The Song From Somewhere Else

by A. F. Harrold

Either that or it would set him off on a story of his own: ‘When I was your age I had a friend with a door to another world in his cellar who used to …’ and so on. That was more than she needed.

  ‘We played some swingball,’ she said.

  ‘Did you win, dear?’ he asked.

  ‘Almost.’

  ‘Well done.’

  He skewered a piece of cold potato on his fork and looked at it before putting it in his mouth and chewing thoughtfully.

  ‘I’ve made some more posters,’ he said after he swallowed.

  ‘For Quintilius Minimus?’

  ‘Yes. I thought we could go round and put some up this afternoon. I’ve finished the work I needed to get done and Hector’s over at Maxim’s for yet another birthday party, so I’m all yours, kiddo.’

  There was no need for him to call her ‘kiddo’.

  ‘OK,’ she said.

  She didn’t feel worried about Quintilius Minimus any more, not since she’d seen him last night. He’d said he’d come back soon, hadn’t he? (Sort of.) It didn’t really matter if they put posters up or not. But her late-night conversation with the not-quite-missing cat was yet another thing she couldn’t very well tell her dad about.

  They put posters up on lamp posts and trees right round the block.

  Frank stood and scuffed her shoes as her dad explained to one of the neighbours from the other side of the close what they were doing.

  The old man had run out in the street waving his stick and accused them of being vandals, of spoiling the look of the estate with their hooliganistic postering.

  It took her dad ages to smooth the water and to make the old man understand they were doing something good. He pointed at Frank and she pulled a sad face on cue. It helped a little.

  It was only when they reached the rec that things went really wrong.

  Noble and his goons were back, two of them standing up on the swings while the third threw a tennis ball at them, and because, to her dad, they just looked like three lads larking about, because he didn’t know any better, hadn’t spent months insomniac with worry, he walked straight through the little gate that separated the rec from the rest of the park as if it didn’t matter.

  Frank protested as best she could.

  ‘I already came here,’ she said, and, ‘Shouldn’t we stick some up over by the shops?’ and, ‘I’ve got a headache – can we go home?’

  None of it worked.

  As her dad began taping up a poster, Neil Noble jumped down from the swing and swaggered over to them.

  ‘What’s that you’re doing, Francesca?’ he asked politely.

  She didn’t say anything.

  ‘Our cat’s missing,’ her dad said. ‘Still missing.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Noble replied, ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anything we can do?’

  He sounded genuinely sad. Frank hated him. She had the worst feeling about what was going to happen next.

  Her stomach turned away in fear, covered its eyes.

  ‘Well, boys,’ her dad said, ‘if you can check your sheds and garages, just make sure he’s not stuck inside, that’d be great. You know what it’s like in the summer. Cats find somewhere cool to sleep, out of the way, in someone else’s garden, and then your dad shuts the shed up at the end of the day without looking …’

  ‘Easily done, isn’t it?’ Neil said.

  Her dad nodded.

  ‘Well, we’ll all be sure to check when we get home, won’t we, boys?’

  Roy and Rob grunted yesses.

  ‘We’d hate for anything to happen to Francesca’s cat. We hate it when friends of ours are sad. It breaks our hearts, really it does.’

  Francesca’s dad’s phone rang inside his jacket.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, and half-turned away to answer it.

  ‘Hello?’ he said.

  ‘What’s that?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, really?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, yes, OK,’ he said.

  ‘Yep, give me ten minutes,’ he said.

  He switched his phone off and slipped it back in his pocket.

  ‘Look, love,’ he said to Frank, ‘Hector’s thrown a tantrum. He’s refusing to eat or to stop eating or something, I didn’t exactly understand, but Mrs Harrison’s asked me to come get him.’

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ Frank said.

  ‘No need for that,’ he said. ‘You should stay with your pals.’

  ‘N-n-no,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Noble said, putting his arm round her shoulder and squeezing her close. ‘Of course you can stay with us. We’ll help you look for your cat. We can help put the posters up.’ He slid the roll of posters from her dad’s jacket pocket.

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ her dad said.

  ‘N-n-no,’ Frank stuttered. She couldn’t get the words out. Her mouth refused to work properly.

  Why were parents so stupid sometimes?

  ‘No worries,’ Noble said, grinning like a poisoner. ‘No worries at all.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said her dad. ‘I’d best hurry. Have fun, and don’t be late for tea.’

  And with that he was gone, half jogging away up the path towards their estate.

  He looked back once, and the boys waved at him, smiling vulture smiles.

  ‘So,’ Noble said as soon as her dad was out of sight. ‘Here we are again, then.’

  She didn’t know how it had happened, or couldn’t think how it had happened, but in just ten minutes she’d spilt the beans, blabbed her big mouth, told the truth.

  Of course, that wasn’t quite right. She did know how it had happened, but maybe she wished she didn’t. Wished she’d been a better person, a better friend.

  But it had been all, ‘You been round Stinker’s house again?’

  And, ‘Is Stinker a good snogger? Mwah, mwah, mwah.’

  And, ‘How many times were you sick?’

  And, ‘No wonder your cat ran away when it heard you were Stinker’s girlfriend.’

  And on and on.

  She couldn’t escape. They blocked her exits. They moved with her when she moved, like cats playing with a scared frog. Like crabs scuttling with the tide.

  Her knee began to throb.

  As she watched the boys, afraid to take her eyes off them, she thought she saw dark shapes flit behind her, like the shadows of animals, circling the rec.

  But the shadows didn’t feel nearly as dangerous as Noble did. A seesaw tipped in her mind.

  ‘You’re such an idiot,’ her stomach said. ‘I told you to stay in bed this morning.’

  The sun went behind a cloud.

  All she wanted at that moment was for Nick to turn up. What she would have given to see his great big shadow cover the rec, to see him loom over Noble and his boys. They’d pretend not to be worried, not to care, but she knew that with Nick around she’d be safe; she just knew it, even though she also knew that it was she who’d had to rescue him the other day, after he’d rescued her bag. But the point was, there’d be two of them: they’d be together.

  But he didn’t come.

  It was all, ‘He’s so fat he probably ate your cat.’

  And, ‘Stinker’s got cat breath!’

  And, ‘Nah, no way, he’s too slow to catch a cat. You ever seen him try to think?’

  Noble made the noise of grinding cogs, his features stuttering on his face, with his tongue poking out the side of his mouth and his eyes crossed.

  ‘Don’t be so horrible!’ Frank shouted, her angriness surprising her from the inside. ‘You don’t know anything! He’s not like that!’

  As betrayals go, that one didn’t go very far. It was hardly handing over state secrets to foreign powers. But still, the moment the words were out of her mouth she knew she could never take them back. She knew Noble would never let them go.

  She’d stood up for Stinker Underbridge. She’d made her play, shown her hand and picked her side. There was no way back.

  Her stomach said something she didn’t ca
tch.

  Thirty seconds later she was struggling in the arms of Roy and Rob.

  ‘I’ll ask you again,’ Noble was saying. ‘Tell us this anything that we don’t know. We don’t like being ignorant. You don’t get anywhere by not knowing stuff. We’re not stupid.’ He paused for a second. ‘Well, except for Roy,’ he said. ‘He’s a bit thick.’ He thought for another second before adding, ‘And Rob ain’t got much going on up there, have you, Rob?’

  Rob and Roy chuckled in agreement. It didn’t seem to bother them.

  ‘In fact,’ Noble went on, ‘they’re so forgetful, they might just drop you, purely by accident.’

  They were holding Frank over the same deep nettle patch that her bag had ended up in.

  Her dad was long gone, and Nick was nowhere around. On the far side of the park she thought she’d seen someone walking a dog, but that would do her no good.

  Her eyes glittered with fearful tears. Her arms and legs goosebumped in anticipation.

  Of course she’d been stung before. She knew how just one little light-as-air brush from a leaf really hurt and itched and buzzed. Her brain played a movie of that all over her arms and legs and face, showed her wading back out, being brushed again and again by the swaying, broken nettle plants.

  There weren’t enough dock leaves in the world to cope with that, she thought.

  And suddenly she was lying in bed as a little girl with sunburn, the sheets all sandpaper and pain where they touched. She remembered moaning all night, in a strange bed, on holiday. The heat of it, the burning pain, all over her. The smell of calamine lotion that didn’t stop the itching. The momentary relief as she scratched, sloughing off flakes of skin, only for the itch to grow worse and worse. Turning over in bed was hell. No position brought relief. There was no way out but through and through and through.

  Then she was back in the moment, and more scared than she remembered being, ever. Held in the air, the knowledge that at any moment gravity (which she could feel asking for her, which she could hear whispering up from the centre of the Earth) would override Rob and Roy’s strength.

  Their hands gripped her tight for now.

  They’d never really touched her before, never done anything like this. They’d thrown crab apples at her and tripped her up and snatched her lunch or her bag, played piggy-in-the-middle with her shoes, but never this. Something had changed.

  Their hot hands were on her bare legs and arms. It was horrible.

  Her stomach turned over, heaving, trying desperately to hide behind itself.

  ‘Go on, then,’ Noble sneered. ‘Tell us what’s so special about lovely old Stinker Underbridge, why’re you such bosom buddies all of a sudden. What’s he got that we don’t?’ ‘Nothing,’ she said, almost whimpering. ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s nothing, is it? You know something. Go on. Spill. Tell us his big secret, Fwannie.’

  The fear filled her upside-down brain and she said things she didn’t mean to say, things that she didn’t want to say but which might get her put down, set down safely if she just gave them something, anything … And all she had to hand was the thing that had been buzzing busy and fresh at the front of her brain.

  ‘I s-s-saw his m-m-mum.’

  ‘He ain’t got a mum,’ Roy said as she squirmed. ‘Everyone knows that. It’s just him and his dad. That’s why he don’t never have no clean clothes on.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ she said. ‘He d-d-does. Sort of. She … she’s in the cellar.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The cellar?’

  ‘What are you talking about? What do you mean exactly?’ Noble said, as if he were a policeman taking notes and wanting to get everything straight.

  ‘I went down by myself. I w-w-wasn’t meant to be there. I s-s-saw her.’

  The secret had been so special to her, the sort she’d never had before. It had filled up so much of her, right to the brim of her brain, that it slipped out too easily, like fresh toothpaste spurting from a softly squeezed brand new tube.

  ‘They keep his mum in the cellar?’

  They jiggled her, letting her slip and catching her.

  The words fell out.

  ‘I s-s-saw her. T-t-troll!’

  There was silence for a moment.

  Then the boys all roared with laughter.

  ‘Shall we chuck her, Neil?’ Roy asked.

  ‘Nah. This is interesting.’ He squinted at Frank. ‘He told you this, did he?’ Again there was a moment’s silence before he spoke again. ‘You say you saw this … ?’

  ‘Y-y-yes.’

  She felt herself slipping in the boys’ hands. Clammy hands. Dirty hands. Hot hands.

  ‘You’re a flipping weird one, you are,’ Neil said, spinning round on his heel. He waved his fingers in a spiral movement by the side of his head. ‘But I don’t reckon you’re lying to us. You wouldn’t dare. Not again.’ He spat on the ground. ‘So, Fwancethca, how do we see her? You’ve gotta get us in there. I’ve never seen a real-life, real, live troll and I don’t appreciate not seeing things.’

  ‘No,’ she said, the will to resist bubbling momentarily.

  ‘All right, boys. Maybe it is time to let our guest go. One … two …’

  As he counted Rob and Roy swung her up high over the nettles. She felt her stomach gasp in the moment of weightlessness at the top of the swing, and her heart fainted with the thought of being let go.

  ‘There’s a window!’ she heard herself shout.

  Noble must have gestured to his goons, because the swinging slowed and then stopped. She was half dropped on to the tarmac, but the boys still kept hold of her.

  ‘Where?’ he asked.

  ‘Long little windows,’ she panicked, ‘at the t-t-top of the cellar. The b-b-back garden.’

  She hated herself, and although that wasn’t anything very new, she couldn’t remember the hate ever making her feel quite this small before. She smelt bad.

  ‘OK, good,’ Noble said, brushing dust off her shoulder with a knife-like smile. ‘See? That wasn’t too hard, was it? We’re all friends here, Fwannie. Just friends, having a bit of fun. But,’ he went on, lowering his voice and leaning down beside her ear, ‘if I find out you’ve lied to me again, your life won’t be worth getting up for in the morning. You got me?’

  ‘She’s not always th-th-there,’ Frank whimpered into the tarmac.

  When Frank next looked around she found she was on her own, sat on the bench, by the hedge. The bag of posters was between her feet. Shadows rubbed against her ankles and slid away, out of sight. The memory of the nearness of the nettles pricked all over. But it was over now. For now.

  Why hadn’t she just lied? All she had needed to do was tell a single simple lie.

  THURSDAY

  When they’d gone on holiday the year before, they’d stayed in a static caravan on the Isle of Wight. It had been cramped for the four of them, watching the rain pour down the windows, and Frank hadn’t much enjoyed it.

  There had been one day though, before the holiday was cut short by an urgent phone call that sent her mum hurrying back to the ferry, when the rain had cleared for an hour. Her dad took her and Hector out to the amusement arcade down by the beach.

  She could still see the flashing lights, still hear the ringing of bells and buzzers, still smell the grumpy sweaty woman wedged inside the glass booth who refused to look at them as she gave them change for the machines.

  Her dad had made her play on an old pinball machine, and she’d been happy to. You pressed buttons at the sides and little white flippers under the glass moved up and down, sending the marble-sized ball bearing whizzing around the sloped playing board, bouncing off the walls and mushrooms and rubber bands and setting off lights and noises: blaring fanfares and blurted sound effects, and the crazy clatter of the scoreboard.

  As she’d played, her dad had recounted some story of his youth, how he used to be a king of the pinball machines, how he and his mates would hang around the arcades
all summer playing them and chatting up girls. She didn’t really listen (it was hard to hear him over the noise of the machines) but it always made him happy to tell these stories and she remembered the faraway look in his eyes, and Hector covering his ears.

  She’d never really thought about it before, but now she felt sorry for the ball. It had no choice where to go: it went where it was sent, bounced around from one thing to another with no say in the matter. She felt just like that this morning, as she woke from the tail end of a dream she didn’t remember, but which must’ve had a pinball machine in it.

  She lay there in bed feeling like she’d been sent one way and another too, without ever once choosing a direction for herself.

  It was because of Quintilius Minimus that she’d been at the rec on Monday, because of Neil Noble she’d met Nick and had gone to his house. The following morning the postman had left her with no choice but to knock. What had she decided for herself? Anything?

  Frank hadn’t slept well. (She was surprised she’d slept at all.) She’d been full of worry about what she’d done, about what those boys would do with what she’d told them. She worried for Nick. What would Noble do to make his life worse now that he knew? She could already hear him singing insults, taking the mickey and upsetting Nick. What if Noble went and looked through the window? What would happen if he saw Nick’s mum? What would happen if he didn’t? Even the memory of the music hadn’t soothed her as it had before.

  She’d broken everything.

  After breakfast she snapped at her little brother for dancing too loudly.

  She missed Quintilius Minimus. And then missing him made her think of his visit and that just brought her back to Nick’s house. It was all circles.

  She lay on her bed and tried to read, but her heart wasn’t in it and her eyes kept slipping off the words. She wished she could turn time back. Just a few days would do it. Quintilius Minimus would be at home and she could lock the cat flap and keep him in forever, and then she would never have been at the rec on Monday and would never have gone back to Nick’s house and would never have had a secret to let slip at the merest threat of the stinging nettles.