Museum of Thieves (22 page)

‘Toadspit?’ said Bonnie, with an odd expression on her face. ‘Who’s Toadspit?’

‘A boy,’ said Goldie. ‘Another runaway.’

‘What’s he look like?’

‘Oh, sort of smallish. And dark. Same age as me, I think. And he’s got a horrible temper, but he’s loyal and fierce too, which is good if he’s on your side. His real name’s Cautionary, which doesn’t suit him at all.’

When she heard those words, Bonnie’s face opened up like the brightest of suns. ‘I told you!’ she said, beaming around at the other girls. ‘My brother is still alive!’

.

uardian Bliss told me he was probably dead,’ said Bonnie. ‘Or taken by Natkin Gull or Captain Roop, which is almost the same thing. But I always knew he’d be all right.’ She laughed. ‘And he changed his name, like he said he would! Toadspit! It’s just the sort of name he’d choose. Where is he? Oh, I wish I could see him!’

‘He’s here somewhere, in Care,’ said Goldie. ‘He was caught at the same time I was. Where do the boys live?’

‘Right at the back,’ said the girl in the bed to her left. ‘My brother’s there. Sometimes we see each other across the yard, but that’s all. We’re not allowed to talk to each other, or wave or anything.’

‘
I’m
going to wave,’ said Bonnie. ‘I don’t care what Guardian Bliss does to me. I’m going to wave and shout and call him Toadspit. I’m going to practise saying it so I don’t forget. Toadspit Toadspit Toadspit! And I bet he waves and shouts back at me.’

Goldie could see the similarity between the two children now. She was surprised that she hadn’t noticed it before.

‘That’s all very well,’ said Candour, ‘but I want to know more about this danger. And how
she
,’ pointing at Goldie, ‘thinks she’s going to do anything about it when she’s stuck here in double chains!’

‘Um . . .’ said Goldie. ‘I’ll have to escape—’

‘Oh, yes? How?’ said Candour, sitting back with a sceptical expression on her face.

Goldie looked at her fetters, and at the heavily bolted door and the dark, barred windows. Her heart sank. She didn’t know where to start. What would Olga Ciavolga say in these circumstances? Probably something sensible like, ‘First things first, child. Get out of your fetters, then worry about the rest.’

Goldie wriggled her feet. The padlock on her fetters was enormous, and looked quite different from anything she had tried to pick before. She wasn’t even sure if it worked the same way.

Somewhere outside the building, a bell began to ring. The sound was muffled by the thick walls, but it was still recognisable as the Great Hall clock.
Ting-ting ting-ting. Ting-ting ting-ting.
Down the scale and up again.

There was a moment of silence, then the heavy chimes began to tell the hour.
Bongggg. Bongggg. Bongggg.
Goldie counted them.
Four, five, six. Seven, eight, nine. Ten . . .

She waited for the next one, but it didn’t come. It was ten o’clock. If she was going to meet up with Toadspit, she had exactly two hours to escape from Care and get to the Fugleman’s office.

She took a deep breath and did her best to push all doubts out of her mind. ‘I’m going to pick the lock on my fetters,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a pair of scissors—’

There was a gasp from the beds around her. ‘She’s got
scissors
!’

‘—but I’ll need something else. Something thin and tough that I can put a bend in, like a bit of wire.’

Everyone looked at her blankly. Candour muttered, ‘And
I’ll
have a roast haunch of quignog on a silver platter.’

‘No, wait,’ said Bonnie. She peered towards the far end of the room. ‘Lamb, what happened to your hairpins?’

Lamb was a pale-faced girl with long blonde hair. ‘Oh, Guardian Bliss took them away ages ago. She counted to make sure she’d got them all.’

Bonnie’s face fell.

‘But,’ said Lamb, digging under her mattress, ‘she doesn’t count very well.’ She held something up, grinning widely.

‘Pass it down!’ whispered Bonnie, and the hairpin was handed carefully from one bed to the next, all the way down to Goldie.

It wasn’t quite what she wanted, but it would have to do. She straightened it out, then pressed one end against the side of her bed to put a bend in it. It took her a while to get it right, but at last she was satisfied.

She slid one blade of the scissors into the hole in the padlock. She turned it just a little way, and felt the inside part of the lock turn with it. Then she slipped the bent end of the hairpin into the hole above the scissors and set to work.

None of the girls said a word while Goldie tried to pick the lock. Somewhere on the edge of her consciousness she could hear them breathing, but all her attention was focused into a tight little circle that centred on the hairpin.

She pushed it right to the back of the lock and dragged it forwards, the way Olga Ciavolga had shown her. Then she did it again, trying to get at least one of the barrels to stay up out of the way. She poked and jabbed at them, feeling as if she was trying to find her way through a dark tunnel full of holes and traps, and all the time the Great Hall clock was ticking its way towards midnight.

After a while, she closed her eyes. Somehow that made it easier to feel what was happening inside the padlock. She stopped dragging at the barrels and settled down to pushing on them one by one. At last she felt the first one swoop upwards – and heard a faint
click
.

She grunted with satisfaction. Someone whispered, ‘Has she done it?’ Someone else whispered, ‘Sshh!’

The second and third barrels were slightly easier.
Click. Click.
But the fourth and fifth wouldn’t move, no matter how hard she pressed them.

By now her left hand, holding the scissors, was beginning to shake. Goldie opened her eyes – and realised that she hadn’t taken a breath for at least half a minute. She heaved the air into her lungs and out again. Nearly every girl in the room was watching her with an expression of astonished hope, as if it was
their
fetters that were under assault.

‘I need some help,’ Goldie whispered to Candour.

Candour hesitated. She didn’t look as hopeful as the others, but after a minute she swung her legs to the floor and shuffled across the gap between the two beds. Halfway there, her ankle chain pulled her up short. Carefully she turned around and, keeping her chained leg stretched out in front of her, sat awkwardly on the edge of Goldie’s bed.

‘What do you want me to do?’ she whispered.

‘Hold the scissors,’ whispered Goldie. ‘And keep them turned. If you let them go I’ll have to start all over again.’

As carefully as she could, she inched her fingers back along the scissors so that there was room for Candour to grasp them.

‘I’ve got them,’ the older girl whispered. She grinned at Goldie, encouraging now. ‘Go on! I want to see Guardian Bliss’s face when she finds out someone’s escaped.’

Once again, Goldie set to work. It was a little easier now that she didn’t have to think about the scissors as well, but the last two barrels of the padlock remained stiff and stubborn. She poked and prodded at them, with her teeth biting into her lip and the end of the hairpin gnawing at the palm of her hand. But still they wouldn’t move.

She almost threw the whole thing down in frustration. Only two to go! How could this be happening? Then she remembered a trick that Olga Ciavolga had showed her.

‘You need to let the scissors turn back just the
tiniest
amount,’ she whispered to Candour. ‘Not too far!’

Candour’s fingers shifted. Goldie pressed with the hairpin. Something moved! She pressed harder. The palm of her hand stung. A trickle of something wet ran down it. She wiped her fingers on her smock and tried again. The barrel rose up. She heard a
click
.

‘One to go,’ she whispered, and the message flew up and down the room. ‘One to go!’ ‘One to go!’ ‘
One to go!
’

Now that the fourth barrel had given up the fight, the last one seemed to lose heart. It remained stubborn for a couple of minutes only, then it, too,
clicked
into place.

Goldie had to keep reminding herself to breathe. She wiped her hand again – she was bleeding from the scratches that the hairpin had made – and tried to remember what she was supposed to do next. For a moment, her mind was blank. Then it came back to her.

‘Now you have to turn the scissors,’ she whispered to Candour.

‘Which way?’

‘Clockwise! Wait, maybe this padlock is different! No, clockwise! I think –
clockwise
!’

The knuckles on Candour’s hand were white with tension. She turned the scissors clockwise . . .

With a loud
clunk
the padlock on Goldie’s fetters sprang open. One of the smallest girls squealed, and immediately everyone else hissed, ‘
Ssshhhh!
’

Goldie could hardly believe that she had done it. Around her, nearly every face in the room blazed with delight.

But Candour was shaking her head doubtfully. ‘She still has to open the door. And she can’t do
that
with a hairpin.’

‘Of course she can’t,’ said Bonnie. She grinned at Goldie. ‘So we’ll have to get Guardian Bliss to do it for her!’

.

oldie crouched under the bed nearest the door, stiff with tension. In her own bed, pillows and sheets made a vague girl-shape beneath the grey blanket. She wasn’t sure if this plan of Bonnie’s would work, but she hadn’t been able to think of anything better. And time was running out.

She chewed her thumbnail and wondered whether Toadspit had escaped already. She touched the compass in her pocket and thought about Ma and Pa. Her heart ached with love and worry.

‘
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh!
’ The scream echoed up and down the dormitory. It was followed by another, and another, and suddenly nearly every girl in the room was squealing her head off. Goldie put her hands over her ears and hoped that someone would come quickly.

Someone did.

‘Be quiet! Be
QUIET!
’
Guardian Bliss loomed in the open doorway, her face contorted with rage. Goldie hadn’t heard the bolt being shot. She could only just hear the Blessed Guardian over the screams, which were now interspersed with terrified words.

‘It was the bomber! I heard him at the window!’

‘He’s come to get us!’

‘He’s going to kill us all!’

‘
Eeeeeeeeeeeh!
’

‘
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh!
’

‘
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh!
’

‘
BE QUIET OR YOU’LL LOSE YOUR PRIVILEGES!
’

The screaming stopped immediately, but the voices continued, all of them at fever pitch, all of them on the opposite side of the room from where Goldie crouched.

‘Keep her attention over this side,’ Bonnie had said. ‘We don’t want her looking at Goldie’s bed too closely, or at the door.’

Rosie’s voice was the loudest. ‘I
heard
him!’ she squealed. ‘Right above my head! He said he’s coming to kill us!’

Guardian Bliss’s angry feet stomped down the room. ‘What’s this nonsense? What did you hear?’

Goldie slipped out from underneath the bed and began to steal towards the open door, as silent as a shadow.

At the far end of the room, Lamb cried out, ‘I heard him too! He was right up close to the window and he had a deep growly voice and he said he was going to eat us! One bite at a time! Like an idlecat!’

‘Like a slommerkin, that’s what he said to me!’ cried someone else. ‘Like the one on the Bridge of Beasts!’

The squealing started up afresh. ‘Silence!’ shouted Guardian Bliss, ‘or you’ll all be in double chains! Now will someone explain to me what is happening?’

Goldie eased past the door and flattened herself against the wall outside. In the room behind her she heard Bonnie say, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, they were dreaming! You
were
, Rosie, you were twitching in your sleep, and then suddenly you sat up and started screaming and everyone else just sort of caught it. Now shut up and go back to sleep, why don’t you—’

Goldie crept away down the corridor. Despite the danger she was in, she couldn’t help smiling at Bonnie’s plan.

‘We don’t want them thinking there’s
really
someone out there,’ the younger girl had said. ‘Otherwise they’ll be on the alert and Goldie’ll never get out of the yard.’

Goldie suspected that Bonnie had worked out this escape route long ago, but had never had the chance to put it into practice. Toadspit would have been proud of his little sister.

When she was some distance away from the dormitory, she stopped to get her bearings. It wasn’t easy. Care was almost as confusing as the museum, except that the museum was alive with a sort of wild curiosity, whereas this place had a grim, muffled feel to it, as if its walls were designed to silence not only voices, but thoughts as well.

Still, the little voice in the back of Goldie’s mind didn’t let her down. It led her through those grim corridors with barely a hesitation.

This way.

Now that way.

No, not through there, it’s dangerous. Go this way instead.

She was searching for a back door, and eventually she found it. But there were two Blessed Guardians stationed in front of it, wide awake and vigilant. Goldie slipped away again without a sound.

She tried the windows next. But although many of them were cracked, the bars were new and strong, and far too close together for even a small child to squeeze through. Before long, Goldie gave up on them and crept towards the front of the building.

The carpets here were thick and luxurious, and the lights were bright. Goldie trod more carefully than ever. The rooms she passed were full of armchairs and comfortable sofas, and many of them held shrines to the Seven Gods. But their windows too were barred and impassable.

When she was close to the foyer, she crept forward and peered around the corner. There was the front door, only a few steps away. But the toad-like Guardian was still moored behind his desk, looking as if nothing could move him, and the foyer was far too brightly lit for any sort of Concealment.

With a sinking heart, Goldie crept back down the corridor, slipped into one of the open rooms and pulled the door shut behind her.

‘Just because I haven’t found a way out yet,’ she told herself fiercely, ‘doesn’t mean it’s impossible. What would Sinew do? What would Olga Ciavolga do? What’s Toadspit doing, right this minute?’

The sofas in this room were enormous, and covered in cushions. The window bars were strong. At the far end of the room there was a shrine to Bald Thoke, with candles burning around it and a small pile of written jokes and other offerings.

Goldie walked thoughtfully towards the shrine. Bald Thoke was said to be the most trustworthy of the Seven Gods. It was still a risk, of course, asking him for something, but . . .

‘Great and Glorious Thoke, baldest of the bald,’ she whispered, knowing that the Gods liked to be flattered. ‘I haven’t got a present for you—’

She stopped. Actually, she
did
have a present. In fact, she had two. She fumbled in her pocket and took out the compass and the scissors. She looked from one to the other, wondering which one she could afford to lose. The compass had been a present from Ma and Pa, and she hated the thought of giving it away. But the scissors were probably more useful.

Before she could change her mind, she reached out to place the compass on the pile of offerings. Her hand brushed one of the bits of paper. It tumbled from the pile. Underneath it was her bird brooch.

Goldie whipped her hand back, still holding the compass. ‘I— I haven’t got a present,’ she said again. ‘But I
would
like to do a swap.’

She held her breath, hoping that Bald Thoke wouldn’t immediately strike her down.
But he IS the god of cheekiness
, she thought.
He should be pleased!

‘A swap,’ she whispered, as firmly as she dared. ‘You get the compass, I get the brooch. All right? A compass is a lot more useful than a brooch, which means you’re getting the better part of the bargain. So I’d be grateful if you’d show me how I can get out of here without being caught.’

She felt very strange, trying to bargain with one of the Seven Gods. She reached out again, with both hands this time, put down the compass – and picked up the brooch.

Then she held her breath.

Muffled footsteps sounded in the distance. Goldie heard a shout, and the heavy clank of punishment chains. The footsteps came closer. A boy began to sing in a hoarse, adolescent voice. ‘Awa-a-a-y, across the ocea-a-an, Awa-a-a-y, across the sea-a-a-a—’

There was a slap, and a yell. The singing stopped, but only for a moment. When it started up again, there were a dozen or more voices, all caterwauling at the top of their lungs. ‘—I’ll go-o-o-o where my heart takes me, Where my-y-y-y love waits for me-e-e-e-e.’

A pause. A furious adult’s voice said, ‘It’s not your
love
that’s waiting for you, you little villains, it’s the House of Repentance! Deliberate destruction of property, putting the lives of others at risk, oh, you’re in for it, you are!’

Clank clank clank
, went the punishment chains. ‘I’ve be-e-e-e-en away so long, dear, I’ve tra-a-a-avelled far and wi-i-i-i-i-ide—’ sang the voices.

Goldie edged along the wall and eased the door open. There was a bustle and a shoving and a clanking, and suddenly the corridor in front of her was full of boys, milling backwards and forwards, rattling their chains and singing loudly. They were all older than Goldie, but they wore the same grey threadbare smock and leggings. Somewhere in the midst of them were two Blessed Guardians. The smell of burning hung over them all.

There was no time to think. Goldie couldn’t see Toadspit, but she was sure he must be there somewhere. She whispered a quick ‘thank you’ to Bald Thoke, then she stepped out into the corridor and tucked herself between two of the boys.

For a heart-stopping moment the song faltered. The boys on either side of Goldie shot incredulous glances at her—

Then they closed smoothly around her and began to sing louder than ever, their voices bouncing off the high ceilings. ‘Three yea-a-a-a-ars I rowed the galley-y-y-ys, Three yea-a-a-a-ars I was a sla-a-a-a-ave—’

They spilled out into the foyer, a laughing, shouting, singing rabble. The Guardians who led them were shouting too. Only Goldie was silent. She crouched between the tall, raucous boys, her smock blending with theirs, her pulse thundering in her ears.

‘What’s this?’ shouted the toad-like Guardian. ‘Where are you taking them at this time of night?’

‘Set fire to their beds!’ shouted one of the other Guardians. ‘Don’t know what’s got into them! Marching them off to Repentance!’

‘I’ll need their names!’

‘If I-I-I-I-I could turn back time dea-a-a-ar, If I-I-I-I-I-I could start aga-a-a-a-a-in—’

‘For Great Wooden’s sake, we’ll give them to you when we come back. I can’t bear this appalling racket a moment longer!’

And with that, the boys, Goldie and the two Guardians spilled out the front door of Care, across the yard and through the gate.

As soon as they were out on the street, Goldie slipped away into the shadows. The boys had stopped singing now, and were trying to lie down on the footpath, or climb onto each other’s shoulders, or do a dozen other things that were impossible in punishment chains. Goldie watched for Toadspit, but there was no sign of him.

At last the Guardians managed to get the boys into some sort of order, and they marched off towards the House of Repentance. Goldie’s legs felt weak with relief. She had escaped!

But at the same time she was terribly worried about Toadspit. She was sure that the raucous boys must have set fire to their beds as a distraction, so that he could get away unnoticed. But where was he? Maybe he had already gone. Maybe he was outside the Fugleman’s office, waiting for her!

The moon above her head was full. The watergas lamps glowed on their poles. The Great Hall bells began to chime. Half past eleven!

Goldie gritted her teeth. ‘I’m coming, Broo!’ she whispered. ‘I’m coming, Toadspit!’ Then she turned towards Old Arsenal Hill and began to run.