The Secret Page 14

  ‘Can I go round the classrooms and ask?’

  ‘Give me strength!’ said Miss Powell.

  ‘Please!’

  ‘Oh go on then,’ said Miss Powell, to put an end to the pestering. ‘But straight out if nobody wants you, understand?’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to die!’ said Nicky.

  She found Miss Greenwood, putting out painting things all by herself. ‘Hello, Miss Greenwood, would you like some help?’

  Miss Greenwood regarded Nicky nervously. Her class were first years, and she had very little contact with the fourth year children. And Nicky Mitchell, in particular, had a reputation for difficult behaviour, Miss Greenwood knew – violent behaviour, even! She did not want this dangerous child in her classroom, but she didn’t want to offend her either. ‘No thank you, dear,’ she said. ‘I can manage.’ Miss Greenwood was one of the teachers who had not heard about Nicky’s second chance.

  ‘But Miss Greenwood, it’s too much for you all by yourself,’ Nicky persisted. ‘Please let me help.’

  The blue gaze was unnerving. ‘All right then,’ said Miss Greenwood, weakly.

  ‘I’m good at putting out paints,’ said Nicky. ‘I can do it all for you, if you like. And you can go to the staff room and have a cup of tea. . . . And then you can tell Mr Nelson I’m doing the paints for you.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m allowed to leave you on your own,’ said Miss Greenwood.

  ‘Well never mind,’ said Nicky. ‘You can tell him after. You won’t forget, will you?’

  ‘No, no, I won’t forget.’ In fifteen minutes the bell would go; and this eccentric person, whose motives Miss Greenwood could not begin to guess, would have to go to her own class. Roll on fifteen minutes! And in the meantime, it had to be admitted, it was useful to have another pair of hands. . . . Now what was the other thing she meant to do? Oh yes, the room was stuffy: the day had turned out really fine and warm, she must get the bottom windows open as well as the ventilators. She struggled with a sticky sash.

  ‘I’ll do that for you,’ said Nicky.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Miss Greenwood, struggling some more.

  ‘I’m strong,’ said Nicky. ‘Let me!’ The window was very stiff indeed. Nicky climbed on to the radiator.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Miss Greenwood, alarmed.

  ‘If I stand high, I can pull instead of push,’ said Nicky. ‘That’ll be better.’

  ‘Get down before you fall!’ said Miss Greenwood. ‘I’m responsible for you, you know.’

  ‘Oh I won’t fall,’ said Nicky. ‘I’m a good climber.’

  She was right on the high windowsill now, her feet firmly planted among some roughly fashioned clay pots, left to dry before they could be painted. She bent to wrench at the window, and it was awkward because she had to crouch sideways, and her own knees were in the way. She shifted to find a better position.

  ‘Mind the pots!’ said Miss Greenwood.

  The window gave suddenly, and Nicky’s foot shot backwards – and five clay pots lay on the floor, shattered into little pieces!

  Miss Greenwood was very upset. ‘Their pots!’ she wailed. ‘They were so proud of their pots! They’re going to be heartbroken!’

  Nicky, also, was very upset. ‘We can mend them, can’t we,’ she tried. ‘Look, I can mend them with some glue.’

  ‘They’re past mending,’ said Miss Greenwood, bitterly. ‘Why didn’t you get down when I told you?’

  ‘I only wanted to help.’

  ‘Well now you’ve helped enough. Now please, please, go away! Before you do any more damage!’

  ‘You won’t tell Mr Nelson, will you? Mr Nelson won’t be interested in the broken pots, will he?’

  ‘At the moment, I’m only concerned about what I’m going to tell my children.’

  ‘Haven’t you got any more clay?’ said Nicky. ‘Shall I make some more pots for them?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the same.’

  ‘I’m sorry I broke them. I’m as sorry as anything I broke them. I wish I could do a magic spell and make them come together again. But you don’t have to tell Mr Nelson, do you? There’s no sense worrying him about it, is there? He’s got enough to worry about, hasn’t he? With his arthritis, and his other things that I can’t remember their names. . . .’

  The incomprehensible chatter went on and on. ‘Go away!’ begged Miss Greenwood, almost hysterically. ‘Go away before I do tell him!’

  Nicky went. She looked for somewhere to hide, so she could watch if Miss Greenwood went to tell Mr Nelson. She flattened herself against the wall, just round the corner from Miss Greenwood’s room, and kept peeping. Miss Powell, on her way back to the staff room, found her there. ‘Why are you lurking?’

  ‘No reason.’

  ‘Are you going peculiar?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Get out to the playground then, I shan’t tell you again.’

  Nicky stood alone in the playground, with a face like thunder, and when Joycelyn came up, she turned her back on her. ‘What’s the matter?’ said Joycelyn. But Nicky wouldn’t tell her, and afterwards in class she sat brooding, not looking at anyone.

  ‘What’s wrong, Nicky?’ said Mr Hunt, but Nicky wouldn’t tell him either.

  After a while she put up her hand. ‘Can I go and see Mr Nelson?’

  ‘Is it important?’ said Mr Hunt.

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Will you cheer up if I let you go?’

  ‘It all depends what Mr Nelson says?’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  Mr Nelson was not in his office. The secretary didn’t know where he was, but thought he would be back soon. Nicky hung around for a few minutes, then found she couldn’t bear to be still. She began to wander round the school, looking for him.

  Miss Greenwood’s class were having painting. Nicky thought Miss Greenwood might have got over being angry by now; she could try some more pleading, perhaps. Nicky pressed her face against the glass panel in the door, and tried to catch Miss Greenwood’s eye. Miss Greenwood, looking up from helping one of her little ones, saw Nicky’s face peering through the door, and flinched. Nicky put on a wistful smile, but her nose and lips were partly flattened against the glass, so the smile looked unfortunately like a leer. ‘Go away!’ Miss Greenwood mouthed at her.

  Nicky was about to try again, when she saw Mr Nelson coming along the corridor, and went to meet him, falling into step beside him. ‘You’re limping ever such a lot, Sir.’

  ‘So I am.’

  ‘Did anybody say anything about me, Mr Nelson? Any of the teachers?’

  ‘Actually, yes.’

  ‘Was it good? What they said?’

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘I think you should go home early today, Sir, and rest your arthritis for tomorrow.’

  ‘What an attractive thought!’

  ‘Well, why don’t you?’

  ‘Because I have a hundred things to do here.’

  ‘Why don’t you put a notice outside your room, “PLEASE DON’T DISTURB”? Then nobody can interrupt you from doing your hundred things.’

  ‘Good idea, but, alas, not fitting!’

  It wasn’t too late, though, it wasn’t too late! As soon as Mr Nelson had limped away, Nicky went back to Miss Greenwood’s class to try once more. The sight of Nicky’s face leering against the glass panel yet again was terribly disconcerting. Miss Greenwood waved her away. The face disappeared, and a few moments later came back, its earnest contortions even more grotesque. Miss Greenwood felt the hysteria rising.

  She went to the door and opened it herself. ‘If you’ve got something to say, why don’t you come in and say it, instead of pulling those ghastly faces outside?’

  ‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’

  ‘Well you are disturbing me. I’m trying to teach and you’re bothering me.’ She was dreadfully upset still about the pots. One or two of her little ones had been in tears. It was too much to have to suffer even more of Nicky Mitchel
l’s attentions. ‘You’re bothering me! You’re being very rude! Now what is it?’

  It was bad luck that Miss Powell, on her way back to class after a free period, came along at that moment, and heard the agitated complaint. ‘Not you again!’ said Miss Powell to Nicky. ‘What are you doing this time, prowling round the school? What is she doing to annoy you, Miss Greenwood?’

  ‘Oh – looking through the door. Making faces.’

  Miss Powell gave Nicky a little push. ‘Get up to my room!’

  ‘But Miss Powell, I didn’t mean—’

  ‘MY ROOM! Go on, in front of me, where I can see you!’

  Nicky muttered something under her breath. ‘Did I hear you calling me an interfering ugly cow, by any chance? Oh, I thought I did! I must get my ears attended to! Go on, stand there by my table. All right, you lot, find yourself something to do for two minutes. . . . Did you hear me, Jason Charles? Something to do, I said, other than concerning yourself with someone else’s business. Right, Nicky, I shouldn’t think you need bother looking for your swimming costume tonight!’

  ‘It was a accident though,’ said poor Nicky.

  ‘What was? Making faces through Miss Greenwood’s door?’

  ‘No. When I knocked the pots over and they all got broke. It was a accident.’

  ‘Oh, you broke the pots! When was this?’

  ‘Dinner time. It was a accident. I didn’t want Miss Greenwood to tell Mr Nelson.’

  ‘Why should she, if it was an accident?’

  ‘I thought she might.’

  ‘How did the pots get knocked over?’

  ‘I was only trying to open the window.’

  ‘How?’

  Silence.

  ‘How, Nicky? How were you trying to open the window?’

  ‘I only climbed a bit.’

  ‘Did Miss Greenwood tell you to climb?’

  ‘. . . Not really.’

  ‘Did she tell you not to climb?’

  ‘. . . She might have.’

  ‘It wasn’t an accident, then, was it? It was a very serious piece of naughtiness.’

  ‘I thought she would be pleased if I got the window open. Please, Miss Powell, don’t tell Mr Nelson!’

  ‘I’m not going to tell him. You’re going to tell him yourself. Now. About your disobedience, and the damage to Miss Greenwood’s pots, and your rudeness to Miss Greenwood, and your rudeness to me on the stairs coming up, and don’t tell him you didn’t say it, because I know you did!’

  Nicky trailed sorrowfully to Mr Nelson’s office. ‘Oh dear,’ the headmaster sighed. ‘Trouble?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Bad?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Lots of things.’

  ‘Cheeked someone?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Damaged something?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Oh dear!’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Punched someone’s head in?’

  ‘No,’ said Nicky, brightening. ‘I didn’t do that. Not today. Not all day!’

  ‘You haven’t been perfect, though.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And we agreed you must.’

  ‘I know. . . . All right, Mr Nelson, you needn’t say it, I’ll say it for you! I can’t come on the outing tomorrow, can I? There, I said it myself. . . . I did try to be good, but it went wrong.’ Perhaps the children’s home wouldn’t be too bad. ‘Never mind, Sir, eh?’

  ‘Nicky,’ said Mr Nelson, thoughtfully, ‘tell me something. . . . Have you been to the seaside at all this year?’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  ‘Did you go last year?’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  ‘Have you ever been?’

  ‘I think so. I can’t quite remember. Eric’s dad nearly took us in his car, once.’

  ‘So you don’t really know what the sea’s like.’

  ‘Yes I do. I seen it on telly.’

  Mr Nelson looked down at some papers on his desk, because he was having a lot of feelings he didn’t want Nicky to see.

  ‘All right. Remember to bring a warm coat for tomorrow. And make sure Roy has warm clothes as well. You often get cold winds by the sea, even on a nice day.’

  Nicky stared at the strands of hair across the dome of Mr Nelson’s head. ‘Sir. . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I love you.’

  12

  A leaking secret

  ROY, TOO, HAD been having a troubled day. That morning time had seemed endless. Roy mooched about the house, lost without the television, his mind empty of motivation. There were a few books and comics in his room, and he thumbed through them listlessly, but he wasn’t much of a reader and soon gave that up. The pieces of last year’s Christmas presents, cheap and flashy toys now falling to bits, were piled in a depressing heap in the corner. He went into Nicky’s room, to see if she had anything better.

  Nicky was rarely idle, but since she was often better at starting things than she was at finishing them, her room was rather full of such items as half-completed jig-saws, bits of abandoned embroidery, a poem she was writing but had tired of, and so on. Nothing of interest to Roy.

  He went downstairs; slowly, one step at a time, so as not to get there too soon. He thought of making another WELCOME HOME banner for Mum, because that was a good idea he had had once, and he didn’t have many! But there didn’t seem much point in making a WELCOME HOME banner for someone who never came, and anyway Nicky broke up the first one they made, and anyway he didn’t want to think about Mum.

  He took a ball into the back garden, and began kicking it. Mrs Williams called to him, over the wall. ‘Why aren’t you in school?’

  ‘I got the ’flu.’

  ‘Why aren’t you in bed then?’

  ‘I’m a little bit better today. I’m going to school tomorrow.’

  ‘How’s your mum?’

  He was confused suddenly, being asked about Mum. What was he supposed to say?

  ‘Well, cat got your tongue?’

  ‘She’s in bed. Her ’flu is worser than mine.’

  ‘Did you have the doctor, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh? I thought your sister went for the prescription.’

  ‘I mean, yes. We did have the doctor. I forgot.’

  Mrs Williams gave Roy a sharp look. ‘You didn’t have the ’flu though, yesterday!’

  ‘Yes I did. I did.’

  ‘No you didn’t. You was out last night. I saw you.’

  ‘I wasn’t out! I wasn’t!’

  ‘I saw you. Quite late. Going up the chippie with your sister.’

  ‘Oh yes. I forgot.’ His fingers twisted frantically. He wished he had never come in the garden – whatever made him do it?

  ‘You seem to be forgetting a lot, today.’

  He shrugged, not looking at her.

  ‘I think you’re telling me a story!’

  Roy ran indoors. He sat on the sofa with the broken springs, shaking. Polly Pry thought he was telling a story! Polly Pry didn’t believe him! What would happen now?

  He went up to Nicky’s room, which had the best view over the back gardens. Mrs Williams had gone in her house, which was something. Roy came down again, and fiddled with the television that didn’t work, and tried to forget how he nearly gave away the secret.

  Mrs Williams had taken up her post at the front. The day promised to be warm and dry, not like yesterday. That rain yesterday was really something! Funny, Mrs Mitchell choosing yesterday, of all days, to open that window wide. Which was a thing she never did in her life before, Mrs Williams would swear! And she must have done it after the girl went to get the medicine, because the girl didn’t know it was open till she came back. And what a time to be getting medicine anyway! She must have had to find an all-night chemist . . . and she was wet through. . . . But stop a minute, stop a minute, the rain finished a long time before. So the girl must have been out for hours anyw
ay. How funny! And that meant, that meant, the window must have been open for hours!

  Mrs Williams thought it was funny, yesterday – and now she thought about it again it seemed even funnier. Whoever heard of getting out of a sick bed, and coming downstairs and opening a window wide, to let all the rain in? And then going back to bed, and leaving the window wide open for the burglars!

  That girl was hiding something, yesterday.

  The boy was hiding something this morning, as well. He looked quite scared when he ran in, just now.

  The two of them were hiding something? What?

  Something to do with the mother?

  Mrs Williams looked at the Mitchells’ house. She looked at the Front Room window, firmly locked now. She looked up at the window of the front bedroom, where Mrs Mitchell was supposed to be lying, ill in bed. That window was closed, when surely it ought to be open a bit. A warm day like this, and she had been in the room all night. Surely the room would be stale, and stuffy, now. Surely she would need some fresh air.

  If she had been in it all night!

  Suddenly Mrs Williams felt quite excited. She tried to remember when she had last seen Mrs Mitchell, and she couldn’t. More than a week ago – it must be more than a week! And that Mrs Morris said she hadn’t seen her, either. Just casual, just in passing, like it was only a coincidence – but perhaps it wasn’t just coincidence after all.

  Where was Mrs Mitchell, really?

  At last, and after a lot more thought, Mrs Williams left her post by the gate, and went to knock at the Morrises’ front door.

  Mrs Morris was giving the kitchen a good clean, which she always did on Tuesday mornings. She was very particular about her house, and she always did the same jobs on the same days, and she didn’t like having her routine interrupted. She didn’t mind a gossip when it was the right time for a gossip, but the right time was not now, when it was her morning for cleaning the kitchen. She prepared to get rid of Mrs Williams as soon as she could, because that woman was a terrible time-waster, and if she had nothing to do but stand by her front gate all day, then other people did!

  ‘I want to ask you something,’ said Mrs Williams.

  ‘I was just doing the oven,’ said Mrs Morris.

  ‘It won’t take a minute,’ said Mrs Williams. ‘It might be important!’ She implied, more important than the oven.