The Amber Cat

by Hilary McKay

  “How did they talk?” asked Ant.

  “Haw haw haw down their noses and they said Porridge Hall was quaint and roughing it was all part of the fun.”

  “I must say I had my doubts,” admitted Mrs Brogan, who had overheard them remark that her precious, cherished garden must once have looked quite nice. “I’m terribly sorry, Sun Dance. I’ll make it up to you.”

  “We should never have let them stop,” said Dan. “We could have done with some of Beany’s fleas.”

  “Old Blanket’s fleas,” corrected Beany.

  “Can’t be helped now,” said Mr Robinson.

  “Of course it can,” said Perry. “Let’s go and get it off them before they escape!”

  “Yes, quick, quick, let’s go and surround them,” exclaimed Sun Dance.

  “I’m afraid they’ve just driven away,” said Mrs Brogan.

  Chapter Seven

  That ended the treasure hunting. Mrs Robinson hurried indoors to write notes explaining why all four of her children were late for school, while Mr Robinson calmed Sun Dance, mopped him down and rounded everyone into the car. Mrs Brogan and the chickenpox club returned to the house discussing the lost treasure.

  “I told you so!” said Dan.

  “I do feel awful,” said Mrs Brogan.

  “I expect Sun Dance would have lost his money in the end, anyway,” said Robin. “It’s impossible to find things in sand, even when you’ve only just dropped them. I only put my knife down for a minute and I never found it again.”

  “Oh, Robin!” exclaimed his mother. “You haven’t lost your knife! Not the one that was Daddy’s?”

  “I have,” admitted Robin. “I’ve been looking for it for weeks.”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “I kept hoping I’d find it. I knew exactly where I’d lost it.”

  “I bet those metal detectors picked it up,” said Dan. “I knew we should have made them tell us what they found before they left.”

  “It wouldn’t have been very polite,” said Mrs Brogan.

  “Polite!” said Dan scornfully.

  “I never thought of them finding my knife,” said Robin.

  “Even now, we don’t really know that they’ve found anything,” pointed out his mother. “Your knife might still turn up, and so might Sun Dance’s money. It wouldn’t do any harm if you went out and had a look for it yourselves. Be good for you to get some fresh air after a week stewing over the fire, and you never know your luck!”

  Robin and Dan looked extremely unconvinced but just in case she should turn out to be right, they abandoned their plans to continue converting the woodwormy summerhouse into an ocean-going raft. Instead, they borrowed Mrs Brogan’s garden rake and spent a tedious but healthy morning combing the sand. They found nothing and at lunchtime gave up the search.

  “Anyway,” said Dan mysteriously, “I’ve got something much more important to do this afternoon.”

  “What?” asked Robin.

  “Tell you later,” said Dan, making tremendous secret signals behind Mrs Brogan’s back. “It’s to do with me having to go home tonight.”

  “Oh,” said Robin understandingly and asked no more questions, while his mother became suddenly and tactfully engrossed in the table. All the same, she was not very surprised when, as soon as lunch was over, both boys disappeared into town.

  “She deserves a proper thank you present,” said Dan.

  “You don’t have to,” Robin told him. “She likes having you here.”

  “I want to,” argued Dan stubbornly. “What does she like?”

  “Chocolates,” said Robin automatically.

  “Mum’s got her chocolates,” Dan told him.

  “Stuff to put in the bath,” said Robin.

  “Mum’s got her that, too,” said Dan regretfully.

  “Those are the only two presents I can ever think of,” said Robin, who presented one or the other to his mother on every necessary occasion, birthdays, Christmas, Mother’s Day and Easter, with faithful regularity.

  They were the only two presents Dan could think of as well, and for a moment they came to a halt until Robin suggested, “Flowers?”

  Dan had never bought flowers for anyone in his life, but, nevertheless, he marched bravely into a florist’s shop where he stood surveying the contents with a mixture of embarrassment and horror.

  “I’m not trailing through town with one of those great soppy bunches,” he confided to Robin in a loud whisper. “Someone might see me!”

  “What did you have in mind?” asked the assistant, sniggering slightly and not even pretending not to have heard.

  Dan searched his mind for an unsoppy flower and eventually asked for poppies.

  “I’m afraid we don’t keep poppies,” said the assistant, causing Dan to sigh with relief and leave the shop. Outside the greengrocer’s he was suddenly inspired and, without consulting Robin, rushed inside and reappeared a moment later, having purchased a large and prickly Christmas tree growing in a pot.

  “What about that?” asked Dan proudly. “Nobody could call that soppy!”

  Robin agreed and said it was fantastic, and if he thought privately on the long and back-breaking journey home that his mother could have put up with two boxes of chocolates and saved a lot of trouble, he did not say so. They arrived at Porridge Hall, hid Dan’s present in the shed and went into the house to find Sun Dance was back from school and had come round to complain.

  “I wish you hadn’t gone and had four burglars to stay,” he said crossly to Mrs Brogan.

  “I wish you hadn’t gone and buried your money on the beach and expected it to be safe,” replied Mrs Brogan, retaliating with spirit.

  “I wouldn’t have done if I’d known you were going to start looking after burglars,” said Sun Dance.

  “They weren’t burglars,” protested Mrs Brogan.

  “They took my money.”

  “They might not have done and even if they did, they didn’t know it was yours. I expect they just thought of it as treasure hunting. Everyone goes treasure hunting sometime or other. You’ve done it yourself and so have I.”

  “When?” asked Sun Dance suspiciously. “Last night?”

  “No, not last night,” said Mrs Brogan, laughing. “I can’t remember when I last went treasure hunting. Years ago!”

  “Years ago?” asked Sun Dance, suddenly abandoning the burglars and beginning to sparkle. “When you were Kathy? With Harriet?”

  “What made you suddenly remember about Harriet?”

  “I never forget about Harriet,” said Sun Dance. “I never forget about anything! Did Harriet ever find any treasure?”

  Mrs Brogan, very glad to leave the subject of burglars, nodded her head.

  “Yes?” said Sun Dance astonished, and Robin asked,

  “What sort of treasure was it?”

  “Did Nick count it as treasure?” asked Dan.

  “Yes,” said Mrs Brogan. “He had to because it was ten gold coins.”

  At Porridge Hall, back in the time when (as Sun Dance put it) Mrs Brogan was Kathy, it had rained all day. It was not the sort of rain that it is possible to go out in and endure, if not enjoy. It was cold, solid, drenching rain. Kathy’s father said cheerfully, when he came home from work that evening, that it was proper Yorkshire summer weather and Kathy’s mother replied that it was all very well for him, he had been out all day and not stuck in the house with three irresponsible, misbehaving demons.

  “You can’t mean my friend Charley?” asked Kathy’s father, winking at Charley.

  “Well, perhaps not Charley,” agreed Kathy’s mother. “Charley’s been no trouble. He never is.”

  “And Kathy here has known a few wet days and we’ve all survived,” continued her father.

  “Kathy’s been no worse than usual,” admitted his wife.

  “Ah!” said Kathy’s father and looked thoughtfully at Nick.

  Nick gazed back at him with wide, grey, innocent eyes and said that he ha
d only been practising his bowling.

  “Very laudable,” remarked Kathy’s father.

  “Indoors!” said his wife.

  “Well,” said Kathy’s father, “let’s have it from the horse’s mouth! Or should I say donkey’s? Come on, Nick! Where in this house did you find a clear enough stretch of empty space to practise your bowling?”

  Nick said that first of all he had tried the upstairs landing and then (having chipped the paint off several banisters and nearly killed Charley coming unexpectedly out of the bathroom) had moved up to the attic.

  “I didn’t know we had an attic,” commented Kathy’s father.

  “The space under the roof,” explained Nick.

  “It’s not floored,” said Kathy’s father ominously.

  “No,” agreed Nick. “It was no good.”

  Kathy glanced apprehensively at her father. His face and voice showed very plainly how he was trying hard not to lose his temper. He did not ask Nick why the attic had been no good. Instead, he said in a very quiet voice, “Which ceiling?”

  “Bathroom,” said Kathy’s mother. “Cracked right across.”

  Kathy’s father got up and walked out of the room. They heard him climbing upstairs. They heard him come down again and, when he came back into the dining room, his eyes were glinting with anger, but all he said was, “So that was that, eh? No more indoor bowling?”

  “I’m very sorry about the crack,” said Nick, “but I could easily plaster it up, if you like.”

  “Don’t you dare!” said Kathy’s father.

  “Then,” said Nick, determined to make a clean breast of it, “I tried bowling out of the window.”

  “Out of the window!” repeated Kathy’s father. “Out of which window?”

  “Sitting room,” said Kathy’s mother. “And I could cheerfully have murdered him!”

  Once again Kathy’s father left his chair and went to inspect the damage. He came back in with his eyes glinting worse than ever and it was quite plain that he no longer cared whether he lost his temper or not.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” said Nick.

  “Dear God, boy!” roared Kathy’s father. “Did you never think to open the blasted window first before you hurled your bl … !”

  “Peter!” said his wife warningly.

  “He did open it,” said Charley. “The ball bounced on the rockery outside. That’s how the window broke. It wasn’t really Nick’s fault.”

  “I’m sure I could put new glass in,” added Nick. “I’ve watched loads of windows being mended at home.”

  “I bet you have,” said Kathy’s father. “Well, you’ve had quite a day and it’s going to cost your dad a bob or two in repairs, but I suppose he’s used to it.”

  “And we’ve had all the lights fuse and the bath drain is blocked,” said Kathy’s mother.

  “I mended the fuse,” pointed out Nick virtuously.

  “True,” agreed Kathy’s mother.

  “And I’ll unblock the bath as soon as I can get the side panel off. It’s only a bit of sand and seaweed in the U-bend.”

  “His aquarium leaked,” explained Charley.

  “Nick!” thundered Kathy’s father. “Go for a walk!”

  “What!” said Nick.

  “The rain’s nearly stopped. Anyway, I shouldn’t care at this moment if you got washed away completely! Go out quickly before I do something I’ll regret in the morning!”

  “Can we go, too?” asked Kathy, but her father did not reply. He was saying, “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven …”

  “Get your coats!” said her mother, while her father continued.

  “Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, I am a patient man, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, it wasn’t my idea to have them here, eighteen, nineteen, the little one is a pleasure to have around …”

  The front door slammed.

  “Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, I’m all right now,” said Kathy’s father. “Was I too hasty? Perhaps I shouldn’t have sent them! It’s stopped raining but it’s half-dark out there with all this cloud. Shall I fetch them in?”

  “Let’s have half an hour’s peace,” said Kathy’s mother.

  The beach was grey and uninviting but they went there anyway, half as a sort of penance for Nick’s awful deeds, and half in the hope of meeting Harriet. There was no one in sight and they mooched along in a gloomy silence until a pleased “Hello!” startled them from behind, and there she was, still dressed in Kathy’s jumper and her old frock, bouncing up towards them and sparkling with delight.

  “Guess what?” she said.

  “What?” asked Nick.

  “Nothing,” said Harriet. “Just a secret I’ve got. Hello, Charley! Hello, Kathy! Can I still borrow your jumper?”

  “You know you can,” Kathy told her. “I said you could for as long as you liked. Did you get Snowy back all right?”

  “Easy as anything,” replied Harriet. “Nobody even noticed he had g …”

  “I knew you’d taken him without asking!” exclaimed Nick. “I guessed all along!”

  “Borrowed,” said Harriet.

  “Snowy had a lovely time, so why would anyone mind?” asked Charley.

  “Of course they wouldn’t,” agreed Harriet.

  “What did you want us to guess?” asked Charley.

  “Something,” said Harriet vaguely. “What shall we do?”

  “Cricket?” suggested Charley tactlessly.

  Nick said cricket was a rotten game and that he had decided to give it up for ever.

  “Why?” asked Harriet, but Nick would not reply. Instead he scuffed crossly in the sand while Kathy and Charley related the terrible effect of indoor bowling upon paintwork and ceilings and windows.

  “Is he in trouble?” asked Harriet.

  “Terrible trouble,” Charley told her and Nick said he might go and live in a cave.

  “I should like to live in a cave,” remarked Charley.

  “A cave on my own,” growled Nick.

  “All right,” said Charley peaceably. “Kathy and I will bring you things to eat.”

  “I shan’t,” said Kathy. “He can eat winkles and seaweed and serve him right for making Dad so furious.”

  “And he’d better find a cave of his own,” added Harriet. “He’s not going to smash mine all up!”

  “There’s nothing in your cave,” said Nick rudely.

  “There is!”

  “Sand!” said Nick with scorn. “Unless you’ve stolen any more horses lately.”

  “How horrible you are!” remarked Harriet with her nose in the air. “I was going to show you something special I found, but I shan’t now.”

  “Oh Harriet!” said Charley.

  “I’ll show you,” said Harriet, “and Kathy, but not Nick until he stops being so nasty!”

  “Is it here?” asked Charley.

  “It’s in my cave that Nick said had nothing in it but sand.”

  “It’s much too late to go right up there,” protested Nick. “It’s nearly dark!”

  But neither Kathy nor Charley took any notice of him. They followed Harriet down the beach and into her cave and then there was a great silence until Nick, sulking outside, heard the clink of coins and two loud gasps of delight.

  “Treasure!” exclaimed Charley.

  “It really is!” whispered Kathy. “Real gold coins! Where ever did you find them?”

  It was more than Nick could bear. He charged inside, announcing, “Sorry I was mouldy!” and a moment later had treasure in his hands.

  “Ten gold coins!” said Harriet triumphantly.

  Nick turned them over and over in amazement. They felt far too solid and well made to be anything but genuine, but still he said uncertainly, “They can’t be real gold.”

  “Bite it,” said Charley. “That’s what they used to do.”

  Nick bit one. Nothing happened.

  “It should feel soft,” said Nick doubtfully, but then Kathy remembered the little g
old cross she wore on a chain round her neck and pulled it out for comparison. It was exactly the same colour, and seemed no harder or softer than Harriet’s treasure.

  “I know my cross is really, truly, gold,” said Kathy. “And I’ve been chewing it every day since I was seven, so I should be able to tell what gold bites like and it’s just like Harriet’s treasure money. What does the writing round the edges say?”

  “Too dark to see,” replied Nick, “but there’s a queen’s head on one side. It doesn’t look like our Queen, though.”

  “There’s been piles of queens,” said Kathy. “Victoria, Anne Boleyn …”

  “The Queen of Sheba,” said Charley.

  “Queen of Puddings,” said Harriet, giggling.

  “Harriet!” exclaimed Nick, suddenly coming to his senses. “Where did you get this money?”

  “Found it on the beach,” replied Harriet.

  “Did you dig it up?” asked Charley.

  “ ’Course,” said Harriet.

  “How did you know where to dig?” demanded Nick.

  “Brains,” said Harriet cheerfully.

  “Brains nothing!” answered Nick. “These are probably valuable and I bet you pinched them, like you did Snowy!”

  “Shut up, Nick!” said Kathy.

  “Yes, shut up!” said Harriet. “And I didn’t pinch Snowy. I borrowed him! I put him back!”

  “Did you borrow these?” asked Nick sternly.

  “I might have,” said Harriet.

  “Don’t be so horrible, Nick!” interrupted Kathy. “Of course she didn’t!”

  “I’m not being horrible,” said Nick. “I’m honestly not. I know I was before, but I’m not now, only Harriet borrows too much and she’ll get in trouble if she’s not careful and I think she ought to put these back.”

  “You’ve got a cheek,” Kathy told him. “None of the things you smashed today were yours.”

  “That’s different,” said Nick, genuinely worried at the thought of lonely little Harriet turning criminal before their eyes.

  “It’s worse!” said Kathy.

  “I think Harriet should put it back,” repeated Nick stubbornly.

  “She will put it back,” said Charley. “She always said she would! It was you who was going to keep it and buy a boat.”