Sabrina Fludde (3 page)

It was a jewel of a night, and the river formed its backdrop, as black as polished ebony. The girl found a pile of frozen leaves and lay her head upon them. The mist came off the river and wrapped itself around her, as soft and warm as a fur stole. Tomorrow she might wake up frozen to the bone, but tonight everything was
just fine
.

The girl closed her eyes and let the sweetest music pour through her mind, whispering that she wasn't lonely, lost, cold and wretched – whispering that she had a home somewhere, and she would find it one day soon.

Her breath came slow and calm and even. The frayed edge of her little knotted blanket lay beneath her cheek. Her dress clung to her body, freezing over. Her stolen sweater froze too. But as she fell asleep, she felt brave and strong and safe.

Bentley packed away the saxophone and left his hideaway under the railway bridge. It wasn't really late, but his mother would begin to worry if he didn't get back home. He emerged from the tunnel, sorry as always to be leaving behind his secret concert hall, with its wonderful echoey acoustics. There was nowhere like it in town, not even the music hall or the perfect amphitheatre of the Quarry Park. Not even the town churches, where he sometimes played the organ and his father rang the bells.

He headed for home, reliving his evening's playing. He had come here countless times before to practise his favourite pieces, confident that the bridge's acoustics would cover his mistakes. But tonight there had been no mistakes. Music had poured through him like a river on its way somewhere. He'd played like an angel and he knew it, blowing up into the arches and girders of the railway bridge, and down through the mist. If Dad had heard him playing like that, he would have been proud. And if he'd only played like that at home, Mum would have been less likely to scold him for wasting time and not getting on with his homework.

Bentley reached the archway in the old town wall, stopped to take a final glance back at the bridge, then turned up the lane for home. Somewhere in the town, a clock struck eleven. It was later than he had realised, and he broke into a trot which didn't stop until he
reached Pride Hill. Here the wide sweep of the town's main shopping street was empty save for a lone cellist sitting in a doorway playing to himself.

At the sight of the cellist, dressed in dinner jacket and bow tie, Bentley would have turned back and gone another way. But he wasn't quick enough. The cellist looked up. On the ground in front of him was a black top hat in which lay his evening's takings. Pinned to the hat were the words JULIAN BOYD-WIBBLER, FIRST CELLIST WITH THE PENGWERN CONSERVATOIRE.
Fallen Upon Hard Times
.

It was meant to be a joke, but when the cellist was your father and some days he was PANCHO THE PAN-PIPE-PLAYING PERUVIAN,
Fallen Upon Hard Times
, and sometimes PADDY MC-BY-THE-WAY, UILLEAN PIPE MASTER,
Fallen Upon the Potato Famine –
there for all the town to see beneath the hats as Mr Bytheway, the music teacher – it wasn't very funny.

‘Evening, Bentley,' Dad said, continuing the fast movement of a cello concerto without dropping a note. ‘What are you doing with my saxophone?'

‘What are
you
doing, more to the point?' Bentley said, blushing and thrusting his father's saxophone behind his back. ‘You know how mad Mum gets when you go out busking! Especially on a night like this, with not a soul about to fill your hat!'

They both looked at the pennies in the bottom of the hat. A cold wind was blowing up the hill, and Bentley shivered. Dad stopped playing at last, and the sudden silence was eerie. He started packing up.

‘Your mum says busking doesn't pay, but we'll show her one day,' he said, pocketing the pennies in the top hat. He winked at Bentley.

Bentley winked back. The two of them walked home together, hunched against the wind. It was nearly Hallowe'en and the shop windows were full of witches' masks and leering orange pumpkins. The streetlamps had been smashed in Dogpole Alley, and they had to crunch over broken glass to get up the front steps.

‘It's always the same, this time of year,' Dad complained. ‘Hallowe'en seems to bring out the worst in people. Broken glass and stolen sweaters. All tricks and no treats!'

They slipped into the house, shutting the door quietly as if they could sneak in without Mum noticing. Dad stopped to store the instruments in the downstairs room he called ‘the music school', and Bentley hurried upstairs hoping that Mum would be in bed. But she was still up in the living room, sitting at her sewing machine with an eye on the clock.

‘Where have you been?' she said when he came in. ‘Busking with your father? No, don't tell me! You should be working for good grades
,
not playing on the streets and making fools of yourselves!'

Dad followed Bentley into the room. ‘Once you used to love this fool for his music,' he said.

‘I loved you for yourself, not
Julian Boyd-Wibbler
!' Mum said.

‘You wouldn't say that if you knew how much he's made!'

Dad tipped out his evening's pennies and Mum looked at them and burst out laughing. She shook her head as if she knew she couldn't win, put aside her sewing and they all went to bed.

In the morning Bentley woke up late for school. The
alarm clock lay across the room where he had thrown it. Mum had already gone to work, and Dad was nowhere to be seen. A note on the table informed Bentley that if he wanted cereal, he'd have to nip out and buy milk.

Bentley didn't bother with the cereal, or any other breakfast, and hurried off to school knowing he'd be late. He forgot the only bit of homework that he'd managed to get done, and his physics teacher made him stay for detention at the end of the day. When he finally came out of school, it was getting dark. He trailed through town feeling sorry for himself. He was starving hungry, having forgotten lunch as well as breakfast, but knew that when he got home he'd have to face Mum, who would have been phoned about the detention.

So he drifted round the town, putting off the evil moment by mooching round the shops. Finally they began to close and Pride Hill started emptying. The newspaper sellers shut up for the night and even the town beggars disappeared for a quiet break before the night's trade.

Bentley turned for home at last. What else could he do? Only a few moments ago the town had thronged with life, but now everything seemed quiet and eerie. In Dogpole Alley, the streetlamps were still broken, and in the darkness he imagined ghosts and ghouls ready to jump out. This was Hallowe'en night, after all! Not that Bentley believed in ghosts and ghouls, of course!

All the same, he made a quick dash for it, getting halfway down the alley before the BC boys started coming the other way.
The BC boys –
far more trouble than ghosts and ghouls! Bentley headed for his
front door, and the boys came whooping down the alley, dressing in Hallowe'en masks and chasing somebody. Bentley fumbled for his front-door key, pitying whoever it might be, but telling himself that it had nothing to do with him. After all, he knew what Border Commandos were like! Some of them were still in school, and if you dared to get in their way they could make your life a total misery.

Bentley's key wasn't in his pockets, so he started on his school bag. The BC boys' quarry had nearly reached him, and they were right behind. He could hear their panting, and see them in a solid mass, yelling, ‘Trick or treat!' through their masks at what was nothing but a little girl.

Just a child, half their size!

Bentley couldn't quite believe that even BC boys would waste their time on a little girl. He stared at them contemptuously. The girl drew level with him. Her shoes were too big for her and she kept tripping over. Briefly he caught a glimpse of her white face, then she turned towards the Seventy Steps, which led down from the alley to the bus station.
The Seventy Steps
, where anything could happen in the darkness! And it often did.

Behind her in the alley, the BC boys howled with delight. They'd got her now! They knew they had! They headed for the steps as well, devils in plastic masks – and if anybody was going to stop them, they'd have to do it now!

Bentley didn't even pause to think about it. He shouted at the girl. The BC boys would get him for it, but he did it all the same.

‘Not down there! This way!'

The girl turned, saw Bentley waving at her, and seized her chance. She whirled about and leapt up the steps before the boys could grab her. Bentley found his key as if by magic. He unlocked the door and the two of them tumbled inside.

The BC boys howled with rage. ‘Witch! Bitch! Little gypo vampire-girl! Out, out, out!' they yelled.

The girl backed down the hall, her eyes two perfect moons, round and shining with fear. Bentley bolted the door, glad that it was old and solid. He leant against it, unable to stop shaking as he waited for the BC boys to charge.

But as if they knew that they were beaten for today, the BC boys gave up. Bentley heard a last few yells, then silence settled over Dogpole Alley. Bentley closed his eyes, wondering what had come over him, and knowing that the BC boys would make him pay. And when he opened them again, there was the girl, staring at him.

She wore nothing that would keep her warm, just a lacy sweater which wasn't really thick enough, and a little ragged blanket-thing knotted under her chin. Her hair looked as if it hadn't been washed for weeks, and her face was stretched to breaking point by sheer exhaustion. Bentley could see it in her eyes, along with the fear. Fear of him as well as everybody else. Fear of everything, including this dark, silent house.

‘I won't hurt you. I only want to help you. I'm not like them,' Bentley said.

He unbolted the front door, as if to say that she was free to go. But she looked at him, and suddenly he realised that she had nowhere else. And when he started up the stairs, she followed him.

The boy turned on the light as they started up the stairs, revealing a worn strip of carpet and a high, moulded plaster ceiling, a row of hooks on the wall and coats piled on them. The girl followed him up into the winding darkness. They passed a single door on the first floor, then carried on to the top of the house. Here, beneath sloping eaves, she found a succession of rooms nestled together. Some were bedrooms. One was a junk room. One was a bathroom. And one was the boy's room, his name, BENTLEY, stencilled on the door.

Behind this door, the girl found a clutter of shelves, desk, chests of drawers and a bed, all tucked between a dusty skylight and an old oak frame. Books lined the frame, which doubled as a shelf. A pile of old records, mostly out of their sleeves, lay in the corner, and photographs of musicians in nightclubs hung on the walls.

The girl looked at the photographs while the boy, Bentley, threw his school bag on the bed. She wanted to thank him, but didn't know where to start. He pulled off his jacket and put on a record. Immediately a voice called from downstairs.

‘Bentley, is that you?'

Bentley pulled a face. He didn't say anything, but led the girl back down to a first-floor room with tall windows looking out on Dogpole Alley. At one end a
collection of armchairs, a sofa and a TV set were arranged around a fireplace. At the other stood a cooker and a washing machine, workbenches and a sink, an old dresser and a huge kitchen table.

Between the two ends, facing the door, sat a big bony woman with a straight face, high, flat cheeks and a square box of fringed hair. She looked just like Bentley and had to be his mother. Around her were spread a tailor's dummy, a pile of paper patterns and a heap of cloth which went whizzing past her under the needle of her sewing machine.

She raised her head as Bentley came in. Started on about detention and coming home late – then saw the girl behind him.

‘Mum, this is …' Bentley broke off. Looked at the girl.

‘Abren,'
she said, blushing as she plucked the first name that came to her out of thin air. ‘My name's Abren.'

‘Abren,' Bentley's mother said, looking the girl up and down – and finishing at her sweater.

The girl shuffled awkwardly, wondering if something was the matter.

‘We met down in the alley,' Bentley said. ‘The BC boys were chasing her – you must have heard them!'

It seemed his mother had. ‘So
that
was what was going on!' she said, looking at the girl in a whole new light. ‘You can stay for tea, if you want. You look like you could do with it. Bentley'll show you to the bathroom and you can get yourself clean. Don't take too long, though, because tea's late already. By the way, I'm Mrs Bytheway!'

It was obviously her idea of a joke, but Bentley
groaned and said he'd had enough of that at school, thank you very much! He showed Abren the bathroom, where she scrubbed her face and hands, brushed a few tangles out of her hair and stared long at her face. Mrs Bytheway broke in upon her thoughts by calling her down. She returned to find a man, in corduroy trousers held up with braces, laying the table. He was Mr Bytheway, he said. ‘But you can call me Fee. Everybody does. Come and sit down.'

The girl sat where she was bidden, between Bentley and his mother. They talked about their day, including Bentley's latest reason for detention. Their voices droned over the girl's head, and she ate in silence. When she'd finished, she licked her plate. Everybody stared at her, but she didn't notice.

‘Here, have some more,' said Fee.

He pushed the bright enamel stewing pot across the table, and the girl helped herself to more stew and dumplings. She hadn't realised that she was hungry until now. She licked the second plate clean and would have had a third if there had been one. Fee cut up some bread and she scoffed it down. He brought a chocolate pudding out of the fridge and she scoffed down more than her fair share, groaning with delight over its chocolate sauce.