Hannah in the Spotlight (7 page)

‘OK, I’ve got a new theory,’ Laura told me.

We were sitting on the wall outside the library, swinging our legs. I’d checked to see who was behind the desk, and sure enough it was the grumpy old Mr Jenkins. He certainly wouldn’t let us away with talking in the library, even in whispers, so we’d just have to have our little chat outside.

‘About what?’

‘About the Mystery of Meg, of course,’ Laura said.

I rolled my eyes. ‘Not that again.’

Laura was unperturbed. ‘Now you’re going to think this is crazy, but just listen to me. It all adds up when you think about it.’

‘WHAT does? Laura, you’re not making any sense.’

‘OK, here goes.’ Laura paused for dramatic effect. ‘Meg and her mother are on the run. Her parents are locked in a custody dispute over her, and her mum has run away with her so her dad can’t have her.’

Laura sat back and waited for my reaction. I stared at her
incredulously. ‘You can’t be serious, Laura.’

‘Think about it!’ Laura said. ‘It all makes perfect sense!’ She began ticking the points off on her fingers. ‘She won’t talk about her dad at all. She won’t say anything about whether her parents are divorced. She never mentions any plans to go to see him.’

‘That hardly means her mum has kidnapped her!’ I said.

Laura ignored me. ‘She doesn’t have a mobile phone, even though up until now I thought you and Ruby were the only twelve-year-olds in the western world who didn’t have one. That’s so her dad can’t track her down using the signal. Private investigators can trace people using all that sort of stuff.’

I rolled my eyes again. Then I thought of the conversation I’d overheard the night before. I was about to say something, but Laura continued unabated. ‘She sometimes uses American words for things, like she said “sidewalk” instead of “footpath” the other day, and “chips” instead of “crisps”, and sometimes she has a bit of an American accent. But she’s never said she used to live in America when we asked her where they lived before.’

‘That’s true,’ I had to admit. ‘But it hardly means she’s been kidnapped.’

‘Think about it,’ Laura insisted. ‘They have a different legal system over there. Say her dad’s an American citizen, and her mum is Irish, which we know she is. Say they’re
divorcing. There’s no way the courts would let Meg’s mum take her out of the country. So she had no choice but to run away with her if she wanted to come home.’

‘Yes, but …’ I seized on a fatal flaw in Laura’s theory. ‘Meg’s mum comes from Carrickbeg. Surely this is the first place her dad would come to look for them if they’d run away.’

‘I thought about that,’ Laura said. ‘But they haven’t moved in with Meg’s granny. You said she had tons of room in her house, so why haven’t they moved in there?’

I waited. No doubt Laura would have a rational explanation.

‘So they have an early warning system!’ Laura said. ‘If he comes looking for them there, Meg’s granny can warn her mum, and she’ll have time to take off for somewhere else. Living next door to you means they have the best of both worlds. They can be near to Meg’s granny, and all her mum’s friends, but they’ll know in advance if he’s trying to track them down.’

I was still sceptical. ‘I don’t know, Laura. It seems to me that if they were really on the run they’d have chosen somewhere brand new, where they have no connections.’

‘Well, there’s also the fact that if he DID track them down Meg’s mum would be protected by the Irish courts,’ Laura argued. ‘Meg is an Irish citizen, so she couldn’t be sent back to the States if the custody case was held here.’

‘I suppose …’ I didn’t want to admit it, but Laura’s theory was starting to sound a little bit plausible.

Laura had saved the best for last. ‘Final point,’ she said. ‘Why did Meg’s mother not want her to be in Star Club? She’s a really laidback mum, it seems like she lets Meg do pretty much what she wants.’

‘I don’t know, I can’t figure that one out at all,’ I said.

‘Because she might be in a show,’ Laura said. ‘She could get her picture in the local paper, and they’re all online now, so if her dad was searching for her he’d know exactly where she was. Now do you see?’

‘You know, you might actually be on to something,’ I said slowly.

Laura stared at me. ‘Oh my God! I didn’t really believe it until you said that!’

‘What?’

‘I thought it was just me being crazy, but now that you’ve said it I’m thinking it’s almost definitely true! Oh my God! Poor Meg!’

‘Laura, wait a minute––’

‘No, you’re right, Hannah. There’s definitely something in it. No wonder Meg is so jumpy all the time! It’s like something out of a spy story.’

A thought struck me. ‘Is that what you’ve been writing about? Meg’s family?’

Laura looked a bit guilty.

‘It is, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘That’s why you didn’t want her seeing your story yesterday.’

Laura scratched at the ground with the toe of her shoe, not looking at me. ‘I may have been inspired by real-life events in some of my writing this week.’

‘Oh, Laura, I don’t think that’s very fair,’ I said. ‘Meg is our friend.’

‘Well, it’s not like I’m going to show the story to anyone,’ Laura argued. ‘I’m just writing it for me, really. You know what I’m like – I’m seized with an idea and I just have to write about it. Anyway, my story’s not the important thing. The important thing is, what are we going to do?’

‘What are we going to do about what?’ I was having trouble keeping up with Laura’s train of thought.

‘About Meg, of course! If she really has been kidnapped.’

‘What can we do?’ I said. ‘It’s nothing to do with us. Meg and her mum seem perfectly happy. We don’t even know if there’s anything in your theory, you might have got it totally wrong.’

‘Well, just pretend for a minute that I’m right. What should we do?’

I thought for a minute. ‘Still nothing, except be there for Meg if she needs us. And I guess we should keep an eye out for anything strange, and look after her as much as we can.’

‘And keep our eyes and ears open for any clues,’ Laura
said. ‘You never know when something will come along.’

‘Are you two going to sit on the wall there all day?’ It was a grumpy-looking Mr Jenkins, standing in the library door glowering at us. ‘You’re putting the paying customers off.’

‘It’s a library. No one has to pay to use it,’ Laura pointed out. I didn’t know how she dared to speak to him like that.

‘Yes, it’s a library. Not a teenage hang-out joint,’ Mr Jenkins snapped. ‘So either come in or go home. You’re not sitting on that wall a minute longer, not if I have anything to do with it.’

I hopped down from the wall. It really wasn’t worth arguing with Mr Jenkins when he was like this. Laura followed me more slowly. Mr Jenkins waited until we were walking down the road before storming back inside.

‘Such a charming man,’ Laura said. ‘His wife is a very lucky lady.’

‘God, do you think he’s married?’ I giggled. ‘Who would marry him?’

‘Only someone who needs their head examined!’

‘I’d better get home,’ I said. ‘I promised Mum I wouldn’t be long, and Maisie wants me to help her with an art project. I’d better get it done now so I’ll be free for our meeting this afternoon.’

‘I’m going to go into town,’ Laura said. ‘I want to get some hair stuff for putting my hair into a bun. For when
I’m Madame Fidolia, you know.’

‘See you later then!’

‘Yep.’ Laura got on her bike. ‘Don’t forget to keep an eye on Meg’s house, and give me a ring if you spot anything unusual.’

I watched her cycle off. Laura was always so dramatic. There couldn’t really be any truth in her theory about Meg – could there?

Maisie’s art project kept me busy for the rest of the morning.

‘What is it you want to make, Maisie?’ I asked her when I got home.

‘A massive, ginormous banner,’ Maisie informed me, ‘saying “Happy Birthday, Maisie”.’

I bit my lip, trying not to laugh. ‘Isn’t that the sort of thing you make for someone else as a surprise? Not for yourself, I mean.’

Maisie frowned at me. ‘Why not?’

‘Well, you don’t say “happy birthday” to yourself, do you?’ I pointed out.

‘
I
do,’ Maisie said. ‘When I wake up on my birthday, I always say “Happy birthday, Maisie”, even before I get out of bed.’

‘OK. But what about Mum’s birthday banner? She probably wants to use that.’

Mum’s birthday banner was beautiful – bunting in all the colours of the rainbow, with HAPPY BIRTHDAY
spelled out, one letter on each triangle. She’d made it herself, every bit of it stitched by hand, for my first birthday. That was when she only had one child, and a lot more time on her hands.

Maisie was dismissive. ‘That’s
your
birthday banner. I want one of my own.’

‘It belongs to everyone now,’ I said. ‘I know Mum made it for me, but it doesn’t say “Hannah” on it, and Mum puts it up for everyone’s birthday.’

Maisie shrugged. ‘She can still put it up if she wants. Just somewhere less important, like maybe the kitchen. Mine is going to go in the garden, where the party is. And it’s going to say “Happy Birthday
Maisie
” on it, so everyone knows it’s just mine.’

Maisie had that determined look on her face that I knew meant she would keep on arguing until she wore me down. Suddenly I saw where she was coming from. Almost all her clothes were hand-me-downs from me, packed away in bin bags and stored in the attic when I outgrew them, to be taken down a few years later for Maisie. A lot of her toys were the same. Her scooter was the one Zach had outgrown, and her bike had once been Bobby’s. And since Emma had come along Maisie wasn’t even the baby of the family any more, and she got much less of Mum’s time. Maisie’s birthday was the only thing that was just hers.

‘OK, Maisie,’ I said. ‘You go and get the paints out, and I’ll find some paper. Do you want coloured paper or white?’

‘White,’ Maisie called over her shoulder as she went off in search of the paints. ‘I’m going to be using lots and lots of glitter.’

I was a bit nervous that afternoon as I told the other girls what Mum had suggested. Would they think we weren’t ready to put on our show yet? Or would they think a six-year-old’s birthday party was a strange place to be putting on our first show?

I needn’t have worried, though. Everyone liked the idea right away.

‘It’s great to have something to aim for,’ Meg said. ‘And three weeks is lots of time to rehearse, we should be perfect by then!’

‘Or good enough for six-year-olds, anyway,’ Ruby giggled. ‘I’m glad our first audience is going to be young! I was a bit scared someone was going to suggest doing it when we go back to school or something. The thoughts of performing in front of our whole class!’

‘You’ve performed in front of hundreds of people before,’ Laura pointed out.

‘Yes but that was dancing,’ Ruby said. ‘My body just takes over. Acting is different. I’m not inside the music, I’m
still there in my own head.’

When Ruby got onto the subject of ballet it was sometimes like she was talking a foreign language.

‘So everyone’s OK with the idea?’ I asked, still a little anxious.

‘Yes, stop worrying!’ Laura said. ‘It sounds great. Maisie will love it.’

‘Cool.’ I opened my star-covered notebook. ‘OK, we really need to start planning then! We’ll have to have a regular schedule for rehearsals, and make up our minds for certain about what scenes we’re doing, and what costumes we’ll need, and who’s going to look after the props …’

‘How was your meeting?’ Mum asked, after I got home.

‘Great,’ I told her. ‘Everyone’s on board.’

‘Glad to hear it!’ Mum said. ‘I guess it’s time to tell Maisie the news about the party then.’

‘News about the party? My party? What’s the news? How come Hannah knows and not me?’ Maisie had appeared behind Mum and was practically jumping up and down on the spot with excitement.

I pretended to think hard. ‘News? Was there news, Mum?’

‘Do you know, I think I’ve forgotten what it is,’ Mum said. ‘Was it that we’re going to have krispie buns?’

‘That’s not news. We always have krispie buns!’ Maisie said.

‘Was it that Maisie gets to wear her party dress?’ I wondered.

‘I
always
wear my party dress,’ Maisie said. Now she actually
was
jumping up and down. ‘Stop being silly! Tell me, tell me, tell me!’

Mum grinned. ‘Oh, all right then. It’s about the party entertainment.’

‘There’s going to be entertainment?’ Maisie squealed.

‘A brand new and very exclusive type of entertainment,’ I told her. ‘In fact, this theatre group is going to put on their very first show just for you.’

‘Star Club?’ Maisie exclaimed. ‘Just for my party, really? All of you?’

‘Yes, all of us. We’re going to practise really hard to make your birthday show perfect.’

‘Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow!’ Maisie hugged me around the waist, then ran around the table to do the same thing to Mum. ‘So can I be the dog then?’

Oh no – it looked like Maisie had got the wrong idea. ‘No, Maisie, I told you, there isn’t a dog.’

‘Is there a cat?’ Maisie dropped down on to all fours and started rubbing her side along Mum’s legs in what I had to admit was a pretty good impression of a cat.

‘There aren’t any animals,’ I said. I looked at Mum for help.

‘Maisie, I’m not sure you understand,’ Mum said gently.
‘It’s Hannah and her friends who are going to be in the show. You’re going to be in the audience. The most important person in the audience,’ she added hastily, seeing Maisie’s face.

‘What do you mean I’m not in the show?’ Maisie said. ‘It’s my party, isn’t it? Can’t I even have a teeny tiny part?’

‘Well …’ Mum raised her eyebrows at me.

‘No!’ I said. ‘Sorry, Maisie, but it’s a Star Club show, and we have it all planned out. I can’t just go adding more people to it. It wouldn’t be fair.’

‘But it ISN’T fair!’ Maisie said. ‘It’s supposed to be MY party!’ She went stomping out of the room.

Mum sighed. ‘Oh dear, I thought she’d love the idea. I don’t suppose you could give her some small part, Hannah? She’s so interested in your show, and it is her birthday.’

‘No, Mum!’ I felt like stomping out of the room myself. ‘Sorry, but this is my thing with my friends. I don’t want Maisie taking over.’

Mum ruffled my hair. ‘Fair enough. I’ll talk to Maisie, I’m sure she’ll come round.’

I watched Mum walking away, feeling a bit guilty. I knew Maisie would love to be in the show – but honestly, couldn’t I have one thing where I had a break from being a big sister?