Other Alice

by Michelle Harrison

  ‘Magic is never silly,’ said Tabitha. ‘Only the nincompoops who get it wrong.’

  I couldn’t argue with that. I’d seen enough today to know that some magic was real. I hesitated, then decided to be bold.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  Tabitha rested her head on my shoulder sleepily. ‘You can. I might not answer, though.’

  I thought about different ways in which I could ask the question that was burning inside me. ‘If . . . if there were a book of your life, with everything written from start to finish, would you read it?’ I said finally.

  Tabitha lifted her head and flexed her claws. I heard the sharp scratch of them on my collar and was grateful for the thickness of my coat. ‘What a peculiar question,’ she said. ‘Do you mean a diary? Or a biography? Because, in that case, wouldn’t I have to be dead for it to have my entire life written in it? And if I was I’d know everything that had happened anyway.’

  ‘No, not a diary, or a biography exactly. You’d still be alive. It’d be like . . . like being able to see into your future. Everything that was going to happen.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Tabitha replied. ‘What if I found out that I’d get run over? Or eaten by a dog, or poisoned? I’m not sure I’d like that. Cripes, I could get poisoned, run over and eaten by a dog.’

  ‘You’d have to be very unlucky for all three to happen,’ I said.

  ‘Not really. Lots of people think black cats are unlucky. And cats have nine lives. Does that mean there would be nine of these books?’

  ‘No, just one,’ I repeated. ‘Why do you have to muddle things up?’

  ‘I’m not the one muddling things. You’re the one asking silly questions.’

  ‘You still haven’t answered,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I’m thinking,’ said Tabitha. She tilted her head to one side. ‘Yes, of course I’d look. Curiosity always gets the better of cats; that’s where the saying comes from. But then that would alter things, wouldn’t it? If you read the story before you’d finished living it. If there were things you didn’t like the sound of that hadn’t happened yet, you’d try to change them, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Maybe you wouldn’t be able to change them,’ I said. ‘Maybe trying to change them would just lead to making whatever it was actually happen.’

  ‘I don’t see how,’ Tabitha answered grouchily. ‘If I found out that I was to be poisoned by a certain meal and a certain person, at a certain time, then I’d avoid it. So reading it would have to change things, wouldn’t it? Besides, who would have written the book in the first place?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ I shook my head, half wishing I hadn’t asked. The cat had an annoying way of twisting things. ‘It was just a question, that’s all.’

  ‘Hmph,’ said the cat. ‘I don’t like too many questions. They make me—’

  ‘Sleepy,’ I interrupted. ‘I know.’

  ‘I’m still hungry, too,’ she complained.

  ‘Can’t you catch a mouse or something?’

  ‘Yuck.’ She shuddered. ‘I only do that when I have to. Anyway, I’d have no chance with all these people about.’

  I looked around us at the ever-increasing crowd, and realised a small girl was staring at us open-mouthed, tugging her father’s arm. I turned away and slid further within the folds of people. ‘Perhaps you’d better keep quiet,’ I muttered. ‘Talking cats aren’t normal here. You could get taken away if the wrong person notices.’

  She raised her nose and sniffed the air. ‘What is that delicious smell?’

  ‘Candyfloss,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

  ‘Yes.’ She sniffed again. ‘I’m not deaf. I’ll keep quiet if you get me some candyfloss.’

  ‘Cats aren’t supposed to eat candyfloss,’ I said, exasperated.

  ‘They aren’t supposed to talk, either.’

  ‘OK, I’ll get you some. Anything to shut you up.’

  We wove through the growing crowds of people gathering in the square, passing through the steam of buttery corn on the cob and smoky wafts of roasting nuts, to a stall selling toffee apples and candyfloss. I bought a stick and tore some off, discreetly giving it to Tabitha.

  ‘Oooh,’ she said, licking pink fluff off her nose. ‘That’s good stuff.’ I fed her some more, pausing by a stall selling plain little straw dolls. There were tables set up nearby with pots of paint, glue and scraps of fabric to decorate them, mostly occupied by children. I saw little fingers become sticky with glue, collecting beads, paint specks and stray thread. As I watched, I realised what I had to do. My fingers fumbling with excitement, I dug out some money and paid for one of the straw dolls.

  I was going to Summon Alice.

  ‘What’s that for?’ Tabitha asked, her breath warm on my cheek. I caught a whiff of it, a mix of sugar and fish.

  I wrinkled my nose. ‘It’s for the Summoning. The idea is that you make a doll that looks like someone you want to speak to, a Likeness. All the Likenesses go on to the bonfire and a spell is said. If it works, the person is meant to come to you and you can ask them a question. Just one question.’

  ‘Why don’t you just ask the actual person?’ the cat asked. ‘Or write a letter? Wouldn’t that be easier?’

  ‘Not if the person is dead, or you don’t know where they are,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Tabitha. ‘Now it makes sense. Who do you want to contact?’

  ‘My sister, Alice. That’s if she doesn’t turn up before this evening.’

  ‘All those straw poppets look the same to me,’ said Tabitha. ‘How are you going to make it look like your sister?’

  ‘This one isn’t going to be Alice,’ I said. ‘This is a decoy. I can’t let my mum know Alice is missing, so I’ll have to make a fake Likeness as well as the real one.’

  ‘How sneaky,’ Tabitha replied approvingly. She yawned, flashing her teeth. I caught another unpleasant waft of her breath. ‘What if you don’t have a question to ask? What if you just fancied a chat?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I frowned. ‘That’s a good point.’ What would happen if I didn’t ask a question and instead simply let Alice speak? Could she tell me what I needed to know without me asking? It was worth a shot. ‘If it even works,’ I said under my breath.

  ‘Of course it works,’ Tabitha said. ‘All these old customs wouldn’t exist if they hadn’t worked at some point. They would fade out and be forgotten.’

  ‘It’s never worked before.’

  ‘Maybe you didn’t want it enough.’

  ‘Or maybe I didn’t believe in it enough,’ I said. ‘But after today I have to.’

  We pushed our way out of the town square, going against the flow of people coming in the opposite direction. I grunted as an elbow found my ribs, and staggered as someone toppled sideways into me. My rucksack thudded to the ground, almost tripping me. Tabitha slid out of my arms and landed neatly on all fours, her tail spiking up.

  ‘Don’t say sorry, will you?’ she hissed, glaring at the boy who had barged past.

  I shot her a warning look, but the boy, who’d glanced back over his shoulder, hadn’t noticed the cat and was staring instead at me.

  ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. He looked a bit older than Alice – eighteen, maybe, with shiny, black hair that fell across his face in a long fringe. His eyes were dark and mischievous, and he had thin lips that were curled into a smirk.

  ‘He really looks sorry, doesn’t he?’ I said, as the boy was swallowed into the crowd. Tabitha shook herself and stalked off ahead of me, a black silhouette in the fading light. The streets became emptier the nearer I got to home and, though I checked behind me a few times and saw nothing, I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched. Without the bustle of the busy town around me now, I felt it more strongly. Dolly, whoever she was, had rattled me.

  Mum was asleep in front of the TV when we got home, and none the wiser when she woke to find me sitting in my room with the contents of the craft boxes spread
over the floor.

  ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ she yawned, peering through the door with bleary eyes. ‘I’ve been asleep for hours.’

  ‘I tried,’ I fibbed. I glued some more fabric to the straw figure in my lap. ‘You snored and turned over.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mum, turning pink. ‘Who are you making?’

  ‘Peter Pan,’ I answered, perhaps a little too quickly. I’d had time to think about the fake Likeness on the way home.

  ‘Peter Pan?’ Mum said, puzzled. ‘But he’s made up. From a story.’

  I shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter. If the magic is strong enough, it’ll work.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Mum. ‘What would you ask him, if it works?’

  ‘To take me to Neverland, so I don’t have to grow up.’

  Mum smiled. ‘Sounds wonderful.’ She stepped over a ball of wool and kissed me on the forehead. ‘Sometimes I wish that, too.’

  ‘That you didn’t have to grow up?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, yes. But more that you didn’t have to, you and Alice. That you could stay like this, always believing in magic.’

  ‘Do you believe in magic, Mum?’

  Her smile faded a little. ‘I used to. But not any more.’

  ‘Maybe you should try.’

  ‘Maybe I will.’ She tousled my hair. ‘It’s a nice thought, characters from stories coming to life. Alice would love it.’

  I forced a smile. It wasn’t just a thought. It was real, and Alice hadn’t seemed at all happy about her own characters coming to life.

  ‘Speaking of Alice, has she been home yet?’ Mum asked. ‘I hope she’s still coming to the Summoning with us later.’

  ‘I saw her in town earlier,’ I said, sticking a clumsily made hat on Peter Pan’s head. ‘She said she’ll meet us there.’

  ‘Right,’ said Mum. ‘Well, try not to be too long finishing that Likeness off. I’ll make dinner soon; we’ll need to eat early if we’re going out later.’ She left and I heard her footsteps on the stairs as she went down them. Once she was gone, I put the straw Likeness aside and took out the real one from under my bed, where I’d stashed it when I’d heard Mum coming up the stairs. It was a simple figure that I’d cut and sewn from some felt, leaving a small opening at the back so I could stuff it later.

  Tabitha poked her head out from under the bed, staring disdainfully at the Likeness’s mitten-like hands and feet. ‘I can see needlework isn’t your strong point,’ she said.

  I scowled. ‘A bit like being polite isn’t yours.’

  ‘Touché,’ said the cat.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that you’re a smarty-pants.’

  I couldn’t be bothered to ask her to explain in more detail, so I got up, leaving her in my room, and went out to the ladder.

  I climbed into the attic. It smelled of paper and ink and Alice. It made me miss her more than ever. I climbed on the bed and looked out of the skylight, across the street. I’d already checked a few times since I’d got home, in case Dolly had followed me, but there was no sign of anyone lurking about.

  I got down and dug out an old T-shirt of Alice’s from her bottom drawer. It had a hole in the sleeve, but she still wore it to bed sometimes. I threw it down the hatch, then hunted around, looking for anything else I could use. I put Alice’s comb and an old notebook in my pocket, then went through the bin. The smell of a blackened banana peel wafted up. Underneath it, I found a grubby plaster smeared with blood, from where Alice had cut her finger making dinner last night. Then I carefully went back down the ladder and returned to my room.

  I set everything down beside me and pulled out some golden embroidery silk from the tangle in the boxes, sewing several threads to the Likeness’s head. From Alice’s comb, I removed some strands of hair and began weaving them through the embroidery thread, knotting them in place.

  Next I took Alice’s old notebook. I felt like a traitor as I tore out a bunch of pages and scrunched them into tiny balls before poking them inside the gap I’d left in the felt figure.

  ‘What is that?’ Tabitha asked.

  ‘My sister’s work,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Won’t she be cross with you?’

  I nodded. ‘Probably. But this is important and these stories are old. Alice would have typed them up – she’ll still have copies.’

  ‘Couldn’t you just use newspaper to stuff it?’ Tabitha said.

  ‘I could,’ I said. ‘But, if there really is a chance this could work, then I have to make it as much like Alice as I can. These stand for all the stories that live inside her, waiting to get out.’

  I tore, scrunched and stuffed until the felt figure filled out, until no more paper would go inside. Then I sewed the opening shut. After that, I made a little outfit from Alice’s T-shirt and folded a tiny notebook from another torn-out page, which I then sewed to the Likeness’s hand. On its other hand, I made a tiny snip with the scissors, then cut out a scrap of the bloodied plaster and stuck it over the cut.

  ‘There,’ I whispered. ‘Just like the real Alice.’

  Tabitha grew tired of watching and settled down to snooze, leaving me to work in silence until all there was left to do was Alice’s face. I pulled two blue sequins from a matchbox and sewed them on. ‘These can be your eyes.’ Finally, I found a tiny, pink, oval bead and sewed that on, too, for a mouth.

  It was finished. I set it aside. I had never been very good at making Likenesses, but this was the best I’d made so far. Not that it really looked like Alice, but because of everything I’d used to make it. Her hair, her words, her clothes, her blood. I knew I’d done all I could. It had to work.

  It had to.

  I checked the clock. There was still time before Mum and I would be leaving for the Summoning. Time for me to get reading this story of Alice’s for more clues about Gypsy and the other characters – and to check whether Dolly had been one of them. I glanced at Tabitha. She gave a snore, her whiskers trembling.

  I unzipped the rucksack and poked through it, pulling out Alice’s purse and phone, and the torch and Dad’s lucky glasses. My fingers closed round some loose paper. I pulled it out, recognising Alice’s writing. A section of the notebook had come away from the rest. It was crumpled and bent, and a thread from where it had been sewn into the notebook dangled like a broken spider leg. I opened the bag wider and looked in. There was no sign of the rest of the notebook. A fluttery feeling started up in my chest.

  I reached into the front pocket, finding nothing but the paper bag with the last few rhubarb and custards. I turned the rucksack upside down and shook it, but already I could feel it was empty.

  Apart from the few loose pages in my hand, Alice’s notebook was gone.

  7

  Chapter Three

  I TURNED THE RUCKSACK OVER, checking for tears or holes. There was no damage to it. This couldn’t be right. I never lost things. Alice was the scatterbrain, not me, and I’d been so careful with the notebook. I’d taken it out only twice, once in the Den and once at the canal. And I knew I’d put it back both times.

  Someone must have taken it.

  Not Dolly. She hadn’t come close enough. Gypsy? Could she possibly know about it, too? I hadn’t got that feeling from her. And she would have had to get very close to me to steal it, distracting me somehow. I was certain that hadn’t happened. I’d have felt it . . .

  Then I remembered. The butterflies in my chest fluttered harder.

  ‘That boy!’ The one who had bumped into me as I left the square. He’d knocked my bag right off my shoulder.

  Tabitha sat up drowsily. ‘Hmm? What boy? Who . . . ?’

  ‘The boy who knocked against me earlier. It was him – it had to be. He took . . . something out of my bag.’

  She yawned. ‘Are you sure? Maybe you dropped it. What was it, money?’

  I shook my head. ‘A notebook belonging to Alice. It’s . . . it’s important.’

  ‘She has lots of notebooks. What’s so special abo
ut that one?’

  ‘It’s the story she’s working on at the moment,’ I said, ‘and probably the only copy.’

  Tabitha settled down again. ‘What’s so important about a story? Surely she can just write it again?’

  ‘It’s important to Alice.’ And to me, I added silently. The notebook would contain clues I needed: to work out what the characters of the story wanted – and which of them might be dangerous.

  ‘Even if it’s important to your sister, why would anyone else want it?’ the cat drawled.

  I could think of at least one person: Dolly. But what would that boy want with it? Perhaps he was also linked to Alice’s story . . . or maybe there was a simpler explanation.

  ‘It’s a small notebook,’ I said. ‘Perhaps he mistook it for a wallet.’ Mum had often warned us about pickpockets when we’d gone into busy cities. One of their tricks was to bump into you or distract you before going through your pockets or bag.

  All I had left of the notebook were a few pages. I flicked through them, carefully, like they were treasure. Sixteen pages. Some notes and a chapter or so, hardly anything.

  I closed my eyes. ‘I feel sick.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Tabitha. She gave a little burp and groaned.

  ‘Yes, but that’s because you scoffed a whole candyfloss to yourself earlier,’ I said.

  ‘Urgh,’ she complained. ‘Talking about it makes me feel worse.’

  I clutched at the pages uselessly. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘There’s only one thing you can do,’ said Tabitha. ‘Find the thieving crook and get it back.’

  ‘How?’ I said. ‘I’ll never find him. He’ll be long gone!’

  ‘He’ll stay as long as the pickings are rich.’

  I felt a glimmer of hope. Tonight was going to be one of the busiest nights of the year in Fiddler’s Hollow. Perhaps the boy would still be there.

  ‘He’s probably ditched the notebook,’ I said. ‘Why would he keep it if it’s money he was after? It could be in a bin getting covered with people’s chewed corn on the cobs!’ I felt the heat rising in my face at the thought of Alice’s work being thrown away like rubbish.