The Spin (22 page)

He carried in three lit, half-shuttered lanterns and arranged them around the dark cave so he could see the spitfyre clearly. Right, this was it.

‘Hello,' he said softly. ‘It's me.' He went slowly up to her, talking quietly all the time, and lowered himself down until he was sitting beside her head.

Her sticky eyes blinked open, then closed. A shiver rippled over her skin when he touched her.

‘First I'm going to clean this muck up, then I'm going to make sure you eat something,' he said. ‘You haven't eaten properly for days, have you? You must eat; you're too thin. I'm going to help you. I promise.'

He got up and set to work on the straw and dung that had been there for so long it had formed a thick carpet all around and under her. It was hard work chiselling at it with the spade and Stormy was soon hot and his arms were aching. He shovelled up the stinking stuff and threw it into the wheelbarrow; when that was full he tipped it over the side of the terrace and let it tumble down onto the rocks below.

There was nothing he could do about the dirt under her, but after an hour the place was a lot better. Now she was watching him, her eyes following him as he moved around the cave.

‘You're clever,' he told her. ‘When Al talked about you he said you were his best, the cleverest of them all. We'll be a great team, we'll be the –'

‘Stormy! What are you doing?'

Stormy jumped and spun round.

Purbeck and Ralf were standing at the mouth of the cave, peering round the rock at him. ‘You can't go in there, mate,' Purbeck said. ‘Come out! Come on! She's dangerous.'

‘No she isn't. Look at her! She's not dangerous!'

‘Isn't she? I've never even set eyes on her,' Purbeck said, crouching down and staring at the spitfyre. ‘Small, isn't she? And sickly-looking. Is she all right?'

Stormy pushed past them with the empty wheelbarrow. ‘No, she's not all right,' he said.

They followed him out.

‘What are you doing, then?' Purbeck said.

‘What should have been done before – cleaning her stable. It was disgusting. Do you know her name, Ralf?' Stormy asked, looking him in the eye. ‘Did Al ever tell you it?'

‘No.' Ralf shook his head.

Stormy didn't think he was lying. ‘Al says he's forgotten it.' He saw no reason to tell them his stupid lie. ‘I'm going to call her Starlight for now,' he told them.

‘You can try, but they only respond to their real name –' began Ralf.

‘I know that.'

‘Shame no one knows her real name,' Purbeck said.

‘Yeah, 'cos even if you got her fit, you'll never train her without it,' Ralf said. ‘Hey, maybe it really is Starlight?'

‘Is that her food there?' Stormy asked.

‘Yeah, but she hasn't been eating. I've been pulling out her buckets half full.'

‘And you didn't do anything about it?' Stormy snapped. ‘Here, give the food to me, and none of that yellow stuff!'

Ralf reddened. ‘You idiot! That's not for her!'

Stormy gave him a long, hard look. ‘He gives the Star Squad a yellow powder, Purbeck. Makes them overexcited and wild.'

Purbeck made a face. ‘So? They're meant to be sparky. They're fighters, aren't they?'

Stormy shrugged. ‘I don't think it's good for them.'

‘And you know everything, of course!' Ralf snapped.

Stormy frowned; Ralf was right. He was only going on his instincts. He didn't know anything. He took the food into the cave.

‘It's your dinner, thirteen,' he whispered. ‘It'll make you better. You have to eat to get strong.'

The food consisted of long orange worms wiggling through the leaves and seeds, not something he fancied eating himself. He remembered how Mrs Cathcart had tempted sick little Karl with Otto's famous chicken broth. Wincing, Stormy took up a morsel of the food between his fingers. ‘You need food. We all need food. Come on, thirteen, open your mouth.'

Her nostrils quivered as she sniffed it and her tongue came out and licked weakly round her dry mouth. Water. She needed water more than anything else. Karl had too. Mrs Cathcart had held a wet flannel against his cracked lips . . . Quickly he went out to get fresh water.

Purbeck and Ralf were standing outside the cave, whispering together.

‘Phew! You're not dead, then?' Purbeck said.

‘Course not. She's not going to hurt anyone. Though I might – I feel like throttling the pair of you for letting her get like this . . .' It made him feel better to say that, but he knew he was just as much to blame. He looked round for his things. ‘Hey! Where's my hose and barrow gone? Where's my mop?'

Purbeck pointed. ‘Him,' he said, nodding at Al.

Al was trudging back up towards the storeroom with Stormy's things.

Stormy rushed after him. ‘Oh, thanks, Al, thanks very much for your help!' he said sarcastically. ‘But it'll take more than that to stop me.' He pushed past Al and grabbed the water bucket back. Water sloshed over Al's feet. ‘You're cruel, Al, you know that?'

Al looked down at his wet shoes, up at the high cliff face of the Academy, then back to the ground. He looked everywhere except at Stormy. He was smiling.

‘Don't try and stop me again!' Stormy shouted.

He took everything back to the cave. Inside, he soaked some water up from the bucket with his hankie and squeezed it over the spitfyre's closed mouth, hoping some would dribble in. She licked and this time he saw her swallow. He repeated it again and again, adding a few drops of the vitamins and other medicine, until finally she shook her head slightly and her mouth stayed closed. Enough. Now he began to tempt her with the food. He was sure she wanted it but hadn't the strength to take it. Gently he prised her mouth and teeth apart and slipped a tiny morsel inside. At the first mouthful she choked and coughed and he scrambled up in a panic thinking she was going to burn him or die. But she didn't. She coughed and coughed and then managed to chew and swallow and after a little wait he did it again and she swallowed again. She took seven small mouthfuls and then stopped, tired and panting.

‘Enough. Well done. Good girl. I shan't hose you down, poor dear spitfyre; it will be too much. Just as well Al took it away,' he told her. ‘How does this soft sponge feel? Is it good?' He began to wipe the grime from her shoulder but she was too tired and her neck went limp, her eyes were closing.

‘I'll be back,' he told her. ‘I promise I'll be back soon. Don't you worry about Al. He's not going to stop me. No one will stop me this time – Starlight. And maybe tonight I'll find out your real name.'

She was sleeping.

‘Goodnight.'

He crept outside. By the cave entrance someone had placed a bottle of pills: SPITFYRE STRENGTHENING SUPPLMENT: ONE TO BE TAKEN DAILY.

It might have been Ralf or Purbeck. It could even have been Al. Stormy took them gratefully.

Ten o'clock. The night air was icy. Stars hung in swathes, like lace scarves across the black sky. Stormy turned up the collar of his jacket against the bitter wind that nipped at his cheeks and ears as he went across the courtyard.

It was deserted.

The guards were in their tower behind closed shutters; a thin strip of yellow light was all there was to show they existed.

Laughter and shouting came from the students' common room. Someone was thumping a piano. He could hear Hector's voice above the rest, leading the singing.

Stormy kept close to the walls. The bench, in deep shadow, was on the left of the gates and he made his way to it almost blindly. Maud was already there.

‘Hello,' he whispered. ‘It's me.'

‘Shh!' She pulled him towards the littles' house. ‘Shh. Come.'

‘In there?'

‘Yes. They have to record everything that comes into this place,' she said. ‘They'll know all the spitfyre names.' She tapped on the door and it opened enough for one little to peep out.

‘It's me, Mr Small,' Maud whispered. ‘I've got Stormy. And I've got the cake. It's coconut with buttercream icing –'

She had hardly finished saying ‘buttercream icing' when the door was yanked open.

‘In!' squeaked a voice and they slipped inside.

The room had a low ceiling and was furnished with very small furniture. There was a fire burning in the hearth and an old-fashioned kettle hanging above it.

‘Must be quick,' Mr Small said. ‘Might be seen. Mustn't be seen. We'll be in trouble.'

‘I know. Here.' Maud set the cake on the table. ‘Otto's cake. There's always too much. And I've got biscuits too.'

‘Love a bisky,' the other little said. ‘Love cakey.'

‘Good. Glad to make you happy, Mrs Small.'

Mrs
Small? He stared at the plump, smiling little. She was dressed just like the other little in trousers and jerkin but her long hair was tied back in a bun and she had softer, more feminine features.

The room was crammed to bursting. The shelves bulged with official-looking leather-bound volumes with gold numbers on their spines. Portraits of littles, both old and young, covered the walls; some were circus performers and wore diamond-patterned tights and funny hats with bells on. One hung suspended in a trapeze. A large painting of a lady with dark hair intertwined with ribbons and bows hung above the fire. She wasn't a little, and he wondered who she was to have such an important place in their room. Two wooden armchairs were either side of the fire and there were two chairs at the table. There were tiny cups and saucers, minuscule glasses and teaspoons. It was very snug and very small.

‘Do take a seat if you can fit your bum on it,' Mr Small said, sitting at the table. ‘Try the stool.'

Stormy sat down on the stool. It was uncomfortable, like sitting on a post.

‘Thank you,' he said. ‘I don't mean to be rude, but I've heard the Director doesn't like grubbins very much and –'

Mr Small jumped up indignantly. ‘We're not grubbins! We're tiny, weeny things, yes. We're
littles
! He hates
grubbins
! He loathes the blighters, but we're not
grubbins
.'

‘He likes all small people – except grubbins – because being around them makes him feel tall,' Mrs Small said with a laugh.

‘I was only wondering . . .' Stormy said, wishing he hadn't spoken at all.

‘He hates grubbins because grubbins are rich,' Mr Small said. ‘That's all it is. Grubbins make money; they can make money out of anything. They dig a bit of soil and up comes buried treasure. They hit a rock with a pickaxe and oh, look, there's a streak of silver! He thinks that's dirty luck. He thinks grubbins are dirty lucky blighters, and he doesn't like that.'

‘Aren't
you
lucky, then?' asked Stormy.

‘Not a bit of it. We're miserable shorties and so he doesn't mind us one bit.' Mr Small laughed and picked up three tiny cups and began juggling them. ‘He likes our tricks, you see.'

‘Oh, do take care, Mr Small!' Mrs Small shrieked, getting out of his way. ‘He won't let off with his clowning. We hardly have a matching cup and saucer in the house.'

Mr Small put down the cups and grinned at them. ‘Old habits,' he said, shrugging as if juggling were out of his control. ‘How can we help?' he added, taking another piece of cake.

‘The Entry Books,' Maud said, nodding towards the leather-bound volumes. ‘We want to find out the name of Al's flying horse. It must have come in when he did, and so its name has to be in one of the books.'

‘Everything's in the books,' Mrs Small said. ‘You're in there, Stormy. Twice. And that's unusual.'

‘Is it?'

‘Oh yes, got a habit of being a one-way place, this. Peoples come in but somehow peoples don't go out and come back. Leastways I haven't seen it much. Have you, Mr Small?'

Mr Small shook his head. ‘No.'

‘Al had me sent back,' said Stormy. ‘He made up a story about me; it wasn't true.'

‘Well, be glad he did,' Mrs Small said. ‘Other boys weren't so lucky and just vanished off the face of the mountain when they weren't wanted.'

‘I see.' Stormy was remembering Ollie.

‘So, can we check the books?' Maud said.

‘Yes, yes. What year was it?'

Maud and Stormy looked at each other and shrugged. Stormy dug in his pocket and fished out the handbill for the circus, hoping it might have a date on it. As soon as Mrs Small saw the paper she grabbed it.

‘Skippety slip! Look at that!' she said. ‘Cosmo's Circus!
We
were in that circus!'

It seemed everyone in the Academy had been in the circus.

Mrs Small smoothed out the creases in the flyer and spread it out on the table. ‘Haven't seen that picture for a long time. Wasn't Al handsome those days?'

‘We were the comic act, got up to all sorts of high jinks and silly pranks,' Mr Small said. ‘We used to roll in the sawdust for the punters. Fall in the buckets of water for them; trip over our feet for them. We still do it now, to keep
him
happy.'

‘But Al had a bad time,' Mrs Small said. ‘We don't talk about it. Do we, Mr Small?'

‘We don't, Mrs Small.'

‘But this is wonderful!' said Stormy. ‘If you were there, surely you remember the spitfyre's name? The name of Al's winged horse that went crazy and attacked him.'

The littles shook their heads. ‘Bad times. Bad times get blotted out,' Mrs Small said. ‘We never did know it.'

‘Dates. Dates,' Mr Small muttered. ‘We were the first to come here. Al came soon after. Let me think, that would be volume seventeen, I think.'

Mr Small went over to the shelf and reached up for one of the leather-bound books. ‘Here we go.' He brought it over to the table and just as he opened it, there was a loud rapping on the door.