Harper and the Scarlet Umbrella

by Cerrie Burnell

  “Smoke seems to think it’s a good idea,” Nate grinned.

  “Smoke…” Harper murmured. It was a wonderful name for her. The wolf’s fur shimmered, as if she was made out of mist. “Come on then,” Harper cried and they set off for the rooftop.

  Elsie had gone back inside so the children and the wolf found themselves alone beneath a sky of silvery stars.

  “You have to hold the handle tight,” said Harper, passing the umbrella to Nate.

  She closed her own hands over his. “On the count of three,” she whispered. “One, two, thr—” and the umbrella shot into the air.

  Smoke’s wild eyes flashed and she gave a surprised snarl. But neither of the children noticed. They were having too much fun.

  “It’s like we’re part of the sky,” Nate laughed as the umbrella swept across the rooftop.

  “Like we’re made of night-clouds,” Harper agreed. Then Icefall rain started to rattle down on them, making the umbrella shake like a boat on the waves.

  With a happy shriek Harper brought the umbrella to land. The children and the wolf dashed beneath a canopy of storm blooms. Nate rubbed the wolf’s ears until she lay at his feet like a puppy, but Harper noticed her eyes were open wide. Smoke is not Nate’s guide dog, she thought. She is his best friend, just like Midnight and me. And she told Nate all about Midnight, the missing cats and the man with magpie-feather hair.

  “I think what we need to do,” said Nate, “is come up with a plan.” As the Icefall rain thinned to a Heartbeat drizzle and the storm blooms opened their dusky grey petals, a plan began to form.

  Chapter Six

  A TRIP TO THE UNFORGOTTEN CONCERT HALL

  The next morning, Harper hugged Elsie goodbye and hurried to the tenth floor where Nate and Smoke were waiting.

  Ferdie’s sharp German accent echoed up the stairs. “Ludo’s been missing two days! Don’t you care?”

  “No, I don’t!” yelled Liesel, flicking a chunk of dirty hair out of her eyes.

  Ferdie scowled at his sister and tucked a pencil behind his ear.

  “Hey,” cried Harper as she ran down to them, almost breathless with excitement, “I know where the cats are!”

  “Where?” yelled Ferdie eagerly.

  “Where?” whispered Liesel wistfully, for although Liesel didn’t like cats, she did very much like adventures. The sight of a girl with a Scarlet Umbrella and a boy with a mist-coloured wolf set her small heart pounding.

  “The cats are at the Unforgotten Concert Hall,” Harper half-yelled. “They’ve been captured by a man with magpie-feather hair.”

  “We must get them back!” cried Ferdie, shaking his fist. He closed his eyes in serious thought, only instead of a plan, he came up with a poem.

  Liesel, however, sprang into action. “We must take every instrument we can carry, so we look like we’re in a band. Then we walk inside and free the cats!”

  Everyone turned to stare at her. Even Smoke looked impressed.

  “Yes,” they all agreed. “That’s an excellent idea!”

  Twenty minutes later they were marching down the stairs laden with instruments. Harper had her cello on her back, a French horn in one hand, the Scarlet Umbrella in the other, and some maracas in her pocket.

  Ferdie had his mother’s button accordion around his neck and his tuneless recorder tucked through his scarf.

  Liesel clutched Harper’s clarinet, which was nearly as big as her, and banged against her foot.

  And Nate had his brother’s Roman tuba in his arms and a tambourine fitted on top of his pork-pie cap.

  Isabella, who had also agreed to help, strutted in front of them, the feathered wings of her samba outfit making her look like a butterfly.

  This time the stage door was open. Harper led her friends down a staircase of echoes, her heart beating with hope.

  Isabella was to remain downstage and pretend to be rehearsing a dance, whilst really she was keeping watch. The others were to hunt for the missing cats.

  “Keep your instruments with you,” Harper urged. “If anyone approaches, sound the alarm by playing three sharp notes. Music will be our secret signal.”

  The children scattered. Harper heaved her cello on to the stage. She thought of the many times she had sat in this very auditorium and imagined herself being part of the orchestra. Only even in her dreams Harper could never quite decide which instrument was truly for her. Each one held its own special wonder.

  She looked around the edges of the stage but found only the rustle of the velvet curtains. No sign of the missing cats. She pulled her bow from her purple wellingtons and began to softly play her cello.

  Backstage, Nate was hunting through a box of props. Smoke sat at his side, her ears pricked like a guard dog’s. Nate was so used to the dark that he worked quicker than anyone else. His fingers moved lightly over the floor and walls, studying the texture of the wood. The dampness in the floor. The depth of cobwebs. He could always tell how old a place was by the feel of its cobwebs, and this place was very old indeed.

  Ferdie was in the dressing room staring at his reflection. He was a serious-looking boy, with a serious-looking scarf. He imagined the room full of actors, celebrating the opening night of his play. For how wonderful would it be to hear people speak the words he’d written? His skin began to tingle and his fingers twitched for a pencil. Before he could stop himself he was scribbling down a sentence about a group of children in search of a mysterious cat.

  Liesel was bored. She had searched the auditorium and found nothing but an old boiled sweet. She wandered down a spiral staircase, Harper’s clarinet banging against her foot.

  At the bottom was a small wooden door that was ever-so-slightly open. On the door was a big brass sign saying KEEP OUT.

  Everyone knows an adventurous child can never resist a forbidden door. And Liesel was no exception. Her eyes glittered brightly, and she scampered through.

  Chapter Seven

  THE THREE DOORS

  The room on the other side was not very exciting at all, just a long dusty hall full of instruments. But as Liesel crept through it, she noticed something odd. All the instruments were tiny, almost small enough for a mouse.

  Perhaps I’m in a story, she thought, like the ones Papa writes, and she scurried on merrily.

  Backstage, amidst the velvet and dust, Smoke gave a low growl. Nate stood still and listened. From the stage he heard the rhythm of Isabella’s feet and the haunting chords of Harper’s cello. Further off was the happy scrape of Ferdie’s pencil. But where was the scruffy sound of Liesel? Nate raised the Roman tuba to his lips and played three sharp notes.

  At once, Harper tucked her bow inside her purple wellington. Ferdie tucked his pencil behind his ear. Isabella tucked her wings behind her back. They hurried to find Nate and quickly made a new plan. Isabella would stay on the lookout, whilst the others went to find Liesel.

  Harper, Ferdie, Nate and Smoke edged down the spiral staircase and through the forbidden door. Inside, the gleam of a tiny ukulele caught Harper’s eye and she stopped.

  She slipped off her cello and sank to the floor, her heart struck by its impossible beauty.

  Ferdie stared at his friend and knew he had to help. He knelt down and took Harper’s hand. “You must let the ukulele go,” he said in his most serious voice. For Ferdie knew what it was like to be drawn away by daydreams. He dreamed of words the way Harper heard music, Liesel longed for dark forests and Nate for wild wolves.

  Harper stared in surprise and let the ukulele clatter to the floor.

  “Well done,” grinned Ferdie. “Now let’s find my sister and those missing cats!”

  Then a little shape that might have been a girl or might have been a mouse appeared at the end of the hall.

  It was Liesel. She had found another door.

  This door was much grander and made of br
onze. It was also firmly locked.

  Liesel kicked it crossly. “If only we had the key.”

  Nate ran his fingers over the lock. “Keys are too risky,” he murmured. “They can get lost for ever in pockets. Does anyone have a hairpin?”

  “Liesel, there must be one in your hair – somewhere,” Ferdie laughed.

  Harper searched through Liesel’s tangled locks, until a hairpin was found.

  Carefully Nate slid the pin into the lock. He twisted it ever so slightly, put his ear to the door and waited for the soft sound of a click. As if by magic the door sprung open.

  “Genius!” cried Ferdie, throwing an arm around Nate’s shoulders.

  “Amazing, Nate!” Harper beamed, as they tiptoed through.

  Liesel could do nothing but gasp and gaze, her eyes wide with glee. She had never seen anything as splendid in her life. Nate was fast becoming the best person she had ever met.

  The room they were in seemed to be full of sunlight, even though it was deep underground. The walls were lined with shelves, each stacked high with old music books.

  “The Library of Long-Forgotten Music!” Liesel cried, jumping on to a shelf. It was a place every child in the City of Clouds had heard of, but didn’t quite believe in.

  Now it was Ferdie’s turn to be stunned. “The Library of Long-Forgotten Music!” he stammered. “It’s here. It’s real. We are in it.” Oh, how he longed to sit down and write!

  But before he had time to reach for his pencil, the bookcase Liesel was balancing on gave a sudden creak. Then the whole thing shifted as if it was falling away from the world. Liesel gripped the shelf tightly, her face alive with excitement. She had discovered yet another door!

  With a shudder of amazement, the children and the wolf crept through. The door creaked closed behind them. The children stopped. They were in pitch darkness, and for the first time they were afraid.

  Chapter Eight

  A STRANGE ORCHESTRA

  Harper tried to step forward, but almost fell down a staircase.

  “I should have brought my torch,” huffed Ferdie.

  “I should have been a mouse,” fumed Liesel, “then I could have found my way out.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” said Nate. The other children all fell still. “The dark’s not a problem for me.” He shrugged. “I’m used to moving through shadows as if they were sunlight.” And with that he tucked the Roman tuba under his arm and held out his hands to his friends.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” whispered Harper as Nate led them through the thick blackness, down the winding stairs.

  In the darkness he was so comfortable in, Nate smiled. So few people understood that not being able to see could make you stronger in other ways. Or that having a wolf was very special, but also very ordinary. Most children were either too amazed or too terrified by Smoke to notice Nate. But Harper, Ferdie and Liesel had changed that. For the first time Nate’s world held more than his mum and his brothers and midnight strolls with his wolf. For the first time Nate’s world held friendship and adventure.

  A single eerie note of music fluttered from the shadows and the children stopped. Somehow, in the darkness, a maraca slipped from Harper’s pocket, rattling to the ground like the sound of jittery nerves. Everyone tried not to laugh.

  Then Harper crept down the final stairs and up to a small filthy window. The others held their breath as she rose on her toes and squinted through. At once she fell back pale-faced and gaping. Liesel and Ferdie sprang forward, fighting to get a look, while Nate helped Harper find her balance.

  “The terrifyingly tall man is there,” Harper whispered. “He’s some sort of wild conductor. He’s got an orchestra made entirely of cats!”

  And it was true. As Liesel and Ferdie gazed through the dirt, they saw that crammed from floor to ceiling were cats of every colour, all clutching tiny instruments. There were stray cats, pampered cats, wild cats, street cats. Cats that followed the path of the moon. Cats that only drank cream. Cats that once belonged to a witch.

  “I think they’re in a colour code of fur,” whispered Ferdie as he spotted his cat Ludo thumping a big bass drum.

  “They’re in sections of an orchestra,” hissed Liesel, staring at Snowflake, the ballet school cat who was clasping a miniature viola.

  “Yes!” whispered Harper. “Ginger cats on brass, black cats on woodwind, snow-white cats on strings and bright-eyed tabbies on percussion.” And yet Harper noticed that there were other odd instruments thrown in. Elsie Caraham’s two cats, Memphis and Tallulah, were playing the bagpipes between them. Katarina, the Lucas family’s cat, had a set of samba cowbells.

  And there, in the middle of the room, was Midnight, in his paws a miniature mandolin.

  Then the orchestra began to play and Harper’s heart was set on fire.

  While the others listened in awe, Liesel did exactly what a mouse might do. She found a soft dark gap between the panels of the wall and crawled through. Up and up she crawled until she was in the ceiling above the performing cats.

  This is great, she thought proudly, I’ll drop down at the end of the song, grab Midnight, then free the other cats and run. But before Liesel had time to think any further, the ceiling gave way and she found herself slipping through the air.

  Harper cried out in horror as Liesel fell from out of nowhere, knocking the Wild Conductor’s hat across his eyes. He stumbled around in bewilderment, trying not to fall over the startled cats.

  Liesel tumbled on to a family of large ginger toms. The cats shrieked, but Liesel fought them off with the clarinet.

  “I’m going to get Midnight,” Ferdie yelled, booting the filthy window as hard as he could. As the window flew open Ferdie flew through it, diving at Midnight’s feet and alarming everyone by playing a surprise chord on the button accordion.

  Ferdie seized Midnight and the mandolin and threw them both to Harper.

  “Midnight!” Harper cried, cuddling him close.

  The Wild Conductor flew into a terrible rage and seized the nearest thing to him: a girl with tangled blonde hair. Liesel.

  Chapter Nine

  THE TERRIBLE THING

  As Liesel was plucked from the ground, her fear turned to wonder. All her life she had yearned to be a girl in a storybook, wandering through wicked forests. Now an adventure had finally found her.

  “Let my sister go!” yelled Ferdie, bashing the Wild Conductor with his tuneless recorder. Liesel pretended to scream in terror, while really she was having the most wonderful time.

  “What’s happening?” cried Nate, who saw only a cloud of shadows and fur. “He’s got hold of Liesel,” Harper stammered, her voice like a tremble of wind.

  Then many things happened at once.

  Nate bent down and whispered to his wolf. Smoke rose to her full size and with a sickening snarl she leaped. Ferdie fell back as the wolf soared through the window, teeth bared. The cats scattered like blossom, their instruments crashing to the floor. The Wild Conductor stared at the wolf in shock, but he did not let go of Liesel. Instead he held her in front of him like a shield. Though Smoke growled fiercely, there was no way she could attack the Wild Conductor without harming the child. And in that moment Harper knew the terrible thing she must do.

  “Wait!” Harper cried, her small body sagging with sorrow. “Let Liesel go and I’ll give you back my cat.”

  The Wild Conductor sneered at her, “You don’t even know what this cat can do.”

  Harper amazed everyone by answering back. “Why don’t you explain?” she said calmly.

  “He has an incredible musical gift,” the Wild Conductor spat. “Without him the orchestra would be nothing.”

  “Of course he has a musical gift,” Harper sighed. “I’ve taught him every instrument I know. But that doesn’t mean he should be forced to perform in your orchestra.”


  The Wild Conductor’s eyes glittered darkly. “He’s quite happy performing,” he said dryly. “It’s the other cats that are the problem. They need him to lead them.”

  “Why do you need a cat orchestra?” demanded Ferdie, in a seriously angry voice. “Fame? Fortune? Why?” The Wild Conductor gave a low rasp of a laugh that made the children shiver. “No,” he said crisply. “Because I can. Because I’m the best. Because when these cats play there is a magic in the air that cannot be ignored. Their music could draw a storm from the sky, or summon a circus across many seas.” For a moment the Wild Conductor seemed lost in the greatness of his dream.

  Then, with a sudden quickness, before anyone had time to move, he dropped Liesel and snatched Midnight from Harper’s arms.

  As Liesel sailed through the air she noticed something silver in the Wild Conductor’s sleeve. And just like that, as easily as a mouse might steal a crumb, she took it.

  Then she landed in her brother’s arms, causing the button accordion to squeak shrilly. The Wild Conductor stared at the children sourly and with a swish of dark satin he was gone, Midnight howling wildly in his arms, an orchestra of cats at his heels.

  “Who is he?” Liesel gasped. “Some sort of strange magician,” said Nate.

  Harper felt tears spilling down her cheeks. Ferdie slung her cello on his back and grabbed the Roman tuba.

  Liesel pushed something small and silvery into her hand. Harper stared at it in shock and a smile spread across her face.

  “Liesel, this is a conductor’s wand,” she cried.

  “You can use it to get Midnight back,” Liesel urged. “But you have to hurry.”

  Harper tucked the wand inside her purple wellington.

  “Go! Follow the cats. Run like the wind and you might just catch him,” cried Ferdie, his face as serious as his voice. “Take Nate and Smoke with you. You’ll be safe with a wolf and boy who’s not afraid of the dark.”