Read Crowns and Codebreakers Online
Authors: Elen Caldecott
Crowns and Codebreakers
To Emma Mai with love
Minnie Adesina was scowling at her bedroom. Specifically, she was scowling at the new bed in her bedroom. The bed that didn’t belong. Andrew was sitting on it.
‘If the wind changes, your face will stay like that,’ he said.
Minnie’s scowl deepened.
‘If it does,’ Andrew added, ‘we could rent you out as an extra for horror films. You look like a zombie witch.’
‘No, I don’t!’ Minnie said. ‘And it’s not true about the wind changing making your face stick … is it?’
Andrew nodded solemnly. ‘It happened to a cousin of mine. His face stuck like a Botox disaster. He had to get a job as a miner because he can only go out in the dark.’
Minnie’s jaw dropped.
Then Andrew laughed.
Argh! He was just teasing her. Minnie launched herself on to the new bed and pummelled his arm.
‘Ow! Get off! Get off! You’ll mess up the sheets!’
She stopped. The sheets were crumpled. But there wasn’t enough room for her to straighten them properly. She felt cross all over again. Her
old
bed was pushed right up against one wall. The
new
bed, the scowl-worthy bed, was squished in, like a puzzle piece, under the window. There wasn’t enough space for two beds. If she wanted to open her curtains, she was going to have to climb over the new one. If she wanted to get clothes out of her wardrobe, well, actually, she couldn’t. The new bed stopped the door from opening. She was condemned to wear the same outfit forever and ever.
While Minnie’s dad had been assembling the new bed from a flat-pack that made him swear quite a lot, she’d whined, ‘Where will I do my homework?’ Dad had smirked and said, ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’ That had been the beginning, middle and end of the discussion.
‘You might even like it,’ Andrew said. He tried to push her old Hello Kitty duvet flat while he was still sitting on it. It didn’t work. The duvet stayed stubbornly rumpled. ‘Grans are nice.’ Andrew patted the duvet as though it
were a tolerant Labrador. ‘They give you money and sweets and let you stay up late.’ Andrew only saw his gran once or twice a year and he always came away richer.
‘I hardly know my gran. I haven’t seen her since we visited Nigeria, and that was five years ago. And now she’s going to be sleeping ten centimetres away from me.’
‘I think it’s actually eight centimetres,’ Andrew said.
Mum popped her head around the door. It was the only part of her that would fit into the room. ‘Andrew, thanks for your help, but you’d better go. They’ll be here any minute.’
Andrew gave the duvet one last heavy pat and wiggled sideways out of the room. ‘Me and Piotr will be in the cafe,’ he said, ‘if you need somewhere to hide.’ Then he was gone.
Minnie nodded grimly. Her room wasn’t hers to hide in any more. She’d
definitely
be seeing Andrew and Piotr later.
They were her best friends. Flora too. She was glad that she had people to moan to about this weird, unwelcome, annoying change. Why did she have to give up all her floor space to Gran? It wasn’t fair. Her room was already tiny; now it wasn’t even hers.
She scowled up at the ceiling.
Moments later, Minnie heard Dad’s key in the lock. Then the sound of bustling from the hallway. Thumps of luggage. Coats coming off. Mum sounding too enthusiastic. A half-mumbled reply.
Then, ‘Minnie, come and say hello to Gran.’
Minnie sat up. She thought about checking her reflection in the mirror – Mum would want her to look nice and neat. The mirror was stuck to the inside of the wardrobe door. She pulled it open, but the door banged straight into the new bed and jammed there. She was never going to be able to see her reflection ever again.
She just had to pat down her hair and hoped she looked OK.
As soon as she reached the crowded hall, she knew she didn’t.
Mum took one look at Minnie’s jeans and T-shirt, and flashed her eyes to heaven. Fashion fail. Apparently jeans were the wrong thing to meet relatives in. Luckily, Dad was more interested in the chaos of luggage he was trying to fit through the door.
And Gran?
Gran just looked over-the-moon-and-back-again happy. Her face was wrinkled into a map of smiles. She held her arms open and pulled Minnie into a hug. ‘Ah, my
granddaughter! You are grown, oh. You will be tall like your late grandpa.’ All the time that Gran spoke, Minnie was smothered into the bright fabric of her dress, her eyes closed to stop Gran’s electric blue headwrap poking into them. Minnie felt tall and skinny mashed into this small, round lady who smelled of spice and heat and flowery perfume.
Minnie felt suddenly very shy. Luckily, Gran did enough talking for the both of them. ‘Your cousins send their love. Your aunties too. I have brought pictures. Your second cousin Temi has graduated top of his year. His brother is cross, but two rams can’t drink from the same bowl, I always say. Your auntie’s cousin, Yekemi, was married. Shame you could not come to the wedding.’ Gran spoke in a broad Lagos accent, like Dad’s, with ‘a’s like ‘ah’s. Minnie was finally released from the hug. She stood stock-still, trying to take the whirlwind of family news in.
Mum gave her a small smile. Apparently the jeans were forgiven.
‘Would you like some tea?’ Mum said quickly as Gran paused for breath. ‘You must be tired after the flight.’
Gran gave a long sigh. ‘It’s true. My throat is drier than the Sahara! I can barely speak a word, oh. I could not
sleep on the aeroplane. I was too excited. To be coming to England to see my son and his wonderful family. And his wonderful home. Also, the engine was very loud. I had to shout to be heard. Tea. Yes.’
Mum took Gran’s coat and hung it on one of the hooks beside the door. ‘Well, Mama, come and sit down in the living room,’ she said.
‘Oh, but I have a treat for you. I have brought hibiscus tea from Lagos. Grown right in the heart of Nigeria.’
Hibiscus tea? Wasn’t that a flower? Minnie glanced, alarmed, at Mum.
‘Don’t you want to try English tea?’ Mum said. ‘It’s the national drink, you know.’
Gran laughed, a full, throaty noise that seemed to fill up the hallway and the rooms beyond. ‘I’ve tried English tea before. Nasty stuff. We’ll have hibiscus today.’
‘All right,’ Mum said, in a funny, tight voice. ‘We’ll have that. Whatever you like.’
‘I’ll take your luggage to your room, Mama,’ Dad said. ‘You’re in with Minnie.’
Gran had three cases, two big red ones and one small black one, as well as a huge handbag and three plastic carrier bags. Dad managed to grab the big cases, but the third was too much.
‘Help your dad,’ Mum said to Minnie.
‘And get my tea for me,’ Gran added. ‘It’s in the black case.’
Minnie picked up the black case and followed Dad into the bedroom. He put the two big cases on to the scowl-worthy new bed, Gran’s bed – there was nowhere else for them. ‘It’ll be cosy,’ Dad said hopefully. Then he left in a hurry.
Minnie put the black case on her own bed.
Tea. She needed to find Gran’s tea. Who drank flower tea? How weird was that?
The black case had a zip that ran around the edge and a clasp that went over that. It looked a bit battered and dusty from the flight. Gran would probably rub it down with a spitty hankie when she noticed.
Minnie opened it. And was confused.
She had been expecting Lagos tea, Nigerian snacks, a few big, print dresses or over-sized knickers.
But she wasn’t looking at anything like that.
Inside the case were some very small shorts, an orange T-shirt – child sized with a crocodile logo – a pair of small boys’ trainers and a piece of paper. There was also a battered-looking teddy bear with mangy fur and an eye missing.
Why was Gran carrying around boys’ clothes? It didn’t make sense.
Minnie closed the lid of the suitcase. And wondered. It was a perfectly ordinary plain black suitcase. There must be thousands of cases just like it. There were probably at least ten cases just like it on Gran’s flight alone. All of them going around the airport carousel at the same time.
Plenty of black cases that an excited, tired Gran could have reached for instead of her own.
She opened the lid again. It was still full of boys’ clothes.
Gran was not going to like this, not one bit.
Minnie was going to have to tell Gran that her hibiscus tea, and everything else that had been in the black case, was missing. She had picked up the wrong case at the airport.
Perhaps it would be better coming from Dad? Or Mum? They would be much better at that sort of thing. Gran was going to be so upset.
Minnie was just about to yell and ask Dad to come back, when something caught her eye – and made her pause.
Inside the case, just next to the chewed-too-often teddy, was what she’d thought was a piece of paper. But, she realised, it was a postcard. It should have been a cheery picture. Once, the postcard had shown five boys sitting in bright sunshine on a bleached wooden jetty above diamond and sapphire blue water. Once.
Now, though …
Minnie reached down to pick it up. She realised her hand was shaking. The postcard was horrible now. The boys’ eyes had been neatly snipped from the image. Their mouths were open and smiling, probably calling out to the photographer like street-hawkers. But their eyes were just empty squares with sharp edges; she could see the pale brown pads of her own fingertips peeking through.
Who would cut boys’ eyes from a picture? And why?
She’d heard stories from her second cousins and the other children in Lagos about victims being kidnapped, being used for juju – dark magic. Children disappearing underground and never being seen again. She hadn’t believed the stories. Of course she hadn’t.