The Secret Read online

  ‘Don’t tear out any more,’ said Pamela. ‘We can play at going to the bank with it. When we do our dressing up. And lock our door first with the keys.’

  ‘And we can put on the lipstick,’ said Pandora. ‘And this lovely eye stuff.’

  ‘Wash it off before Mummy sees, though.’

  ‘Oh she won’t see,’ said Pandora. ‘She’s too busy to see anything! She won’t see if we lipstick ourselves all over! She will just say, “Run away for now, darlings, I have to change Richard’s nappy, I think he’s done a poo!”’

  ‘We have a lot more fun now, don’t we?’ said Pamela. ‘Since Richard came.’

  The garden shed was also the twins’ playhouse. Daddy had painted it for them in bright colours, one Saturday. They hardly saw Daddy during the week, because he worked in London and didn’t get home till late. The twins didn’t mind about not seeing Daddy much, because they had their red, yellow and blue playhouse, with lots of lovely secrets inside. And now this! The cheque book and the make-up and all the other odds and ends were scraped off the ground and put back into the handbag, so the grown-ups wouldn’t know the twins had found it. Because grown-ups were funny about things that got found, and so fussy they might even take it all away.

  Pamela and Pandora put Mrs Mitchell’s handbag into their playhouse and hid it under a jumble of dressing-up things. There was no money to be put back in the bag, of course. The thief had taken the money before he threw the bag away; before he stuffed the bag between the hedge and the little shed, leaping on to the wall outside for a moment to make himself tall enough to do it. He would have taken the keys and the Benefit book as well if he had been a proper thief and known what to do with them. But he wasn’t a proper thief. This was only the second bag he had ever snatched in his life, and once he had the money all he wanted to do was get rid of everything else, hopefully where nobody would find it.

  In the middle of the night Roy woke, cold inside and desolate. He slipped out of bed, and stood forlornly in the doorway of his sister’s room. ‘Nicky. . . .’

  ‘What’s the matter? Did you wet the bed?’

  ‘No. . . . She didn’t come, did she?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nicky. . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know she’s not dead, but suppose she’s ill?’

  ‘Tony would bring her home.’

  ‘Suppose she had to go to hospital?’

  ‘Tony would tell us.’

  ‘Suppose Tony had to go to hospital as well?’

  ‘Well someone would tell us. Stop supposing bad things and go back to bed.’

  ‘I’m not only supposing she didn’t come! I’m not only supposing that. It’s real!’

  ‘Well it’s nothing to worry about. She’s probably having such a good time she forgot what day it is.’

  ‘Will she come tomorrow, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes!’

  4

  Covering up

  ‘I THINK WE ought to tell somebody,’ said Roy.

  ‘I didn’t hear that!’ said Nicky, sternly.

  ‘I think we ought to, though.’

  ‘Roy! You know Mum’s going to get in trouble for leaving us! Do you want our mum to get in trouble . . .? Well, then!’

  ‘What will they do to her?’

  ‘I dunno. . . . Not exactly.’

  ‘Put her in prison?’

  ‘No, not that. But they will tell her off like anything, she said. And stick their noses in.’

  ‘So why didn’t she come home?’

  ‘Actually, I don’t understand it,’ Nicky admitted. ‘But I expect it is something quite ordinary really. Anyway Mum will explain it to us when she comes.’

  ‘She better come today! She better!’

  ‘Let’s think about good things now,’ said Nicky. ‘Let’s think about the Outing. And we can take our letters back, that Mum had to sign for us to go. We forgot them yesterday.’

  At school, Roy lurked behind the toilets, wishing the bell would go. Every second in the playground was one more second of danger. At any moment some of them might start – carelessly, calling names for fun, with no idea of how terrible they made him feel. But once in the classroom he was reasonably safe, because they couldn’t do much with Mrs Blake there.

  He thought about Mum not coming home, and it was like looking into a dark tunnel you couldn’t see the end of. It was frightening; there was something wrong about it, whatever Nicky said! Mums didn’t do things like that, did they? Anyway, he never heard of it before.

  The bell at last! Roy dawdled to 3B’s line, hoping to be at the end. If he was at the end there would be nobody behind him to hiss nasty things into his ear.

  There was some commotion going on in 4H’s line – Nicky scuffling with Eric Morris again. Then Nicky was being hauled out of the line, and was arguing with Miss Powell about whether she was supposed to be in 4H or 4P that day. She finally accepted Miss Powell’s judgement with a bad grace, and stood behind Jason Charles, whispering uncomplimentary things about Miss Powell over his shoulder. Then Miss Powell was leading her class into school, and Roy saw his sister mimicking Miss Powell’s walk. It was not difficult to make fun of Miss Powell’s walk because, although her face was pretty, she was unfortunate enough to have a long body and short legs like a duck, so her bottom stuck out and wiggled as she went. Roy saw that most of Class 4P were turning round to watch Nicky’s performance, and he dreaded that Miss Powell would turn round and catch her at it, and she would be in even more trouble.

  Mrs Blake had noticed, of course, that Roy Mitchell had no friends. She had also noticed that Sharon, Jennifer and Claudette, a trio of black chatter-boxes, were prepared to be kind to Roy up to a point, when they could spare the time. So Mrs Blake, who was kind herself in a limited sort of way, had Roy sitting at the same table as Sharon, Jennifer and Claudette. This left two vacant seats at that table, however, and since there was a fair sprinkling of naughty children in Class 3B, and since Mrs Blake very definitely didn’t want all the naughty ones sitting together, the last two seats of that table were occupied by Gary and Sanjay, two of the worst by anybody’s standards, and the cause of daily misery to poor Roy. Not as bad as his sufferings in the playground, of course, but bad enough.

  They wouldn’t start anything while Mrs Blake was watching, but Mrs Blake couldn’t be watching all the time. She moved from group to group, and as soon as her back was turned this morning, Gary began. ‘Roy Mitchell wets the bed!’ Gary had bulging eyes and buck teeth, and his voice, even his whisper, was rasping and cruel. Sanjay echoed him, his mean little ferret-face alight with malice. Roy blushed.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Sharon, whispering.

  ‘Yeah, shut up,’ said Jennifer, out loud. ‘You get on our nerves, keeping on the same thing all the time.’

  ‘Pencils down!’ said Mrs Blake.

  She had just remembered that Nellie (Mr Nelson) had asked her to have a word with her class about everyone picking on Roy Mitchell; and being a bit tactless, as well as kind, it didn’t occur to her that she should arrange for Roy not to be there. She went on and on about how ashamed she was to think that people in her class were guilty of persecuting, which was a despicable thing to do. And Roy Mitchell had done nothing to them first, so there was absolutely no excuse. Well – yes – he had been known to hide people’s rubbers once or twice, that was true, but only after they had driven him to it with their teasing. As she said, the behaviour of the class in general towards poor Roy was really despicable, and she wanted to see no more of it. . . . And now back to work!

  Roy’s scarlet face was buried in his arms. He dared not lift it. Everyone must be looking at him. Mrs Blake had only made it all worse.

  Gary, deeply resentful at being called ‘despic-’, whatever it was Mrs Blake said, whispered in Claudette’s ear. Roy couldn’t hear what he said, but it must be something rude because Claudette sniggered and said, ‘Don’t be nasty!’
And Claudette whispered to the other two, cupping her hand over her mouth to keep Roy out of it, so he knew it must be about him. And then the girls were all sniggering, not looking at him. There was a sick feeling in Roy’s stomach. They were all against him now, all of them!

  Anguished already because Mum hadn’t come home, Roy twisted his fingers and felt the bitterness and the anger surging inside him. He swallowed it down because there was nothing he could do about it; he knew he was too scared to have a go at his tormentors. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair! Why couldn’t he be the same as everybody else? Other people just lashed out with their fists when things upset them. They didn’t think about it, they just did it. Other people didn’t wet the bed. So why couldn’t he be like other people, then? He was unlucky, that’s what it was. He was unlucky and it wasn’t fair! The helpless rage went on boiling and boiling inside him, till he felt he was going to explode.

  He tried to think about getting his maths right and making Mrs Blake praise him, so there would be one good thing at least about this day. He was quite good at maths; it was his best lesson. Not very good; there wasn’t anything he was very good at. And today he wasn’t even being a bit good, because his mind was filled up with pictures of grinning faces. He could see them grinning, all around him, even though he wasn’t looking at them. Even though, as a matter of fact, they had tired of the rude joke and gone back to their work. In his head, Roy could still hear their sniggers, even though they weren’t actually laughing at him any more. The grins in his mind’s eye grew wider, the sniggers in his head grew louder, till the grins and the sniggers filled the whole world.

  At playtime, Roy took Gary’s plimsolls and put them down the toilet.

  It wasn’t the first time he had thought about putting someone’s plimsolls down the toilet, but it was the first time he had actually done it. No one saw him. He was quite cunning, he lingered in his seat until everyone else had left the classroom, and when Mrs Blake told him to hurry up and get downstairs, he took Gary’s P.E. bag, which was over the back of Gary’s chair. Then he carried it out casually, swinging it from his wrist as though it were his own. He had meant to put Gary’s shorts down the toilet as well, but found he was too frightened after all. Instead, he stuffed the shorts and the bag behind the cistern, and ran down to the playground.

  At first, Roy was quite exultant about what he had done, but satisfaction soon changed to guilt and fear. What about when Mrs Blake found out? He remembered the few occasions when Mrs Blake had caught him out in little tricks before; those tiny, weak things he did sometimes, like hiding people’s rubbers. He remembered what a fuss she always made about that!

  Roy imagined Mrs Blake’s long, mournful face bending over him, when she found out about the plimsolls. The beads round her ridgy throat wobbled up and down, and her voice went higher and higher as she squealed like a squeaky gate all about how ashamed of him she was, and how ashamed he ought to be. She did the same to anyone who was naughty, of course, not just him, but it was all right for them because they were the same as each other, and didn’t feel like a piece of rubbish already. When Mrs Blake found out about the plimsolls she was going to make him feel all shrunk up, like an insect. She was going to make him feel like an insect and she was going to squash him, right into the ground.

  ‘Where’s my P.E. bag?’ said Gary, indignant and aggressive immediately. ‘Someone’s took my P.E. bag! Come on, who’s took it?’

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ said Sanjay.

  ‘One of you girls! Come on!’

  ‘Don’t accuse people of things they didn’t do,’ said Claudette. ‘We don’t want your smelly old bag.’

  ‘You left it in the cloakroom, I expect,’ said Mrs Blake.

  ‘I didn’t. It was on my chair. Didn’t I leave it on my chair? Who saw it on my chair before play? See, Mrs Blake, it was on my chair and somebody took it!’

  ‘Roy’s gone all red,’ said someone on the other side of the class.

  He had to go to Mr Nelson, and Mr Nelson was quite a bit more understanding than Mrs Blake, who could excuse the rubbers on reflection, but not the plimsolls. Mr Nelson understood that people didn’t actually want to do horrible disgusting things to other people’s property, it was just that people were so horrible themselves, sometimes, it made it so other people couldn’t bear it without doing something horrible back. Mr Nelson understood how it was, but he still wouldn’t let Roy go back to his class just yet because he thought it was important for Roy to have some time to himself, he said, to consider how putting people’s plimsolls down the toilet only made a bad situation worse. That was what Mr Nelson said.

  So Roy had to sit outside Mr Nelson’s room, where Nicky had sat the day before, and everyone saw him there in disgrace, so he felt like an insect after all.

  When 4P passed by, on their way down to the hall for P.E., Nicky saw Roy sitting outside Mr Nelson’s room. ‘What you there for?’ she hissed at him. She was surprised, because he was quiet in class, and sitting outside Mr Nelson’s room was mostly for the disruptive ones.

  ‘Put Gary’s plimsolls down the toilet, didn’t I?’

  ‘You did what? You silly stupid baby, that’s a thing that Infants do!’

  ‘He said bad things about me.’

  ‘So? Why didn’t you just smash his face in?’

  ‘Nicky Mitchell, get back into line!’ said Miss Powell’s cross voice.

  At dinner time, Mr Nelson judged it was safe to let Roy back to his class. ‘Come and sit with us,’ said Claudette. ‘We’re on your side.’ Like twittering birds, the girls closed round him.

  ‘Gary deserve it,’ said Jennifer.

  ‘I put someone’s plimsolls down the toilet once,’ said Sharon. ‘When I was five.’

  ‘Poor Roy!’ said Claudette, with an arm round his neck.

  They were trying to be nice, but they were treating him like a baby, and it wasn’t what he wanted, it wasn’t what he wanted! Nothing happened like he wanted it to happen. He wasn’t enjoying himself in the world, and he didn’t like the world! With downcast eyes, Roy stared morosely at his plate.

  ‘You’re not eating your dinner, Roy,’ scolded Claudette, who hadn’t tasted hers yet.

  ‘It’s horrible,’ said Roy.

  School dinner was, indeed, a singularly unappetizing mess that day. It was meant to be a savoury mince, but something had gone wrong. The cook had been too heavy-handed with the stock cubes, and the meat had burned on the bottom of the pan as well. All over the hall were sounds of protest and rejection, and from the fourth year table, shrieks of fiendish laughter; Nicky’s laughter. She was sitting next to Jason Charles, a boy with magnificent dreadlocks and a terrible reputation, and their heads were together, and they were plotting something.

  Roy watched, nervously. Nicky was going to do something bad, he could feel it. He didn’t understand why Nicky did outrageous things for fun, in school. She made the teachers so angry with her sometimes that it was like all the anger in the school came raining like hailstones down on Nicky’s head. Roy didn’t understand how anyone could enjoy trouble. But Nicky thrived on it; the hailstones bounced off her somehow, and she came up grinning every time. Although he didn’t understand her, Roy thought it must be quite nice to be her.

  They were nudging one another, Nicky and Jason, exploding now and again with little bursts of malicious glee. They were nudging people around them, and pointing at Eric Morris, who was sitting further down the long table. Eric loved his food, even more than Roy did. And whereas Roy was choosy, Eric would eat anything. Eric was gobbling up the savoury mince with relish, quite oblivious of the fact that he was practically the only one eating it.

  Jason was egging Nicky on to something. Roy couldn’t hear what he was saying, there was too much noise in the hall and the fourth year table was too far away, but he could see Jason’s mouth making the words, and he thought it was something like ‘fat pig’, and ‘serve him right’, and ‘I dare you’. Then Nicky was getting up from her place
. She was picking up her dinner. Oh no, what was she going to do with it? She was going to get in trouble, she was going to get in trouble! She was walking round the table. What was she going to do? Mrs Blake was on duty; why didn’t Mrs Blake make Nicky sit down? ‘Sit down, Nicky Mitchell!’ Mrs Blake’s voice shrilled, much too late.

  ‘There!’ said Nicky to Eric Morris. ‘There’s a second helping for you!’ And she threw her savoury mince right into Eric Morris’s face.

  It stuck in his hair, and dribbled over his shirt. He gulped and spluttered, and everyone was so shocked they didn’t even laugh, at first. Only Nicky, cackling like a demon, broke the silence which had suddenly come over the hall.

  So then she had to go to Mr Nelson, and what with one thing and another, and his arthritis having such cruel fun with him this afternoon, Mr Nelson was quite a bit tetchy with Nicky. ‘It won’t do, Nicky,’ he said, wincing at a particularly vicious twinge.

  ‘Is your leg hurting you, Sir?’

  ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘You’re making funny faces.’

  ‘That’s enough!’ said Mr Nelson, sharply. ‘Look here, Nicky. Twice yesterday and now today, and your brother was a nuisance as well this morning. That’s too much aggravation from one family, and I’m not going to have it.’

  ‘Sorry, Sir. Sorry about your bad knee as well, Sir.’

  ‘Both knees today, if you must know. It must be going to rain. And sorry isn’t good enough. One more piece of nonsense, just one more, Nicky, and I shall have to ask your mother to come up to the school. Again.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘What does “oh” mean?’

  ‘It means Roy won’t do no more wrong things, which is easy. And I won’t do no more wrong things, neither.’

  ‘Which is much, much harder.’

  ‘Oh I mean it! Cross my heart and hope to die! And you can forget all about asking our mum to come up to school. You can forget all about that because me and Roy will not think about giving you the trouble when you are so busy, and you have a bad leg. Two bad legs. Which makes me very sad for you.’