Alice-Miranda in Paris 7 (18 page)

‘Fabien,’ he said.

‘Would you like to play with us?’

‘
Oui
, mademoiselle,’ he responded. ‘I would like that very much.’

Alice-Miranda grabbed him by the arm and led him towards her friends. ‘Everyone, this is Fabien and he’s going to join us.’

Sep turned around from where he was retrieving the last silver ball. He looked at the lad and wondered why he seemed familiar. And then he remembered.

‘You’re the boy from the window,’ Sep said. ‘Across the road.’

Fabien smiled and shrugged.

The younger boy pointed to himself. ‘I’m Sep.’

The other children said their names too. Fabien nodded politely and repeated each one.

‘That’s weird, isn’t it,’ Sep whispered to Lucas. ‘He’s that guy. The face in the window. It’s strange that we should meet him here.’

‘Oh well, you know what they say, the world’s a small place,’ Lucas replied.

Sep was not quite convinced. He wondered if they’d been followed.

With Fabien’s help, Lucas’s team won the next two rounds.

The children lined up for another game. Jacinta was gazing dreamily at Lucas, who had proven himself quite the star pétanque player, when she lost her grip on the ball she was holding under her chin. She tried to catch it on the way down but it hit her big toe with a thud.

‘Ow!’ Jacinta cried. ‘Ow, ow, ow.’ She jumped around on her good foot.

‘What did you do that for?’ Lucas rushed to help her limp to the seat near the edge of the court.

‘Like I did it on purpose,’ she wailed. Her toe was throbbing and tears formed in the corners of her eyes.

Millie raced over and loosened Jacinta’s shoelaces. She slipped off her shoe and sock too.

Sloane leaned in to take a look. ‘Yuck! Your big toe is a mess. And your nail is squished and there’s blood!’

Sep groaned. ‘Way to go, Sloane. Good thing you’re not smart enough to be a doctor.’

Sloane poked her tongue out at him.

‘But I can’t be injured.’ Jacinta began to cry. ‘I’ve got the gymnastics championships next month.’

‘And you have to sing tonight,’ Sloane reminded her. ‘Maybe you won’t be able to.’

‘Sloane, don’t say that,’ Millie mouthed.

Alice-Miranda knelt down to take a look. ‘I think we should find Mummy and Aunt Charlotte. I’m sure it’s nothing serious but it’s better to be on the safe side.’

Millie and Lucinda volunteered to go and locate the grown-ups.

‘Where’d Fabien go?’ Sep asked.

The lad who had been playing with them seemed to have disappeared. The children looked around but he was gone.

Jacinta was crying quietly. Her toe was throbbing like a drumbeat and she was making herself sick with worry about the gymnastics competition. As it was, she’d been concerned about taking the week off from training.

The elderly gentlemen who had been playing on the court beside the children wandered over one by one. They leaned in to take a look at Jacinta’s toe and shook their heads, except one old fellow who did speak English. ‘Those balls are heavy, especially when they hit your foot,’ he observed. ‘Probably broken. I will call an ambulance.’

‘Oh no, sir, that’s not necessary. My mother and aunt are here in the park. Millie and Lucinda have gone to find them so we’ll be fine,’ Alice-Miranda said.

Jacinta began to cry louder. ‘I’m not going in an ambulance. I just need some ice.’

‘But she needs a doctor,’ the man insisted.

‘No, monsieur, please, I’m sure Jacinta will be fine,’ Alice-Miranda replied.

‘Well, she is big crybaby,’ he said with a shrug and walked off.

‘Rude!’ Sloane said indignantly.

Lucas pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and sat down beside Jacinta. She leaned her head on his shoulder and he reached out and held her hand. Jacinta sniffed and, despite the pain in her toe getting worse, she allowed herself a small smile.

Millie and Lucinda came running back with Cecelia in tow. Charlotte was taking it more carefully.

‘Oh darling, you poor thing.’ Cecelia knelt down to examine Jacinta’s injured toe. It was noticeably swollen and beginning to turn black, and there was a small cut too. ‘I think we should get you to a hospital to be on the safe side. We’ll take you in a taxi and then I’ll call your mother.’

Jacinta shook her head. ‘She can’t do anything. She’s at home.’

‘Perhaps.’ Cecelia smiled tightly. Turning up to see her daughter in hospital was the least Ambrosia could do, Cecelia thought to herself.

Charlotte reached the group. ‘Oh dear, are you all right, Jacinta?’ she asked.

Jacinta began to cry again.

‘We can’t take everyone to the hospital, Mummy. How about you and I take Jacinta and then Aunt Charlotte can walk everyone back to the hotel,’ Alice-Miranda suggested.

Charlotte nodded. ‘I’ll get us all some lunch and we can still hire the boats if you like. Then we can meet Cee and the girls later,’ she said, glancing around at the children.

Lucas looked at Jacinta. ‘I’ll come with you, if that’s okay.’

‘I think that’s a great idea,’ Alice-Miranda agreed. ‘Maybe I should stay and take care of Aunt Charlotte. Plus, it’s terribly mean of me to leave you too, Lucinda, when I asked you to come today.’

‘No, you should go,’ Lucinda protested. ‘I’m sure that Millie and Sloane and Sep will take good care of me. And Mama and Papa said that we could go to mass at Notre Dame to watch your performance tonight, so I’ll see you again before we leave.’

Alice-Miranda rushed over to hug her friend. Then she hugged Millie and Sloane, and Sep too for good measure.

Jacinta managed to get to her feet. With Cecelia on one side and Lucas on the other, she hobbled the short distance to one of the park exits. Alice-Miranda hailed a taxi and soon enough they were speeding towards the hospital, the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris, just by Notre Dame.

The rest of the school group was out when Charlotte, Millie, Sloane, Sep and Lucinda returned to l’Hôtel Lulu. Monsieur Crabbe explained that the others had gone for a short walk to some nearby markets and would be back soon. Madame Crabbe decided that Charlotte looked tired and immediately set about making her a cup of tea. Lucinda’s parents weren’t expecting her yet, so Charlotte would take her back to the hotel later. Millie and Sloane invited Lucinda upstairs with them. The girls were planning to show off their rooms.

‘Jacinta’s and my room is enormous,’ Sloane boasted. ‘But you can’t swing a cat in Millie and Alice-Miranda’s.’

‘That’s probably a good thing,’ Lucinda grinned. ‘I don’t know if many cats enjoy that really.’

‘Ha ha, very funny,’ said Sloane. Alice-Miranda was right about Lucinda being a lovely girl, she thought.

Sep decided to head over the road to see if Fabien was there. He was still a little confused about whether the lad actually lived there or if he was just visiting. Sep thought he might want to hang out for a while. Maybe they could play chess in the hotel courtyard until the others got back.

He stood at the door and rang the buzzer. Sep waited a while before pressing it again, wondering if this time there really wasn’t anyone home.

He was about to walk away when the door opened and the woman he had met the day before peered around it. Her hair was much messier and there were large bags under her eyes.

She peered out to see if he was with anyone. ‘Bonjour.’ She seemed to look straight through him.

‘Is Fabien here?’

She frowned on hearing her son’s name. ‘Fabien?’

Sep could see into the narrow hallway behind the woman. There was a staircase running up the side and he thought he saw something moving at the top of the first landing. Sep peered inside, squinting into the poor light.

It was Fabien, and he was pressing his finger to his lips and shaking his head. Sep wondered what the lad was doing but was sharp enough to realise that he shouldn’t say anything more.

‘I . . . I don’t know him,’ Sep replied.

The woman turned her head.

Sep peered into the house again but Fabien was gone.

‘No Fabien here.’ The woman had turned back to face Sep. She slammed the door.

Sep could hear footsteps rushing up the stairs inside. He stood back and looked up at the window where he had seen Fabien before, but this time the curtains did not move.

‘Weird,’ Sep muttered under his breath. He looked up and down the street. There was nobody else about. He didn’t feel like going inside just yet and thought it would be okay to walk to the end of the street and back. As he walked down the steps to the footpath, he bent to pick up a button. It was a pretty thing, with letters entwined in the middle. A, G and an F. Sep slipped it into his jeans pocket. Maybe Alice-Miranda or one of the other girls would like it as a little memento of their trip.

The warm sun on his back made Sep feel a little sleepy. He sat down on the edge of the gutter, wondering how long until the others would be back. He couldn’t remember how long he’d been sitting there when Professor Winterbottom turned the corner into the street.

‘Sykes, what on earth are you doing out here?’ the headmaster called. Sep stood up and dusted himself off.

‘Oh, hello sir, I was just waiting for everyone to get back,’ he said.

‘I hardly think it’s appropriate for you to be sitting out here in the gutter, son. I thought you were out with Mrs Highton-Smith.’

‘We were. But Jacinta had a bit of an accident and Alice-Miranda and her mother and Lucas have taken her to the hospital.’

‘Hospital? What happened?’ the professor demanded. He was thinking about how much paperwork he’d have to fill in.

‘She dropped a pétanque ball on her big toe and it might be broken,’ Lucas explained.

‘Oh, thank heavens, nothing serious.’

‘Charlotte Highton-Smith is inside having a cup of tea with Madame Crabbe – she’s probably having her photo taken too.’

The professor looked confused. ‘Right. Well, come along and you can tell Miss Grimm and me all about Headlington-Bear’s accident.’

Cecelia Highton-Smith left Jacinta with Alice-Miranda and Lucas, and stepped outside to make a phone call. They had been sitting in the emergency ward, waiting for the doctor to return with the X-ray of Jacinta’s blackened toe.

Cecelia called the Ritz and asked to be put through to Ambrosia Headlington-Bear’s room, but they told her that there was no one by that name staying there. Odd, Cecelia thought, seeing that when she and Charlotte had seen Ambrosia in the foyer, she was looking like part of the furniture and hadn’t mentioned that she was staying anywhere else.

Cecelia tried Ambrosia’s mobile next. It rang and rang and then went dead.

‘That’s strange,’ Cecelia said to herself. ‘I can’t even leave a message.’

‘Did you get hold of Mummy?’ Jacinta asked as Cecelia returned to the room.

‘Sorry, darling. She must be out of range.’

‘Yes, you know the phone reception around Winchesterfield isn’t very good,’ said Alice-Miranda. She hadn’t told anyone other than Millie that she’d seen Ambrosia in Paris. She would talk to her mother about it when they were on their own.

‘Typical,’ Jacinta groaned. She was still wondering if it was her mother that she had seen in the hotel foyer earlier in the week. ‘She’s never around when I need her.’

‘It’s all right, Jacinta. We’re here,’ said Lucas with an encouraging smile.

‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘Yes, you are.’

Alice-Miranda grinned.

The doctor finally returned with the X-rays and a rather glum face. ‘I am sorry, Mademoiselle Jacinta, but your toe is broken.’

Jacinta bit her lip. ‘But I have a gymnastics competition in three weeks.’

The man shook his head. ‘I am afraid not. You will need to let it mend and that will take at least a month, perhaps six weeks.’

Jacinta’s tears spilled.

Alice-Miranda leaned in and gave her friend a hug. ‘If you look on the bright side, at least your toe will get better and maybe if you don’t have so much training you can spend more time with your mother.’

‘If she’s not too busy with her old life,’ Jacinta huffed.

‘You will need to walk on crutches for a little while and I will tape the toe, but no plaster. It is too small,’ the doctor explained. ‘And you must wear this for protection.’ He held up a sculpted boot that was open at the top. ‘It will make things much easier.’