The Turnarounders and the Arbuckle Rescue (22 page)

‘So, go on then, Ralf,’ Seth urged. ‘Get her away from her parents. Find out exactly where that Fall is and who she’s talking to.’

‘She’s coming over,’ said Alfie.

Ralf tried to arrange his face as Gloria skipped lightly down the path nodding to people she passed. She gave Hilda a friendly ‘Hullo! Chilly, isn’t it?’ but, Ralf noticed, her smile seemed to linger on his brother. Niall gave a polite nod and a ‘Good morning, Miss,’ in return then, after a quick glance in the direction of the Kingston-Hawkes, shot her a wink.

Blushing prettily, Gloria quickened her pace.

‘Hullo all!’

‘Hello,’ said Ralf. ‘How was London?’

‘Ripping,’ she said, giving the others a quick nod before turning to Ralf. ‘I say, can I have a quick word with you and Leonard? I’ve got a message for you both.’

‘Private?’ Seth gave a small smile. ‘I have to go anyway. I told Winters I’d help him cleaning some of the Barrow stuff.’

‘So long, Seth,’ said Gloria. But Seth was already wandering away, hardly hearing their goodbyes he was so absorbed tugging Valen along with him.

‘Bye, Gloria!’ she called over her shoulder.

Gloria waved then looked pointedly at Alfie.

‘I’ll get lost too, shall I?’ he said, resigned.

Leo started to laugh as the small boy walked away but his smile faded when Gloria took him and Ralf by the arm.

‘Let’s just walk across the Green a bit, shall we?’

Intrigued, they allowed themselves to be led to a bench where Gloria sat down and patted the wood either side of her. Autumn sun shone through mandarin coloured leaves to fall on her and the light made her hair a crown of burning copper. She glanced over each shoulder and hunched down conspiratorially.

‘I have a message for you –’

‘Er – great!’ Ralf said carelessly. He thought that nothing short of a Dalek invasion or the sudden appearance of Spiderman could faze him now. Until he heard what Gloria said next:

‘From The Other Side!’ she beamed. ‘Exciting isn’t it? Being able to communicate directly with one’s Spirit Guide,’ she gushed. ‘He’s an amazing fellow. Such a magnificent face. Anyway, don’t ask me why, but he’s asked me to give you a message. ‘For the Wolf and the Lion’. That’s you two, obviously. It’s all very cryptic but it will make sense to you, I’m sure.’

‘Your Spirit Guide’s sent a message for us?’ Ralf’s heart thumped. Who the heck was she talking to? He glanced at Leo whose eyes were wide. This was unbelievable!

‘Hold on, I’ve written it down.’ She extracted a notebook from her bag, tore out a page and handed it to Ralf. It read:

Of Righteous Echoes, King’s Hadow Born,

Five Must Weather the Coming Storm.

The Greatest of them, Two in One,

Safe must be kept till Hawthorn’s Gone.

Ralf looked at it and frowned. ‘What does it mean?’

‘You don’t know?’ Gloria looked crushed. ‘I was a bit worried about whether I got it down correctly. I thought I was getting better at understanding him but he kept fading in and out, rather like the wireless when it’s not tuned in properly. Do you know what I mean?’

Ralf nodded, remembering the strange conversation he’d overheard in Gloria’s kitchen. He knew exactly what that sounded like.

‘And he doesn’t seem to speak much English. We’ve been trying Latin but I’m a bit rusty. When I can’t understand him, he’s a real dear and tries to help, though. Do you know how he gave me the poem in the end?’

Ralf shook his head. ‘He waved his hand and all the leaves and twigs and what not floating on the lake rushed together as if drawn by a magnet and formed themselves into letters. Jolly clever, even if it was all backwards.’

‘Backwards?’

‘Obviously.’ Gloria pursed her lips. ‘He’s a reflection. All the writing is reversed. He’s the devil to understand and he kept going on about you being trapped until
‘the stream re-joins the river
’. She in leaned further until their three foreheads were almost touching. ‘And,’ her final words were delivered in an excited whisper, ‘he said to tell you to use your
skills
!’

‘Could it be any more unhelpful? Righteous Echoes, a weather forecast, flowering shrubs and rhyming couplets. What on earth does it all mean?’ said Val.

‘Not a flipping clue,’ said Ralf

‘In fact,’ said Alfie, ‘as far as clues go, it’s pants.’

Ralf and Leo hadn’t been able to bear the thought of returning home without first telling the others what had happened when they had gone for their little stroll with Gloria. They were behind Hatcher’s Catch, in a garden that until recently had been Mrs Hatcher’s pride and joy but which was now divided equally between a flooded vegetable patch and a half built Anderson Shelter

‘D’you know,’ said Seth, ‘Gloria’s Spirit Guide is actually the one thing in this whole awful mess that makes a weird kind of sense.’

‘I don’t believe it!’ Valen cried. ‘A dead person giving messages to Ralf’s Aunty ‘makes sense’?’

‘No, of course not!’ Seth retorted. ‘How many times do I have to explain it? The ‘ghosts’ aren’t ghosts! There’s a Time Fall at Hawkes Manor and through it, Gloria has been contacted by someone from another point in history.’

‘Like who, though?’ asked Alfie.

‘You’re forgetting the message,’ said Ralf. ‘It said we were trapped until ‘the stream re-joins the river’. Sound familiar?’

Valen’s eyes lit up. She’d figured it out.

But Alfie still looked confused. ‘I still don’t get you. It could be anyone, innit?’

‘Yeah, Alf,’ said Valen, smug now she’d made the connection. ‘Cos I bet there’s a whole queue of people from other times trying to communicate with us. Use your head, numpty! There’s only one person it could be –
Ambrose
!’

Seth shook his head. ‘We’ll need to confirm it but I really can’t see who else it could be. The whole ‘river of time idea’ again,’ he said. ‘I still don’t understand it and I’m not buying into all this superstitious clap trap but…’ Seth took of his glasses and polished them on his shirt. ‘Well, something has happened in this village – something’s been screwed up and it’s destabilised everything. It’s like a giant has just chucked a huge stone in the centre of the river and part of it has branched off to one side to flow where it didn’t flow before. I think King’s Hadow really is the source of the problem Ambrose was telling us about.’

‘So he’s looking here?’ said Valen.

Seth shrugged. ‘Even if he is, the river’s split so he can’t get to us. We’re in a parallel universe.’

‘So he’s giving us instructions through Gloria!’ said Ralf excitedly. ‘It’s like a plan, a road map of how to get out of here. We just follow the advice in the rhyme and we can get back home.’

‘But what does it mean?’ asked Alfie. ‘I don’t get a blimmin’ word of it!’

‘It’s a series of clues,’ said Ralf. ‘We’ll need time to figure them out, but hey, we’ve got plenty of that, right?’

Leo frowned ‘So, we work out Ambrose’s message, do what he wants, and then he picks us up?’

‘I can’t see another explanation,’ Seth nodded. ‘But he’ll only be able to reach us and get us out of here when the branch of the river we’re stuck in re-joins the main flow.’

‘History needs to get back on track before we can get out of here?’ groaned Valen. ‘How are we supposed to make that happen?

‘The second part of the message,’ Ralf cried. ‘By using our skills!’

‘Oh, I know, I know!’ Alfie whispered excitedly. ‘Valen’s a mean-machine, Seth’s a genius, Wolf’s read everything, I’m the best thief since Robin Hood and Leo, er...’

‘...has incredible charm and good looks!’ Leo laughed. ‘You don’t think our skill might be the Shifting, then?’

Alfie’s face turned a warm, ruddy pink. ‘Yeah, right. Totally. Forgot about that for a minute.’

Ralf was still laughing at this when they left.

For Ralf there was a lot of laughter that day. The afternoon was spent with the Arbuckles and then, as the clock on the mantelpiece struck six, they sat down to a full Hilda special: roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, vegetables, crispy roast potatoes and rich, meaty gravy. He looked around the table at the faces of his family and the Arbuckles and felt strangely like one of those perfect happy families you see in television adverts, all smiles and contentment.

‘Couldn’t teach Gloria how to make this, could you?’ Niall asked his sister as she served out thick wedges of the second apple pie she’d made.

‘What does she need with cooking?’

‘I dunno, you might be doing whoever she decides to marry a favour though,’ Niall said with a sly smile.

‘Gloria? Married?’ laughed Ralf.

Niall gave him a sideways look, his eyes twinkling, but Hilda tapped him on the knuckles with a serving spoon.

‘Don’t any of you let the Major hear you calling her that!’

Ron laughed. ‘I like it,’ he said. ‘Makes her sound like a film star.’

‘She acts like one,’ said Tom. ‘You should have seen her talking to Burrowes this afternoon.’

‘She was talking to Burrowes?’

‘Oh yes, she was tellin’ him this and that and making him write things down. He didn’t know what to do with hisself.’

‘What did he want, anyway?’ Hilda asked.

Ron shrugged. ‘Questions about Hart. When people last saw him. Did he have any enemies in the village? That sort of thing.’

Hilda bristled. ‘Enemies in the village!’ she huffed. ‘Good grief! A finer man you couldn’t meet and those are the questions Burrows is asking. And he knows the answers anyway. He knew him better than most. What is the world coming to?’

‘He always was a bit like that,’ said Old Bill. ‘Saw conspiracies everywhere, even when he was a boy.’

‘Burrowes? Really?’ Leo asked. ‘What was he like?’

‘A funny lad. Always had his head in a detective story. Archie used to rag him about it. They were a pair, those two. Right comedians they were. Mimicking folk and such like.’ Bill chuckled, remembering. ‘They always had an eye for a mannerism.’

‘Imagine what they would have made of Brindle!’ said Tom. He filled his cheeks with pie, plucked the tea cosy from the pot and put it on his head. He pointed his spoon at Ralf. ‘Burrowes!’ he cried in Brindle’s acid tones. ‘This – boy – has – stolen my dog!’

Leo and Ralf roared and so did Tom until he swallowed his pie the wrong way and had to be slapped on the back.

‘That was a dreadful impression!’ chuckled Niall.

‘Best not give up the fishing just yet, Amos,’ said Ron wickedly. ‘You’ve got a ways to go before you’ll be Archie’s standard.’ Tom’s face fell.

‘Now lads, don’t start all this again,’ said Old Bill, looking slightly sheepish. ‘Amos is a fine English name. And anyway, your mother insisted on it.’

‘Amos?’ Ralf echoed.

‘It’s Tom’s middle name,’ Leo explained. ‘He hates it.’

Ron sniggered again but Tom grinned back at him just as mischievously and saluted. ‘I bet you didn’t know that Ronald is actually his middle name –’

‘Don’t you dare, Tom!’ Ron bellowed. He got up and made a lunge for his brother but Tom was quicker. He danced round the other side of the table and hid behind Hilda.

‘Aye, aye, Admiral!’ Tom cried. ‘What ever you say, sor!’

‘Tom, I’m warning you!’ Ron made a final grab for Tom but it was too late.

‘– his real name’s Horatio!’

Ralf choked and sprayed Leo with gi
nger beer.

‘I think Burrowes must be good police, though,’ said Niall as Hilda continued to dish up. ‘For all he used to be a bit of a joker. He only asked me three questions and I practically told him my life story.’

‘He was good with Miss Brindle this morning, too,’ said Michael. ‘I never thought I’d see the day when someone would get the last word on her.’

‘I didn’t set much store by her story of how she got the dog,’ said Old Bill. ‘I never heard of there being a breeder of wolfhounds up Hastings way.’

‘That’s because there isn’t one! Her story was complete codswallop!’ said Hilda. ‘She hasn’t been out of this village, except to Dark Ferry, in more’n a year. I remember seeing her the morning the dog came too. It was the day Charles Hart disappeared and I did think for a minute the animal might be his.’ She handed Leo an extra large slice of pie and then the corners of her mouth twitched into a smile. ‘She did look ridiculous though, didn’t she? I had the devil’s own job keeping a straight face when she turned up all covered in muck like that!’

‘She looked like a slug,’ said Old Bill. ‘He put down his spoon and considered for a moment. ‘Or a cow pat with a feather on top.’

The boys erupted into laughter and Michael pounded his fist on the table.

‘You’re spilling the cream!’ yelled Niall. Hilda dumbfounded at Bill’s language, closed her open mouth and put the jug down.

‘Bill!’

The old man twinkled at her. ‘Well, she did, love,’ he chuckled, wheezily. ‘A great, fat, steaming cow pat, all slippery green and brown with a tiny, little dot of fluff resting on her head. Like – like – a cherry on a big, squishy bun!’