Gypsy Girl (2 page)

“Our names? As if I’d tell you,” I said, as Sabrina huffed and muttered her way to our trailer. “You’re gorjers.”

“Hey, she called us gorgeous,” said Gregory’s friend, looking smug.

Gregory peered at me from under his mop of fair hair. “She didn’t, Cooper. She called us gorjers, which means non-gypsies.”

“Clever,” I sez to him.

“I know I am.” He paused. “Sammy-Jo Smith.”

So he did remember me. He’d grown taller and skinny since I last saw him. And this time he wasn’t wearing his school uniform but slouchy jeans and a check shirt. It was two years ago when we first met. I was fourteen and up to no good. He was fifteen, and he did me a favour.

A wind had sprung up out of nowhere and was tugging at the dress, blowing sparkling silk all around me and making me long, dark hair fan out. It blew the sound of an engine to the three of us. A silver Range Rover was heading up the road towards us.

“Come on, let’s go,” said his mate, watching the Rover, but Gregory ignored him and turned to me.

“I better warn you. You probably can’t stop here any more.” He pointed over to the smart new barn and its buildings. “That’s a business. And the owner is mad about security.”

“I don’t see anyone around complaining about us.”

He gave another quick glance at the Range Rover closing on us. “Wait another minute and you will. His name’s Mr McCloud. You don’t want to argue with him.”

“Does he own this field as well as the barn?” I said.

“No, that’s still ours.”

“So he can’t move us.”

Gregory was giving me this long, long look. That’s what I remembered about him. Most people don’t really look. They glance for a couple of seconds, that’s all. This boy really looked at stuff, like he wanted to see every atom of everything and work out the truth of it.

“Him and my dad know each other. He could ask Dad to get a court order,” he said.

I shrugged, which is not easy when you’ve got a frothy bridesmaid’s dress trying to fly out of your arms.

“He’ll be wasting his time, then.” I had to say it loudly, because the magpie was squawking like it was warning us of something. It was on the top of Granny Kate’s trailer now. “We’re here for me sister’s wedding on Saturday. A court order will take ten days, and we’ll be gone by then. I’ll go and tell him that meself.”

I didn’t need to. The silver Range Rover had turned off the road and parked neatly at the entrance to Gypsy’s Acre. The door opened. A man got out.

Gregory murmured, “Oh, shit.”

If this was Mr McCloud, he wasn’t what I was expecting. The way Gregory spoke about him, I was expecting a thug, but he was a businessman in an expensive suit and steel-framed glasses. Underneath the suit he looked strong, though, and he walked towards us like he owned the world and would crush anyone he didn’t like underfoot. I’ve met fighters like that. They seem calm and mild on the surface, but there’s this power and rage inside them, and it’s so strong that you can feel it hit you like a blow when you get close to them. I got that from McCloud now as he strode over to us, taking his glasses off and polishing them, before fitting them back on and giving them a push to make them sit right. He gave the trailers a quick glance, but then his eyes fixed on me. He walked right up close. If he expected me to back away, he was wrong.

“What?” I sez.

He looked me up and down through his spectacles. That’s when I saw his eyes. They were shark eyes, pitiless and hostile. I shivered. I hoped he hadn’t noticed.

“I was told there was a man with you. Your father? Where is he?”

His voice was as cold as the grave. It made my hackles rise, like a wolf’s fur rising around its neck when it senses a threat.

“He’s not here.”

His shark gaze never left me. “I see. When he gets back, tell him I want you all off this land by the end of today.”

His words didn’t bother me none. I’ve heard it all before.

“Why? We’ve stopped here before,” I said. “No one ever complained.”

“Things have changed.” He pointed at the barn and the buildings behind the trees. “This field overlooks my property and my business. I have a right to privacy.”

I pointed my own finger round at the grass and trees. “This is Gypsy’s Acre. That’s always been its name. That’s why we stop here.”

He should ask Granny Kate about it. She never learned to read or write, nor did any Smith before her, so her memory is amazing. When you can’t write down your history, you make it into stories and tell it to your children, and then they remember it and tell it to theirs in time. And one of the stories Granny told us was about Gypsy’s Acre, and how for hundreds of years whole travelling families would stay here while they were picking fruit for the farmers.

“You can’t argue with history,” I told him.

His glasses flashed in the sunlight as he leaned closer to me. He never raised his voice, or sounded angry, but the temperature around us got even colder.

“I don’t care about the past. I doubt you have Mr Langton’s permission in writing, which means you’re parked illegally. So you will go back to where you came from.”

He made it sound like we came from hell. But in fact we live most of the year behind me daddy’s boxing gym, in the next town, which is about twenty miles away. We stay put most of the winter, but when summer starts, Samson Smith gets itchy feet and he leaves the gym in the hands of one of our cousins. Off we go, visiting all the other Smiths up north, and there’s plenty of them. Only this time we’d come south, to Langton, for the wedding.

I was about to explain that to him, but I didn’t get the chance. Our trailer door slammed open and Sabrina gave a terrible screech, as though someone was trying to murder her. She rushed over and barged into the middle of us with a look of horror on her face, waving a crystal headdress in her trembling hands.

“They sent the wrong crown! This isn’t mine! Mine’s bigger! I can’t wear this.” Her face crumpled. “Everything’s ruined! WHAHHHH!”

Instant Bridezilla again.

You should’ve seen Mr McCloud’s face. He stepped back quickly, out of her way. And Gregory stopped scuffing his trainer about in the dust – like he was embarrassed to hear Mr McCloud telling me off – and backed away, too, straight into his gawping friend. I didn’t blame them. Sabrina in full wedding panic was a terrible sight to see. The military should use her to stop wars, or rioters. She takes people by surprise because she’s size eight and has legs like twigs, big flirty brown eyes and masses of hair like a Disney princess – until something upsets her, and then her mouth goes trembly, her eyes go into slits and she turns into a Gremlin.

“Sammy-Jo! You have to do something! Now!”

“Shush,” I said. “I’ll sort it. I’ll ring the woman.”

She didn’t shut up. She threw the headdress to the ground and went off sobbing and screaming. Mr McCloud went to say something, but Gregory was more sensible.

“Erm, perhaps you should leave them alone. My dad’s not complained, and I bet they’ll be gone soon.”

Mr McCloud peered at him as though he couldn’t believe someone had just stuck up for me.

“He’s right,” I said, quickly. “We’ll be leaving after the wedding. And it’s up to Mr Langton to tell us to get off, not you.” Then I turned my back on him and looked at Gregory. These next words were just for him. I said them quietly. “But I haven’t forgotten. I owe you.”

I wasn’t quiet enough, though. His friend looked surprised and then began to grin, and murmured, “What’s this? You and her?” He didn’t get any further, because Mr McCloud had heard as well. He couldn’t have known what I meant, but he pushed past me and started aiming his icy little words towards Gregory this time.

“Does your father know you’re hanging around up here?” he said.

When Gregory didn’t answer, Mr McCloud gave a small tight smile that was the exact opposite of an actual smile. “Well, maybe I should let him know.”

As he turned away, I got one last icy glare.

“I always get what I want,” he said. “I have security. They have my permission to deal with potential trespassers.”

“Whatever,” I said.

But as he drove away, I shivered as though someone had walked over me grave. I’d had angry people yelling at me before, but they’d never made me go cold like Mr McCloud’s quiet, snipped-off words did. I watched the silver Range Rover drive along the road for a short distance and then turn into the yard beside the barns. Gregory and his friend were watching him, too.

“Don’t worry about him telling your daddy,” I said, in case Gregory was anxious about McCloud’s threat.

He gave me a smile. “I wasn’t,” he said. “I can talk to who I want.”

His friend didn’t look so sure. He was already backing away, not cheeking us now. I think Mr McCloud had scared him.

“Come on, Greg,” he called.

“Wait a sec, Cooper.”

But Cooper wanted to be gone. “No. We’ve got to meet Alice and Ella.”

Gregory gave a start and said, “Oh God, yes,” as though he’d forgotten all about it. He raised a hand, did a small, awkward wave and followed his friend out into the lane again.

I watched him go. He might say he could talk to who he wanted, but the truth of it is this – the sons of rich men like Mr Langton don’t make friends with girls like me. And I shouldn’t have been hanging around with gorjer boys either. I owed Gregory Langton a good deed, and I’ve been brought up to always pay my debts. But once it was paid, I should have forgotten about him. Him and me come from different worlds.

Tell that to me eyes, though. I was still watching him walk away when Great Granny’s trailer door thumped open.

“Sammy-Jo, get over here now!”

I gave up on watching Gregory and walked over to Granny. She was standing in her doorway, her long long hair still dark and in a plait down her back, and a bright pink, oversized Calvin Klein T-shirt hanging over her ankle-length skirt.

“What’s up, Granny?”

But she could hardly hear me because the magpie had swooped down onto a little table by her trailer and was screeching worse than Sabrina. I went to shoo it away, but Granny beat me to it. She was down the steps and flapping her hands before I could move. The bird took one look at her and launched itself into the sky.

“Good riddance!” she shouted after it.

“It’s only a magpie, Granny,” I said.

She turned sharply. “One for sorrow,” she said. “A bad omen, that’s what it is.”

Never ignore the magpies.

I know that now, but not then. Three days ago I hadn’t time for bad omens. Not with Sabrina still having hysterics and threats coming from Mr McCloud. There wasn’t much I could do about him, but I found the dressmaker’s number, got her on the phone and sorted the crown. It turns out the woman had already discovered her mistake and was on her way back.

That shut Sabrina up. I told her to go and do her face, and then it would be time for us to go into town and get our nails done, which made her happy again.

Granny Kate wasn’t happy, though. She was still going on about bad omens.

“What?” I said, hardly listening. Being the sensible bridesmaid was wearing me down.

She was perched on her trailer steps, eyeing the bird. “Look at it – staring at me bold as brass! Don’t you know about magpies, Sammy girl? They foretell the future, that’s what they do.”

She’s ninety years old and knows all the old ways and sayings. She was born in a wooden wagon, which is called a vardo, and she used to come here to Langton when she was my age, apple picking.

“How can a bird know the future, Granny?” I sez to her.

“You should know, you’re the seventh of the seventh.”

She means I’m the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. She says that makes me special, but mostly it just means that I’ve got too many sisters and too many aunts.

“What’s being the seventh of the seventh got to do with it?” I said.

“It makes you smart.”

“Ha. Tell that to me teachers.”

But she shook her head. “Smiths aren’t always school smart, but there’s plenty of other ways of being clever. And you’re Smith smart.”

Maybe she’s right. My daddy sez I walked at six months and was talking by a year. And he swears they had to tie me to the trailer steps with a skipping rope because I could open doors and work out locks, and then I’d go wandering off, looking for trouble.

Granny patted my hand and looked at me with dark eyes that were misty and rimmed with milky blue, now she was so old.

“Watch yourself, Sammy,” she muttered. “There’s trouble ahead.”

“Isn’t there always?” I said. “We’ve already got a man called McCloud trying to get us thrown off here.”

There was a squawk from the magpie, as if it was joining in. We both looked over at it. It was skipping back and forth along the back of one of the sunloungers, like it was line dancing. It didn’t look like a bad omen.

Granny pointed a finger again. “One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, and four for a death.”

I swear that the moment she said “death”, everything went quiet around us. The birds in the trees stopped singing. The traffic on the main road near by went quiet. A silence fell over our camp and held. Even the sun went behind a cloud for the first time that morning. Sorrow, mirth, wedding and death. I shivered again.

“They’re just birds, Granny,” I said, to break the silence.

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

She was staring through the leaves of the trees at the roof of the barn. The whine of machinery was floating through the air to us, when all of a sudden there was a thud – a deep low noise that we both felt through the soles of our feet – and then someone swore. It all came from the same direction.

“That mush with the specs who you were talking to – he came from there?” she said. Mush is an old word for man.

“Yes. It’s a business now. He’s the boss.”

“What’s it do?”

“Don’t know.”

She got to her feet and went inside her trailer. She came out with a couple of mixing bowls.

“There’s some good brambles over by that barn. Lots of blackberries. You can come and help me pick some.” She smiled a gappy, crafty smile. “We’ll have a look. Who’s he to tell us to move? The nark.”