Authors: Kate Thompson
I don’t know how long I stayed awake. I heard Maggie helping Danny to bed next door, both of them laughing. A little later Tina and Sandy came up, and soon after that the moon rose and crept into the edge of my window frame. I was still awake when it completed its shallow arc and inched out at the other side.
There were too many things unexplained. What was Maggie giving to the animals to enable them to speak? And why was it such a secret?
What
was wrong with Sandy that made her look so strange? And why was no one willing to talk about her father and where he had gone to?
And hadn’t there been mention of someone called Colin? Where did he fit in?
I couldn’t think of any sinister implications in the mysteries of Fourth World, but the secrecy which surrounded everything made me suspicious. If someone took the trouble to explain things to me, I could make up my own mind about the rights and wrongs of the place. But they didn’t, so I couldn’t.
Tomorrow I would definitely phone home and tell them what was happening. Maybe Maurice would cast some light on things. He had lived here, after all. Even if it was a long time ago.
But thoughts of Maurice created more anxiety than they cured. If he knew Danny was here he would probably insist on taking him away again. There might be more arguments, like the one that had happened in our house. Could I let all that happen?
One thing, and one thing alone, I was certain about. No matter how off-beam Fourth World might appear, Danny belonged here. Did I really want to get him taken away?
It could be worse. Maurice might blow the whistle on Maggie, and the Law might become involved. But why? For what?
I had arrived back at the beginning and my mind set out on the familiar, fruitless course all over again. I knew there was no more point to it, but I didn’t know how to stop. I was still
thinking
, and it was well into the small hours when I felt the movement of minuscule feet on my sheets, and the weight of a tiny warmth snuggling up to my chin.
I caught it in my hand and reached for the bedside light.
‘Oh, blast it,’ said the pink mouse, blinking at the sudden light. ‘I thought you were asleep!’
‘And I thought you were supposed to be outside!’ I said, trying to sound more stern than I felt.
‘I’m a mouse!’ he said, indignantly. ‘Since when did mice ask permission to live in people’s houses?’
I laughed and switched off the lamp. And with the tiny creature snuggled in the hollow of my collar bone, I slept like a log until daybreak.
10
THE NEXT MORNING
brought no new insights. It did bring news of the outside world, though.
‘Private cars have been banned from the roads,’ said Maggie, over breakfast. ‘Except for the emergency services. And the army is taking over public transport. No one’s allowed to travel without applying for permission.’
I wondered if I would get permission. If I threw myself upon the mercy of the army, would they get me home to Ireland? I doubted it, somehow.
‘Bicycles are in great demand,’ Maggie went on. ‘Can’t be had for love nor money. The delivery boy is back on the road again. They can’t get enough of them.’
‘Will they be able to make it out here?’ I asked.
‘What for?’ said Sandy. ‘Everything we eat, we grow.’
As soon as breakfast was over, Danny scooted off to the greenhouses with Maggie, and Tina went out to care for her tiny friends. I was mooching around, thinking about the phones again, when Sandy asked me for help in the chicken house.
The snow had a new, crisp coating of ice on the top, but already the day was warming up and beginning to soften it.
‘Any chance you’d answer a few of my questions?’ I asked Sandy, cautiously.
‘You never know,’ she said. ‘Ask away.’
‘How come the animals talk?’
‘Just making conversation, I suppose.’
‘Ha, ha,’ I said. ‘You know what I meant.’
‘Ask Mother,’ said Sandy.
‘Oh, good idea,’ I said, with heavy sarcasm. ‘She’s sure to tell me. While she’s giving me the grand tour of the lab.’
‘I tell you what,’ said Sandy, suddenly brightening. ‘I’ll make a deal with you, OK?’
The approach to the farm buildings took us along an avenue of tall, Scots pines. ‘If you can beat me to the top of one of these trees,’ said Sandy, ‘I’ll tell you anything you want to know. How’s that for an offer?’
It sounded fair. ‘What is it with you and trees?’ I asked.
Sandy smiled. ‘I’m good at getting up high.’
But it was still worth a try. I had nothing to lose, after all. ‘Which tree?’ I said.
‘You choose. Any one you like.’
I pointed out a strong one whose lowest branches were within reach. Then Sandy said, ‘Ready, steady . . . Go!’
I sprinted across the gravel and leapt for the first branch, realising as I did so that my desire for knowledge was strong enough to give me an extra bit of impulsion. My speed seemed to have
left
Sandy for dead; I couldn’t hear her behind me as I clambered up, hand over hand. But about halfway up the trunk I came to a sticky spot and had to stop. There was a bare patch where a branch had broken, and there were no footholds. I was going to have to reach high and walk myself up. If I dared.
I still couldn’t hear Sandy, and glanced back to see how much of a start I had. She was nowhere to be seen. In sudden confusion, I peered around to the other side of the trunk and scanned the ground, already far below. There was no sign of her at all.
I experienced a sinking feeling, wondering if she was making a fool of me; sending me shinning up a tree that she had no intention of climbing herself. Then, without warning, I heard a clatter and crackle of branches high above my head. I ducked involuntarily, and clung to the trunk to get my balance.
Then I looked up.
Sandy was sitting in the tree-top, perching on a cluster of thin, springy branches that seemed far too flimsy to bear the weight of a human being. I looked down again. She hadn’t set out ahead of me, and I was certain that she hadn’t overtaken me. It was impossible that she should be up there. But she was.
‘How did you do that?’ I said.
She grinned down at me, her eyes bright with mischief.
‘Can’t tell you,’ she said. ‘You didn’t win, so you don’t get any answers.’
I must have spent twenty minutes investigating that tree and the others around it. I knew there had to be a rope somewhere; a sling or a pulley or a slide. But I didn’t find anything that could explain how Sandy got up there.
And while I was looking, Sandy got to do the nicer of the two jobs that were waiting for us at the henhouse, which was collecting the eggs.
The other job, which I had to share with her, was torture. For the rest of the morning we scraped and shovelled and barrowed the stinking droppings from the henhouse floor and dumped them on to a muck-heap at the side. I suppose I must have done a lot of complaining, because at one stage Sandy put down her shovel and snapped, ‘I wish you’d stop moaning! I milked the cows and fed the hens and put the goats out on the mountain before you even got up this morning!’
I did stop moaning, but I didn’t stop thinking. And I discovered, for the first time, that sometimes hard work can free up your mind, even while it ties up your body. Because things began to shift and settle in my head. Not much, but a bit.
The first thing that happened was that, after Sandy reminded me how hard she worked, that uneasy feeling returned. Only this time it was worse; more demanding. What was it that Maggie had said in the hothouse that time?
‘It’s been quite a struggle since Bernard and Colin left.’
A small area of the vast darkness was
illuminated
for me. One question, at least, had been answered. I remembered Tina asking what kind of a woman was it who would send for her son after fifteen years. Now I knew.
A woman who needed a labour force.
I nearly threw down my shovel there and then, but something made me carry on. Now that my thoughts had begun to lead somewhere I didn’t want to cut them off prematurely. So I worked on and, although I was practically shoulder to shoulder with Sandy, I wasn’t really there at all. We worked in silence, each of us in a world of our own.
By the time we had finished the job I had done an awful lot of thinking. I hadn’t come up with any more insights, but I had made a few resolutions. The first was that I was going to keep on asking questions until I got some answers. The second was that I wasn’t going to give Maggie the satisfaction of becoming her slave. Somehow, some time, I was going to go home. But not, I promised myself, until I had carried out my third resolution. No matter what it took, I was going to get inside that lab.
PART NINE
1
THERE WERE OATCAKES
and cheese and some sort of dark, stringy salad greens for lunch. I started with the questions straight away.
‘So where has the mysterious Bernard disappeared to?’
Sandy spluttered green debris across the scrubbed boards of the table.
‘Mysterious?’ she gasped, puce with laughter. ‘Dad?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Maggie. ‘I sometimes felt he was a bit of a mystery.’
‘Not to me, he isn’t!’ said Sandy, collecting the scattered bits of her mouthful. ‘I can read him like a book.’
‘Well, anyway,’ I said, trying to restore order. ‘Mysterious or not, where is he?’
‘Africa, we think,’ said Maggie. She gestured towards an untidy heap of letters on one of the worktops, pinned against the wall by a large turnip. ‘At least, they were when we last heard from them. But now that the post has gone haywire there’s no way of knowing. They could be anywhere.’
Sandy went quiet and I wondered if she was missing them.
‘What are they doing in Africa?’ said Tina.
‘Research,’ said Maggie.
‘Are they part of an expedition?’ I asked, picturing a line of men in bush shorts and
sola topis
sweating their way into the interior.
Maggie shook her head. ‘Just the two of them. Bernard and Colin. And a few of the animals. It’s to do with a little project we’ve been working on together.’
Sandy was still quiet.
‘Is Colin your brother?’ I asked her.
She gave me a swift, hostile look. ‘The biggest pest under the sun,’ she said. ‘Daddy’s little favourite.’
Maggie looked uncomfortable.
‘What was the project?’ I asked her.
‘Oh, nothing terribly interesting. It’s to do with fossils. Remains of prehistoric man.’
‘Prehistoric man?’ I said. ‘Not interesting?’
Maggie laughed. ‘You like that kind of thing?’
‘I love it,’ I said, truthfully. ‘All those discoveries. Bits of skulls and stuff.’
‘Those are just the high points,’ said Maggie. ‘The bits that make the headlines. I’m afraid the everyday nitty gritty is nothing like that at all.’
‘What is it like, then?’
‘Oh, just boring old examination and analysis.’
‘All the same,’ I said, trying to sound eager and innocent. ‘I’d love to know how you do it.’
I thought I was getting somewhere; coming close to winning her over, but Danny threw a spanner in the works.
‘Finished, Mother. Digging some more?’
‘You’ll break your back, young man,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you take a break from digging?’
Danny looked disappointed, but Maggie went on, ‘How about sowing some seeds instead? It’s time the broad beans went in. Sandy’ll show you how, won’t you, Sandy?’
‘Thanks, Mother,’ said Sandy.
‘Thanks, Mother,’ echoed Danny, but without the sarcastic undertone.
‘Why don’t
you
show him?’ asked Sandy
‘I have things that need attending to.’
My ears pricked up. I was sure she was going to work in the lab. I waited until Sandy and Danny left, and then I helped clear away the breakfast things. I stayed close to Mother, knowing I was going to suck up to her; not caring if it got me what I wanted.
When Tina left, I said, ‘What’s eating Sandy?’
Maggie sighed. ‘She wanted to go with Bernard. She thought it wasn’t fair that Colin went instead of her. He’s younger, you know. Only nine.’ She looked as though it hurt, having him so far away from her.
‘And why did Bernard take him instead of Sandy?’
‘He . . . well . . .’ She stopped and looked hard at me. ‘You can see for yourself, can’t you?’
She was beginning to distance herself.
‘It’s because she looks odd, isn’t it?’
Maggie nodded.
‘And that’s why you don’t let her go to the village, isn’t it?’
Again Maggie nodded, and for a moment I
felt
her heart was beginning to go out to me; that she needed to confide. ‘Why does she look so strange?’ I asked, softly.
But Maggie saw through me, and smiled a sly smile. ‘Who knows?’ she said.
You do, I thought, but I didn’t say it. I got the brush and scrubbed the table industriously, then said, as nonchalantly as I could, ‘Anything I can help you with?’
‘No, Christie,’ she said. ‘Thanks all the same.’
She went upstairs, and I hovered around in the kitchen until I realised that it was going to look pretty obvious if I tried to follow her when she came down. So I went out to Tina and the animals.
She was in with the piglets. I fought off the goat kids and went in with her, but I stayed beside the door, from where I had a good view of the back of the house.
Tina was making
oochy-koochy
noises to the piglets. ‘Mother says I should stimulate them early,’ she said. ‘Get their brains receptive.’
‘Oh yes,’ I said.
She continued her mindless babble, and Iggy joined in. That kind of stuff turned my stomach, but I didn’t have to put up with it for long. Maggie came out of the back door of the house and walked along beside the wall. I edged forward, trying to keep her in view. She went into the garage by the small door at the side and closed it behind her. I slipped out of Iggy’s shed and crept along the wall of the courtyard, trying
to
persuade the kids to shut up and leave me alone. By the time I got to the gate, Maggie still hadn’t emerged. I slipped through, leaving the kids trying to climb over, and darted across the wet snow to the opposite side of the garage.