Darcy Burdock

by Laura Dockrill

‘Yeah, that looks spacy and futuristic.’ Poppy starts wrapping the letter. ‘And then put it in Hector’s sock.’

  ‘Wait! No! That’s my sock!’ Hector screeches.

  ‘Yeah, but what’s more important? This one sock or this great message pretending we are aliens?’

  It’s a no-brainer. Hector whips off his striped sock and we begin digging the hole deep in the ground. The earth is dry and crumbles away like biscuit.

  ‘Kids! Come on! You ready?’ Mum peeps out and we all quickly turn round with our hands behind our back, hiding our dirty nails.

  ‘Yes, we are just saying a big goodbye to the garden.’

  ‘OK, well come on, the big van is leaving.’ She goes back indoors.

  Quick, quick, we rake and claw the ground, we use a pen as a spade. Lamb-Beth thinks we are mad. Then, when we’ve got as far down as we can, we shove the foiled letter inside the striped sock and plant it like a futuristic seed in the ground. We then bury, bury, bury the soil on top, leaving a tincy bit of the sock hanging out as a clue.

  We then high-five each other and run into the house and out into the street to see the van driving away. We are so excited from our secret special letter to be founded we forget to say goodbye to the house. But it’s OK – I don’t know about you . . . but I’ve never been any good at goodbyes anyway.

  Chapter Six

  The door is open as the delivery men are charging in and out like they own the joint. I thought it was going to be all powdery and dusty, like opening an old treasure chest or something, but no. It’s as if the people moved out only an hour ago. The rooms look big and stark but luckily the windows are open so the sun is here too. The good old sun, he always knows to show his face when you need him the most . . . Poppy and Hector run off, exploring and touching and prodding and probing but I’m anxious . . . I wonder where all my new thinking spots will be. I find my brain looking for things that are worse about this place compared to our old house rather than better, like how the tap in the kitchen is one big tap rather than separate taps. AND anyway, WHY IS IT ALL SO BIG?

  ‘Where’s my Heelies?’ Poppy asks Dad.

  ‘Not now, not yet.’

  ‘Oh, please.’

  ‘Not now!’

  Poppy doesn’t even need them. She can judder down the stairs on her belly or back without Heelies. She runs over to me, smiling. ‘The floor is so shiny, if we wanted to we can slide down the banisters, we can swish and scoop and hide and flop and leap and crawl and climb!’ she pants. ‘There are so many cupboards and new corners! Come on!’ She takes my hand and we run around together. The bathrooms are decorated much nicer as Dad did them both up before we moved in as Mum didn’t want to wee on an old toilet, or bath in an old bath. We’ve NEVER had two toilets before.

  ‘We can wee at the same time!’ Poppy shouts to me as I look at myself in the too-high-up mirror. ‘This can be MY bathroom and that can be your bathroom? This one has a shower, see?’

  We run. Run. Run.

  ‘And this is MY owned LOVELIEST bedroom!’ Poppy announces. ‘Look at this window, all mines, and this cupboard and my bed is going here and my rug there and all my Beanie Babies all lined up. Show me your bedroom!’

  And I run to find mine, but it’s all the other way on the other side of the hall, not as close as what it was before which makes me feel a bit nervous and scared. But when I get in there I see all the boxes say MASTER BEDROOM.

  Master?

  Me?

  I mean, I completely knew I was a complete don of the whole world and absolutely wonderful, but a MASTER? WOW! Chill out, Mum and Dad! But when I peep my eyes in the bags and boxes I see that these aren’t my things. These are Mum and Dad’s things. I don’t own posh perfumes and big clunky leather dompy shoes.

  So . . . this MUST be my room. I go to the smaller one next to Mum and Dad’s. But it’s all got boxes with HECTOR writted on the side. He’s already in there, swishing his cars about the floor. And then there’s the other one . . . ah yes, my room must be . . . but it’s full of Dad’s papers and Dad’s swishy work chair . . . wait . . . this isn’t what we planned . . .

  I count. One. Two. Three. Four. Where’s my bedroom?

  And then I see the stairs . . .

  ‘Ah, you’ve spotted it then?’ Mum asks as she blows her hairs out of her eyes, carrying a box with DARCY writted on the side.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve got the attic room.’

  ‘The attic room?’

  ‘Yes . . . like a proper writer. Isn’t it amazing? Come and see.’

  I gulp. Big. Hard. Like a snake swallowing a whole egg. Up the creaky steep narrow staircase, the walls get lower and lower and then fan up into a triangle shape. Huge beams stalk the ceiling, open and big.

  ‘I thought this was going to be Dad’s office.’

  ‘No, that’s downstairs now. We thought this would be for you . . .’ Mum smiles. I hear Dad’s feet softly padding up the stairs too.

  ‘Hey, monkey, what do you reckon then? Pretty sweet, right?’

  ‘Errrmmmm.’

  ‘Your own space, a view of the river . . . Look . . . you can almost see the London Eye from here . . . see?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ I gulp.

  ‘And I thought you could have a desk here and your bed here . . . there’s plenty of space . . . and maybe when we get enough saved we could build you your own bathroom up here too.’

  WHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO DO? Gently move me out? Move me up into the clouds so they can forget I exist? I don’t want to be up here chilling with the ghosts and vampires and spiders. All on my own. All by my own self. With only horror dreams for company.

  ‘So all byed myself ?’

  ‘Yes.’ Dad grins. ‘Isn’t it beautiful? Look at these beams – they are original, you know.’

  ‘What if they fall down on my head in the night?’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘What about if maybe we went back to our other house now?’

  Mum laughs. ‘Why would you want to do that?’ She puts her hands on her hips. ‘Don’t you like it up here?’ Her face goes from a friendly proud smile to suddenly anxious. Worried. Disappointed, even. ‘We thought you’d love it up here, D.’

  I want to say, You’re right. You are absolutely right, Mum and Dad. But I don’t think I will like it up here because it’s big and scary and dark and it’s away from everybody else and it feels too far away and growed up and forgotted about.

  Then I think about my trying-not-to-be-dramatic challenge and I can see my parents’ faces, both eagerly nodding, and I say, ‘It’s perfect. I love it. Thank you so much.’

  We wave goodbye to the removal men and Dad gives them extra money than they even asked for and I don’t know why. You don’t give extra money to the person behind the counter at the supermarket, do you? Anyway, I’m glad those men are gone because one of them had a smell from their armpits that was like a burger fryer. Gross.

  Back downstairs the sunshine leaps in huge slanted golden triangles and squares, and dusty particles spiral through the air. We whip tape off boxes and reunite with our packed-away belongings. Objects look different a bit. Dirtier. Stranger. Smaller. Dad wires the speakers up and puts music on and it patters all around the house in the familiar echoey voice of our favourite David Bowie, but it doesn’t sound all how it sounded in our old house. The walls are all cold even though it’s summer and it smells funny in my room. Like old air freshener and dust. And other strange people.

  Dad comes up and drills my bed together. It’s a double bed now. Apparently this is something I should be feeling so excited about. But I feel nervous. Even though I asked for one.

  Dad has a smear of sweat on his brow but he’s got a cold beer and is singing along to Bowie. He is really into this moving malarkey. Watching my bed get all drilled up only makes the chances of me not having this as my bedroom less and less. The fact that this is where I will spend the rest of my life growing becomes realer with every turn of every screw. Is i
t too late to have his office as my room? Is it too late to swap?

  ‘How brilliant is it here, D?’ Dad opens his arms to take it all in, wobbling the bed to make sure the bolts are all tight. They are. Sadly.

  ‘Brilliant,’ I whisper.

  ‘Right, better do Princess Poppy’s bed, then!’ He squeezes the trigger of the drill and cackles. Absolutely lovin’ life. He swigs his beer and clambers down my rickety staircase. The rickety staircase that no one will ever climb up. The stairs that are easy to forget about.

  I begin unpacking. I line my books up all nice and tidy on the shelves. Mum says that books are the best ornament in the world and can make any house a home. So I’m hoping that feeling will come to me soon. In the wardrobe I hang all my clothes, which look silly and childish. All the colours are too shouty and brash and bold. Bleugh. I never used to find these clothes too silly, so why do I think they look so odd and out of place now? Why does everything feel out of place? Perhaps it’s because Lamb-Beth isn’t up here? Let me go and fetch her.

  I tumble downstairs. Already I feel sick. EVERYBODY is on this floor. Mum’s sorting out Hector’s room, Hector is putting his toys away and making a sign for his door, Poppy is sticking her posters on the wall and Dad is building up her bed. I watch them all for a minute. Doing Burdock life without me. Where do I fit in in ALL this then, eh?

  I barge myself into Poppy’s room.

  ‘How’s it going?’ I ask.

  ‘Absolutely SO amazing. I love my big room. Look at it!’

  ‘Where’s Lamb-Beth?’ I ask, ignoring her showy-offy annoyingness, and her being all settled like petals around a flower.

  ‘She’s sleeping here. I found her waiting at the bottom of the staircase up to your room – she can’t get up.’

  ‘What do you mean she can’t get up?’

  ‘She couldn’t climb up the slippy steep staircase. She was bleating and crying.’

  ‘Huh?’ I shake my head and scoop her up. This can’t be. I can’t have my own main friend Lamb-Beth not being able to come up and visit me whenever she wishes. I try to grab her up.

  ‘Well, I will just have to train her to get up to me then, won’t I?’ I say. ‘We can’t be having that?’

  ‘Leave her alone,’ Dad says.

  ‘Let her sleep – look how tired she is.’ His eyes focus on drilling Poppy’s bedpost. ‘Go back up there and finish putting your things away.’

  Oh. Right. I see. Don’t worry then, guys. I’ll just go BACK UP THERE. Is that what it’s always going to be like from now on then? Go back up there, Darcy? Like I’m some horrid haggled stumpy hunchback that has to live in a bell-tower attic. Oh, I get it. Don’t you worry. I get it.

  So I turn round and gather my thoughts by going back up there to my pit. I charge, Lamb-Beth-less, up the narrow, steep, crooked, slippy stairs, but I lose my footing and slip, trip, bang my head, stupid sweaty soles of stupid feet send me flying up like I have butter on my heels, and BANG – knock my tooth and my nose – BOOF! BANG! OUCH. Bruise. I can taste jammy bitter metal bean-canny blood. Face is all purple already and I begin to get all teary and I want to scream and cry but I just howl in deep private, and instead of being all so dramatic I just don’t. I pick myself up and climb myself up the stairs even though I feel like Sara Crewe in A Little Princess, all banished to the attic, and I raid every upturned box and bag until I find my writing book and I write.

  I write so hard my hand feels so sore because I’ve dug the pen so deep into the paper and I feel the real urge to run down to Mum and be honest and say I hate this stupid challenge and I’m scared about my new room and I’m terrified of sleeping in here and Lamb-Beth can’t even climb the stairs and actually neither can I because I just fell over on them, but then I hear the doorbell ring . . .

  It’s a funny sound. Our new doorbell.

  And it’s Dad’s voice saying the best words that make everything OK for a minute . . .

  ‘Pizza’s here!’

  Chapter Seven

  Both Hector and Poppy couldn’t WAIT to sleep in their new rooms. But I was hoping that Mum and Dad would just simply forget that I had a bedtime as I lay curled up as a silent mouse on the corner of the couch. I was hoping they’d forget that I had to go back up there. And find me a new room, somewhere else in the new house. But they didn’t. And eventually they did see me.

  ‘Right, come on, bedtime, monkey nut.’ And oh, how I wanted to grumble and groan, but knew I couldn’t because of my NO DRAMA challenge. ‘We’ll come tuck you in in a bit.’ I was tired from the long day and the unpacking and the smack of summer and the hot cheesy pizza fullness swelling in my belly so maybe I’d just roll off to sleep.

  But in bed, I can hear Mum and Dad softly laughing in Poppy’s room. So she obviously wasn’t asleep but she seemed so happy. I could hear them all sounding so relaxed and over the moon, their bassy tones rattling up my wooden beams. They are there for ages and ages and ages. HELLLLOOOOO? Thought they were coming to see me? I’ve started to think that there might not be any ghosts in this house after all . . . because it’s me who is the ghost!

  I hear the crunchy crackle of soft footing on wooden stairs. Mum and Dad’s little voices all roomy and glad and I don’t know why I do it. I crinkle my eyes shut and pretend to be asleep. I drop my breathing really low and quiet and try not to make my eyelids shake.

  ‘Ah, look,’ Mum sighs. ‘She must be exhausted, tired thing.’

  Mum strokes my hair and they both kiss me on the cheeks.

  ‘She’ll be happy up here,’ Dad whispers. ‘Come on now, don’t wake her.’

  And I want to splash up out of bed and shout, ‘NOOOOOO! DON’T GO. DON’T LEAVE ME! PLEASE . . . I’M JUST YOUR LITTLE GIRL.’ But I don’t. They click the light off and plunge me into darkness as the sound of their footsteps move further and further away . . .

  In the dark all my actions are extra-large in the attic. Every sound I seem to do feels walloping and huge. I keep needing a wee but having to hold it in. I must be brave. And growed up. And not at all dramatic. Fumbling about, lost, in the new navy blue blackness. I will NEVER be able to race the flush of the toilet to get back upstairs to bed in this new room before it finishes flushing. Not never.

  The whole house is so quiet and still and uncertain. I lie, eyes up at the ceiling in the blank darkness. The room’s high beams seem to grow in front of me, like a never-ending abyss. I feel as close to the sky as space. Like I am in space. My pupils dilate in the dark. My bed is so big and swallowing. Easily an alien or a monster could wriggle in with me and I wouldn’t even know it. A giant could shove his nose through the window, eyes peering. WAH! I clench my eyes shut up tight. I don’t dare touch the empty side of the bed where the sheets are all cold and the fabric is so soft and still. I just stay completely locked to my side, like a coffin. Not moving one bit. I am grain-of-sand small.

  The creaky old house begins to murmur and groan and mumble like the entire place is a body with a belly-ache. I hear all the new noises . . . the pipes that clank and chop and scratch like little hamsters are running around them. I feel so cold, like I’m in a shed . . . it feels SO cold like the Arctic snowstorm and the wind whistles and blows through every creak and cranny. But I know outside it’s summertime hot, and I start to sweat.

  I wish my bed was all pushed up to the wall like before. I want the comfort of the surface behind my back. I want to feel my breath touching the wall. My eyes are crimped so tight shut. I suddenly remember that I lost a pair of knickers down behind the radiator in my old bedroom and never remembered to fish them out. They will still be there now. Taking it so personally that I forgot them. I KNEW I’d forget them. Now somebody else will find them. CRINGE. How embarrassing.

  I begin to get scared of all the unknown things that I don’t want to find in this new house. I don’t want to find some old sock or knickers belonging to somebody else behind the radiator. Some horrible reminder left over from a body that lived here in your very own house before you
. Bleugh.

  A tear maybe slips out of my eye. I wouldn’t say it was a real-life tear, but I’m not 100% sure. And I am so cross at Poppy in her cosy pink princess paradise and Hector in his lovely toy room. And Mum and Dad have each other. It’s not fair that when you get older you get to share a room again with a person – it’s the wrong way round, because when you get older you get braver, so if anything THAT is when you should have to start sleeping on your own. Not now. Being just a small child still. I wish Lamb-Beth was here. I wish I wasn’t on my own. I wish the room wasn’t so big and the ceiling so high and the pipes so clanky and cranky and the windows so howly and the moon so silent, and then I hear footsteps . . .

  Creep. Creep. Creep. No. Oh, what now? Please, not a ghost. Please, not a monster. Please, not a killer. Please, no . . . I can’t be bothered to die. Or be scared. Not now, please . . .

  The figure begins to move closer and closer and closer . . . I can feel the breath of it, curling over the edge of me, as it towers, warmer, warmer . . . warm . . .

  ‘Darcy.’ It’s Poppy’s whisper. ‘It’s scary in my room. Can I sleep with you?’

  And then I have to make one of those big live decisions that only a big sister can truly make . . . to be honest and say I was scared too, and say how happy I am to see her, or . . .

  ‘Oh, sorry, I was just sleeping,’ I awful lie/pretend as if she’s rudely woked me up. ‘Yes, of course you can.’ And then I wink to myself as we snuggle into each other, hands holding, and immediately can fall asleep. It isn’t long before I hear more footsteps coming up my stairs, this time a little lighter, a little softer, and then Hector’s voice, softly saying, ‘I scared, can I get in too?’

  Chapter Eight

  Although the house still isn’t completely feeling like ours entirely yet we are feeling much more betterer about things. Poppy and Hector have been sleeping upstairs in the attic with me every night and Dad says he knew that double bed would come in handy. He thinks it’s funny that even though we’ve moved somewhere bigger, us three have still all stayed glued to each other in the same bed, like three peas in a pod. Which is exactly what we are. Even though we actually have our own pods.