Dear Scarlett (7 page)

“What did the penguin cop shout at the snowman robber?” shouts Sam Lewis. “Freeze!”

“What's black and white and red all over?” asks Melissa.

“A sunburned penguin!” shouts Jessica.

“Why did two penguins jump when they first met?” asks Sam Lewis.

“Don't know,” says Amber.

“They were trying to break the ice,” says Sam. “Get it?”

Ellie and I walk quickly into class. Mrs Gayton's sitting with a smug smile on her potato face.

“Cops and robbers,” she says. “Fancy.”

I go over and sharpen some pencils.

Ellie shuffles in her book bag.

“Well, it's just what I've come to expect of a child like you, Scarlett McNally. Thoughtless behaviour that's caused Lord knows how much trouble.” Mrs Gayton leans back on her chair. “When I was in the paratroopers, we had an insolent little private like you. Came to a sticky end. Breaking rocks at Her Majesty's Pleasure, these days.”

I stare hard at the pencils.

I could throttle her.

Ellie and I separate on the way home. She lives in a very clean white house on an estate of clean white houses. Inside, everything has somewhere to live. Uncle Derek never buys a box of cereal that won't fit in the cupboard, or a milk container that won't fit in the door of the fridge. Ellie's never missed a single lunch payment, or brought the wrong pair of socks for PE.

At home we get everything wrong and I'm always late with things, but Uncle Derek is scarily organised.

He's looked after Ellie since her mum walked out
on them, although I don't know when that was, and he's been helping Mum out since she sent Syd's dad to South America. Now I'm wondering how much that's because he's been paid to hang around, and how much it's because he wants to.

It's been about a year now.

I suppose Uncle Derek's all right really, it's just he's such an alien. All that soap powder and fabric conditioner and things that smell of supermarkets.

Ellie loves him to bits, even though he's a dad, not a mum. I guess she's making the best of it; after all, you can live perfectly well without a dad.

Mums are much more important.

I can't imagine life without Mum.

I don't go straight home; instead, I pass the back of the zoo. There are these tall concrete walls all around it. I could probably climb over them, but I've got some coins and after four o'clock, you can get through the turnstiles for fifty pence.

Anyway, I think I've done enough in the way of breaking in. I don't want to draw any attention to myself; although I don't suppose the zoo keepers would recognise me in my school uniform.

Outside the front is the long black car again. I stop to look at the little flag, sticking out of
the end of the bonnet. It's got the three royal starfish of Dampmouth Bay Council, the same as all the wheelie bins, so it's definitely the mayoress's car.

Weird. Funny how you never see something then you come across it twice in one week.

Inside, I ignore the grubby undersized panda, and the stinky stick-insect house. I pass the flamingos and the screaming monkeys and head straight for the back.

The penguins are there. The three of them. One standing, two lying in their little pond. It's honestly no bigger than Syd's paddling pool. There's a big notice in front of them and this time I read it. Mum was right, they are trying to send them to some grand zoo in Canada.

Ellie and I should have looked.

We were so stupid. We'll never live it down.

I lean on the railings round the enclosure and stare, and feel sad for them. I feel sad for me and Ellie too, although I'd swear the little one smiles at me, which makes me feel less sad.

“Awful, innit,” says a man's voice next to me.

“Mm,” I say, watching the smallest penguin try to swim.

“Like theft,” he says.

“Ah,” I say.

“Theft, you see, is always wrong.”

I slide my eyes as far to the right as they'll go. All I can see is a grey sleeve. I take a step to my left, towards a family at the other end.

“Yes, big theft, little theft,” he says. “It's all the same to me.”

I take another step to my left, but there's this fur coat in my way, and a set of scary red fingernails holding on to it. I follow the fingernails to the hand, and the hand to the arm. But I already know what I'm going to find at the top.

“S'funny really, how thieving runs in families,” says the man in the grey suit. “Used to know this bloke, clever fella, always sneakin' about. In and out of windows, palaces, offices, high-security places. Took a lot of stuff, he did. 'E was a thief.”

I step back from the rail. My heartbeat's gone mad, and I can hardly breathe. He's wearing the chauffeur's cap, as if he's on official duty. He steps back with me, following me over to the butterfly house. He touches my arm and I look up into his face.

He's got a yellowed grey moustache,
coffee-stained
teeth and his breath smells of fish and chips.

“It's just that bloke I was telling you about, he got paid in diamonds. I'd love to know what he did with them. I've been wondering for years, but a little bird told me that his younger relation has recently received a gift, and blow me down if I didn't see that younger relation on the telly the other day, surrounded by penguins.”

He's got piggy little bloodshot eyes. Tired eyes.

“Oh,” I say, pulling away and walking quickly towards the gift shop.

“A present, I believe, for her eleventh birthday.” He falls into step beside me. “One that might contain a message? Perhaps?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I say breathlessly.

“I believe that that younger relation, his daughter, perhaps, might now know the location of those diamonds.”

The woman closes in on my other side.

“I've been waiting, see?” she says. “I've been waiting for years, and now I want my diamonds.”

“Have you?” The gift shop's only five or six metres away. “And why would his daughter give
you the present from her father? Why wouldn't she tell the police?”

The man tugs on my arm, and although I don't want to, I have to turn and face him. “I've reason to believe his daughter might have taken one or two things in her time. Things she shouldn't 'ave.” He pats his pocket. “I've a little CCTV footage from the mayoral office, shows a narky little sneak thief half-inching a load of sweeties.”

CCTV?

Of course, Uncle Derek said it, the whole town's covered by CCTV from the council offices.

Stupid, stupid, me. But I manage to say: “Oh?” really casually.

“Yes – and I believe I could help her avoid the long arm of the law, if she'd only give me a certain box.” He catches my sleeve again, but only gently. “It's just a question of right and wrong, you see, Scarlett, just a question of right and wrong.”

I run all the way home. And when I get there, I lock all the windows, even the tiny one in the bathroom that only Syd can get through.

When Mum comes home from work with Syd, I try really hard to tell her about the lady mayoress and her chauffeur, but I can’t. If she knew I’d broken into the sweet shop on top of yesterday’s penguin fiasco, she’d put me up for adoption, and anyway she’d never believe that the lady mayoress would do anything wrong.

So I watch baby TV with Syd and let him draw on my face. I wouldn’t normally let him draw on
my face, I’d rather let a slug crawl over me, but I need to do “good” things.

I build Syd a long and complicated train track. He destroys it, and I build him another one. He destroys that, and I build him another one. I even push a train around it.

“Are you all right, Scarlett?” Mum asks.

I nod, and redesign the station, and worry.

We eat yellow eggs and home-grown broad beans, and Mum makes plum crumble for pudding.

I hate broad beans, but I eat them anyway.

After supper, I give Syd his bath. He gives me a foam moustache and beard.

I even help him into his pyjamas.

At bedtime, Mum asks, “Are you sure you’re OK?”

And I wait a really long time before saying, “Fine, Mum, just tired.”

Mum feels my forehead, tucks us both into bed, and sings songs to us until I’m on the edge of sleep.

I wish I was someone else.

I’m going to get Mum to drive me to school tomorrow.

Although I dream of large women in
leopard-skin
coats, never once has it crossed my mind that I should give up the box. Well, not till now. It’s assembly, and Mrs Mason, the head teacher, is whining on about semi-colons so everyone’s doodling and passing notes. I’m replaying the conversation at the zoo.

If she’d only give me a certain box.

So I could just do it. I could give the chauffeur the box, and that would be that, problem solved.

Phew.

And then I think about Dad, about the little
collection of things he bothered to send me. The little clues about his life, the pictures, even the tools. They only want the box because of the diamonds, and the diamonds don’t exist, and they shouldn’t have it anyway, because it’s mine. He gave it to me.

But then they’re going to tell Mum about the sweets.

I hate this.

I look across at Ellie; she’s the only person paying any attention to Mrs Mason. She’s also the only person I can talk to about this.

Funny that, I wouldn’t have thought it a week ago.

The lesson bell rings.

I follow Ellie down the corridor to the PE shed, but I can’t get close, there’s a cluster of boys dancing sideways, and I can’t reach her.

“Ellie,” I call, but she’s gone through the changing-room doors. I bash through them with my shoulder and stop dead.

Mrs Gayton’s standing in the middle of the changing room, already changed. Mrs Gayton used to be in the army, and you can really see it now. Although she’s ancient she’s wearing a sleeveless vest and baggy military shorts. The most disturbing
thing about it is the tattoo of a mermaid on her chicken-skin thigh. It’s stretched and wrinkled and slightly green.

It’s not something that innocent children should see.

Ugh.

She’s prowling, looking like she wants to give us all very short haircuts or at the very least make us scrub floors and eat beetroot for the rest of our lives.

It’s going to be gym today, I can tell, because Mrs Gayton’s got bare feet. Bare, bunioned, calloused, veiny feet. Not that she actually does any gym herself. She just sneers at us and blows her whistles.

I think that if you peeled her skin back, she’d be green underneath. Like an alien.

But despite Mrs Gayton, I still feel pleased that it’s gym, not rounders or tennis, because I’m rubbish at things with balls, and I’m brilliant at climbing and jumping things.

Today is mostly ropes.

I climb mine easily and swing a somersault over the bar at the top.

Luckily Mrs Gayton’s got her back to me. She’s focusing on Ellie.

“Come on, Ellie,” she says. “Would you
please
try to climb the rope. Everyone.” She gathers the class around. “Shall we watch Ellie try to climb the rope?”

The boys stop screaming and running about. The girls drop their skipping ropes and come to stare.

Ellie can’t climb the rope. She can’t even get above the knot at the bottom. She struggles and fights with it, until her arms and feet are pink.

“I’m sorry, Mrs Gayton,” says Ellie. “I can’t do it.” She slips down to the floor.

“Exactly. Thank you, Ellie, you’ve just demonstrated, perfectly, how not to climb a rope.”

Ellie’s face flushes red to match her hands and the class laughs.

I meet Ellie in the playground at lunchtime. She’s been crying and she’s holding her black rabbit, the one her mum gave her before she left.

“Where do you want to go?” I ask.

“Anywhere but here,” says Ellie.

We sit in the willow, where the boys play. The boys are noisy, but they’re not horrible. I feel safe in here, but I don’t know about Ellie.

“Ellie,” I begin. “You know the stuff from the sweet shop?”

“Yes?” she says, sucking her thumb and stroking the rabbit at the same time.

But we don’t get to finish, because the Coven come over.

Melissa stands with her hands on her hips. Jessica’s behind her, eating a chocolate bar.

“Would you like to show us how to climb the climbing frame, Ellie?” says Melissa in a sugary voice.

“I could hold your glasses,” says Jessica. “They’ve got so much glass in them they might break.”

“No thanks.” Ellie pulls the rabbit tighter.

“Would
you
like to show us?” Melissa looks at me. “You could show us how your dad escaped from prison. Or how you stole the penguins?”

I ignore her.

“It’s just we’d really like to know – how not to do it.” Melissa turns to Jessica and they giggle together.

Ellie stares at the ground. I stare at Melissa’s shoes. They’ve got puppies all over them. Soft cute puppies, but Melissa’s not soft and cute. She’s a witch.

I’m gazing at the shoes, imagining Melissa burning on the stake, when I see Ellie’s rabbit fly across the playground.

“Wha–?” shouts Ellie, springing to her feet in shock.

I’m faster, but not quick enough to save the rabbit from a well-aimed lob on to the school roof.

It takes me about five minutes to get up there. There’s one of those huge wheelie bins round the back of the school, and that, plus a drainpipe, is all I need. My arms really ache from the rope-climbing but I want Ellie to have her rabbit back.

I want to do the right thing for once.

And I want Melissa and Jessica to pay for always doing the wrong thing.

From the roof of the school the view’s fantastic. It’s a perfectly safe roof, flat, and covered in tarmac stuff. There’s loads of rubbish up here: shoes, hats, lunch boxes, sandwiches, pencils, all wet and
skanky, and the rabbit.

I wave at everyone in the playground. Ellie waves back, but Mrs Mason’s face has gone a weird purple colour and Mrs Gayton’s on the mobile phone, running towards me, talking really fast.

The Coven look genuinely shocked.

That’ll show them.

I can’t really hear anyone down there, because from up here, the bypass is noisier. And I can see it. Huge lorries thunder through the fields, and behind me, the sea glitters like a sheet of tinfoil. I can see everything, even the watercress beds.

It’s magic. I should climb up here more often. I pick up some of the old rubbish, using a pencil for the soggy things, and drop them off the side. There’s a squawk and I look over the edge to see Mrs Gayton, glaring up at me through the mossy glove that’s just fallen on her glasses.

I pick up Ellie’s rabbit and wave it in the air. Ellie waves back.

In the middle of town, a blue siren starts up, and I follow it through the streets all the way here. I feel like a homing device.

I stand and watch as a police car screams into the school yard and two men in uniform jump out.
One of them trips over the steps on the way up, the other’s moving really fast. He’s sprinting towards the school.

Uncle Derek.