by Hilary McKay
They shook their heads.
“Just London?”
They nodded.
“But what’s the difference?”
“You have to come back from other places,” explained Indigo. “You can’t stay there.”
“You’ve got a bed in London,” said Saffron. “Haven’t you?”
Her father admitted that this was true.
“So,” said Saffron, “you don’t have to come back.”
Her father looked at her in astonishment. And then at Indigo, and then at Caddy and Eve. He looked at them as if to say, “Did you ever hear anything so absurd?”
They looked back as if to reply, “On the contrary. We never heard anything so reasonable.”
“But,” said Bill, clearly shaken to his heart, “I always come back.”
The bubble of happiness strengthened and grew brighter. It held even after supper when Eve had to go.
“Tell the firework baby to get better,” Indigo commanded, hanging round her neck. “Say ‘getbettergetbettergetbetter’ like that.”
“Tell it about the rockets,” said Saffron.
“Yes, and tell it to hurry up,” added Indigo.
“Tell it about supper. Tell her I did the stars.”
“Tell it my bed smells funny,” said Indigo. “And Saffy’s bed smells very funny!” (Bill groaned and ran upstairs.)
“Tell it about our graveyard,” said Saffron.
“Yes, tell it about our holes,” agreed Indigo. “Tell it if it di—”
Saffron clamped two hands over Indigo’s mouth, dragged him to the ground, and lay across his head. Bill came running down the stairs with an armload of sheets, fell over them both, and said, “Bedtime.”
“Tell it Daddy’s a smelly pig,” said Saffron from the floor. “And tell it Indigo bit me.”
“I didn’t!” cried Indigo. “Don’t tell it that! I just closed my mouth!”
“On my arm,” said Saffron. “Like this . . . ! OY! Daddy! Hey, put me down!”
“No, don’t!” said Indigo. “Take her away!”
Bill took them both away, one under each arm like bundles of laundry. Caddy and Eve were left alone together.
“You do look tired,” said Caddy, suddenly noticing the purple shadows under her mother’s eyes.
“Only a little bit,” said Eve.
“When you come home I’ll help you and help you,” promised Caddy.
“I know you will,” said her mother, hugging and hugging. “Bye-bye, darling Caddy. Don’t worry too much about anything.”
“Bye-bye,” said Caddy, and hugged and hugged her back.
Chapter Nineteen
CADDY ON THE DOORSTEP
AT JUST AFTER SEVEN ON MONDAY MORNING BILL CLIMBED the stairs, poked his head around the corner of Caddy and Saffron’s room, and said, “Visitor to see you, Caddy. Hmmm.”
“What?” asked Caddy, still half asleep. “Who? To see me?”
“To see me, too?” asked Saffron brightly, emerging from underneath Old Panda and a collapsing pile of bears.
“Nope. Just Caddy. Paperboy, but he doesn’t look up to the job. Rang the bell and asked to see you. Said it was urgent, so I told him to wait.”
“But I don’t know any paperboys,” protested Caddy. “We don’t even have papers delivered! Anyway, I’m not dressed.”
“High time you were, though,” said Bill, preparing to leave. “I’ll tell him to hop it, then, shall I? I don’t mind doing that.”
“No, no, I’ll come,” said Caddy rolling out of bed and heading for the bathroom. “Tell him to wait.”
Caddy pulled on scattered bits of uniform while searching her thoughts for possible reasons for her visitor. She had no idea, but when she arrived at the door she recognized the boy waiting there at once. He was a hanger-on of Dingbat’s, a bony, giggling, fidgety individual. A sheepish sort of creature to find on a doorstep.
“Oh, it’s you,” said Caddy.
“Yeah,” said the sheepish one, staring vaguely down into a huge, fluorescent orange newsbag that he had dumped on the doorstep. “I’ve come with a message. S’not good, Caddy.”
“What’s not good?” asked Caddy, shivering a little. There was a chilly autumn breeze that morning. It was shivering weather.
“What Dingbat said to tell you.”
“Is Dingbat all right?” asked Caddy, truly alarmed, and at that moment she realized how very fond she was of Dingbat. And had been for so long. And even dimly that, all the time, sharing him had been a kind of way of keeping him. Which was necessary, because in a haphazard, Caddyish way there were times when she adored him . . .
“Dingbat’s fine,” said the sheepish one. “Dingbat’s great! No worries there! Only, what he said to tell you was, he’s gonna have to . . . well, it’s done already. I’m afraid he said you’re . . .”
The sheepish one was finding this surprisingly hard, which was not at all what he had expected. “You go past Caddy’s in the mornings, don’t you?” Dingbat had asked him the night before. “Do me a favor and stop off and let her know it’s over.”
“Like, dumped?”
“Yeah, like dumped.”
“Dumped,” said the sheepish one to the shivering Caddy on the doorstep.
“Dumped?”
“Yeah.”
The sheepish one now cheered up, the worst part of his message being delivered. “So, now, if you like . . . ,” he continued much more confidently, “since it’s over with you and Ding, I thought, you and me . . . We could go out. That’s why I said I didn’t mind telling you. So I could get in quick to ask.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Caddy, dazed.
“Believe it,” said the sheepish one, looking at his watch.
“But why?”
“Fancied you for ages!”
“NO! No. Why did Dingbat . . . ? Why has he . . . ?”
“Oh,” said the sheepish one. “Ali. You know, Ali with the pink hair? She’s why.”
“Alison?”
“You should have seen him when he met her on Friday night. When he saw that hair. ‘Ali, Ali, Ali!’ he goes! He was nearly on his knees! So yesterday, he says to me, ‘Tell Caddy it’s finished.’ And get her to tell the other two . . .”
“Ruby and Beth?”
“That’s them.”
“I’m to tell Ruby and Beth?”
“He said it would be nicer, coming from you.”
“Nicer!”
“Well, I’ve not got time to do it,” said the sheepish one, picking up his bag. “I’ll be late as it is. I only said I’d tell you so I could ask about us.”
“It can’t be true, it can’t be true!” wailed Caddy. “And don’t say ‘us’ like that! It sounds awful!”
“Awful!”
“Yes.”
“Forget it, then,” said the sheepish one, highly offended. “There’s plenty of others’d be grateful. So forget it. Snooty cow!”
His last remark did Caddy good. She became Caddy incandescent, kicked the orange bag off the doorstep, and hurled shut the door.
“What on earth was that all about?” demanded Bill, shooting out from the kitchen.
“Only that I’ve been dumped,” said Caddy, and found herself in tears.
“My poor pet,” said her father, gathering her up. “My poor, poor pet,” he said, stricken, not so much because she was dumped as that she, his little Caddy, aged twelve, was in a position to be dumped. Aged twelve! he thought, rocking her. What were young people coming to? He himself, he remembered, had been well past thirteen when he first broke a heart . . .
“He was nowhere near good enough for you,” he told Caddy, stroking her hair. “What do you want with a twitching, miserable newspaper boy?”
“It wasn’t him. He just came to tell me.”
Caddy snuffled unhappily, and her father felt a pang of guilt, remembering dumpings long ago, when he too had sent a friend . . .
“Fancy not even telling me himself!”
“Perha
ps,” suggested Bill, “he thought it would be nicer . . .”
Caddy’s snuffling became much deeper and wetter.
“Obviously not!” said her father, somewhat guiltily. “Who was he, anyway? What’s he called?”
“Ding,” said Caddy, sniffing hugely. “Dingbat.”
“Well, that’s not even a real name!” exclaimed Bill with sudden jubilance. “Nobody’s called Dingbat! Not in real life!” And he became very cheerful, as if not a real name meant not a real boy and no one worth crying over. (Certainly no one worth crying over on a brand-new lamb’s-wool, hand-wash-only sweater.) “Come on, Caddy!” he said bracingly. “No more tears! That’s enough! Love ’em and leave ’em, I say! It’s always worked for me!”
Surprisingly, this revealing advice seemed to do Caddy good. She gave her eyes one last rub and said she must go to school. And ten minutes, a slice of toast, and a banana later, she was gone.
“That’s my girl!” said Bill.
Chapter Twenty
BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE
THE REASON FOR CADDY’S SUDDEN DECISION TO HURRY TO school was that in the depths of her father’s sweater she had realized something. And what she had realized was that whether she liked it or not, she must warn Ruby and Beth.
It’s not fair, she thought bitterly, but fair or not, it was true.
Ruby and Beth did not know they were dumped. As far as Caddy knew, they would be as hurt as she was. And if she did not get to them in time they would arrive at school thinking all things were well, and would probably discover the horrible truth in front of Alison and a hundred curious onlookers.
So what choice do I have? thought Caddy. None. None at all. It was outrageous, but the fact was, in the end, it would be nicer (as Dingbat said) coming from her.
So Caddy set out to meet her friends and break the news of Dingbat’s perfidy and Alison’s treachery before they got to school. Half running and half walking past Alison’s house. (No wonder her curtains had been closed all weekend! No wonder she had not dared to glance out!) Past the academy head getting into her car. Past the sweet shop, in front of which Alison’s pink hair had nearly brought Dingbat to his quivering knees. Past the yew trees from which the fledgling had fallen, and over the crossroads at the foot of the hill.
Then suddenly, there was Ruby. She was drifting along among the shoals of people hurrying toward school, red head down, completely engrossed in whatever she was reading. “Ruby!” shouted Caddy, hurrying to catch up, and she called her name again as she ran. “Ruby! Ruby!”
Still Ruby did not look up, and Caddy was not surprised. Ruby rarely heard the outside world when she was reading, especially on such a gusty, trafficked, busy autumn morning as this.
“Ruby!” called Caddy, and the wind blew her voice away and her hair into her mouth and Ruby’s curls into her eyes, and it blew the thing that Ruby was reading out of her hands. It whirled, in loose flying pages, into the road.
“Oh!” cried Ruby, leaping after it, and as she leaped, several things happened at once. A truck came speeding far too fast down the hill, a car braked, and the whole streetful of walkers and students and drivers saw Ruby stumble and sprawl on the road.
Right in the path of the speeding truck.
Everything Caddy was holding—jacket, bag, handful of dinner money—fell to the ground as she hurled herself after her friend.
Ruby was caught in a time warp. In one lifetime she had walked along a windy road. In another she lay bound to the ground in front of certain death, fear-stricken into immobility. In the long, long time in between she knew all she had lost. Decades of family history passed through her thoughts and, parallel with them, the bright future of friendships and learning and discovery that might have been hers.
And then she saw Caddy and knew what Caddy was going to do and, flat on her front, rigid with terror though she was, she screamed, “Don’t!”
Bad enough to die yourself. Unthinkable to take a friend with you.
“No!” shrieked Ruby. “Don’t!”
And then it was over.
Caddy caught hold of her friend by a wrist and her jacket, and just in time she pulled her from under the wheels of the truck. Then, from those who had not hidden their eyes in horror, a great noise went up. It was as if the whole blustery autumn morning gasped with relief.
After that there was a great surge of movement as everyone within reach began racing to Caddy and Ruby. Bystanders who had watched, or not watched, converged toward them. The driver of the truck, who had managed to pull up several meters farther down the road, came bellowing. Mrs. Warbeck, the head of the academy, leaped from her car, grabbed both girls as if she owned them, and turned to face him.
“How dare you?” Caddy heard her demand. “How dare you drive at such speed down such a street as this?”
The next thing anyone knew the driver had turned, sprinted back to his truck, leaped into the cab, and vanished.
At least twenty people surrounded Caddy and Ruby, all wanting to touch or speak or simply stand and stare. This was horrible. Caddy and Ruby, dazed by all that had happened so quickly, backed away trembling until Mrs. Warbeck came to their rescue.
Mrs. Warbeck was excellent in situations like this. She pushed the girls behind her, clapped her hands until she had the crowd’s attention, thanked them for their concern, and by the sheer power of expecting their cooperation, sent them on their way.
Ruby and Caddy gave great sighs of relief as time, under Mrs. Warbeck’s direction, once again moved forward. Walkers remembered their destinations. The traffic began to flow. Caddy collected her scattered belongings. Ruby rubbed her bumps and licked her grazes. The pages from the academy prospectus fluttered to rest in the gutters. They were all that was left to show that anything had happened. That, and Mrs. Warbeck, busy making calls on her mobile phone.
“Ruby,” said Caddy. “Are you okay?”
“I told you not to come,” said Ruby furiously, now shaking more than ever. “Didn’t you hear me? What if you’d got hit? What then?”
“Ruby!”
“What if you’d died?”
Never before had Caddy seen Ruby so angry.
“What else could I do?” she asked, stammering in her surprise. “I was right behind you. I was looking for you. I’d been calling your name and trying to catch you up for ages! I had to tell you about Dingbat.”
“Dingbat!”
“Dingbat’s finished with us.”
“So what does that matter?” demanded Ruby, still flaming with shock and anger.
Caddy didn’t know how to reply. Ruby, having passed from one life to another and back again in less than five minutes, seemed somehow in her journey to have left Dingbat behind.
“I don’t know,” said Caddy at last. “But I’ve got to find Beth. Will you be all right if I go?”
Ruby shrugged.
It was as if she had left Caddy behind too.
Caddy looked at her, puzzled, started away, came back, seized Ruby’s hand, and pulled her toward Mrs. Warbeck, now finishing the last of her phone calls.
“This is Ruby,” she said. “She wants to come to your school . . .” Caddy’s eyes wandered to the scattered pages of the prospectus, still visible in the road. “She wants and wants to come! But she’s . . .”
“Caddy!” exclaimed Ruby, pulling away.
“. . . scared. Talk to each other!” ordered Caddy, and ran.
Mrs. Warbeck had a voice that she used so rarely, many of her students had never heard it. It was her disobey-me-at-your-peril voice, and she used it now.
“Come back at once!” commanded Mrs. Warbeck, and when Caddy did not come back, she turned to Ruby and asked (astonished), “Who is she?”
Ruby could not answer at once because her shock had turned to tears, and with the tears, her anger had vanished.
And so had her friend, who had given her back her life.
“She’s Caddy,” Ruby told Mrs. Warbeck at last. “Cadmium Casson. Bravest of the brave.�
�
Chapter Twenty-One
BETH AND MARS BARS
JULIET HAD A NEW PREOCCUPATION: MARS BARS. MARS BARS, Mars bars, Mars bars, thought Juliet, not quite all the time, but more or less. Mars bars in great quantity, such as she was never allowed.
Her mother bought her one. One! As a treat.
“One?” said Juliet, ungratefully. “What good is one? Beth had about twenty!”
“Give it back if you don’t want it,” said her mother cheerfully.
“How many did you buy Beth?”
“None. She’s already had far too many.”
That cheered Juliet up a bit. She took her Mars bar and put it on her bedside table.
“Aren’t you going to eat it?” asked her mother, astonished, but Juliet shook her head. She didn’t want it to eat; she wanted it to own. She gloated over it in private and imagined a pocketful. How many wrappers had there been in that jacket pocket of Beth’s? Not twenty, that had been an exaggeration. Ten? Probably less. Five or six? Five or six, Juliet thought, was about right.
“Five or six!” she told her single Mars bar incredulously. “And I bet she had more, in other places!”
Juliet became a Mars bar detective, and she detected, with great cunning and stealth, all through her sister’s pockets, and in the odd corners of her schoolbag and in the drawer of her desk. And in all these places she discovered Mars bar wrappers. Not hundreds, but more than ten. Maybe truly as many as twenty.
“I didn’t even know she liked them that much,” said Juliet.
Beth did not like them at all. Mars bars made her sick. The first time it happened was when she had eaten the three Mars bars on the way to school. That had been by accident.
The second was very privately, the following day, a morning when the Norman diet had failed Beth (or she had failed the Norman diet) and she had consumed peanut butter sandwich after peanut butter sandwich, ravenously, like a starving dog.
Regretted it.
Two Mars bars.
Gone.
