Brightling (18 page)

34

The following day Tapper arrived. He threw himself into the attic noisily; slamming the door so hard plaster dropped from the ceiling, mice scattered and spiders shivered in their webs.

‘Any food left?' he called out to no one in particular as he tossed his hat onto a peg. He cheered when after a wobble it stayed put. ‘Hello, girls! It's blooming cold out. I'm famished. What d'ya say, Glori?'

Glori felt her skin shrink.

‘Hello, Tapper,' she said quietly. She glanced at Sparrow and back to Tapper; feeling caught between them. She saw Sparrow shiver and go pale.

Miss Minter was sitting at the big table with some of the match-girls, reading them an account of the theft of the spitfyres from the circus.

‘
 …  A daring and outrageous gang of thieves have made off with the two finest spitfyres from the Academy in a spectacular robbery that has the whole of Stollenback up in arms,
' she read. ‘
The Brightling Robbers have struck again!
'

‘Listen to that,' Tapper said. ‘Those naughty robbers, eh?' He grinned. ‘Outrageous, in't it?'

Miss Minter beckoned him over to the table. ‘Come and sit down. We've got some talking to do.'

One by one the girls peeled away from the table, taking their plates and cups to the sink. ‘Just finished.' ‘Got to go.' ‘Must get back to work,' they muttered until only Sparrow and Glori were left. Miss Minter had placed a hand on Sparrow to hold her back.

‘You're looking a picture, Glori,' Tapper said. ‘Get us a hot drink, will you? Chocolate would be good.'

‘Then you can go, Gloriana,' Miss Minter said.

After handing Tapper his drink Glori went out of the room. What were they going to talk about? What were they going to do with Sparrow?

She didn't join the other girls in the match room; she waited by the door, trying to hear what they were saying. Something was going on and she needed to know what it was. There was a place on the stairs – an empty cupboard – she'd hide there and then, if they went out, she'd follow.

‘Stay,' Miss Minter had said and Sparrow sank down again on her chair and looked at her plate. ‘You know each other, I understand,' Miss Minter added.

‘Ah yes, little Sparrow!' Tapper said, flopping his legs up on a chair and reaching for the slab of cheese. ‘Remember me, eh, do you?' He poured coffee from the pot on the table into his hot chocolate and stirred in two spoons of sugar. He felt at ease in the nest and didn't mind letting Miss Minter know it.

‘Yes,' Sparrow said without looking at him. ‘I remember you.' She sat on her trembling hands.

‘Not scared of me, are you?' he asked with a laugh. ‘You should be, mind! You and your cat made a right mess of my roof,' Tapper went on, leaning back in his seat and chewing loudly. ‘What d'you mean by running off like that? You won't get out of here so quick, I can tell you.'

‘Be quiet, Tapper,' Miss Minter said without taking her eyes from Sparrow.

Tapper sat up sharply. ‘What's that, Miss Minter?
Quiet?
Certainly. Just teasing dear little Sparrow, that's all. Perhaps it's them knock-out drops making her so quiet, is it?' he went on. ‘I did give you a lot, so. Had to. Knew you'd kick and, sure enough, you was rougher than a bear with a bee-sting. Glad to be back, are you? Back with the girls?'

Sparrow looked from Tapper to Miss Minter and back again. She shuddered.

‘Of course she's happy to be here, Tapper. But she's missing the cat,' Miss Minter said. ‘We don't know where it is  … ' There was a pause. Then Miss Minter sighed. ‘Well, Sparrow, perhaps you'd better go and join the others downstairs, if you have no conversation,' she said at last. ‘Box making for you today.'

‘Yes, Miss Minter.' Sparrow got up quickly and ran from the room.

Tapper shifted closer to Miss Minter. ‘So?' he said. ‘We've got her back safe and sound. Glad, aren't you?'

‘Yes, Tapper, I am very pleased with the turn of events,' Miss Minter said without looking at him. ‘Now we have our product, we can go back to de Whitt.'

‘And my Glori'll never let her go missing a second time,' Tapper said. ‘She's learned her lesson.'

‘And I have my trump card,' Miss Minter said slyly. ‘If Sparrow tries anything, says she wants to leave, I'll tell her about Scaramouch  …  Threaten to kill him.'

‘Oh I see, so! That cat! Well done, Miss Minter!' Tapper said. ‘Always one step ahead, in't you? Sparrow's none the wiser, eh? Hasn't twigged anything?'

‘Sparrow is stupid. She loves her cat. The cat will be her downfall. Mine was my father. But I've risen from the ashes, Tapper, I rose up like the phoenix and, like the phoenix, I shine with fire!'

‘You do, it's true,' Tapper said, looking at her admiringly. ‘You're all golden today. Don't you go taking too much of that Brightling stuff, will ya? It's no good for you, it ain't.'

Miss Minter laughed. ‘You don't know anything. It's marvellous stuff, Tapper. You should try it. Give some to that cranky old mother of yours. Make her dance.' She stopped suddenly. ‘
Everyone
should take it. Brightling makes the world a better place.'

Tapper eyed her doubtfully. ‘How's them new beasts doing?' he asked, changing the subject.

‘They're settling in,' Miss Minter said. Her face lit up with a smile and she hugged herself, closed her eyes and laughed. ‘Seraphina!' she said with a little giggle. ‘
Seraphina!
The Director's very own special spitfyre! I have got her!'

‘You have,' Tapper agreed, watching Miss Minter with vague unease. ‘What's so special about her then? I expect he'll be a bit upset, will that Stormy bloke,' he went on. ‘I would, losing a pet like that, if I had one, like. So.'

‘He will be broken-hearted!' Miss Minter cried. ‘Devastated! Cast down into the depths of despair  …  I hope!' She laughed. ‘I do so hope! I have waited years to pay him back, Tapper; you have no idea how I've longed to hurt him.' She dug her fingernails into her own palm. ‘Now at last he is suffering as I have suffered. He is in pain just as I was in pain.'

‘What the blazing dragon did he ever do to you?' Tapper asked.

Miss Minter's eyes flashed. ‘He ruined my life,' she said. ‘He totally
RUINED MY LIFE
!'

Sparrow got as far as the match room and stopped, with her fingers on the handle. She could hear the girls' voices on the other side of the door. The bitter smell of phosphorus stung her nose. She glanced back up the stairs; it was as if she could feel the cold weight of Tapper's presence on the floor above, pressing down on her. The acrid phosphorus smell made her eyes water. She wanted to get out. She just wanted to get out and to find Scaramouch. To see Hilda and Bruno  …  What if the front door had been left unlocked? Perhaps there was an open window? Suddenly she spun round and bounded all the way down to the ground floor.

She pulled at the front door, twisting the big brass handle furiously.

It was locked.

Sparrow looked round the hall. There was no sunshine streaming in through the windows today, as there had been that day she'd set out to sell matches, and the hall was gloomy and dark and forbidding. She turned slowly and went back upstairs. How difficult would it be to find Butterworth's toyshop? she wondered. If she could just get there and explain to Hilda and Bruno  …  they'd be so worried about her  …  Oh where was Scaramouch?

A sudden sharp noise below made her stop in her tracks.

Someone was unlocking the front door.

There was the rattle of keys, the door opened, closed, and was carefully locked again. Footsteps crossed the black and white marble floor; a man's footsteps, she could tell. Who? Not Tapper.

She peered over the banisters. A very thin man with sparse, long dark hair and a bald patch was crossing the hall. He had a brown bag slung across his sloping, bottle-shaped shoulder and he carried a couple of large, glass containers. Without hesitating, he set off down one of the corridors.

It was Brittel; the man they'd passed in the ginnel. What was he doing?

Sparrow ran quickly and lightly down the stairs, her heart thundering. There was no sign of Brittel when she reached the corridor, so she made her way cautiously along the dark, narrow passageway, fearing he might return any moment.

Another door opening and shutting told her he was coming back.

There was a room beside her so she slipped inside. It was an empty classroom with dusty, wooden desks and a map of the mountains on the wall. She was there only a few moments before Brittel passed by, whistling. Seconds later the front door shut with a deep, loud clang. The key turned noisily.

Quickly Sparrow darted out of her hiding place and ran down the corridor. The door at the end wasn't locked and she pushed it open.

Here was a vast, secret, inner courtyard, surrounded by very tall, narrow trees. For a second she stood there, poised as if on the edge of two totally different worlds. She looked around, dazed and surprised, breathing in the cold, fresh air greedily. Was this a way out?

The trees were so dense that she could only just make out the tall buildings behind them; they were almost completely hidden, rising up high into the sky on all sides. She took a few steps further in, determined to investigate. The snow had barely reached this hidden place and only a thin layer lay over the centre of the yard.

Something moved.

She stopped.

On the far side, partly hidden from view, were stables – stables with
horses
in them. She remembered Brittel had mentioned nags  … 

Sparrow went quickly towards them, weaving her way through the old wheelbarrows, boxes, crates, straw and broken furniture that littered the yard. Four horses' heads showed over the stable doors.

The hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle. Her mouth went dry.

‘Oh dear,' she whispered as she drew near. ‘Oh dear.'

The first horse was a huge, dirty-brown thing with strange, scaly skin around its nose and eyes. It had a short, chopped-about mane. Its head drooped so it was resting on the stable door as if the horse were too weary to hold it up. It was so impassive it didn't even seem to notice her. The next was the same; tired and listless, dirty and unresponsive, but she rubbed its forehead and at last it raised its head and looked at her. What strange eyes it had  …  The third and the fourth horses were more alert. They tossed their heads and greeted her with puffs of smoke  … 

Smoke!

‘You aren't horses!' Sparrow said, and jumped at the sound of her own voice. ‘Oh my, you're spitfyres!' she whispered. She stroked the smallest spitfyre and her hand came away brown. ‘Disguised!'

The spitfyre stared back dolefully. Sparrow rubbed its velvety nose and stroked the scaly, furry forehead. ‘Poor thing,' she said. ‘Poor thing.'

A bright fluid began to gather around the spitfyre's eyeball and collect in the corner like a drop of liquid gold.

‘Are you crying? Please don't cry! Don't be sad,' Sparrow said, nearly crying herself. ‘What's happening? Where are your wings?' She peered over the stable door. ‘Where are your lovely wings?'

The spitfyre rubbed against Sparrow's shoulder in a hopeful way, leaving a fleck of gold on her coat.

Spitfyres.

The circus.

Miss Minter.

Brightling robbers.

‘Now I see!' Sparrow glanced around nervously; there was no sign of that nasty thin man. She pushed open the stable door and squeezed in beside the fourth spitfyre, the smallest and most chirpy. She wasn't afraid; the animal was not much bigger than an ordinary horse and, anyway, it was tied up. Besides, it never occurred to her to be scared.

It was gloomy and hard to see inside the stable. Sparrow felt along the animal's flanks and at last her nervous fingers found the bindings that held down its wings.

‘Oh you dear, poor thing,' she whispered. ‘You can't even open them out!' And all for a golden liquid that didn't work, she thought, caressing its lovely neck and trying to untangle its mane. Stupid. Greedy. Horrible.

Whistling!

Brittel was coming back!

Sparrow dived into the back of the stable and crouched there, in a mess of hay and animal feed and buckets. If the spitfyre kicked out she'd be dead. If Brittel found her she'd be dead. And if neither of those things happened, she thought, holding her nose, the smell of spitfyre pee would almost certainly kill her.

The spitfyres had begun to shuffle and shift nervously and to utter soft whinnies and guttural sounds in their throats like growls. Heat poured off the spitfyre's flanks and Sparrow expected at any moment that flames would burst out; but there were no flames, not even sparks.

Something metal clanked against the cobbles. Glass chinked against glass. The man came near then stopped by the stable; Sparrow could just see his silhouette in the doorframe.

‘By the dragon!' he swore, bolting shut the stable door with a clang. ‘Brittel, you fool! You left it open! Thank the stars I tied you up, Seraphina, or you'd have been off  … '

Seraphina? Seraphina!
She
had
been so beautiful. Rainbow-coloured, glimmering and full of life  … 

‘Now, my beauties,' Brittel was saying as he busied himself just outside the doorway. ‘It's time.'

Seraphina began to jerk her head against the rope and kick.

‘Gently, Seraphina,' he said. ‘Brittel won't hurt you. I'm not a clumsy oaf like that Tapper. I do things soft and gentle.'

Brittel fixed another rope to her head so that the spitfyre could barely move. Glass clinked again and the stable door opened. Brittel came inside and took hold of the spitfyre tightly. ‘There we go. Just a few drops.'