‘He’s like all of us,’ said Angel laconically, ‘prefers out to in.’
‘But our dads are still in.’ Poppy felt her voice wavering.
‘So they are.’ Angel hurried to catch up with his mum and his sister, then called back over his shoulder, ‘Got to sort out that, haven’t we?’
‘Who is that boy?’ said Irena distractedly.
‘No one,’ answered Poppy. But actually, he was someone who she wanted to see again.
They stood on the pavement outside the prison gates. Poppy took huge gulps of fresh air, free air. It was extraordinary how quickly the crowds had disappeared, and now they seemed to be on an ordinary London street. A bus passed one way; beyond the road a tube passed the other way. A few pedestrians walked casually by.
It had stopped raining and turned into a nice sunny Saturday afternoon. No one seemed in much of a hurry.
‘It’s stopped raining,’ said Irena.
Poppy turned round to look at the prison behind her. ‘It’s as if it’s invisible, isn’t it? No one takes any notice of it, as if it isn’t there.’
‘They’ve got better things to think about,’ said her mum without turning her head.
‘All those men inside their cells, locked up, just a few yards away,’ began Poppy, trying to work out what seemed so odd, ‘and people going about as if they didn’t exist.’
‘It’s no different from a hospital, is it?’ Irena began to walk towards the bus stop.
‘But people go inside hospitals,’ said Poppy. ‘They don’t know about prisons.’
‘Who wants to know about prisons?’ said her mum. She was walking more quickly now.
‘But there are people inside. Dads.’
‘Please, Poppy!’ Irena put her hand to her head. ‘I know you’re right. It’s not fair on you, but please can you be quiet now. I’ve got a splitting headache and I’ve three pupils this afternoon.’
Poppy felt sorry for her mum so she shut up, even though she hadn’t managed to explain what she meant. It wasn’t about things being unfair on her. It was something to do with prison being secret, as if it wasn’t there at all.
Chapter Nine
Will’s mum opened their front door.
‘He’s not so great this afternoon,’ she said. She was a brisk sort of woman, always busy. Poppy supposed that’s why she became a GP. She ushered Poppy in. ‘Will’s in bed, but you might cheer him up.’
Poppy walked up the stairs slowly. Will had enjoyed doing those clever pictures of her dad waving from the turrets. Probably he wasn’t serious about the escape plan. Going inside the huge walls had made the task of getting her dad out seem harder, not easier.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’ Will looked about six years old, propped up in his bed. He’d been reading, Poppy saw, on a Kindle.
‘I didn’t know you had one of those.’ Poppy, feeling rather jealous, sat on the end of his bed.
‘When my eyes are tired, I can make the print bigger. It doesn’t weigh much, either. I prefer real books, though. Or my Warhammer figures.’ He waved to a table completely covered with fierce little figures. ‘I like Ogre Kingdoms Ironguts best,’ he added.
There was a pause. Shyly, Poppy waited for him to ask about her visit.
‘Sorry,’ he said eventually. ‘When I feel like this, I don’t have much energy. How was your dad?’
‘Bad,’ said Poppy. She didn’t really want to talk about her dad. That wasn’t Will’s business. His job was to help get Big Frank out. But at the moment, he didn’t look able to do more than press the buttons on his Kindle, which is what he was doing. Not the perfect co-conspirator!
For a moment Poppy pictured Angel, with all his energy and confidence. Now, he was the right kind of gang member.
Reluctantly she opened a bag she’d brought with her and emptied out the papers and leaflets she’d brought from the prison. ‘Here’s some useful info,’ she said, sounding more optimistic than she felt.
Will picked up a coloured brochure. ‘My visit’, he read. He flipped through the pages. ‘It looks like something at playschool. Things to colour.’
‘Some of the kids were really young.’ said Poppy. ‘Even babies.’
‘In prison?’ exclaimed Will.
‘Suppose they didn’t know where they were.’
‘Suppose not.’ Will read out, ‘If you would like to send money to your relative or friend in Grisewood Slops Prison, you need to send them a postal order..’ He looked up. ‘I thought postal orders had gone out with the dinosaurs.’
‘Obviously not in prisons,’ said Poppy.
Will continued reading, ‘The postal order must be made payable to ‘The Governor’. You must write the name and prison number of the inmate on the back of the postal order.’ Will looked up again, ‘Does he have a number, then, your dad?’
‘Z2717AB. It’s humiliating, isn’t it – being known by a number.’
‘You could pretend he’s entered a marathon,’ suggested Will.
‘There’d have to be an awful lot of runners.’
Will picked up another leaflet. ‘We deliver newspapers and magazines to HMP Grisewood Slops’ – that’s a bit civilised.’
‘He won’t be in long enough to order newspapers!’ said Poppy. She was losing her patience. ‘We are going to get him out, aren’t we?’
Will lay back in his bed. ‘Did you get an idea which part of the prison your dad’s in?’
He asked so half-heartedly that it hardly seemed worth answering. Not that Poppy had an answer. ‘There were sniffer dogs,’ she said.
‘What make of dogs?’
‘Spaniels.’
‘I’d pictured ferocious Alsatians.’
‘Maybe Spaniels have sharper noses,’ said Poppy. It was as if they were having a chat about things that didn’t really matter – when it was her dad’s life at stake.
‘Maybe they have Alsatians patrolling the walls,’ suggested Will.
Poppy didn’t answer. Will was ill. Of course he wasn’t getting excited about things like scaling walls and evading armed guards. He preferred them lined up on a table like his Warhammer figures.
‘Poppy! You should come down now!’ It was Will’s mum calling from downstairs.
‘Bye,’ said Poppy. ‘See you at school.’
‘Yes. Here, take these.’
Poppy stuffed the leaflets back into her bag, thinking Will wasn’t even interested enough to want to study them carefully.
‘Time’s up,’ called his mum, reminding Poppy uncomfortably of the prison officer in the visiting room. She realised that she now knew about something that absolutely nobody else knew about in school.
Then she remembered Angel.
Monday morning wasn’t a good time any more. Miss Bavani’s face writhed in and out like a mask as she spoke, and Poppy didn’t hear a word she said. For several minutes she had the same face as one of the prison officers.
At break, even though it was still spitting with rain, Poppy went straight out to the playground, to a corner behind a wall where children up to no good usually gathered. Will was not in school, presumably still sick, and there was no one else she felt like talking to.
‘Hiya!’ Angel appeared from nowhere.
‘How did you get here?’ Poppy moved back nervously.
‘Angelic, aren’t I. Supernatural, like I go through walls like you go through air.’
Poppy stared. She couldn’t think what to say. He was so unlike her friends – but then she reminded herself, she had no friends.
I know what you’re thinking,’ Angel carried on perkily, ‘Pity I can’t pass on my gift to my dad, stuck behind bars.’
Unconsciously, Poppy looked over her shoulder. Were they going to talk about prison openly, here in the playground, even if they were a bit hidden?
‘Funny, I’ve never seen you at school before.’
‘We run in a different crowd, don’t we. And I’m older. I saw the way your mum looked at me.’
‘M
y mum’s all right,’ said Poppy. ‘She’s just unhappy.’
‘Takes mums that way. At least, at first.’ Angel came closer. ‘So what’s this plan you and your friend – “Won’t”, isn’t it?’
‘Will,’ said Poppy.
‘Will you, won’t you.’ Angel laughed at his own joke. ‘So how do you plan getting your innocent dad out of the nick?’
Poppy didn’t like Angel’s mocking tone, but just at the moment he was the only one showing any interest. ‘Will’s ill,’ she said.
‘So you’re on hold?’
‘Sort of.’ Poppy tried to sound more positive. ‘We’ve drawn up a plan of the outside of the p—‘, she hesitated at the word, ‘nick, and now I’m trying to work out how it fits with the inside.’
‘Your dad knows what you’re up to, does he?’
‘Oh, yes,’ replied Poppy airily, although she suspected her dad hadn’t taken in what she’d told him.
‘Thing is. . .’ – much to Poppy’s surprise, Angel took out an iPad from a bag he was carrying – ‘not many escape from Grisewood Slops. Not these days. Other prisons, yes.’ He started started running his finger over the screen. ‘But they’re mostly the open sort where people are working outside anyway, and just have to walk away – well, catch a bus. You know.’
‘Will was talking about Colditz,’ said Poppy, trying to keep her end up.
‘That’s in World War II. There’s Alcatraz, too. An island in the U.S. Three men made a boat out of mackintoshes and were never seen again. Drowned, probably.’
‘Oh,’ said Poppy.
‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to put you off. You should get your dad out because he’s innocent and not many can say that and it’s true. . .’
‘It is true,’ interrupted Poppy.
‘I’m just saying, it’s not easy. We’ll have to think.’
Poppy clocked the ‘we’.
‘It’s a bit of a challenge, that’s what I’m saying. What’s your dad charged with?’
‘I don’t know.’ Noticing Angel’s surprise, Poppy added, ‘My mum didn’t tell me.’
‘No. . . It makes no difference, suppose, if he’s innocent. Tell you what, I’ve got to go.’
Poppy heard the bell ring for classes, but Angel was slipping backwards behind the building. ‘Aren’t you coming into school?’
‘Later. I’ll check out what wing your dad’s on. Let you know. See ya.’ Then he was gone.
Poppy walked slowly back across the empty playground. She thought of Angel’s iPad – forbidden in school – and his disappearance when the bell rang. It was obvious that he played by his own rules, and not just because he was older. Her mum was right to be suspicious. But who else was around to help her?
At lunchtime, Poppy was prepared to sit on her own but, as she picked up her food, Jude approached.
‘Hi.’ Jude hovered. Amber came up on Poppy’s other side. She knew they wanted her to sit with them. They were sorry for her and this was a kind of apology. Poppy hesitated. Then Jude took her arm with her free hand.
It was strange sitting with her old friends. It all seemed just as it used to be.
‘Did you see,’ giggled Jude, ‘Mr Hannigan’s new drain-pipe trousers?’
‘Not so much drain-pipe as pipe-cleaner,’ said Amber.
The trouble was that they were exactly the same as they’d always been, fun and friendly – and she was completely different. How could she joke about the headmaster’s silly trousers when her dad was locked up in a cell? In PRISON? In a way, even though she’d actually been there, she still couldn’t believe it was true. When she’d gone to the prison, it had been like Alice going down the hole and finding a whole new world which only she knew about. Of course, that wasn’t quite true; her mum knew about it, Angel knew about it. But even Will only knew about it in theory.
Her mum and Angel were the only people who really understood. They were the only people she wanted to be with. Maybe Will too, because of the Great Escape Plan. You’re quiet,’ said Jude.
‘Sorry,’ said Poppy. ‘I’m not really hungry. I’ll see you later.’
She stood up and as she did, saw the expression on Jude’s face change. ‘Going to see that boy, are you?’
At first Poppy assumed she meant Will, but Will wasn’t in school, so then she realised someone had seen her with Angel.
‘I’m not going to see anyone,’ she said, before adding crossly, ‘and if I was, it would be none of your business!’
So that was the end of trying to be friends with Jude again. She was a nosey, nasty person, thought Poppy, and went to lock herself in the toilet, which seemed to be the only place where she could be alone and not spied on.
Chapter Ten
After school, Poppy called in on Will. He was downstairs and seemed much livelier. He was looking at his mum’s laptop. He was on his own, although he said a neighbour was keeping an eye on him.
‘Guess what I can see!’ he said with a triumphant air.
‘What?’ Poppy dumped her bag on the floor.
‘Her Majesty’s Prison Grisewood Slops. Just googled it. All kinds of useful info.’
Poppy peered over his shoulder. ‘Angel was looking up things on his iPad.’
‘Who’s Angel?’ asked Will suspiciously.
‘Boy I met in the prison,’ Poppy slumped down on the sofa. ‘Didn’t I tell you.’
‘No.’ Will sounded offended.
‘Well, you weren’t well, were you.’
‘No.’ repeated Will, sounding even more offended.
‘He’s going to help us,’ said Poppy. ‘His dad’s been in and out of the nick lots of times so he’s been visiting since he was a little kid.’ ’
‘What’s the nick?’
‘Prison, isn’t it? Angel knows all kinds of things.’
‘What kind of things?’ Will still sounded huffy.
‘He’s going to find out which wing Big Frank’s on.’
‘It says about wings here.’ Will read off the screen, ‘Grisewood Slops is a Category B prison for adult males, sentenced or on remand from the local courts. The prison has five main wings.’
‘What is a wing?’ Poppy hadn’t dared ask Angel in case he thought she was stupid.
‘Like a corridor with cells off it, I guess. There’s A, B, C, D and E plus something called a super-enhanced wing where especially trustworthy prisoners live. Then there’s another wing where,’ he began to read again, stumbling a bit over the words, ‘prisoners live who require a substance misuse stabilisation regime.’
‘Drugs,’ said Poppy. ‘That’s what the dogs are sniffing for. Angel told me.’
At the mention of his name, Will looked suspicious all over again. ‘You know, you shouldn’t tell people about our escape plan. Word might get out.’
‘Angel isn’t “people”. We weren’t getting very far on our own, anyway. With you ill.’
‘Actually, I’ve got a plan for tomorrow. My mum is out on late call so we can borrow her camera, take some photos of the prison, print them off on our computer, then delete everything before she’s back.’
‘Brilliant!’
Poppy was wondering what excuse she could think up to go home late after school when Will, who was back to fiddling with the laptop, called out ‘Hey! Just look at this. Escape from HMP Grisewood Slops, out through a window, over the wall and into hiding!’
‘However did he do that? Angel said no one gets out.’
‘Hang on. Let me read.’
Poppy waited impatiently. She thought, so it has been done. It can be done!
‘Quite simple,’ said Will. ‘He cut out a pane from a window at the end of his corridor, removed the bar and squeezed through while everyone else was watching a film. Then he went to the perimeter wall where friends from outside had thrown up a ladder, and climbed over. That was it.’
‘It sounds so easy.’ Poppy thought of the stony-faced guards and the sniffer dogs and the barbed wire. ‘There are two sets of walls,
’ she said, ‘and barbed wire.’
Will looked again. ‘Bad news.’
‘What?’
‘That prisoner escaped in the 1960s.’
‘Nearly half a century ago! My dad wasn’t even born then. I expect everything’s changed since.’
‘They’ve still got to have windows,’ said Will, but he sounded deflated.
‘I think your photograph idea is a good one,’ said Poppy to cheer him up. His head was still bent over the laptop.
‘2005.’ He was reading again. ‘That’s more like it. Minister asks questions as prisoner walks to freedom.’
‘Whatever do you mean? No one can walk over two walls.’
‘Hold on. Yesterday afternoon, a prisoner from HMP Grisewood Slops was escorted to an outside hospital for an emergency check. He never returned to prison and remains at large.’
‘Has he swollen up or something?’
Will laughed. ‘It just means, he’s out in the larger world. Free, in other words.’ He looked up. ‘How did your dad seem? Feeling OK?’
‘He was pale and thin,’ said Poppy. ‘Still, not thin enough to get through a window.’
‘No,’ Will seemed doubtful. ‘It’s clever, though, isn’t it. Just to walk out. No problem. The one who got out of the window broke his ankle getting over the wall. The hospital idea seems much better.’
‘Yeah. I’ll keep thinking.’
Walking home, Poppy tried to imagine what Big Frank was doing at that moment. He’d said he had TV, so perhaps he was watching Dr Who. They’d always liked watching it together while her mum played the piano upstairs.
‘Hi, Mum!’ Poppy opened her front door, shouted and dumped her bag. ‘It’s me,’ she called again. But she got no answer.
Usually her mum wanted a hug when she got in. Poppy opened the kitchen door and there she was, on the phone. She flapped her hands at Poppy, either telling her to stay or go; Poppy didn’t know which – so she stayed.
After a few moments of listening, Irena mouthed to Poppy, ‘It’s your dad.’
Poppy sat down. It seemed weird that her dad’s voice could come into the kitchen when he was locked away. But that was silly, when phones went everywhere now. Probably you could get a call even if you were on a desert island in the middle of a faraway ocean.
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