Cat's Paw (16 page)

‘You!’

‘Ben! You see, I told you he’d come back,’ said Thomas.

‘Did you?’ said Hannah.

‘I thought you were–’ Ben broke off. It didn’t matter what he’d thought. A monstrous weight had lifted off him.

‘You remember,’ Thomas was telling Hannah, ‘last week in the tunnel, when I was helping you hold the drill, and you said you couldn’t do this anymore, and I said
they’re only punishing us until Ben comes home, and you cried, and I said he’d be back soon–’

‘No you never.’

‘You were sleepy. I have a distinctly clear memory–’

‘Er. Hello,’ Ben tried.

‘Hiya,’ said Hannah. She and Thomas grabbed plastic forks and attacked the tub of noodles between them. Hannah looked as if she couldn’t shovel them in fast enough. Ben was
puzzled. The kitchen was bursting at the seams with snack foods. Why did she seem so ravenous, and why was she having to share?

‘I, er, decided to join you after all,’ he said. ‘Hope I didn’t get you in trouble.’

Thomas paused in his chewing.

‘We got Night Shift. It was okay. Actually it was quite interesting. Peculiar seeing the Northern Line so quiet, with no trains.’

‘Scary, though,’ said Hannah.

‘What did you have to do?’

‘Well, when we got past Embankment we had to–’

‘The Ferret made us work especially hard,’ Thomas broke in. ‘But that was interesting too. He’s never spoken much to us before. Have you had your Welcome yet,
Ben?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘You’re really staying?’ Thomas gripped his sleeve. Ben saw his fingernails were filthy, clogged with grey-black dust. ‘You won’t leave again, will you?’

‘No. This is my family now.’

Hannah beamed. Ben hid his queasiness by smiling back.

‘By the way. You know that guy who fetched me last time? You never told anyone, did you?’

‘Who was he?’ asked Hannah.

‘Doesn’t matter. You never saw him, okay?’

This idea was having trouble sinking in.

‘Okay?’ Ben repeated. ‘It’s important.’

They looked dubious. He should never have brought this up. He was groping for a way to change the subject when Thomas winced, as if from a sting. Ben heard a familiar soap opera theme tune
meandering from the recreation zone.

‘Hey, Thomas!’ Alec called across the hall.‘
Eastenders
is starting.’

Thomas turned away.

‘It’s okay,’ said Alec, coming over. ‘Kevin says you can watch TV now that Ben’s come back.’

‘Really?’

‘Does that mean I’m allowed dinner tonight?’ asked Hannah excitedly.

‘I suppose.’ Alec returned to the television corner, where Thomas had already nabbed the best seat.

‘Kevin stopped you eating?’ said Ben.

‘Only lunch and dinner,’ said Hannah. ‘I was allowed breakfast and afternoon snack.’

‘But Thomas only got a TV ban?’

‘Yeah, well, y’know. His dad’s Tony Sherwood.’

‘Who?’

‘Keith Grogan. You know him, right?’

‘You mean the character off
Eastenders
?’ said Ben. ‘The school teacher?’

Hannah nodded. ‘The actor who plays him is Tony Sherwood, innit?’

‘And he’s Thomas’s dad. . .’

‘Right. So Thomas always watches it if he can. In case there’s a Keith Grogan bit.’

What had Thomas said to him, back in his prison cell? A maddening riddle that had gnawed at his mind.
I see my daddy. . . several times a week.

‘It’s really great that you came back.’ Hannah made a beeline for the fridge.

Tiffany’s class milled upon the platform in the mighty glass cavern of St Pancras International, humming with pent-up energy like the waiting Eurostar trains, all except for Olly who sat
alone, nervously sipping his Diet Coke. At least, Tiffany imagined that he did. She was not there. Yusuf, Susie and she were far across town at Waterloo station, sitting aboard the 9:20 for Exeter
St. David’s. The platform clock read 9:18 and had done, it seemed, for the past three minutes.

‘Come
on
,’ Tiffany muttered.

Last-minute passengers scurried past their window. Yusuf leaned back in his seat, trying to peer out without being seen himself. No-one was likely to recognise them, but if anyone did. . . Susie
fiddled with the tag on her backpack.

‘There’s still time.’

Time to change their minds, she meant. Time to leave this train, hop on the Tube and rejoin their Paris-bound classmates.

‘Don’t be dense,’ breathed Yusuf. ‘We’re not on their list anymore, remember? We gave them those letters to explain why we can’t go.’

‘Oh yeah.’ Susie bit her nails.

Tiffany was surprised that these two were here at all. Surprised and grateful. When she’d told Yusuf of her crazy plan, it was only so that someone else would know where she’d really
gone. She hadn’t dreamed he would offer to help. That he would forfeit his own place on the Paris trip, fake a letter from his parents to tell the school he was unwell, and come with her. And
then of course Susie had found out, and Yusuf was going nowhere without her.

The clock clattered to 9:20. Tiffany shut her eyes. The moment balanced on a knife edge. At last she felt the brakes release and she sighed with them. The train eased clear of the platform.

Susie giggled. ‘
Au revoir
.’

‘The scary thing,’ said Yusuf, ‘is that this
isn’t
the stupidest thing we’ve ever done.’

‘What if a teacher saw us on our way here?’ Susie wondered. ‘Or, or – no, this is the best one! – what if someone we know is actually on this train? Going on
holiday to Exeter? And we run into them at the other end, and they go, “Fancy meeting you here!” and we’re all like uuuhhh–’

‘I’m sure you’ll think of something to say,’ said Tiffany, sourly.

Yusuf made settle-down gestures. ‘We’ll be fine. This plan is watertight. Ten out of ten.’

The train threaded through Clapham Junction and Tiffany dared to hope he was right. The trundling wheels spun out their soothing rhythm. Yes – for Olly’s idea had been the cherry on
the cake. He’d found a London gift shop that sold postcards of the Eiffel Tower for tourists too lazy to travel any farther. Tiffany, Yusuf and Susie had written in them, saying how much fun
they were having. Olly would post the cards from Paris when he’d been there a couple of days.

Susie passed round a bottle of fruit-flavoured water.

‘You do know where we’re going, right?’

‘Of course.’ Tiffany secretly crossed her fingers. Five months ago Mrs Powell had vanished with a pantheon of big cats in tow, and now there were reports of beasts on the moors of
south-west England. That was all she had.

‘I still say we should have told Geoff,’ said Yusuf.

‘No. He’d have talked us out of it.’

She very nearly had told him. About to ask him one last time to teach her the Oshtian Compass, she had finally understood that he would never agree. Geoff knew what she wanted the Compass for
and made no secret of his disapproval.

She had to believe she could succeed without him. If she’d done it once by accident, she could make the accident happen again. She had tried for hours at home, convinced she was close to
cracking it. Picturing Mrs Powell’s face in her mind, she summoned Oshtis and joined it with Mandira, then tried it with every other catra. She even attempted tricky groups of three. Mostly
nothing happened, or she merely felt strange. Once, she could have sworn that a ghost wandered through her bedroom, in the shape of a young boy, making her yelp. Stuart lurched in on his cyberman
legs.

‘Did you see a mouse?’

‘Hardly.’ She shook herself to clear her head.

‘You’re up to something weird again.’

‘If you must know, I’m trying to make a sort of compass. It’s difficult to explain.’

‘Oh, I know how to make a compass,’ said Stuart. ‘You float a needle on a slice of cork in a saucer. I wanted to try it but I can’t cut the cork.’ He stopped to
think. ‘No, wait, you have to magnetise the needle first. You get a magnet and you stroke the needle with it, over and over, until it has its own north and south pole.’

‘Sounds fun,’ mumbled Tiffany. He wanted to help so much, but what did her brother know?

The train rushed onwards. The great city began to dissolve at the edges, tightly-packed office blocks and terraces giving way to houses with big gardens. Flooding into the widening spaces came
green seas of parks, woods and farmers’ fields. The morning sun flashed gold on water and Tiffany identified the river Thames, miles and miles upstream, looking unbelievably young and
slim.

Yusuf unfolded a computer printout.

‘I found these youth hostels. We can stay there without an adult so long as we’re fourteen or over.’

‘But I’m still–’

‘
Fourteen
.’ Yusuf looked her hard in the eye until she nodded.

‘Then what?’ asked Susie. ‘Hope we bump into Mrs Powell out walking her tiger?’

‘Devon’s quite a thin bit,’ said Yusuf, studying his pocket map. ‘How hard can it be?’

It was time to think positive, Tiffany decided.

‘We’ll know where to go. The Oshtian Compass will guide me.’

Susie looked doubtful. ‘I still don’t see why Geoff couldn’t track her down for us.’

Tiffany had reflected long and hard upon this.

‘I don’t think he can,’ she said. ‘Not anymore. He and Mrs Powell have spent too long apart. They don’t have that link anymore. If they did, I think he’d have
traced her years ago.’

‘But now he doesn’t want you searching either,’ said Yusuf. ‘What’s that about?’

‘Search me. Maybe he’s afraid I’ll be disappointed too. Or maybe. . .’

‘Yeah?’

‘I wonder if it’s pride.’

‘Pride?’ said Susie.

‘You know. If your parents fight ever. No-one wants to say sorry first. Mine can go silent for hours. Geoff’s like that sometimes. When he talks about Mrs Powell. Sort of
prickly.’

‘So they argued about something?’ said Yusuf.

Tiffany shrugged.

‘Smashing,’ said Susie. ‘We could be walking into the middle of the world’s longest sulk. That’s if we don’t starve to death on the moors first. I knew we
should have gone to France.’

On they pressed from station to station, through level crossings, racing traffic on the roads, scattering rabbits up steep grassy cuttings, walloping past farmers on tractors. Tiffany leant her
head against the window.

The longer they waited, the more Tiffany wished to be on her bunk bed at the hostel with a mug of hot tea. The wooden post beside them was looking less and less like a bus stop
and more like a practical joke.

‘Why doesn’t one come? Susie lamented.

‘I expect there aren’t so many buses in the countryside.’

‘Huh.’ Susie kicked the dubious bus stop, which wobbled. ‘There aren’t
any
. And they’re not even the right colour. Buses are red.’

Yusuf squinted at a faded timetable nailed to a stump. Tiffany zipped up her waterproof. Stern grey clouds were peering above a stand of fir trees, in a sky so much bigger than she was used
to.

Any minute now, her friends would be fed up with her. After going to such trouble and coming all this way they’d done. . . what? Arriving after lunch on Friday, they had made their base at
the Exeter Youth Hostel and hired some bikes. That was when Tiffany realised. She had no idea what to do next.

But she could hardly tell them that. So she’d jingled her bicycle bell and set off in front, leading them along the west road towards Moretonhampstead. If it was true that there were big
cats loose on Dartmoor, and if she was right to think that this was connected with Mrs Powell (two
ifs
so big it was hard to hold them in one head) then it made sense to look in the villages
close to the moors. Didn’t it?

So from Friday afternoon until sunset on Sunday they rode until their hands blistered, whizzing down lanes, puffing up hills, dodging tractors, stopping for snack breaks in tastily named
villages like Drewsteignton, Hennock and Bovey Tracey. Susie complained that the air stank of farm animals, but the wind washed over Tiffany’s face and through her hair. There was a quiet so
deep that it pressed on her eardrums. She found darkness here too, true darkness, so that waking in the dormitory at 2 a.m. she had needed her cat eyesight to find the loo. Tiffany peered up at the
night sky, rinsed of city lights to an absolute black and dusted with inexplicable glitter. . . she boggled when she realised what this was. It was stars, hundreds. Back home she had seen a few
dozen at best, and assumed that was all you got. This was like being flung out into space.