by Hilary McKay
‘Louis, of course n—’
‘Have you got a GUN?’ asked Louis, dodging Max and Theo, now both trying to grab the phone from him.
‘Absolutely not!’
‘What about STABBERS?’
‘What, Louis? What?’
‘Stabbers with KNIVES,’ said Louis, now under the kitchen table with his back against the wall and practically unreachable. ‘I’ve seen the news on telly! I’ve seen ALL the news! Who would win a fight, you or a STABBER?’
‘Louis, please could you put Theo on for a minute, and after that I’ll talk to you again.’
‘Muuuuuumm!’ howled Louis, and flung the phone away from him. It went skittering across the kitchen tiles and Theo stopped it with his foot and scooped it up and said, ‘Sorry about that, Pol. Overtired . . . Bedtime any minute . . . Call you back soon.’
He put down the phone and, lifting aside the table as cheerfully as if he hadn’t just worked a ten-hour shift, cycled three miles and gone straight into deep-sea-diving lessons, said, ‘Now, hot choc all round. Come on, Abi! Can you get that started? Louis-dude, how’d you like to sleep with me tonight?’
‘Yuck,’ said Louis.
‘Fair enough. Well then, what if I camp on your floor?’
‘No,’ said Louis.
‘Shall I read you a storybook down here, then, while Abi makes the choc? I used to read to Abi – didn’t I, Abi – before she learned to do it herself.’
‘It’s why I learned to do it myself,’ said Abi.
‘I haven’t any storybooks,’ said Louis sulkily.
‘Yeah, we need to talk about that,’ said Theo. ‘That reading-book-down-the-drain thing. Not now, though. Abi, you’ll have books somewhere?’
‘Not that would do for Louis. We gave them all away to the hospital.’
‘Max?’
Max went to search his room and came down with his school English book, which was about a murdered boy called Piggy, and a bright red paperback labelled Worst Case Scenario.
‘No, no, no, no!’ said Theo, tucking Louis into a corner of the kitchen armchair, and settling down beside him. ‘Last thing we need right now! It’ll have to be a story out my head, then.’
Abi groaned.
‘Once upon a time . . .’
‘You’re so rubbish at this it’s embarrassing,’ said Abi, splashing hot chocolate into mugs.
‘There were these three bears,’ continued Theo, undaunted, reaching for a mug for Louis and another for himself, ‘and these bears loved porridge and so they made a big pot of it, like you do . . .’
Theo covered a yawn and said, ‘Excuse me, it’s sitting down sends me sleepy. Drink your choc, Lou. These bears. Yes. And their porridge. Yes. Well, it was so hot they couldn’t touch it, not like this hot chocolate, which is hardly hot at all, Abi. So anyway, the bears huffed and puffed . . .’
‘It was a wolf huffed and puffed, not bears,’ said Abi.
‘. . . the bears huffed and puffed, like wolves they huffed and puffed, and they said, “Darn this porridge, we’ll leave it to cool a little,” and they went back to bed.’
‘No they didn’t,’ said Louis. ‘They went for a walk.’
‘OK, they went for a walk in the . . . in the jungle. They were looking for some ice, to cool that porridge . . . You sleepy yet, Louis?’
‘No,’ said Louis, gulping his chocolate.
‘Walking in the jungle, looking for ice, and of course they got lost, and who should they meet but a big bad . . . no they didn’t, wrong story . . . a little girl in a red cloak . . . no, not her, another little girl . . . Help me out here, Abi? Max?’
‘I think they met a woodcutter with a gun,’ said Max.
‘They didn’t meet anyone!’ said Abi.
‘They did,’ said Theo, yawning again. ‘There’s definitely a girl in this bear story. I’m one hundred per cent sure that there is. Later she does a lot of damage. Not the red cloak girl, another one . . . Give me a minute, and I’ll be there . . .’
Just in time, Abi caught his mug as his head dropped forward. He was asleep, and Louis, snug in his corner, his fears for Polly forgotten, his head against Theo’s arm, was also asleep.
‘Don’t you worry . . .’ murmured Theo, and this time Abi hardly felt a pang of jealousy. Instead she made Shush! signs to Max, who nodded and picked up his Worst Case book. Abi wished she had a book too, but the only one within her reach was The Kon-Tiki Expedition, and this did not seem to be a good time to be plunged into the Pacific Ocean.
Idly, she watched Max, flicking through worst-case illustrations, and her mind flickered with the turning pages until a particular picture caught her attention.
It was a picture of a bus balanced half over a cliff. The bus’s door was at the front, and open into space.
There was something about that scene. It was just a black-and-white sketch and yet it made Abi’s heart race. Awful, she thought, and her mind filled with questions. What would you do? If you saw it? If you were in it? Would you crawl to the back? Would it rock as you inched along the dusty, grubby aisle between the seats? Could you break the back window – but you’d have to climb up to reach . . . ? How could you break it, anyway?
Oh, thank goodness, a fire safety hammer behind a round screen!
In Case of Emergency, Abi read.
This was surely an emergency.
Abi reached upwards, but it was a huge mistake. The bus moved, moved again, lurched, and she gasped.
‘Abi?’ demanded Max. ‘Abi? You OK?’
Louis half woke, but pushed his head deeper against Theo’s arm and carried on dreaming. Theo dragged himself into wakefulness to ask, ‘What? What?’
‘Nothing,’ said Abi, but her heart was pounding. She looked at Max, who had already lost interest and turned the page. Her thoughts were skittering like fallen leaves in the wind. Not just the raft book! Another book now!
Her hands felt strange, gritty and dusty from the floor of the bus. When she tiptoed up to the bathroom to wash them, the water ran grey. Back in the quiet kitchen a new realization came to her.
Not just words, but pictures.
‘Bed,’ mumbled Theo, and stretched, observed Louis fast asleep, and gathered them both into uprightness in one huge movement. ‘Bed,’ he repeated, with Louis dangled limply over his shoulder. ‘Get the door for me, please, will you, Abi?’
Abi opened the kitchen door, followed him up the first set of stairs, and watched as Louis was set down, tucked into bed, photographed on Theo’s phone and sent to Polly under the heading ‘All wonderful’. He stirred as they turned to go and commanded blurrily, ‘Openawind . . .’
‘Too cold,’ said Theo.
‘I WANT . . .’ began Louis, showing signs of waking up far too much, like milk in a saucepan suddenly boiling.
‘OK, OK,’ said Theo hastily.
Wind breathed through ivy. A green coolness came rustling into the room. Louis subsided. ‘Iffen . . .’ he whispered, like a secret word from a private spell, and then, quite suddenly, snug as an owl in its feathers, fell asleep.
Outside the door Theo and Abi looked at each other.
‘Peace,’ said Theo. ‘When little kids finally pack in fighting it and sleep . . . You think they never will and then it’s like they flip a switch . . .’
Once again, he yawned immensely.
‘. . . Sometimes, Abi, you just have to believe in magic.’
Abi thought of the seashell echo of the ocean, the startling lurch of the bus on the cliff, the wind through the ivy, Louis’ last whispered word.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘you do.’
CHAPTER SIX
Iffen did not tolerate closed windows. Louis had already discovered that. There had been a night when he jumped awake at the thud of a heavy blow, right by his head.
Thwack!
A paw: five black cat pads pressed imperiously against the glass. A husky yowl. The sound of something threshing backwards and forwards in the ivy: Iffen’s tail, lashing with f
ury.
‘Wait! Wait!’ begged Louis.
The pungent smell of crushed leaves poured in the moment Louis scrabbled open the window. Iffen stalked amongst it, an outraged emperor with a cloak of green scent billowing around him. Every part of him, from his carved golden profile to his blunt, black-tipped tail, commanded, ‘Don’t ever do that again!’
‘But,’ Louis had asked, scrunching up his knees to leave Iffen the best part of the bed, ‘what if it’s raining?’
‘What if it is?’ replied a flicker of muscle in Iffen’s shoulder.
‘Snow?’
Iffen looked contemptuously down his nose.
‘I love you,’ Louis had offered hopefully, and Iffen, after a moment or two of thinking about this, had allowed his body to fold into warmth at Louis’ feet.
Ever since, Louis had slept with his window open, hoping that Iffen would come back. On the night of the deep-sea-diving, and the terrible phone call and the Three Bears, it happened. Louis woke to the smell of green magic filling the room and a lovely warmth, comforting his knees.
‘Iffen,’ he murmured thankfully, and then as he woke up further, ‘Iffen, my mum . . .’
The warmth increased.
‘. . . Why does she talk in a happy voice? Why doesn’t she be sad, likes she wants to come home?’
Iffen looked entirely unconcerned.
‘She likes it there, that’s why,’ said Louis. ‘She likes it there too much!’
He kicked in frustration. Iffen turned his head to contemplate him, and his eyes were not friendly.
‘Sorry,’ said Louis.
The grey-gold head turned away.
‘There’s only Theo now. And he’s always busy. Busy at the hospital. Busy at home. And he thinks Mrs Puddock is funny.’
Louis paused for a long time, thinking about Mrs Puddock.
‘Abi likes her,’ he said sombrely.
Iffen, appearing bored, lowered his head and closed his eyes. Louis nevertheless continued his list of grumbles.
‘Max is cross all the time. There’s Esmé, but . . .’
Iffen’s ears twitched.
‘She’s small. What’s the use of that? If there was stabbers or kidnappers, Esmé couldn’t fight them.’
Iffen yawned, clearly not very much disturbed to hear all this. He flexed a pawful of thorny black claws, considered them for a moment, and then slumped on to his side. Louis became quiet, because there was nothing else to say. Presently he scriggled down in bed until he and Iffen were back to back, with the covers between them.
‘Never go away, Iffen,’ he murmured as the knots of tension between his shoulders began to loosen, the clamped coldness in his stomach relaxed and the stiffness left his curled fingers and elbows and knees. ‘Never go away, please, never go away, but . . .’
Louis sat up suddenly, jerking Iffen outrageously.
‘. . . don’t let anyone see you! I forgot! They said no pets!’
Then Iffen gave him such a glance, such a deep, long glance, that all Louis’ thoughts trembled and scattered and rearranged themselves in new patterns, like a kaleidoscope shaken. Iffen a pet? Iffen was no pet. He was . . . What was he?
Louis’ mind rifled his memory for all the words that might describe Iffen: ‘guest’, ‘beast’, ‘cat’, ‘angel’, ‘fear’, ‘secret’, ‘wildness’.
A wildness.
Yes.
When the right word came, Louis settled down again, with Iffen heavy beside him, and this time he slept till morning.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Max and Danny’s quarrel did not fade back to normality. It got worse. Max was superb at holding grudges. Danny could never let a good joke go.
Nor a bad joke, either.
‘How’s the babysitter?’ he asked, one Friday morning. ‘Does she help with your buttons? Does she make you tidy your toys?’
Danny, who loved an audience, always found well-crowded places for these questions.
‘Does she cut your food up for you? Does she read you a story before she puts you to bed?’
‘Sorry, Daniel Clarence Ambrose,’ replied Max. ‘What did you just say?’
‘Don’t call me that!’ snarled Danny, beaten for the moment at least.
‘Why not?’ asked Max politely. ‘Those are your names, aren’t they? Don’t you remember telling me about how it was after your grandads: Clarence after the one that was called Clarence, Ambrose after the one that was called Ambrose . . .’
‘Who’s called Ambrose?’ asked someone, overhearing. ‘What kind of a name is Ambrose? Weird!’
‘It’s a sort of custard my gran buys in a tin,’ said a blonde girl helpfully.
‘Danny Clarence Custard,’ said Max thoughtfully.
‘Maxi-babe, stick your dummy back in!’ snapped Danny.
They were both relieved when the bell went.
Max went home wondering if he could possibly change schools. No, he realized, almost at once, not after they’d bought him all that new uniform. Danny would never leave either; Danny liked school so much he was glad when the holidays ended. Nor would either of them ever be expelled, because no one ever was at their school. They just kept being nice to you until you broke down. It was going to be like this until they were both eighteen . . .
Ping! went his mobile phone, just as he arrived home, and it was Danny and it seemed that they were continuing the battle by text now. Max paused by the Narnia lamp and read:
You’ve nicked my bike pump. I know it was you.
You owe me £4.49, Max typed from the doorstep. Pay up, you crook.
His reply took a while to go. His and Danny’s texts rarely flew swiftly, as messages should. Quite often they arrived late, or fragmented, or in flocks, all at once. He and Danny both had technology problems. Danny’s was his unreliable phone (worn-out battery, cracked screen, gaffer-taped across the back, passed on from any number of elder brothers, the only iPhone 4 in the school). Max’s primitive Nokia was still intact and so tough you could drop it on concrete and although it would split into three parts on impact, these could be clipped together again like Lego and it would work just the same. But perhaps it had been dropped too often. Max frequently found himself waving it in the air to get a signal, and at home it was particularly bad, and got worse and worse the further a person went into the house, until by the time it reached the attic bedrooms it was hardly there at all. Max thought it was the ivy, but Abi, who had also noticed it, said it was the house.
Louis had agreed, saying, ‘Mobile phones are the wrong sort of magic.’
‘Mobiles aren’t magic,’ Max had told him scornfully.
‘How do they work, then?’ asked Louis, surprised, and that shut Max up because he hadn’t the faintest idea how they worked.
Probably magic.
His was pinging again.
Your cheesy trainers that you left at mine are in the bin, wrote Danny
WHAT, MY NIKES? demanded Max from halfway up to his bedroom, climbing the stairs on tiptoe because he could hear Esmé-the-Art-Student chatting to Abi in the kitchen.
It was ridiculous how long it took to send that message, but the answer came quickly: Yep. Cheesy nikes in the bin.
GET THEM OUT! THAT IS THEFT! wrote Max furiously from his bedroom, and now found he had no signal at all, not even when he hung out of his window. He would have to sneak back down again and risk encountering Esmé. He still had not met her. He was dealing with her on the principle of what he had not seen could not exist.
But it was difficult. Day after day, racing up the stairs before he could be spotted from the kitchen. Starving up there till she left. Sometimes Louis could be persuaded to bring him a biscuit. Once Abi had knocked on his door and silently offered tea and toast. But usually he starved; he was terribly hungry now, for instance. Lunch had been a damp and frugal plastic-wrapped sandwich, because the collapse of the bike-repair and car-cleaning business had made him worry about money again. Opposite him, in the dining hall, Danny had gobbled wraps and fa
lafels, bananas and brownies.
Max missed Danny’s mum’s cooking. He missed Danny too. He was fed up, ravenous, cut off from the outside world; his only decent trainers were in Danny’s bin and he hadn’t any phone signal. He hovered by his bedroom door, ready to dodge back in if necessary, and a smell like heaven came floating up the stairs. He knew what it was; he had fished it out of the freezer himself that morning. Macaroni cheese toasting in the oven, with tomatoes baking on the top.
Hungry Max forgot his trainers and stood sniffing at the top of the stairs. It smelt cooked. It smelt like it might dry up and burn if it was left a minute longer. He tried to make Esmé leave early by willpower.
It worked.
Max could hardly believe it, but it worked.
The kitchen door opened. There were voices in the hall. Abi saying, ‘Don’t fall over Max’s bike!’ Esmé asking, ‘My jacket? Where is my jacket? Ah!’
Max punched the air. He had superpowers. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up! he silently urged Esmé.
He didn’t have to wait long.
‘À bientôt!’ he heard her call. ‘À bientôt, Louis!’ and then the front door opened and closed and the house was suddenly still.
‘Where’s everyone?’ shouted Max as he headed downstairs, and almost at once heard Louis’ voice, droning behind his bedroom door.
‘Louis! Come on!’ he called.
‘Why?’
‘Food.’
‘I’m singing.’
‘Well, shut up and come and eat!’
Louis huffed indignantly down his nose and droned louder, so Max went to look for Abi. She seemed to have done one of her usual vanishing acts. There was no one in the kitchen when he opened the door, but the table was ready for supper, with a fresh loaf of rye bread waiting to be dunked in peppery olive oil, and a bowl of watercress and lettuce to go with the macaroni in the oven. It was a lovely sight. All that was needed, thought Max, now very much happier, was baked beans with the macaroni to make it an entirely perfect meal.
He checked the cupboard for a can, but there weren’t any, so he took a handful of biscuits and a chunk of cheese to keep himself going and wandered into the rocking-horse room, where the mobile signal was the best. There he dropped down on the sofa and began firing off a chain of trainer-related threats to Danny. They went with satisfying swiftness, for once. It wasn’t until Max sat back to wait for the replies that he noticed how dark the house had become.
