The Wild Boy and Queen Moon (20 page)

At last, Sandy gave Duncan his penknife back. She told him where she had found it and how it had worried her, and Duncan said, ‘Aye, it worried me too. I called on Gertie that night, to fix a washer for her on the kitchen tap, and afterwards I couldn’t find my knife. I thought maybe it was in her kitchen – evidence, like. I told the police I’d been there, naturally, so if they found it—’ He shrugged, grinned. ‘So you had it all the time. You didn’t say?’

Sandy felt herself going scarlet with shame. ‘I didn’t want it to be you! I daren’t ask! That was what was so horrid about it all the time. Sometimes I thought it was Ian.’

Duncan laughed. He was one of the best, self-effacing and kind, and had not split on Glynn, even when he knew.

‘It was hard,’ he said, ‘but I reckoned it was a family thing. I saw him in the tackroom the time the money went missing. It wasn’t for me to say.’ The others in the yard were too busy thinking of team-chasing to remember the burglaries. The insurance had paid out on the saddles, and only Leo knew about the night of Ian’s bike. She never asked Sandy any more about who it might have been, and Sandy suspected she did not ask on purpose, because she guessed. Leo was very bright.

The nights were warm, the grass was growing fast, and at last the horses could be turned out. Sandy loved the coming of summer and the easing of her workload. Tony, at last, was beginning to do-it-himself, coming over early to exercise and groom and feed so that his horse would be fit to compete, and it was obvious that he was doing it not just for his great-aunt’s money, but because the competition bug had bitten. He was besotted by galloping across country. King of the Fireworks had made a man of him, just as his old hunting auntie had intended.

As for the rest of the team, it was in a state of ferment most of the time – Leo deciding she never wanted to do it again, then changing her mind; Julia declaring she hated competing; and Polly wondering if she might get killed if she persisted.
To
Sandy, without a horse, it was academic. Life was like that, she had discovered – highs and lows. One took a chance or settled for the safe and the dull, or perhaps had no choice.

She took to going down to talk to Queen Moon, who came to the gate when she saw her coming. Queen Moon now had her summer coat and she had put on weight. Her ribs barely showed. Sandy was hoping that the mare was transferring her rapport with Jonas to herself; certainly she looked for her coming and showed her affection. Leo said she ought to ride her, but Sandy felt there was no way she could do that without Jonas’s permission. She thought that Leo was hoping Queen Moon could take the Empress’s place in the Drakesend Dodderers. Leo had professed herself too scared to ever ride again, but no-one was taking her seriously, except Sandy. Sandy did not dare comment, the idea of riding Queen Moon in the team too glorious to contemplate. If only Jonas would come back! There was no word of him, and even his father, Tony reported, had no idea of his whereabouts.

‘Suppose he never comes back?’ Leo asked. ‘What will you do then?’

‘Die,’ said Sandy, to fob her off.

She stood in her bedroom window and pressed her nose against the pane. It seemed an age since she had watched for ‘the wild boy’ on the silver
horse
, galloping along the sea-wall in the moonlight. How romantic it had seemed then – and still did, in spite of the fact that the wild boy was now probably working on an oil-rig or gutting fish on a trawler. Sandy didn’t think she would see him again.

Afterwards, she sometimes wondered if she dreamed what happened next. Everything to do with Jonas was a dream, after all, except the party. It was hard to know fact from fiction, save that Queen Moon grazed in her field down by the river.

There was a figure on the sea-wall, not galloping but walking. A fast, easy, gypsy pace, coming from the direction of Brankhead. Queen Moon put her head up and whinnied. Even through the glass, Sandy heard the whinny. The boy ran towards her and the mare trotted down the field to meet him.

‘He’s come to take her away!’

Sandy let out a loud, despairing sob. She stood frozen, trembling with love and despair.

The boy put his arms round the mare’s neck, but did not vault on as Sandy was expecting. He gave her a hug, then stood back as if to examine her, but she turned round, nuzzling him. He hugged her again. He gave her titbits from his pockets. He put his hand on her neck and walked to the gate with her. But he did not go through. He sat on the gate and seemed to be talking to her.

Afterwards, Sandy supposed that if she had run fast enough she would have caught him before he went. But she seemed to be made of lead, fastened to the floor. The tears rolled down her cheeks. He went away the way he had come, and when the mare couldn’t follow him because of the fence, she stood and whinnied, looking after him. Jonas didn’t turn round. He ran. Perhaps he was crying too?

Sandy waited. A long time after Jonas disappeared, Queen Moon started to graze again. Occasionally, she lifted her head and looked towards Brankhead, but soon she was grazing steadily, her shadow long in the moonlight. Sandy went to bed.

In the morning, she wondered if it had happened. Queen Moon was undisturbed. The sun shone. But Sandy felt abandoned, sick. She got dressed and went down the field to see Queen Moon as she always did. The mare looked up and started to walk towards her. Sandy leaned over the gate and saw a piece of paper wedged in the latch. She pulled it out and smoothed it open. In scrawled pencil it said, ‘I would like you to have Queen Moon for your own. You are the only person. See you. J.’

Sandy had to be alone. She went over the sea-wall and sat there, looking at the river in the early-morning sunshine until she had got her
brain
back in order. Then she floated home. She had missed the school bus.

‘Where on earth have you been?’ her mother asked.

‘By the river.’

‘Why are you smiling like that? You look as if you’ve found the end of the rainbow.’

It must have been infectious. Her mother was smiling too.

‘Yes,’ said Sandy.

THE END

About the Author

Kathleen Peyton’s first book was published while she was still at school and since then she has written over thirty novels. She is probably best known for
Flambards
which, with its sequels
The Edge of the Cloud
and
Flambards in Summer
, was made into a 13-part serial by Yorkshire Television in 1979.
The Edge of the Cloud
won the Library Association’s Carnegie Medal in 1969 and the
Flambards
trilogy won the
Guardian
Award in 1970. More recently, BBC TV televised her best-selling title
Who Sir? Me Sir?

In addition to
The Boy Who Wasn’t There
, Kathleen Peyton is the author of several other titles published by Transworld:
Darkling
(for young adult readers),
Poor Badger
(for younger readers) and, coming shortly in Doubleday hardcover,
The Swallow Tale
. She lives in Essex.

Also available by K.M. Peyton

THE BOY WHO WASN’T THERE

For younger readers

POOR BADGER

For older readers

DARKLING

THE WILD BOY AND QUEEN MOON

AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 15716 7

Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
A Random House Group Company

This ebook edition published 2012

Copyright © K. M. Peyton, 2012

Illustrations copyright © Jon Riley, 2012

Cover Illustration copyright © Ann Carley, 2012

First Published in Great Britain

Corgi Childrens 2012

The right of K. M. Peyton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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