Brightling Read online

  Sparrow was amazed at it all, dazed by the colours and the things that she saw. How would she ever find Sampson’s?

  She followed the streets and the flow of people until she came to a square where a busy market was set up. So many people and such a lot of noise! It was both exciting and scary, she thought, as she wandered around, looking at the stalls. People stared at her curiously, pointing at Scaramouch beside her. Feeling awkward, Sparrow turned to the wall and began to read a poster advertising a circus, and another plastered over it with a picture of a spitfyre on it.

  BRIGHTLING IS ILLEGAL AND CAUSES HARM TO SPITFYRES …

  She remembered old Barton asking her to send him some Brightling to cure his aches and pains. Illegal? Oh dear, and how could it harm spitfyres? She was just about to read the small print at the bottom, when someone bumped into her and she spun round.

  ‘Mamma, Mamma!’ It was a little girl, tugging at her mother’s coat. She didn’t even notice Sparrow. Sparrow shrank into herself even more, ashamed of her grey dress and little tight jacket, her grubby hands and messy hair.

  ‘I want a cake! I want a cake!’ the little girl cried.

  ‘Of course, sweetheart,’ her mother said. ‘Which one?’ She took out a leather purse from her bag while the girl pointed at the biggest chocolate bun on the counter. ‘How much is that?’ the mother asked the stallholder.

  Sparrow’s mouth watered. She followed the bun with her eyes as it was dropped into a bag and then into the girl’s waiting hands. The mother smoothed her daughter’s hair off her forehead and gave her a fond, indulgent look. ‘Little pet,’ she crooned. ‘You can have whatever makes you happy.’

  Sparrow could not take her eyes off them. That could have been me, she was thinking. That could have been me with a mother and a cake and …

  Now the little girl was biting into the bun, smearing chocolate icing round her mouth. She was laughing. Her mother was laughing. It was extraordinary.

  Maybe, Sparrow thought, maybe that woman there was her mother and if Sparrow spoke to her now, she’d immediately recognise her and explain what had gone wrong. But as Sparrow looked longingly at the woman and girl, she realised that they were staring back at her, and not in a friendly way, either.

  The child was eyeing Sparrow’s clothes and a look of distaste spoiled her pretty face.

  ‘Why’s that girl so dirty?’ she asked her mother.

  ‘Hush dear. You, there, orphanage beggar – don’t stare at us!’ she snapped at Sparrow. ‘I’ll call the guards if you keep staring!’ She held her bag protectively against her chest as if Sparrow was going to snatch it from her.

  ‘Sorree!’ Sparrow said, as rudely as she could. The woman’s words had cut her to the core. ‘There’s no law to say I can’t stare at you – a cat can look at a king!’

  She forced herself to grin as she picked Scaramouch up and rubbed her face against his. ‘Can’t we, Scaramouch, dear? We can look at anyone and anything, can’t we?’

  She stalked off, letting Scaramouch settle into her arms with a contented sigh.

  ‘You poor thing, you’re tired,’ Sparrow said. ‘All that walking, you poor dear,’ and she rubbed his swollen pads. ‘Your feet must hurt. You have a rest, don’t mind me,’ she added as he closed his eyes.

  A young lady with a happy face smiled at them. ‘Are you lost, dear? Looking for somewhere particular?’

  Sparrow shook her head; but of course she was looking for somewhere particular – Sampson’s. At the same time she dreaded finding it; dreaded finding out something that she didn’t want to discover at all.

  She wandered round and round the market square. She’d never seen so much stuff: there were stalls selling clothes, books, food and pots, pans and knives. She wished Mary were with her, she’d love it – she loved things.

  Sparrow was getting very hungry. She stopped beside Bert’s Pie Counter, where a pyramid of hot, golden-crusted pies and pastries steamed. A warm, oven smell oozed from the freshly-baked crusts, making her mouth water. She stood there for so long that the man behind the counter finally shooed her away. A notice on the wall behind him said BEGGING IS FORBIDDEN.

  Sparrow leaned against the wall and watched the pies from there.

  After a while she got a tickling, prickling feeling in her neck and, looking about, saw that another girl, older than her, was staring at her fixedly. She had a mass of long, scraggly hair and wore a short blue jacket. When Sparrow stared back she immediately looked away and pretended to be preoccupied, pulling at her sleeves and digging in her pockets as if looking for money. Sparrow didn’t like being watched. She tossed her hair and moved on, searching for any scraps of food that might have fallen, but there was nothing apart from cabbage leaves, rotten fruit and a sleeping dog. She went back to the pie counter and walked round it three times, breathing in the delicious aromas. Next time she looked up, the same girl in the blue jacket was still watching her intently. Now what? Sparrow stared back. The other girl was just as untidy as she was, so it wasn’t her clothes she was staring at. She wouldn’t let this girl bully her.

  The girl came over. ‘All right, love?’ she said.

  She was taller than Sparrow. Her dark hair fell in tight rolls down her back and in complicated plaits and bows, interwoven with brightly-coloured scarves on top of her head. She had a flat brown face with very dark brown eyes and small, crooked teeth that she licked now and then with the tip of her tongue, as if checking they were still there.

  ‘All right?’ she said again, nodding at Scaramouch as well.

  ‘Yes. We’re fine,’ Sparrow said. She realised suddenly that she was on the verge of falling down in a faint. ‘Why? What do you care? It’s a free country, isn’t it?’ she snapped, and was furious to hear that her voice cracked.

  ‘You look like you’re from out of town, you do. Where’ve you come from?’

  ‘Knip and Pynch Home for Waifs and Strays.’ Sparrow hadn’t the strength to lie.

  ‘Oh, my! That place! I see now … Over the swamp? Well, I thought you looked like a stray, and you are – both of yous,’ she added, pointing at Scaramouch. ‘He’s a big one, in’t he? Cheer up, my dear. Gloriana’ll help you.’

  Sparrow felt immediately better, then cautioned herself to be careful. Remember Mrs Nash, she thought.

  ‘Now, you just ask the nice pie man something,’ said Gloriana. ‘Keep him busy for a moment. Go on, and I’ll get us some nosh.’ She pushed Sparrow back towards the pie stall.

  ‘Excuse me, Mister Bert,’ Sparrow said when she got there. ‘Have you got any spare, please? A broken bit, a little scrap for the cat and me? We’re very hungry. We’ve walked all day.’

  ‘So you’re back again, are you?’ Bert pointed to the notice about beggars. ‘Can’t you read?’

  Sparrow glanced at the notice. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gloriana near the pyramid of pies.

  ‘I can’t read!’ Sparrow cried earnestly. ‘No, I never learned how. I’m just an orphan, up from the country,’ she said. ‘It’s not my fault I’m all alone,’ she went on. ‘And I’ve got to feed my cat, he’s not very well. Please mister, please!’

  ‘I don’t hold with beggars,’ Bert said, ‘but your cat does look sick. Here, take this one and get on with you. The guards’ll be after you if you don’t watch out! Best get off the streets.’

  He thrust a squashed and mangled pie into a bag and gave it to her. Then he turned suddenly, with a shout to Gloriana: ‘Hey! You! What are you up to, missy?’

  Gloriana held out her grubby, empty hands to him. ‘Nothing, sir,’ she said sweetly. ‘Just looking.’ And she turned away and wandered off as if she and Sparrow were in no way connected.

  Sparrow went in the other direction and sat down on the first bit of low wall she came to. She’d only invented the story of Scaramouch being sick to get sympathy, but now she wondered if perhaps he really was ill. He had been very quiet since they’d arrived in Stollenback. She smoothed his fur and tried to interest him in t
he food.

  A few minutes later Gloriana joined her. ‘You’re a natural,’ Gloriana said, patting Sparrow’s knee. She grinned. ‘I never even needed my thieving fingers, did I?’ And she brought out a steaming, undamaged meat pie from a pocket in her voluminous trousers and placed it beside Sparrow on the wall.

  ‘You didn’t need to steal. The pie man gave me this,’ Sparrow said.

  ‘You always have to steal,’ said Gloriana. ‘Because if you don’t, they will. There’s them that takes and them that gives, and you have to be one or the other. I’ve got nothing to give so I have to take. It’s fair, I reckon.’

  ‘I suppose.’ Scaramouch ate a little piece of pie but didn’t seem very interested in it. It was a shame Little Jean and Mary weren’t here to share the food; they were always hungry.

  ‘Don’t he like steak and onions?’ Gloriana said, watching Scaramouch. ‘Fussy, is he?’

  ‘Just very tired, I think,’ said Sparrow.

  ‘Don’t you look so worried,’ said Gloriana, waving a chunk of pie at her then biting into it. ‘Think of it as sharing, sharing with Mr Bert. Can’t have you starve, can we?’

  The girl was older than Sparrow had first imagined, about seventeen, she guessed. Although she was so slight and not very tall, her face showed some strain and lines that only come with time.

  ‘Amazing cat, that,’ said Gloriana. ‘Is it friendly, then?’

  ‘He is.’ Sparrow stroked Scaramouch’s head, smoothing the tiny hairs on the bridge of his nose and gently running her fingers over his head, between his ears. He did purr, but only faintly, which was unusual. ‘He’s my best friend. His name is Scaramouch.’

  ‘What’s a Skarra-moosh, then? Or is it like what he does, scares the mouses, eh? He’s a Scare-a-mouse?’ She gingerly scratched Scaramouch under one ear. ‘Big, in’t he?’

  Sparrow grinned. ‘Someone told me his name meant acrobat, and he can do all sorts of tricks. You should see him climbing trees and walking along a rope even – it’s amazing!’

  ‘Well, well. And where are you going, you and the Scare-a-mouse cat?’ Gloriana asked her.

  ‘Here, to Stollenback.’

  ‘So you’ve somewhere to stay then? Friends?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ve got some money though, for lodgings?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I see.’ Gloriana stuck her hands into the pockets of her voluminous trousers and made a face. ‘I see.’

  Silence fell. They finished eating the pies and watched the people milling around. Sparrow went on stroking Scaramouch and waited to hear his purr grow stronger and waited to hear what the other girl might suggest. She was sure she would suggest something; she could almost hear the cogs and wheels working in Gloriana’s brain.

  ‘I live in Sto’back – that’s what we call it – and I can take you home with me if you like,’ Gloriana said at last, as if she’d come to a difficult decision. ‘A kind woman I know, a lady she is, she keeps a sort of hostel here, a hostel for young girls like you who might be lost and in need of help. She don’t charge nothing, neither.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ Sparrow was immediately suspicious. ‘No thanks.’

  Gloriana laughed and gave Sparrow a friendly nudge. ‘I in’t going to kidnap you, if that’s your worry.’

  Sparrow tried to smile too, but Betty Nash had seemed kind enough to begin with. It wasn’t easy being an orphan; it wasn’t easy having nothing more in your life than a cat, a shawl and the name of a shop … Why would this hostel keeper, this lady, not charge for rent unless she wanted something in return?

  ‘Some ladies are just kind ’cos they’re kind,’ Gloriana said, reading her thoughts. ‘You’re angry, in’t you? I can see that, but you don’t need to be worried about Miss Minter.’ She licked her little tongue over her teeth again, probing into a molar, and wincing. ‘What would you rather do? Stay out on the streets and get caught by the codgers or by real kidnappers, or come back with me safe and sound where you can at least sleep the night in a proper bed, eh? It’s tough out here, you know – times is hard in Sto’back.’

  ‘I don’t know … ’

  ‘They call me Glori,’ the girl added. ‘Gloriana’s a right mouthful.’

  ‘I’m Sparrow,’ Sparrow said.

  ‘Well, Sparrow, little bird, let’s get going, shall we?’

  Glori knew every back street and turning. She never hesitated as she went down Cottage Road, Meanwood Lane, Spittle Street, even There And Back Again Lane, which was short and led to a stile they had to climb over, then into a narrow, cobbled square. Sparrow was soon confused. Stollenback was a wild maze of houses and streets, she would never remember her way about. She kept her eyes peeled for Sampson’s. She even thought about asking Glori where it was, but didn’t, because she didn’t want anyone to know about that – at least not yet.

  The roads grew narrower and narrower and more and more dirty. Piles of rubbish were heaped up beside the doorways, and lines of washing were strung between the windows above their heads. Dirty, ragged children watched them from their dens and dark corners.

  ‘Nearly there,’ Glori said as they turned down yet another lane, a grim, narrow place with dangerous-looking dogs who barked at them. Scaramouch hissed at the dogs, his fur up in a fluff. Sparrow squeezed him comfortingly.

  ‘Here we go.’ Glori turned down an almost invisible gap into a tiny, cobbled alley; so narrow that only one person could shuffle down it. ‘Old walkway,’ Glori told her. ‘The city’s full of them. Ginnels, we call ’em.’ Tall, bleak old buildings around it blocked out the light, making the narrow space gloomy and damp. ‘I was found in a ginnel when I was a kid. Can’t remember how I got there. Think I had a dad once, a dad with big wide hands and a grizzly chin. Maybe he left me there.’

  ‘Oh Glori, that’s so cruel!’ Sparrow said.

  ‘Least I weren’t tossed into the river like some unwanted offspring are, eh?’ she chuckled. ‘Else I’d be proper dead.’

  Sparrow felt her heart beginning to thump harder and harder as they squeezed their way along the ginnel. No one could live down here, she thought. It was a trap!

  She got ready to run.

  Glori turned round and grinned a toothy grin at her. ‘What’s your problem? Don’t worry. It’s nothing bad, I promise.’ They went a little way further along the passageway and then Glori stopped suddenly beside a door and whistled. Planks of wood had been roughly nailed over the door and it was daubed with paint and old posters advertising long-ago circuses and fairs; it didn’t look as if it had been used in a long, long time. Glori followed her whistle with three loud knocks on the door.

  A window was hauled open way above them and a girl looked down at them.

  ‘It’s Glori!’ the girl shouted. ‘And she’s got someone with her.’

  A mighty key on a length of pink ribbon sailed down towards them. Glori caught it deftly and fitted it into the lock.

  ‘Welcome to our home,’ she said, unlocking the door.

  9

  Plans

  Miss Knip rarely left the Knip and Pynch Home for Waifs and Strays. It wasn’t the dangerous, swampy krackodyles that lurked in the south, or the trolls in the north that kept her at the Home; she just liked to stay put. She enjoyed her job. She thrived on seeing children quake as she walked past them, and any time spent away from the Knip and Pynch Home meant less time causing misery. But now she had to go on a short journey. The prospect of getting her hands on a fortune – a fortune! – was too good to miss.

  She set out the next morning. She had Barton take her in the horse and cart; her seat high up behind the gatekeeper was safe even from the largest, bravest krackodyle, he assured her.

  Her journey didn’t take long. Miss Knip arrived at her destination a little dusty and a little tired. She wiped down her black dress and adjusted her bonnet around her mean, narrow face before knocking on the cottage door. ‘You wait there, Barton,’ she commanded. ‘I shan’t be long.’

  ‘Yes,
ma’am.’

  She turned back, hearing the door open.

  ‘Miss Knip!’ cried the woman. ‘What a surprise!’

  ‘I should imagine it is, Betty Nash,’ Miss Knip said, going towards her. ‘You can be sure it’s something important that’s made me leave the Home.’

  Mrs Nash grinned. ‘Do come inside, Miss Knip, won’t you?’

  ‘Don’t mind if I do.’ Miss Knip trod carefully, making sure she squashed the daisies growing on the doorstep before she followed Betty Nash inside.

  ‘Sit down, Miss Knip, please,’ Betty said. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘Have you got a girl here?’ Miss Knip asked. ‘I’m looking for an eleven-leaver, and I thought you might have got her … ’ she fought to hide the eager anticipation showing in her face. She was already looking for signs of the girl in the room. ‘I’m sure she came this way.’

  ‘Ah, now, Miss Knip, a great many of your young castoffs come this way, as you know, and we take them in and nurture them, just as you’d wish us to do,’ Betty Nash said with a horrible, leering grin. ‘But … ’

  ‘This one had a cat.’

  ‘Oh, the one with the cat! That stringy little girl?’ she said. ‘Blondish hair? Such a fine needle-woman she was.’ Betty Nash shook her head. ‘I wish we did have her, Miss Knip, only she’s gone, the little minx.’

  Miss Knip bit back a cry of displeasure. ‘That’s a shame; I thought she might be here. I was hoping … Well, I’ve got a proposition to put to your young Tapper,’ she went on. ‘Is he here?’

  Tapper slipped out of the scullery as if he’d been hiding there, listening – which he probably had, Miss Knip thought.

  ‘Where else would I be?’ he said, taking up a position propped against the wall, like a length of wood. ‘So, how’s things at the orphanage, Knips?’ he added. ‘Beaten anyone this morning?’