started it. How did you convince them, then?’ she asked.

  ‘I didn’t. I sent them all the information and the conclusions I’d come to, and they ignored me. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I had a call from my old boss.’

  ‘To say sorry?’ Millie was feeling a little guilty herself. How could she not have noticed that her dad had been going through all this? She’d been too busy with her own industrial espionage to pay attention to his, she supposed.

  ‘They never say sorry. But, this guy—’

  ‘The creep?’ Millie checked.

  ‘The very same. He had defected to their rivals the day before. They were calling to offer me my old job back.’

  ‘Good. But you said no?’ She was confused.

  ‘Not completely. I said I’d work for them on a freelance basis, and they could be the first clients of my new computer consultancy,’ he replied with a small smile.

  ‘Dad, you don’t have a computer consultancy,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Correction. I didn’t have one. I do now.’

  ‘You turned down your old job so you could start your own company?’ Millie was amazed and impressed.

  ‘I know.’

  He was now almost jigging from one foot to the other, unable to contain his excitement. Millie suppressed a laugh when she realised how much he reminded her of Ben when he had begun persecuting Alan Shepard.

  ‘I thought it was a bit of a risk,’ he carried on happily. ‘But I want a boss I can trust – me. So, I started to put together a business plan for my own company, arranged a meeting with the bank manager to talk about setting up a business account, and then, of course, everything went crazy.’

  ‘What did?’ Millie asked.

  ‘Well, you know how much publicity there’s been this month about companies and compu
ter leaks? You know, that case with Vakkson, and Playmatic, and that lab we were cleaning for a few weeks, with Bill? Confidential emails appearing in journalists’ in-boxes, and that kind of thing?’

  ‘Mmm?’ said Millie casually, looking profoundly shifty. Luckily, her dad was too involved in what he was saying to notice.

  ‘Well, I thought it was the perfect time to send out some stuff to the companies in the area, assuming they’re all a bit nervous about their systems being hacked into and read, offering them my amazing computer expertise at a surprisingly affordable price. That’s what I’ve been doing the past couple of weeks. And loads of them are interested – I’ve had a pile of letters and emails. So I contacted the bank and showed them all the work I could get, and they thought it was a great idea, and now I’m Alan Raven, Freelance Computer Engineer and Troubleshooter.’

  ‘That’s so cool. I’m really proud of you, Dad.’

  ‘Thanks, love.’ He gave her a quick hug, and added, ‘I’m going to start next week, just before you go back to school.’

  Millie’s brain began to tick – if her dad started work before she went back to school, maybe she could sneak down to London, or Dover, and at least get Max part of the way home.

  Her dad continued: ‘So, how about we go away somewhere for a couple of days, to celebrate?’

  ‘OK, like where?’

  ‘Where would you like to go? Don’t say the Bahamas, I haven’t earned anything yet.’

  Millie couldn’t believe her luck.

  ‘Could we, erm, could we go to Brussels? Just for a day or two?’

  ‘Brussels? Why Brussels?’

  ‘I dunno. It sounds nice.’ Millie wished she’d asked Max more about his home town, so she could say something a bit more convincing than that. ‘The Atomium,’ she said, suddenly remembering the huge sculpture that Max had shown her on the net. ‘And, uh, the botanical gardens.’ So, so feeble. Luckily her dad was distracted.

  ‘Well, all right, then,’ he said, undeniably surprised. ‘Brussels it is. I’ve never been there, and we can explore together. I’ll book a ferry. We’ll go, what, day after tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes. That’s brilliant. Thanks, Dad.’

  ‘I’m going to ring Bill and tell him the news. He’ll need some new assistants, if we’re not around.’

  ‘OK.’ Millie disappeared upstairs and shut her door. Max flew out from under the bed. ‘Did you hear all that?’

  He nodded, and raced round her legs like a demented kitten. Then he remembered the ferry and sobered up. Not that he minded the water so much this time. He was going home.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Two days later, Max stowed safely inside her bag, Millie and her dad breezed through customs, who happily cared far more about cats coming into the country than going out, and not very much about those. Max didn’t enjoy the Channel any more the second time than he had the first, but at least this would be the last trip across it he had to make. Millie’s dad drove them to Brussels and they checked into their hotel. It was mid-afternoon.

  ‘Where do you want to go first?’ asked her dad.

  This time, Millie was ready. Max had prepared her with information about useful tourist sites near his home.

  ‘Can we go to the Horta Museum?’

  ‘Sure. What is it?’

  ‘Horta was an Art Nouveau architect. It’s supposed to be great.’ She brandished a guidebook at him. ‘It’s on Rue Américaine. That’s not too far to walk.’ And it was two minutes from Max’s house.

  ‘I didn’t know you were interested in Art Nouveau,’ said her dad, as they began to walk up the vast Avenue Louise.

  ‘Well, I’m a very mysterious child,’ she said.

  ‘You really are,’ he said, squeezing her shoulder as they went.

  Ten minutes and only one wrong turning later (helpfully signalled by Max shoving a paw into Millie’s ribs), they were on his road. The plan was to stop at the Église Sainte-Trinité, a church right by Max’s house, wander in with her dad, wait till he was looking at something, and then sneak outside and say goodbye to Max. Millie was simultaneously excited that the plan was in action and distraught that she would soon lose Max. But she couldn’t let her dad see any of this. She tried not to think about it at all, but, inevitably, all she could think about then was not thinking about Max. She thought about how much she missed her friends when they just went on holiday for a few weeks, and could barely stop herself from crying at the thought of losing her best friend for ever.

  They had spent their last day together yesterday, and had gone to say goodbye to Jake and Ben. Max had promised to keep in touch with them, too.

  It seemed only moments ago that they had said goodbye to the boys, and now they were down to their last few minutes together.

  ‘Let’s go in here, Dad,’ she said. ‘It’s baroque.’ She had no idea what that meant, but it was, according to the guide, a useful fact about the church, and she had to get her dad inside. He looked puzzled, but wandered in and began to look around the interior. Millie slipped back outside, opened her bag, and let Max out.

  ‘Here you go,’ she whispered. ‘Home.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, as she hugged him. ‘We’ll meet again, Millie, I promise. And soon.’

  She nodded, knowing that if she said anything, she’d cry, and that that would be even harder to hide from her dad.

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘You’ve got my address. And the phone number,’ Max checked, but he knew she had written them down carefully the night before. ‘And my email.’ Millie had set him up an account, too. ‘And I have yours.’ He had committed them firmly to memory.

  Millie kissed the top of his head, ruffled his fur, and put him down.

  ‘A bientôt,’ he said.

  ‘See you soon,’ she replied, blinking hard.

  She hurried back indoors and, before her eyes could adapt to the darkness, straight into the arms of her father. He looked at her carefully.

  ‘Why don’t you see him home?’ he said. ‘Say goodbye properly.’

  Millie looked at him in astonishment. If her dad became any more unexpected, she might have to start paying more attention to him.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Go on, before you miss him. I’ll come along in a few minutes, check his family aren’t too weird. Well, no weirder than ours, anyway.’

  Millie reached up and hugged him. And then she ran out of the church.

  ‘Max!’ she shouted. ‘Max!’

  ‘Shhh,’ hissed the cat, reappearing beside her like a shadow. ‘Your dad will hear. What is it?’

  ‘Max, isn’t it?’ said her dad, walking out behind them.

  It was the first and last time in their acquaintance that Millie saw the cat entirely lost for words.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, for him. ‘This is Max. Max, this is my dad. Turns out we’re not the only ones keeping secrets.’

  ‘You do seem to have got my daughter into some awful habits,’ said Millie’s dad mildly.

  ‘Er,’ said Max. ‘Hello. Yes, sorry about that. It was just burglary, really.’

  ‘Hush,’ said her dad, smiling. ‘I don’t want to hear any more. I’ll only worry.’

  ‘How long have you known?’ asked the cat rather weakly.

  ‘Saw your eyes under Millie’s bed. That was the first night in our house, wasn’t it?’ he answered. ‘And then a couple of days later, that woman at the lab asked me and Bill if we’d seen a missing cat. I don’t really believe in coincidences.’

  ‘Why didn’t you mention it?’ asked Millie.

  ‘You needed a summer project,’ her dad said. ‘And I thought this would be more interesting than cleaning windows, so I left you to it. I figured you’d call me if you needed help, or you got out of your depth.’

  Millie and Max looked at each other, thinking it was probably best if he never knew the details.

  He looked directly at Max. ‘I didn’t know for sure that you were one of the talking ones, like that marmal
ade-coloured nightmare on the news, but it seemed a good bet. And I know my daughter well enough to assume you wouldn’t be a nightmare. Now,’ he continued. ‘Your family, Max? Can we meet them?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Max. ‘It will be my pleasure. It’s this way.’ And he trotted in front of them, not caring at all that people might think it looked odd.

  Millie’s dad put his arm across her shoulders, and the two of them followed Max up the street.

  About the Author

  Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster. She is the author of The Ancient Guide to Modern Life, a book on Classics and the modern world, and The Amber Fury, a novel for adults. She has judged the Women’s Prize for Fiction (2012), The Man Booker Prize (2013), and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (2014). She writes for The Independent, The Guardian, The Times and The Observer. She also makes documentaries for Radio 4 about the classics, zombies, and occasionally about urban chicken-keeping.

  She used to have cats, but now doesn’t have a garden. As soon as she does, she will have cats again.