Rosie Goes to War (3 page)

I look at her reflection, relieved she's not gone blonde again. Did Eleanor see the girls as well? Before I get a chance to ask her, she gets a hard look in her eyes and pokes me in the back.

‘Hey!'

‘Nelly!' Gran looks shocked.

‘I knew it,' says Great-aunt Eleanor. ‘So you're back, are you? I don't know how you did it, but you've got a lot of explaining to do, young lady.'

I shake my head, unable to speak as my throat has closed up. I'm feeling dizzy and think I'm going to pass out. I'm too frightened to blink again in case those girls come back, so I must be looking a bit googly-eyed but I can't help myself.

‘What are you on about, Nelly?' asks Gran. ‘You're not making sense, love.'

‘Can't you see?' Eleanor grabs my chin and shakes it. I watch the reflection of my head wobble from side to side. ‘This is Queenie.'

I get a funny feeling in my stomach. What is she on about?

‘Of course it isn't. This is Rosie, Nelly, and you know it. Don't go saying daft things like that.' She prises Eleanor's fingers off my chin. I rub my jaw; I'm sure she's left a bruise.

‘I know who we think she is, May, but look at her. Just look!' Eleanor waves a hand in my direction and I duck out of the way before she can attack me again. ‘The clothes, the hair. All she needs is a coat of your Max Factor red lipstick and we have Queenie standing here again.'

I feel sick at the mention of the lipstick.

I look in the mirror again. Both of the old women are glaring at each other. However crazy they are, I prefer them to those strange girls. I don't know where they came from, or who they are, and I hope I never see them again. What is it about this house that makes everything so flipping weird?

Gran lays a gentle hand on her sister's shoulder. ‘Even if she does look a bit like her, it's not Queenie, Nelly. If she was here, she'd be old like us now, wouldn't she? This is my grand-daughter, Rosie, remember?'

‘Don't treat me like an idiot. I know exactly who this is. But as you clearly won't see what's in front of your own eyes, we must agree to disagree.' Great-aunt Eleanor is glaring at Gran who huffs a bit but doesn't argue. Eleanor turns to look at me again. I want to squirm, but don't dare. ‘Queenie caused a lot of upset in this house, and then disappeared without trace. Everyone said she was dead, but I wasn't so sure. And you, young lady, look remarkably like her.'

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Gran shaking her head and looking upset.

‘I can't help how I look,' I say, my voice squeaking because Great-aunt Eleanor is so much like old Mrs Sparks when I haven't done my History homework right. She's always glaring at me over her glasses like Eleanor's doing now. It's so not fair. ‘You two dressed me up like this.' I look back as calmly as I can. I'm still too frightened to blink. That seems to annoy Eleanor even more.

‘Yes we did.' She turns away. ‘Has that kettle boiled yet, May? A woman can die of thirst around here waiting to be offered another cup of tea.'

As Great-aunt Eleanor stalks down the hall to the kitchen; Gran touches my cheek. ‘Don't worry, love. Nelly's feeling her age a bit.' I nod. She must be right. Great-aunt Eleanor is even older than Gran. ‘She gets confused sometimes,' Gran goes on. ‘I think seeing you in that get-up made her think she was still a girl. I suppose Queenie did look a bit like you, but she's long gone.' Gran shakes her head. ‘So sad.'

I follow Gran into the kitchen, wondering what's ‘so sad' – what happened to the girl, or the fact that her sister has probably got dementia or something? Maybe I'm going mad too. I have no idea what just happened out there. Did I really see two girls where Gran and Eleanor should have been? If I was anywhere else but Gran's house, I'd have said someone had was playing some sick joke with a trick mirror. But not here.

I feel shaky as I sit down at the kitchen table. The smell coming from the clothes doesn't help. I hope I'm not going to throw up.

‘You all right, darlin'?' asks Gran.

‘Yeah, I'm OK,' I say, waving a hand in front of my face. ‘Mothballs. They're making me feel a bit sick.'

‘I never did like that pong,' says Gran with a sympathetic smile. ‘But you get used to it.'

‘Are you sure that's all?' asks Great-aunt Eleanor, eyeing me with distrust. ‘You're looking decidedly peaky.'

I swallow hard, resisting the urge to blurt out what I think I've just seen. It's all so freaky, I feel like crying. If I tell them about all the weird things that happen to me in this house, like the wallpaper and the mirror and stuff, they'll probably think I'm on drugs or something.

‘I think I just need some fresh air,' I say. ‘I've got to buy a phone charger anyway, so I'll head over to Oxford Street.'

‘Good idea, love. You can get the bus from the end of the road. Takes you straight there.'

‘I'd better get changed,' I say. ‘I don't want to get these clothes dirty.' And I don't want to be seen in them in public. What if I see someone fit?

I head for the stairs, trying not to look in the hall-stand mirror as I pass. Big mistake. I'm so busy avoiding the mirror, I forget to breathe through my mouth and inhale a huge lungful of that awful mothball smell. I sneeze, hard, and then I can't stop. With streaming eyes, I stumble and catch the heel of my shoe on something. The next thing I know my head's slammed against the hall stand. I don't have a chance to call out before everything goes black.

CHAPTER THREE

What is going on?

I remember the smell of mothballs got so bad I started sneezing, and then I lost my balance in those stupid shoes. My head really hurts. Did I knock myself out? How stupid am I?

I open my eyes, but nothing happens. Seriously, everything is black. I can't see a thing. Oh my God – am I blind? How will I get my make-up right? I could end up looking like a panda and I wouldn't know. No, wait – I put a hand out. I'm caught in something. It feels rough, like a horse blanket, and it smells like one too. Ugh! It's revolting. Where the hell did that come from? I've got to get it off before I vomit. I start to pull it away from me and see a chink of light.

‘Oi, you. Stay still,' a female voice orders. ‘Ain't you done enough damage?'

I don't care, I'm getting this thing shifted at last! Yes! Result! But hang on a minute, who said that?

It's definitely not Gran or Great-aunt Eleanor. It's a girl's voice. How did she get in here? Did she chuck this over me? Maybe I didn't fall. Maybe she sneaked up and caught me by surprise. But now I'm on to her I can take another girl, I reckon. If I have to. And if she's thinking of hurting my Gran, then I definitely will have to. And where is Gran? I've got to make sure she's OK.

I pull harder. I've got to get this thing off me. I don't know who she is, but I'm ready for a fight. Gran's put the radio on in the kitchen, and obviously hasn't heard a thing. I could be being attacked at her own front door and the stupid old bat hasn't even noticed.

‘I said stay still.' The girl thumps me on the back. ‘For God's sake, you'll rip it.'

As if I bloody care. I move again and there's a tearing sound, then I'm blinking in the light. There's spots in front of my eyes and I can't see clearly at first. A stranger in a dressing-gown is standing over me. Yeah, I know – a dressing gown? Definitely a crazy person. She's angry, but I don't care, because I'm furious.

‘What are you doing here?' I ask her. ‘You leave my gran alone!'

She glares down at me, and I realise she's got the advantage as she's standing up and I'm still in a heap on the floor. I push the torn blanket away and get up. Whoa, dizzy! I've got to take these shoes off in a minute, they're downright flipping dangerous. But right now they make me taller than her, so I stand up straight and glare back.

She ignores my question and points a scarlet-tipped finger at me. ‘Who the bloody hell are you?'

Oh. My. God. She's the blonde from the mirror. She's right here in front of me. Did she come out of the mirror? No, that's a stupid idea. It's not possible. But wasn't seeing her and the other girl in the mirror impossible too? I feel like my head's going to explode.

I take a step back and my shoe makes a clicking sound on the floor. I look down. I'm standing on a sea of brown lino. It can't be, or I have seriously lost my mind. Where's the carpet gone? And the walls – the colour's different, a sort of cat's poo yellow at the bottom and a nasty beige at the top. And where did that old glass light fitting come from? What happened to Gran's uplighter? The only thing that's still here is the old hall stand with the mirror.

I feel sick. I've seen Gran's hall like this before, but only for a nanosecond, before it disappeared again. It was like a dream. But this looks solid, permanent. I take another step back, because I can tell you I am seriously freaked now. Did she pull me through the mirror? No, that's ridiculous.

The back of my leg comes up against something hard. The suitcase.

‘Well? Come on,' she says, following me until she's glaring into my face. ‘I asked you a question.'

‘I'm Rosie,' I whisper, getting scared now. What is going on?

The girl spots the suitcase and bends down to look at the label. ‘“Miss R. Smith,”. Well, why didn't you say so, instead of making all this fuss? It's about time you got here. Me and my sister have been waiting in for hours. They said you'd get here this afternoon. We was just about to give up and go to bed. We reckoned you'd decided to stay in Wiltshire.'

How did she know I come from Wiltshire?

‘It's not on, turning up this time of night,' she said.

I'm still looking around the hall, waiting for it to go back to normal, like it usually does. For a split second, I get a glimpse of Gran's magnolia walls, but then they're gone and the girl has turned away from me. Gathering up the blanket, she reaches up and hangs it over the closed front door.

‘I don't know how you got in,' she says over her shoulder. ‘But you didn't have to rip the blackout curtain, did you? If the wardens see the light, I'm blaming you.'

‘I didn't …' I start to say, but I don't know what I did or didn't do, so I shut up.

Why won't the house go back to normal? Where's Gran? I want to ask the girl, but I daren't. I'm not even sure if she's real. Maybe I'm unconscious? You know, like in that stupid programme Mum liked, with the guy who went into a coma and thought he was a copper in the seventies. I know it sounds completely crazy, but it's all I can think of that makes any sense. I'm really dreaming all this, while Gran and Great-aunt Eleanor are trying to bring me round. They'll have to call an ambulance and I'll wake up in hospital. Gran will be all upset and my parents won't ever let me stay with her again because she made me wear these shoes.

‘I'll have to stitch it,' the girl says, pulling the ends of the torn material together. She turns and looks at me. ‘Like to make an entrance, don't you?'

‘Not really, no,' I say.

She waves a hand. ‘Well, I don't care. Just don't break nothing else, all right? We ain't got much, and what we do have we can't afford to replace.'

I nod, my mind spinning. Any minute now, I'm thinking, any minute now, I'll wake up.

But apparently not yet.

‘Leave your case by the stairs,' says the girl, ‘and go on down the passage. The kitchen's at the back. My sister's got the kettle on. I'll pin this up for now and sort it out tomorrow.'

I take a deep breath, I still want to ask her where Gran is, but some instinct is telling me to shut up and do as I'm told. I leave her muttering by the front door.

I stop in the doorway of the kitchen, which is exactly where Gran's is. But instead of her fitted oak cupboards and fridge magnets, this room looks like something out of a museum. There's no one around, although it's obvious someone has been here recently. An ancient radio – huge, with a big dial on the front – is playing loudly. Rubbish music. The sort Gran likes. The sink is a big white thing, with a wooden draining board. The window over the sink is covered by another heavy curtain, leaving the room lit by a single light bulb, hanging from the centre of the ceiling. On one wall is an old water-heater, and there's steaming water pouring from it into the sink. The place stinks of fish.

Opposite the sink is the cooker. It's cream enamel, with brass dials on the front. There's a kettle on the hob – a bit like the one my parents use on camping holidays. In the middle of the room is a table covered by a heavy brown cloth. It's a bit bigger than the one Gran has. On it is a salt and pepper set and a newspaper.

I step inside, and nearly have another heart attack when the kettle begins to whistle. I walk over to the stove and try to work out how to turn it off. The dials won't turn, and the shrill whistle gets louder.

‘Have you seen her?' The girl in the dressing gown asks me as she comes in. She shoves me out of the way, pushes one of the dials in, and turns it easily to the left. The whistle fades.

I shake my head, but the girl has turned away, running over to the sink and turning off the stream of hot water just before it overflows. ‘Blinkin' hell,' she says, ‘I swear I'm going to swing for that girl one of these days.' She raises her head. ‘MAY!'

Whoa, turn the volume down. Seriously, you need ear defenders round here. The back door opens and a dark-haired girl comes in and slams it shut behind her. No! I don't believe it! This is getting so weird. It's the other girl from the mirror!

‘All right, keep your hair on,' she says. ‘I was only on the lav. Where's the fire?'

Dressing-gown girl glares at the dark-haired girl and reaches over to turn off the radio. For a moment there's silence. I start to relax a bit then realise – hang on, what did she call her? May? That's my gran's name. I feel the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. It can't be. In that case, the blonde girl is …