The Great Escape (2 page)

‘Yes, people do protest against that. But that doesn’t mean that’s what they do there. It could be anything.’ He had now adopted an air of quiet reasonableness that made
Millie grind her teeth.

‘You think they’re conducting a
war
from Haverham?’ she asked, her eyebrows raised.

‘No.’

‘Because that would be a pretty small war, Dad. Will it engulf all of East Anglia, or just Haverham, do you think?’

‘OK, they’re not protesting about a war. But that doesn’t mean it’s animal research.’

‘The man was delivering crates of cats, Dad.’

‘Did you see them?’ he asked quickly.

‘No. I heard them.’ She wasn’t going to let this go.

‘Well, maybe you misheard.’

‘Yes, Dad. Maybe they had a crate of things that meow but weren’t cats being taken into a laboratory that has people protesting nearby about how they test on animals.’

‘Ah, well . . . still . . .’ Her dad seemed to have realised that he was fighting a losing battle.

‘No, Dad, still nothing. The cats aren’t part of a war effort, are they?’

‘I wouldn’t think so. Unless the war is on mice.’

‘Don’t joke, it’s not funny.’ Millie was resolutely stony-faced.

‘I know, Millie, I know. You love cats. They use them for work. It’s not funny.’

‘It isn’t. What if they stick pins in them, like in those pictures?’ Millie and her dad had walked past a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals stand at Strawberry Fair
last summer. The pictures they had exhibited had put her off eating meat for life. Ever since, she’d made her dad buy soap and stuff that said it wasn’t tested on anything.

‘Millie, I know.’ He sounded tired. ‘I know it’s wrong. I don’t know exactly what they do, and I don’t want to, because I have to work if we’re going to
eat. Whatever they do won’t be any nicer if someone else gets the cleaning work.’

‘But Dad, you’ve seen in through the windows. Have you seen any animals being hurt?’

‘No, Millie, I haven’t. I promise.’ He looked at her and tried to smile, but couldn’t quite get it to work in the face of her hard stare. ‘I know it’s not
very nice, but beggars can’t be choosers.’

‘We’re not beggars,’ she said softly.

‘No, but we will be if I don’t clean some windows every day, and their windows once a week. Besides, Bill has a contract with them, and I don’t want to let him down. He’s
been a good friend to us. It’s not for ever, love. Just for a while.’

Millie sighed as her dad walked off upstairs.

‘You don’t need to clean anything. You just need to get another computer job, and we’ll be fine.’ But she whispered this to herself, because there was no point having
this argument again. Her dad had lost his job a few months ago, and had flatly refused to apply for another. Instead, he had spent two weeks sitting in their house, reading constantly and barely
going out. Bill had eventually offered him some temporary work in his window-cleaning business, and he had reluctantly accepted. Millie couldn’t see why he was being so difficult about
things, but Bill told her, rather gruffly, that her dad needed to ‘rebuild his confidence’. Millie couldn’t see how much more confident her dad needed to be about writing software
and virus protection – he’d been doing it her whole life. Longer, in fact – he’d been a computer buff, as he liked to call himself, before she was even born. But at the
moment, he seemed incapable of doing anything very much, and she didn’t understand why. Nor, she suspected, did Bill, but at least he was trying to help. He had also, she was sure, tried to
persuade her dad to go on a date with a desperately boring woman they’d met at Bill’s house. Millie’s mum had died when she was small, so long ago that she could barely remember
her at all, and she did realise her dad needed to spend some time with people who weren’t her. But she had been hoping, if not for a fairy godmother, then at least for someone who could talk
with authority about something other than her own shoes.

But, ten days later, here she was, back at Haverham. At first, she had been absolutely determined never to come here again. Then she thought that maybe, if she came back, she could find some
evidence about what was really going on here. And, if her dad saw that, then he might be persuaded to go and clean somewhere else’s windows instead. And then she could write to their MP,
which is what her dad had said to do last year, when she was upset by the PETA stand and their pictures. Millie had written, and had received a letter back, saying that her concerns had been noted
and would be looked into. Nothing more had come of it.

So here she was again, cleaning the ground-floor windows, and the ugly glass doors.

The security man seemed to have tired of pulling faces at her, and had buried himself in his newspaper again. Frustratingly, he was the only person she had seen all afternoon – no more
delivery men had appeared round the back, not even a harassed suit had left the building. She knew nothing more than she had done last week.

She wished she knew what time it was. It was ages since they’d stopped for lunch. She was sure it must be nearly time to go home. Her dad was on the last side of the building, she was just
finishing the front. She reckoned it would be another fifteen minutes, half an hour at most, and then they could leave. She just had to do the front doors and that would be it.

As she bent down to get some more water, her eye caught something moving inside the reception. It was speeding towards the oblivious security man from the end of a long corridor to his left.
Millie peered down to ground level – it was coming towards the doors. It was moving too quickly for her to be sure – just a grey blur – but Millie was fairly certain that whatever
was flying in her direction had four legs and a tail. As it approached the doors, she flipped the switch to open them. The security man still didn’t look up – why would he? She had been
mucking around with these doors for twenty minutes. The cat belted outside, and stopped so suddenly that dust flew up around it. It looked up at her appealingly.

‘Hello,’ Millie whispered, as the doors slid shut again.

‘I’m sorry,’ said the cat, ‘there’s really no time for pleasantries. Could you hide me, please, and we’ll introduce ourselves properly later?’

Millie jumped a clear six inches into the air. ‘Wha—?’ she struggled.

‘There’s no need to be so scared. I’m a cat, not your natural predator. You don’t even
have
a natural predator. Well, maybe if you were in Kenya, and the lions
were . . . Shh, there is no time for this.’ He glared at her, as though she’d been the one talking. ‘I am in a bit of a mess, so if you could help . . . Your jaw is hanging loose,
by the way.’

‘You can—’

‘Talk, yes. How? It’s a long story, one which I am, happily, well equipped to tell you, just not right now.’ The cat was almost hissing now, looking behind him in alarm.

‘Of course I can hide you.’ Millie came to her senses, even if it was only temporarily. ‘Here you go.’ In one movement, she picked up her jumper, which was lying on the
ground where she’d dropped it when the sun came out, and scooped up the cat, who sighed audibly. Millie ran over to the van and put her jumper and its contents on a pile of cleaning cloths in
the back.

‘Now go back to what you were doing,’ muttered the cat. ‘And whatever anyone asks you, lie.’

Millie ran back to the doors and picked up her cloth. She walked the last few paces, hoping that the security guard wouldn’t think there was anything funny going on. She didn’t
normally go sprinting off for no reason, after all.

She was just in time. A few seconds later, a man came racing down the same corridor.

His legs flew out behind him, his lab coat swinging around him in all directions. He landed at the reception desk, panting heavily. Millie strained her ears, but she could hear nothing through
the doors. She saw the security guard shake his head once, then again, more firmly. He listened for a minute, then jerked his head in Millie’s direction. She tried to look very busy with her
bucket. The cat’s pursuer came rushing up to the doors, which wouldn’t open.

‘Hello? Hello?’ he said, panicky.

‘Hello.’ Millie stared at him.

‘The doors won’t open,’ he shouted, gesticulating wildly.

‘No, I had to lock them,’ Millie explained. ‘The catch is just up here.’ She released the doors. ‘They’re automatic. If I don’t lock them, I can’t
wash the glass, can I? They just open.’

‘How long have they been locked?’

Millie saw that the security guard was watching her intently. The true answer was, ‘About eight seconds, since I saw you coming.’ The right answer was, ‘The last ten minutes.
Nothing has been able to get in or out in that time, not even a tiny fly. And I, by the way, have the same nasal condition as Pinocchio, so can’t possibly be lying, or you’d be able to
tell.’ But the doors
had
opened, when she let the cat out – and the security man, even though he hadn’t been looking, might have felt the breeze as they opened,
mightn’t he? It was a warm day, and not at all windy, but if she lied openly, she might get caught out. She hedged her bets and said, ‘Dunno. A while.’

‘How long?’ he said again. There was a high note of hysteria in his voice.

‘As long as it takes to do the doors.’

‘How long has she been here?’ The man had obviously given up on her as a surly teenager and was now quizzing the security guard.

‘About half an hour?’ he guessed. Millie nodded sullenly, delighted.

‘The doors’ve been locked all that time?’

She nodded again, sure now that the security guard had been paying almost no attention at all.

‘Damn it, he must’ve gone the other way . . .’ The man started off back down the corridor. ‘Lock the doors again, please. Now.’ Millie shrugged and reached up to
the switch. The security guard shrugged back at her and pulled a face, implying that this man was a bit odd. Millie frowned back at him, her expression a picture of puzzlement at what had just
happened. He nodded and rolled his eyes, then went back to his newspaper. Excitement over.

She was safe.

Millie finished rinsing the window, not daring to hurry too much, in case the lab-coat man reappeared, and then carried her things back to the van.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked quietly, lifting her jumper off the cat.

‘I smell of detergent. It wasn’t a life-long aim. Otherwise I’m fine.’

‘Is a man in a lab coat looking for you?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Did you put him off?’

‘Yes. Your accent’s funny. Where are you from?’

‘A minute ago you couldn’t believe I could talk. Now you’re criticising my vowel sounds? That’s quite picky, you know.’

‘I wasn’t criticising . . . I was interested.’

‘You have a critical tone of voice, then.’

‘Sorry,’ said Millie, thinking the cat had a pretty critical tone himself at the moment.

‘I’m from—’

‘Stop! My dad’s coming. Can you get in my bag?’ Millie grabbed her bag from behind the seat.

‘Do I have to?’ begged the cat, looking with some disdain at Millie’s canvas rucksack, covered in stars, badges and ribbons.

‘Yes,’ said Millie firmly, pushing the cat into her bag, shoving her jumper on top, and flipping the catch shut, before spinning round to grin casually at her father and Bill as they
wandered over to the van.

‘I’m going to do some stuff on the computer, Dad,’ Millie shouted, as she ran ahead of him through the front door and flew up the stairs. She heard him say
something as she shut the door behind her, but assumed that whatever it was, it could wait. Her wardrobe was right behind the door, and she opened it. This meant that if you tried to open the door
to her room, it would bounce off the wardrobe door, and you couldn’t walk immediately inside. It wasn’t a very sophisticated system, but it provided a small level of cover for secrets
and emergencies. Both of which seemed to describe the current state of affairs. She put her bag on the bed, opened it up and said, ‘Hello again. You can come out now.’

‘Finally,’ sighed the cat, and angled his way past her jumper. ‘I thought I was going to be in there for ever.’

‘Sorry, we live quite a long way from the laboratory.’

‘In the circumstances, I think that is a good thing. It was just a little bit small for such a long journey.’ He looked back at the bag disapprovingly and stretched his spine.
‘Is this your bedroom?’ he asked, looking around him.

‘Yup.’

‘You have your own computer?’ He seemed impressed.

‘Yup.’ Millie nodded. It was her prize possession.

‘Good. So we could . . .’ His voice tailed off, as he began to think.

‘We could what?’

‘Plan the escape of the others Monty, Celeste and everyone.’

‘Sorry?’

The cat continued his train of thought: ‘I mean, if we could—’

Millie decided she needed to reassert some control over this situation, which seemed to be looping out of her reach.

‘Stop. Please.’ The cat looked up at her and frowned. ‘Could we start at the beginning? I’m Millie,’ she said.

‘Hello,’ said the cat. ‘I’m Max.’ They looked at each other, and Millie held out a hesitant hand. Max reached up a front paw, and they patted each other, almost
shaking hands.

‘This is how you say hello in England, hmm? In Belgium, we would kiss three times on the cheek as well. It’s friendlier, I think.’

‘How did you end up here, if you’re from Belgium?’ Millie asked, wide-eyed. She would never have placed his accent if he hadn’t told her. It was almost French, and almost
something else, which she supposed must be Belgian. She thought he had a surprisingly low voice. Although she wondered exactly what tone of voice wouldn’t be surprising, coming from a
cat.

Max’s eyes narrowed, as though he had just seen a larger and deservedly much less popular cat, perhaps with a limp and a missing eye, across the room. ‘Kidnap,’ he spat.

‘Kidnap?’ Millie sat down on the bed and crossed her legs.

‘Exactly. I was roaming around Ixelles. That’s near the Avenue Louise. In Brussels.’