Tiger Moth (16 page)

‘Who was little Nelly?’ I asked, folding the blanket away from my face, but the old man just laughed.

‘Ha! It’s just something my father used to say. No idea who she was, but I’ve no idea who you are either,’ he said, stroking the side of his face.

I took one more look round the room at the collection and sighed when I saw the plane. I thought of the night before and a horrible feeling of dread came over me.
What’s going to
happen to me? Mum
, I thought and I saw her frightened face as the police had come barging into the house.
Did they really think I’d hurt my own mum? Were they still looking for
me?
I was going to get into so much trouble. I felt the scratch on my cheek. I thought about my smashed-up guitar and I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out.

‘You look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders,’ said the man and I did. It felt as though everything was piling on top of me. ‘I’m
George,’ he said, opening the door for me and, as I lifted my aching legs out of the car, I looked at him.

‘I’m Zack.’

I followed him back across the room, but I slowed down when we reached the wings of the plane.

‘A Tiger Moth,’ I said, reaching out and touching the tip of one wing.

George looked at me in surprise. ‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’

I nodded. ‘My dad’s was yellow.’

‘Did he fly it much?’

I nodded again, but then I pressed my thumb on the side of the wing and winced in pain.

‘Oh crikey!’ said George, looking at the red and swollen thumb. ‘That’s quite a splinter you’ve got there. Let’s go inside and I’ll get it out for you,
but then, young man,’ he said, ruffling the top of my hair, ‘then we’d best get you home.’

Home
, I thought. What was waiting for me there?

We walked round the side of the building I had stumbled round the night before and as we turned left to the house I looked up in amazement. It was a house like I had never seen before. I
hadn’t imagined it. It
was
shiny; I
had
seen my face reflected in the walls because it was a house that was made entirely of glass. A sort of glass box which shimmered in
the sunlight.

‘Come on then,’ said George, holding open the door, and I stepped inside.

It was a room a bit like the one in my old house where the kitchen, the sitting room and the place where you eat are all in one room, and in the middle a kind of fireplace hung down from the
ceiling so that you could walk all the way round it. At one side of the room was a fish tank, but it was the size of the ones you see at the aquarium. I saw three black, orange and white fish swim
by as I walked past it.

‘So,’ said George as he held my thumb carefully under the light, ‘you look like you’ve been in the wars. Bad night, huh?’ he asked, but I said nothing. I winced as
he tried to free the splinter from underneath the skin. ‘Let me guess, you had a row with your mum and dad, you said things you wish you hadn’t and now you need to lick your wounds,
eh?’ Still I said nothing. ‘Or did you do something you really shouldn’t have and instead of taking the punishment you ran off?’

I watched with relief as the largest splinter I’d ever seen was prised out of my swollen thumb. ‘Things are never that bad, you know,’ he said, wiping the wound with a bit of
cotton wool that made it sting.

I didn’t say anything, but a photograph on the wall behind his head caught my eye. It was a picture of the car that I’d slept in and sitting on the back seats was a group of children
that I recognised. My mum sat squashed in between two boys and in the front seat, with her arms in the air, was a girl with long blonde hair; she was sitting on the lap of the boy who peeped out
from behind my granddad in the other photo. Where had I seen that smile before? It was there in my mind, but I couldn’t tease it out of my head.

When George saw me staring at the photo, he sighed. ‘My wife called that lot the Famous Five, you know, like the books.’ I waited for him to tell me more, but he didn’t and on
hearing my stomach rumble louder than it ever had he smiled and handed me a biscuit.

‘Right, young Zack, there’s one thing I know for sure: your parents will be very worried about you so why don’t we go and choose a car and I’ll drive you home.’

I chose the Ferrari. We drove back down the hill with the roof down and it made me think of that last day with Dad. When I pointed out my home to George, he went quiet. ‘You live
here?’ he said slowly.

I unbuckled my seat belt and nodded. ‘We just moved here. It used to be my granddad’s cottage, but—’

George suddenly looked upset. I saw his hands grip the steering wheel so hard they went sort of white. ‘Are you Jane’s son?’

I nodded and when I looked into his eyes I saw they were filled with tears. He turned away and coughed. ‘Time to face the music,’ he said, without turning back to me. ‘Off you
go.’

I thought about the smashed-up guitar, about the police and about Alice. I felt the panic rising and for a moment I wanted to stay put. For a second I thought about telling him or asking him to
take me into town.

As if George could read my mind, he turned back to my frightened face, put a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Nothing is ever as bad as it seems.’ But I saw a tear roll down his
cheek.

I climbed out of the car slowly, thanking George as I shut the door. I watched him drive back up the road. What had made him so sad I wondered? I was just standing on the road like that for
ages, my head full of questions, when the door to the cottage was suddenly flung open. Mum came running out towards me, her arms outstretched, and I could see her eyes were puffy and red.

‘Zack!’ she said, throwing her arms round me. ‘My Zack! Where have you been?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m so sorry.’

She bent down towards me; her eyes were filled with tears and she kissed me on my forehead, my cheeks and then my nose. ‘I was so worried about you.’

When we went inside, I saw that Mum had already cleared up the mess from the night before. The police, Mum told me as we tucked into bacon sandwiches, were across the street last night,
investigating a suspected burglary, when they heard the shouting from our cottage. She had explained to them about Dad and everything else and they’d understood.

‘But they were chasing me in their car,’ I said worriedly.

‘No they weren’t, sweetheart. Just after you legged it, they got a call about an emergency in town.’

I thought about the police sirens I’d heard and I felt kind of stupid. I thought about the guitar and the sound of breaking glass and I felt horrid. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said
again.

‘It’s OK. Well, it’s not OK to lose your temper like that, it really isn’t, but you have had a lot to cope with this last year. We both have. Shall we try starting
again?’

I smiled and nodded.

‘Are you going to tell me where you went last night?’ I took a bite out of my sandwich, a slurp of my Diet Coke and I told her the whole story, but when I was finished she just
stared.

‘You found your way to George’s house? All that way? Of all the places you could have ended up!’

But when I told her I’d fallen asleep on the back seat of a dark green Rolls-Royce she made a little yelping sound and put her hands to her face and slowly shook her head. I remembered the
photograph I’d seen.

‘George said you were one of a sort of Famous Five. Is that—’

Mum suddenly looked up at me with worried eyes. ‘He said that?’ She set down her mug of tea, leaned in closer and said very quickly, ‘What else did he say? What else did he
tell you?’ She looked afraid; her eyes were wide and alert. ‘Well?’ she said more insistently.

‘N . . . nothing,’ I sort of stammered. ‘He didn’t say anything else. Why, what would he have said?’

She got up from the table and went into the kitchen, so I followed her.

‘What is it?’ I asked as I watched her move round the kitchen, picking things up and putting them back down again. She leaned against the back door and sighed. She rubbed her eyes,
kneaded her temples and frantically twirled her wedding ring round and round.

‘When I was . . . when David, Aggy and I were younger, we . . .’ She turned her back to me and stared out of the back door window and across the stony beach. I waited and waited, but
she didn’t finish her sentence. What was going on?

‘Mum?’ I stared at the back of her head and I thought I heard her muttering something under her breath. Did she say kimmen or killen? I couldn’t be sure.

She let out a long deep breath, turned to face me and in a sort of high–pitched, weird voice she said, ‘Alice, we have to think about Alice.’ Then she explained to me what Dr
Richardson had told her on the phone and I felt sad. They just thought that Alice had snuck down to the beach and been for a swim. They didn’t know the truth and the truth was beginning to
feel like a secret I shouldn’t be keeping any more.

I think my name is Alice, but I don’t know where I am.

It feels like I’m asleep, but I don’t think that I’m dreaming.

It feels like I’m floating, but I don’t think I’m in the sea.

I think I hear birds singing and the distant sound of waves.

I know I’m sort of somewhere, but I don’t know where here is. Sometimes I see a beach and a garden with white walls. I think I wandered down a lane with trees as tall as tall. I was
sitting in a room; the floor was pinkish white and all the while the windows were lit with blue moonlight. Sometimes I think I see my mum. Or is it someone else I see?

I think I can hear some voices, but I don’t know who they are. I saw a boy with the darkest hair; he was near. He was far. I think I saw a woman; her dress was whitest white. I don’t
know where I am, if it’s day or if it’s night.

I once thought I heard a crying sound, but it was far away. It kept coming and going then it stopped one day.

It feels like I’m flying, but I know I’m on the ground. There’s something soft beneath me, but it isn’t sand I feel. Sometimes I think I see a woman; she has golden hair.
She sparkles in the sunlight; her skin is fairest fair. She makes me think of lilac roses, reddest velvet and lemon cake. I don’t know if I’m sleeping or if I’m wide awake.

It feels like I am dreaming, but something here is different. I hear the voices louder now and one of them is Dad. I almost see his hair and the freckles on his hands; it makes me think of
medicine and splashing in the bath. I hear them talking louder now, but no one seems to laugh.

I’m trying to move, but I just can’t free my body. It feels like I really want to, I just have to remember how.

I hear something beeping, but I don’t know what it is. I feel a scratch on my skin, fast footsteps on the floor.

I feel a hand on my hand and it strokes me gently.

I feel lips on my cheek as she kisses me softly.

And then I don’t feel anything.

Dr Richardson is Alice’s dad, but he says I can call him David.

I wandered outside slowly; it was already almost the hottest day ever, and I was sticky and sweaty by the time I reached the shiny black and gold gates of Culver Manor. I pulled the map out of
my pocket and followed David’s instructions to meet him by the large cedar tree at the bottom of the south lawn, but as I ran down the winding driveway I heard the chugging noise and I looked
up at the sky. There was the little blue plane. I wondered where George was going.

The lawn sloped away from the house and I looked towards the grey stone of the house up to the three large windows. The garden was kind of made up of lots of different bits, with a place that
just had lots of roses and one with only fruit trees, but I knew I was going to love the part of the garden where the big cedar tree was most.

I saw David standing by the tree and, when he saw me looking around at all the different coloured flowers which sort of smelt a bit like perfume but nice, he waved at me to come over to him.

‘You like it?’

I nodded.

‘I know it’s not the sort of thing that boys can get too excited about, but my wife made this part of the garden and I think it looks a bit like a painting, don’t
you?’

I did; he was right. It did look like the sort of painting I’d seen at that gallery my mum had dragged me round.

‘Now, young man,’ he said, handing me a pair of gloves, ‘we have a lot to do and if we work really hard it’ll be ready just in time.’

We worked all that day and it was hot and sweaty work, but I loved it. On the second day Alice’s dad met me in the garden with a glass of juice and told me he had to go back to the
hospital to see her.

‘Will Alice be . . . I mean, will she . . .’ My voice trailed off and I had to stop myself from blurting it all out, but when I looked up again David looked so sad that I clenched my
mouth shut.

‘I hope so, Zack. We just have to be patient. She’s in the best place to be looked after. Besides,’ he said more cheerily, ‘she’ll have something waiting for her,
won’t she?’

I watched him walk back up the lawn to the terrace and my heart sank deeper and deeper. I wanted to run after him and tell him that it was my fault. I wanted to tell him that Alice hadn’t
just been for a swim: she’d tried to swim round the headland because of me. I wanted to tell him the reason she was so ill was my entire fault. But I was frozen still.

On the third day I met Alice’s mum for the first time. I guess I expected her to look like the woman in the photograph Alice had. I mean, I look just like my dad and, because my mum is
always changing her hair colour, no one would know that my thick black hair is just like hers. Mum once said that, when I was born, Dad kissed me and left his smile behind because sometimes, when I
laugh at something, or smile at her, she holds out her hand, touches my cheek and says: ‘You’re the best thing we ever did, Zack.’

‘I’m Sophie,’ Alice’s mum said, handing me a plate of delicious-looking sandwiches, an apple, a slice of cake and a bottle of squash. Her hair was sort of tied in a plait
that hung all the way down her back and she spoke in a voice that was so soft I could hardly hear her. She’s much taller than my mum and she sort of moves as though she’s kind of
floating above the grass, not like Mum who sort of stomps very quickly as though she has to get everywhere like yesterday. ‘You’re doing a brilliant job, Zack,’ she said, but then
the baby started crying, and she smiled at me and went back up to the house.