Sequins, Secrets, and Silver Linings (18 page)

“Harry,” I say, launching into his room without knocking. He looks up from his decks, surprised. There’s a sort of a house rule that says I HAVE TO KNOCK OR
I’LL BE DISOWNED, but it’s pointless when the music’s so loud.

“Can I talk to you?”

He considers for a minute and turns the music off. Suddenly, the house is disconcertingly silent. I stand there uncomfortably and tell him about Crow’s reaction to the show idea, and the meeting with Amanda, and the visit in less than a week. I start off being quite embarrassed, but as I go on I get more and more frustrated with Crow. Is it
my
fault she’s going to turn down this incredible chance? That she’s going to waste her life? That she’s stopped designing? And on top of it all, Edie had this great idea about helping the people in the camps back home, but Crow won’t do it. I even tell him about the T-shirts.

I’m expecting loads of sympathy. Loads. What I get instead is a steady look and silence, for a while.

Eventually, Harry says, “So you haven’t really talked to her?”

“Well, I’m talking to her, but she’s not talking back much.”

Still the odd look. I can feel the heat in my cheeks. I wonder if I’m being totally fair. Harry’s superquiet. His pupils are pinpricks. When he talks, his voice is even lower than usual, and I can hear his raggedy breath.

“Crow is the one who was a Night Walker. It’s her family that’s stuck in a camp. But have you noticed how she never wants to talk about it?”

“Of course.”

“Perhaps she doesn’t want to be constantly reminded. Maybe it’s worse than you think. It sounds like this is a project for Edie. It’s some more Harvard application points. It’s a nice pink T-shirt with a slogan. I bet it’s not like that for Crow.”

Suddenly, I’m so angry I don’t know what to say. Being patronized is my least favorite thing in the history of the universe. The only thing worse is being patronized by my own brother. How does he know what Crow’s thinking? How does he possibly know what Edie’s thinking? How can he even suggest that she’s doing this for the college admissions board?

And how did he guess the T-shirts would be pink? Is he telepathic?

I storm out of his room and up to mine, where I instantly start messaging Edie. I leave out the bits about the T-shirts and the college application points. Just say how angry I am that here we are trying to help this little person and SHE WON’T LET US.

To start with, Edie agrees with me, but next day at school she’s not so sure.

“I’ve been thinking,” she says.

“Yes?”

“Have you ever really wondered why she doesn’t want to talk about home?”

“’Cause it was horrible?”

“What if Harry’s right? What if it was worse than we thought?”

“Worse how?”

“What if the rebels actually came to her village. What if somebody died?”

“Who?”

“Look, I don’t know. A friend? An auntie? Could you try asking?”

“When? I never see her anymore.”

“Nor do I. She’s stopped coming for reading practice.”

I promise I’ll try to think of something.

When I get home, the house is empty. Harry’s at school and Mum’s doing whatever it is she does, wherever it is she does it when she’s not in her closet upstairs.

It’s dark and cold. Even with the lights and central heating on, it feels dark and cold. I wander into
the kitchen. Mum’s left a note. I wonder if it’s for me and start to read it, but it’s just instructions for the cleaning lady.

Which gives me an idea.

I put my coat back on and grab my keys, wallet, phone, and bus pass from my backpack and put them into my handbag, which is a little forties vintage thing I found in a thrift shop. I wouldn’t be seen dead with a new handbag. Even one of Jenny’s swag-tastic freebies.

On the Tube, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing, but I decide I don’t have any choice. If this doesn’t work, there isn’t a Plan B. There’s just hope.

The Tube takes me to Notting Hill Gate and I retrace my steps from the summer to Crow’s school. It’s almost empty by now. The only people there are teachers catching up on grading papers and the custodial staff. I tread nervously down a couple of corridors, following what sounds like a vacuum, and get to a lady in a uniform smock and baggy black pants, busy buffing a classroom floor.

“Do you know Florence Lamogi?” I ask.

“Lamogi?”

Then I remember that Florence got married when she came to England. I don’t know what her new last name is. I’m not even certain if she still works here. To my relief, the lady suddenly clicks.

“Oh, Flo! Flo’s probably upstairs right now. Science rooms. Two floors up.”

I thank her and head up the stairs as fast as I can.

Florence nearly knocks me over, heading down with a bucket full of cleaning equipment.

“Nonie! You startled me! Why are you here?”

“Hi, Florence. Sorry. It’s just … I’ve got something to ask you.”

She looks at me quizzically, but doesn’t answer. We both head rapidly back down the stairs, Florence in the lead and me chasing.

“I’m leaving now,” she says at last, depositing the bucket in a utility closet. “I’ve got to get to my next job.”

She starts taking off her smock and retrieving a jacket from the back of the closet door. I offer to go with her, and she agrees. Soon we’re back out in the cold evening air.

“Um, it’s about Crow.” I giggle nervously. Of course it’s about Crow. Who else would it be about?

So far, so bad. I’m not sure how to put this. I’ve practiced, but I still haven’t come up with anything convincing. How do you ask someone to tell you the thing they don’t want to tell you? If there
is
a thing they don’t want to tell you, which I’m not sure about …

“This way,” Florence says.

We start walking rapidly back down the road toward the Tube station.

“I don’t want to be nosy. It’s just that—I think we don’t really understand. What happened before Crow came here. Exactly. I wondered…. Actually, Edie wondered… . When Crow was Night Walking … Well, I said it was lucky everyone was safe and she gave me a funny look. So we were wondering …?”

“What?” Florence snaps, whipping her head around to look at me, but still moving quickly down the pavement, barging past anyone coming the other way. She’s not her usual self at all.

I take a deep breath of cold air.

“You know, the rebel soldiers … Did they …? Did something happen to someone? A friend of hers? Or another auntie or something?”

Florence ignores me. She keeps her head down and keeps walking until we get to the station. Then she stops. A blast of warm air hits us both, coming up from the ticket hall. People bump into us as they head for home, or wherever it is they’re going. An announcer claims proudly that (for once) there aren’t any delays on the lines.

Just as he’s talking, Florence suddenly mutters something at me, then turns to go.

I grab the back of her jacket.

“I’m sorry? I didn’t hear you.”

She’s looking angry and almost scared.

She mutters it one more time and then she disappears down the stairs to the Tube, as fast as she can go.

Crow’s brother. I think that’s what she was saying.

They took her brother.

Chapter 27

F
our hours later, Florence is home from her second job.

We’re all huddled in the little living room off Gloucester Road. There’s just one light on in the kitchen. Its beams hardly reach us. For some reason, we’ve avoided the chairs. We’re all sitting hunched up on the floor. Everyone’s in tears, except Crow. I think she must have done most of her crying when she was a little girl. For the first time, I fully notice the shell she’s built around herself.

Jenny and Edie agreed to join us here as soon as I called them. They’re both looking shocked. Jenny’s still in her pajamas. She was getting ready for an early night and just threw a coat over herself when I called.

“You should have
told
us!” she wails, crying harder than anyone.

“We can’t talk about Henry,” Florence says quietly.

“There are no words. He was the eldest child. The son. What could we say?”

And having told us there are no words, she talks long into the evening about her adored nephew and brings out photographs of a tall, good-looking boy posing confidently for the camera, sometimes alone and sometimes with his arm protectively around his little sister. Always smiling. Always with a satchel full of books over his shoulder.

Crow sits beside her, watching from beneath hooded eyes, listening silently.

“He was thirteen. Such a good student,” Florence says. “His father was so proud of him. He loved English literature. He wanted to be a poet. There was an English poet called Ted Hughes, and Henry loved his poems. Henry always had his head in a book. Even when there was work to be done. They used to tease him. But he got top marks at school.”

“What happened?” I hardly dare ask, but I need to know.

“Henry always used to go with Elizabeth to the town on the Night Walks. He looked after her very well. But then Grace had the new baby. James had to go away, and Henry stayed behind to help. That’s when they came.”

Crow talks for the first time, in a tiny whisper.

“When I got home, the village was burning. The food was gone. The people were gone. There were … bodies. The school was burning. At home no one was there. My mother was hiding with the baby. Then my father came back. We went to find my mother. He told me about Henry.”

She wipes a single tear from her cheek.

“He had to tell me so many times until I could understand.”

“Is there no chance of finding him?” Edie asks gently.

“There are so many thousands of children,” Florence says sadly, spreading her expressive hands out in front of her. “So many camps. No telephones. James has tried for years. But no word. What can we do? We don’t even know if he’s alive.”

Edie looks thoughtful, but not convinced.

That night, I lie in bed thinking hard. I realize with a shock that Harry is sort of a nickname for Henry. And that my Harry is about the same age Crow’s Henry would have been. No wonder she’s spent so much time with him. I wonder if he’s the reason she’s been coming over. I suddenly feel a bit guilty for having an older brother I love so much, even if he does patronize me. Just because he happens to be right most of the time.

Next morning is Friday. I get up early and go back to Florence’s to see how Crow is.

She’s in her room, already up, drawing. She doesn’t look up and I shift about a bit, wondering what to say. There’s an old photo on the wall above her desk that I haven’t seen before, attached at an angle with a piece of Scotch tape. It’s Henry, his face in shadow, satchel over his shoulder, his hand resting on the arm of a little girl looking very much like Victoria does now. Her face is in shadow, too, but her head is nestled securely against him. I’m guessing she’s smiling.

“You must miss him so much.”

“I’d forgotten him,” she says, her pen flicking over the page. “We never talked about him, because … It was like he was a strange dream. I’d forgotten his smile. How funny he was. How much he teased me.” Her voice is calm and steady. “All this time I felt a pain, here, in my heart, but I couldn’t picture him. Then last night Auntie Florence got out the photos. After you’d gone, we talked about his stupid jokes. His head in those books, except when he was playing with me.”