Nicking Time (10 page)

I’ve just put the last bit of toast in my mouth when Kit bellows from the living room, “
Midge!
They’re going to play it
next
– c’mon!”

I scramble into place. She’s pushed the coffee table out of the way to give us space to dance. She’s turned up the radio really loud. Mum’s sitting on the settee, ready to watch the performance. She’s brave.

“Me first, then you,” says Kit, getting into position. “Then both of us together. Right?”

“Right.”

It starts. We shimmy from side to side during the intro and verse, hitting the disco beat. The chorus comes quick. We’re off.

“Shake, shake, shake…”
Kit throws her hips madly from side to side.

Then me,
“Shake, shake, shake…”
grooving with even more energy (and style).

“Shake your booty – Shake your booty.”
Deeper
swaying
motions for this bit. Kit and I sing along, bumping hips together. The trumpets come in, underlining each command and giving our dance moves the kind of
fanfare
they deserve. And straight into the chorus again,
“Aw, shake, shake, shake…”

The verses are really short. Here comes the chorus again – you’ve got to be ready to shake! We use the long Aw at the start to get into position, bum tilted to the left. This is my kind of dancing.

Aw, shake, shake, shake…

Shake, shake, shake…

Shake your booty,

Shake your booty!

To make the performance even more memorable, we spin round, reverse shimmy up to the settee and shake our booties in Mum’s face. She shrieks with laughter, hitting out at our bums. “You cheeky monkeys!”

“Aw, don’t fight the feeling!” Kit sings, and we both pull Mum into the dance arena. She’s already laughing so much she can hardly stand, let alone dance. But we sing,
“Shake!
…
Shake!”
really loudly at her and she has to join in.

“You’re not a bad dancer, Mum,” I say admiringly when the DJ fades the music so that he can entertain everybody with his chat again.

“Thank you,” she says, dropping onto the settee.

“For an old person,” I say with a grin.

“Oh, and there goes August’s pocket money. What a shame!”

“Could we buy the record, Mum, so we can listen to it when we want? They don’t play it often enough on the radio.”

“Have you got any money to buy it?”

“No.”

“Well, we’ll see. It’s not that long till Christmas, I suppose.”

“
Christmas?
”

“We’ll see. Right – are we ready to go?

It’s surprising I’m in such a good mood when you think about it. We’re having a Family Day Out. That’s how my mum announced it yesterday,
three
capital letters. This was her way of telling us that all argument against it would be useless. Does she not realise? Does she not know how unfair she’s being? I was halfway into a big moan about having other much more important things to do when I was stopped in my tracks by the realisation that I didn’t have a story ready if she asked what. I could hardly tell her this was our day for Cathkin – so I shut up quick. (She thought it was the warning glint in her eyes that stopped me.) So here I am, about to waste an entire day with my family and we’ve had to postpone Cathkin YET AGAIN.

When I told them, Lemur gave me a look like I really had my priorities all wrong. Hector took out his chewed pencil and, with a weary sigh, edited The List. Skooshie punched me on the arm in what I think was sympathy (it hurt). Bru just said it would be even better when we did eventually get there. “‘When?’” I heard Lemur mutter. “I think you mean ‘if’.” I don’t much care what Lemur thinks – I’m still annoyed with him for lying. But I do feel bad for the rest of them. Really bad.

I’m trying not to think about what I’m missing. (Will they be hanging out in the den? Will they go to the park, to check out the dead soldiers in the boating
pond?
Will they go to Cathkin without me
? The thought’s unbearable, so I push it out of my head.)

We don’t
ever
go out as a family, not unless we have to or we’re on holiday – and that’s different because then there aren’t other things you could be doing. We’re not going on holiday this year. No one’s saying why but I think it might be something to do with the Grammar and the cost of the uniform and all the books I need. Kit must have been warned when I wasn’t around because she hasn’t complained about it, not even once. Anyway, I reckon that’s why Mum’s decided we’re going out today. Kit’s quite excited. I’m resigned. My dad’s just looking bemused.

“So where are we going?” I ask. We’re in the car and my dad’s just turned left at the bottom of the hill.

“Kelvingrove Art Gallery,” says Kit. How come she knows and I don’t?

“Is that the place with the stuffed animals?” I say. Maybe this won’t be as bad as I thought.

I really like the art gallery. It’s got loads of interesting stuff in it, not just boring paintings. And the building is brilliant. The first great thing is that it is back to front. (Hector told me.) The builders did it the wrong way round, so the big grand entrance is at the back, looking at the park instead of at the main road. Or maybe it was the architect who got his drawing wrong. I’m not a hundred percent sure who was to blame, but whatever happened, the architect was so gutted that he
jumped off one of the towers and killed himself. Total over-reaction, if you ask me. I mean, unless you know somebody like Hector, who would even notice it’s the wrong way round?

The other great thing about the building is that inside it’s one huge big high hall, open right up to the roof – the kind of place that
wants
you to shout your head off, so that you can hear your voice bounce off the walls and the ceiling. I wouldn’t mind being locked in a museum overnight – me, Bru, Skooshie, Hector – I might even invite Lemur. There’d be the whole who-can-
shout-loudest
challenge. I’d also want to climb up the giant stuffed animals, especially a really tall one, like the giraffe. And sleeping in the same room as an Egyptian mummy has always been an ambition of mine.

Kit wanders by as I’m looking up at the ceiling and trying to judge just how loud I could sound. She prods me in the back and scoots off, with a muffled giggle. So that’s her game! Secret chases round the museum – the double challenge of catching her and not being caught messing about? She’s on!

It lasts until I trip over the edge of a display and nearly decapitate a stuffed penguin. Kit pretends she’s got nothing to do with me, giving a loud tut of disapproval and disappearing. I think I’ve managed to escape a row by exiting sharpish and finding a great big fish in a display case to stare at, as though I’m totally fascinated. It turns out to be a pike and it is pretty interesting. It’s not even a whole fish – just the head, which somehow works even better. The skin’s dried out to give the pike’s face the look of an alien. The lower jaw juts out and up
over the upper jaw and you can see a range of sharp, spiky, vicious teeth. The upper jaw sort of snarls at you. And the eye is pure dead evil-looking. It’s brilliant!

Dad turns up and bends down to peer at the pike too.

“They reckon the whole pike might have weighed about as much as Kit. That would make a lot of fish suppers,” he says.

I laugh and turn to go.

“Jamie,” says my dad, without even looking round.

“Yes, Dad?”

“Mind the penguins.”

“Sorry, Dad.”

I decide to go up to the first floor. It’s full of paintings, so I’m not too optimistic about the fun value. (Is
anybody
that interested in pictures showing bowls of fruit?) I find my mum peering at a picture of Jesus being crucified – he’s all lit up in a dark sky, his head bowed. She’s silent for once, probably wondering what to make of it.

I look as well. I like it. I like it because he looks like a superhero, biding his time – like at any minute, his head’s going to jerk up and he’ll fix you with death-ray eyes… I don’t share this thought with her though. I have a feeling she wouldn’t appreciate it. Instead I say, “Very nice,” then slope off to join my dad and Kit.

They’re looking at a painting of Mary, Queen of Scots’ execution. Not of her actually getting executed (disappointingly), but a few minutes before the chop.
Time’s frozen – everything is just about to happen.

“D’you know, Dad, it took two goes with the axe to cut off her head?”

“Really? The story I’ve heard is that after she was dead the people saw her dress move. It turned out she had her wee pet dog hidden underneath it.”

“Aw,” says Kit. “So that she didn’t go to the execution all on her own?”

“Yeah.”

“What would’ve happened if she’d won the Battle of Langside, Dad?”

“Well, she stays Queen of Scotland. She brings up her son, James. Let’s say she lives for a long time, to the same age as Elizabeth. Well, that would mean she’s still alive when Elizabeth dies.”

“So Mary becomes Queen of England too?”

“Yeah. What happens then? Does she move to London like her son James did when he became King of England? Or does she rule from Scotland?”

“She stays here,” I say firmly. “She stays here and the whole country supports her.”

“Then the whole history of Scotland is changed,” says my dad. “We’d be the ones in charge.”

“Could that have happened, d’you think, Dad?”

“I quite like it as an idea…”

I’m wandering on – there’s only so much time you can spend looking at a painting. I’m not really paying that much attention. My eye skims over the pictures,
snagging on details here and there – a bloke in a beard who reminds me of Billy Connolly, some horses whose legs look too skinny to keep them upright, some fruit, some more fruit and even more fruit… And then something really catches my attention. It’s a word, not a picture. And the word is
Lorredan
!

It’s on a painting – it’s the title:
Mount Lorredan House, Glasgow, c. 1820
. The picture shows a big house and the grounds around it – it’s exactly as Lemur described it. I don’t mean more or less like he described it – I mean
exactly.
It looks so familiar to me from his story that I go up close and scrutinise the whole painting, wondering if I’ll see Christy and Robert. I don’t – but I do find something that sends a shiver down my spine. I recognise The Tree. You can just see the tree house, its wooden boards visible behind the leaves. And what’s that, almost camouflaged against the browns and greens?

It’s a rope, hanging down from a branch. Right there. And as I look, it seems like it’s still swaying…

I’m playing tennis on my own. The advantage of this is that you get to hit a lot. I’m doing backhand after backhand, to perfect it. It’s early and there’s nobody else out. Hector’s off somewhere with his parents today and Skooshie’s visiting his gran. I’ve got into a really good rhythm: strings, wall, ground; strings, wall ground. Pling, dunk, dunk. Pling, dunk, dunk. I’ll give it ten minutes longer, then go and get Bru.

Just as I’m hitting my 29th backhand in a row, he appears from the flats, in the company of his mum and the Toaty Terrors. The Toaty Terrors are busy pretending to be bees. At least I think that’s why they’re buzzing.

“Hey,” Bru says, without his usual enthusiasm. “I’ve got to go shopping. School uniform. Sorry.”

“Aw, well. I’ll see you later.” I kick a small stone towards him. “Here.”

I watch them go down the hill to the bus stop, Bru kicking the stone, alternately using his left foot, then his right. He pauses to give me a wave at the corner, then goes back to kicking. I return to my backhand practice.

“Hey.” I know it’s Lemur but I’m still half-annoyed with him – half-annoyed but also half-desperate to talk about the picture. Well, half-desperate and
half-reluctant
to give him the satisfaction of knowing I’m half-desperate. (Wait a minute, those fractions aren’t right – you can’t have your feelings in three halves. You know what I mean – it’s not worth working it out more accurately. But if it was, it would probably involve fifths. Say, ⅖ annoyed, ⅖ desperate and ⅕ reluctant to indulge him? Yeah.)

So I keep playing like I haven’t heard him. He sits on the steps and watches. I go in to really smack a forehand, but mistime it and the ball shoots off the frame at a wild angle. Lemur leaps in the air and catches it one-handed. It’s so cool that a good ⅕ of my annoyance converts itself into admiration.

He can tell. He grins and throws the ball back to me.

“Hey,” I say.

I sit down beside him and put my racquet on the ground.

“We missed you yesterday,” he says. “How was your Family Day Out?”

“Surprisingly interesting. I saw the house in your story.”

“What?”

“Mount Lorredan House.”

“You can’t have. It’s gone.”

“I know that! I saw it in a painting at the museum. That’s where we went.”

“Oh. What did it look like?”

“Exactly like you described it. I thought you must’ve seen the picture and used it to make up your story.”

He grins. “Sometimes you make stuff up and
sometimes
you don’t.”

“You’re good at making stuff up,” I say.

“Thanks.”

“It’s not a compliment. In fact, another word for ‘making stuff up’ is ‘lying’. You’re good at lying.”

“I never lie.”

“You did about being in my flats the other day.”

“No, I didn’t. Did I say I hadn’t been there? No. I just didn’t say that I
had
been there.”

“So you admit you were!”

“Sorry. I didn’t want the others to know.”

“Why not? What were you doing?”

“I went to see that Murphy bloke.”

“You told me you weren’t going to go.”

Lemur pauses, like he’s not sure whether to go on. Then the words come out in a rush. “I know – and that’s what I believed when I said it. Then I thought about what you would do in the same situation. You’re not a coward – you would have gone.”

“You were scared about going to see him?” This is amazing. Lemur is frightened of nothing.

“A bit. I didn’t know what to expect.”

“He was kind of… angry the other day. You could have told us. We’d’ve gone with you.”

“I thought I had to do it on my own.”

“So you went. What happened?”

“He said he’d wanted to talk to me ever since that day at the lift. He had a friend, a long, long time ago, when he was young. With fair hair, blue eyes—”

“Yeah, it did look like he thought you were somebody
he knew. Why was he so angry at his pal? What was it he said? ‘Give it back!’ What was all that about?”

Lemur shrugs. “I didn’t ask him. It must have been important at the time.”

“It’s a long time to bear a grudge. What else did he say?”

“Well, then he started talking about all the stuff he used to do when he was young, how he was a big Third Lanark fan. He told me the names of the players – he knew them all, the positions they played.”

“That must’ve been interesting,” I say. “To hear about it from somebody who was actually there.”

“And then… And then… he
started to cry
.”

“What? Actually cry?”

Lemur nods.

“What did you do?”

Lemur bites his lip. For once he looks unsure of himself. “I ran away,” he confesses. “I had no idea what to do, so I just left him. Sitting there, crying… You wouldn’t have done that, Midge.”

Wouldn’t I? I don’t know. Grown-ups crying – it feels all wrong. It’s a bit scary. I quite like Lemur thinking I’m better than him though.

“Well, it was a shame he was upset,” I say, “but maybe you did him some good going to visit him.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Old people like thinking about the past. Though I think they should keep their crying for when they’re on their own. What could you have done to help him?”

“Nothing,” Lemur admits. “I was planning to come
and get you after I saw him, honest, but I felt too bad. I just wanted to get away.”

He looks at me. I think he wants sympathy.

“You great big girl’s blouse,” I say.

That makes him laugh. Luckily. “Den?” he says.

“Den,” I agree.

The den’s more or less dried out since the unexpected deluge during the storm last week. And did I mention that it’s been improved? Bru arrived one day with both arms around the base of a large lamp. The lampshade totally obscured his face – it’s a wonder he managed to cross Prospecthill Road without being run over.

“My next-door neighbour put it out,” he said. “It’s OK,” he adds, misinterpreting our silence. “She said I could take it.”

But we weren’t quiet because we were sitting there suspecting Bru had nicked it. And it wasn’t because we were wondering how to point out, without hurting Bru’s feelings, the obvious drawback that we have no electricity. The reason was we were speechless with amazement. How could anybody throw out something so fantastic?

Because this is no ordinary lamp. It’s the base that’s the exciting part. It’s a pale green bottle on its side. And inside the bottle… is a ship! An actual ship, carved out of wood, with three big masts. The sails are unfurled – all huge and white and billowy, like it’s just waiting to catch a breeze and go.

“Wow!” said Lemur.

“Is it a galleon?” I asked.

“Yeah…” said Hector vaguely.

“So how do they do that then, get it in through the tiny opening in the bottle?” asked Skooshie. He was right to ask. What we were looking at there was a total impossibility.

“They don’t have to,” said Lemur. “They make the ship first, then they make the bottle round it.”

“No, they don’t,” said Bru. “It’s actually a trick. The ship is small enough to go through the bottle opening, but the glass is special magnifying glass, so when the ship gets in, it looks much bigger.”

“Really? Wouldn’t it have to be a pure midget ship and incredibly powerful glass?”

Then I said, “They’re both wrong, Skooshie. The ship’s built
inside
the bottle.”

“Inside? But you couldn’t get your fingers through the opening.”

“You don’t need to. It’s built by toaty wee
boat-building
pixies…” I only escape a smack for this because Bru has warned us how fragile the bottle is and Skooshie is wary of violent gestures in its vicinity.

“Hector,” pleaded Skooshie, despairing of ever knowing the truth.

Hector was only waiting to be asked: “They build the ship so that the wooden bit fits through the bottle opening. And they design the masts so that they can fold down. They attach string to the masts. They pop the ship into the bottle, then use the string to pull up the masts once it’s in there.”

“Aw. Clever…”

So here we are, Lemur and I, sprawling on the settee cushions and admiring our impossible ship-in-a-bottle lamp. Lemur’s produced a packet of sweets from his pocket – those brilliant new ones, Trebor Double Agents. He’s got the strawberry and cream flavour, Spy number 004 (good choice). With just two of us, the packet lasts a surprisingly long time.

“That lamp’s just brilliant,” I say.

“It is,” Lemur agrees wholeheartedly. “It’s possibly the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Know what you mean,” I say. “Good old Bru.”

“What a find.”

“Yeah, it’s the finishing touch.”

“Exactly,” says Lemur. “This is officially the best den ever.”

“Definitely. And haunted. Not everybody can say that about their den.” He catches the sarcasm in my tone and grins.

“You don’t believe in ghosts?”

Do I or don’t I? It’s something we’ve not had a serious discussion about. I think I want to. But I’m not totally convinced I actually do.

“Not really,” I admit. “Which is a pity – unless you’re Skoosh, of course.”

“Is it? Ghosts aren’t that interesting – all see-through and whiney and never able to join in. Always watching from the sidelines. Never getting picked. I couldn’t be doing with that.”

“Even Christy? I thought he sounded like a lot of fun.”

“Yeah. Hard for a ghost to be a member of the gang though.”

“But I did like your story, honest. It was brilliant! And I wish we did have a den ghost, one just like Christy.”

“But I wasn’t lying, Midge. Christy really did live here, you know.”

“So you say…”

“I can prove it. C’mon.” He stands up and starts hauling the settee cushions away from the base of the tree. I jump up before I’m tipped off. “The story says Christy carved something on the tree.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Let’s see then,” he says. “If I pull it back, can you get in to take a look?”

“Yeah.”

Lemur uses his foot to push back the green stuff around the foot of the tree.

“Anything?” he says.

“There’s a hollow. It’s a bit dark… Ooof! This is when my torch would be useful. If Kit hadn’t used up the batteries.”

I’m crouching down, squinting into the darkness.

“No. Nothing here,” I say.

“Look harder.”

I reach in. My fingers feel something rough against the smoothness of the tree.

“Push it back a bit further,” I say.

Then I can just make it out. Writing.

Robert

missed by Christy

“Believe me now?” says Lemur.

“Wow,” I say.

We stay in the den for a while. It’s quiet without the others. Our conversation is missing that competitive feel, when everybody is trying to out-funny each other. There’s a bit of a breeze and the leaves of the tree are rustling above our heads. I’m on the alert for evidence of Christy-as-ghost, but it just sounds like leaves rustling, to be honest.

“If Christy is here,” I say, “what’s keeping him here? Kit asked me.”

“You told her?” says Lemur.

“Yeah – we’d already told my dad, so I thought it was OK.”

“What did she think?”

“She loved hearing the story. She couldn’t wait to find out how it ended. And now she’s desperate to get into the den, to see for herself – I made it perfectly clear that’s never going to happen.”

“What did you say, about Christy?”

“I said I wasn’t sure.”

“Do you think it has something to do with feeling guilty about his brother?” Lemur asks.

“No, I don’t. It wasn’t Christy’s fault that Robert fell. When you do something like that, you’ve decided
to do it – you can’t blame anybody else if it goes wrong.”

“I agree. So what do you think the reason is?”

“Maybe it’s not that Christy’s forced to be here. Maybe he chooses to be. Maybe he just doesn’t want to go. There’s too much going on for him to leave.”

Lemur grins. “I like that idea,” he says. “Maybe he’s having too much fun. Perhaps your dad’s right – perhaps Christy’s our kind of ghost!”

We have a really good time, talking about Christy and imagining what he’s like. Then I have to head home for lunch. We’re just leaving the den when Lemur says, “Midge, can we keep it a secret?”

“What? The carving? Aw, no, Lemur – they’re going to love seeing it! Though it might tip Skooshie over the edge.”

“No – the whole Murphy thing.”

“I’m not lying to them!”

“I’m not saying lie – if they ask you, then tell them. But if they don’t, just let it go. Please.”

It doesn’t feel right. I don’t normally keep stuff from the others. But it looks like this is important to Lemur. And when you think about it, it’s not really my story to tell.

“OK,” I say, a bit reluctantly.

“I can always rely on you, Midge,” he says.

I have to push him into a bush, just to relieve the tension.

“Yeah – always,” I say, and I’m off, sprinting down May Terrace before he can get out of the bush.