Step by Wicked Step

by Anne Fine

  ‘He could have tried again,’ insisted Ralph.

  She came to join him at the window.

  ‘Perhaps he thought he was the only one.’

  Ralph’s voice was thick with scorn.

  ‘How could he think he was the only one? Stories from the old days are knee-deep in stepmothers and stepfathers!’

  Claudia picked up the little wooden cow and stroked its nose.

  ‘Everyone thinks that they’re the only one. You ought to know that.’

  She held the little leg against the cow.

  ‘He could have fixed that, too,’ Ralph told her irritably.

  Claudia took one last deep breath of cool, damp air.

  ‘Daylight creeps over the sill,’ she said, remembering. ‘Come on. Let’s do what Richard Harwick says. Let’s leave it to the spiders in their webs to argue whether he was right or wrong.’

  Ralph pointed to the little cow.

  ‘Better leave that.’

  But Claudia tightened her fingers round it.

  ‘I was just thinking,’ she said, opening her other hand to show the broken leg. ‘I was just thinking maybe Richard Harwick wouldn’t mind if we gave this to someone who’ll need a bit of practice fixing things.

  Ralph pulled the window shut, and turned the latch.

  ‘Do you mean Colin?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Here. Give it to me.’

  This time she followed him, out of the room. Carefully, she pulled the door closed behind her. The shaft of bright dawn light had slid across the wall, leaving the tell-tale pockmark in shadow again, invisible, inviolate. Pixie had disappeared upstairs. Colin was already asleep. And Robbo watched in silence as Ralph thrust the precious little wooden cow and its small leg deep into Colin’s bag.

  And then he grinned.

  ‘It’s not exactly a bluebird, is it?’ he said to Ralph. ‘But it might work.’

  And, not expecting any answer, he drew the coverlet over his head as Claudia crept quietly from the room.