Tiger Moth (8 page)

The first thing I noticed was that Florence had changed a great deal since last Christmas when they came to stay at our house. Florence looks just like the rest of the Richardson family: fair,
tall and skinny. But the last time I saw her she had braces and she still liked to play the sort of games that I do. We were still sort of best friends and we loved to stay up late in her bedroom
at the top of the castle’s east tower.

This time it was different. Florence was even taller and she no longer had braces. She was wearing make-up too, and spent the whole time checking her mobile phone and was always on Facebook. In
the end it seemed to me that it didn’t matter that I wasn’t talking because Florence didn’t want to talk to me much at all and, when Dad said we could go off-road in the car, she
just rolled her eyes and said she didn’t want to. She was really interested in Mum and her enormous pregnant tummy though, and even wanted to feel it when the baby was kicking again which I
thought was just stupid, stupid, stupid.

So Florence didn’t spend much time with me and we never stayed up late together, not even once. Casper was the exact same horrid, pain-in-the-neck, pasty-faced toad I remembered from
Christmas time. I saw him pull the cat’s tail, kick the dog on purpose and, when Aunt Aggy told him he had to eat his vegetables or he wouldn’t grow big and strong like the rest of us,
he just pointed at me and said: ‘Alice always eats her greens and she’s
still
really small!’

It’s true, I am small. I looked round the table. I looked at the ‘real’ family, at how alike they were and how I am nothing like them at all. I thought of my soon-to-be-born
little sister and how she’d probably look just like them all too. I felt like an alien or at least a cuckoo. As I looked round the table of pale, freckly faces, I felt the tears trickle down
my cheeks so I pushed my chair away from the table and slowly walked out of the kitchen. Maybe I was the one everyone would be happier without.

I wandered down the castle hallway, past the suits of armour and the tapestries that hang down from the walls. I felt the cool of the stone floor on my bare feet and it seemed to me that the
corridor just got longer and longer. As I climbed the stone stairs to the west tower, it felt as though there were more steps than there had been before, as though I’d never reach the top,
and when I finally got to my bedroom I closed the door behind me softly.

I sat down on the bed and pulled out my book, turning to the back where I’d put the photograph of my other mother. I stared and stared at her and didn’t stop crying until I felt arms
round my shoulders. I didn’t stop when she kissed my forehead and tried to hold me close, and at first I laughed because Mum’s bump is so big now that she couldn’t really cuddle
me properly; it sort of got in the way. Then I stopped laughing and a frown began to grow deeper and deeper across my face until I felt a little angry feeling begin to twist inside my tummy. My
stupid sister was already coming between us.

‘Alice,’ Mum said slowly. ‘Do you think you might like to talk a little bit? Just try a little for me, would you do that?’

I shook my head.

‘Can I tell you a secret?’ she said, stroking my hair, and I nodded. ‘Your dad was about four years old when Aunt Aggy was born and, when she was a tiny baby, do you know what
he said to Grandma and Grandpa?’ I shook my head and waited. I loved hearing about what my mum and dad were like when they were little, especially if they were naughty. ‘Well, your dad
got a bit cross and he marched into the kitchen, looked over at his little sister and said, “Can we take her back now?”’

I laughed.

‘And now your dad and Aggy are like best friends, aren’t they?’

She was right, but I couldn’t imagine that I’d want to be best friends with the new baby.

‘You’re going to be a brilliant big sister, Alice, I just know it. Are there any names you like?’

I shrugged.

‘Would you like to help me and Dad choose a name?’

I shrugged again.

‘Maybe you could try just saying the first letter?’

I wanted to tell her there and then. I wanted to tell her how I had tried really hard, but the words kept getting stuck, and now every time I wanted to talk I got so scared that it felt as
though my throat was being squeezed tightly. But I didn’t say anything and that night, our last night at Pengarden Castle, I slept beside my mum and my soon-to-be little sister, and I prayed
that she wouldn’t be anything like horrid, toad-faced Casper.

Nothing could be worse than a screaming pale pink brat who took over, changed everything and made my life much worse.

When our week away came to an end, I was so glad to be going home. Aunt Aggy’s cook made us the most delicious car picnic that I had ever eaten. Smoked salmon, roast beef
and chicken sandwiches on the fluffiest, softest white bread, but Mum didn’t want any of it. She wasn’t feeling sick or anything like that; she had her very own very weird picnic.
She’d been eating some strange things lately and Dad said that sometimes pregnant women have these cravings for a particular food and, no matter how disgusting it sounds, it tastes really
amazing to them. So, while Dad and I tucked into our normal picnic, she was eating a peanut butter, beetroot and ketchup sandwich and my mum NEVER eats ketchup. When Dad and I had the lovely slices
of rich fruit cake, Mum ate Cheesy Wotsits dipped in strawberry yoghurt which almost made me feel sick.

We had to stop the car six times so that Mum could go to the toilet. Somewhere between Birmingham and Bristol, somewhere between this life and the next, I watched my mum waddle like a duck back
to the car. It made me realise just how large her bump was and I thought about my other mother again. What was she like when she was pregnant with me? Did she have to eat lots of crazy foods? Did
she get hot one minute and cold the next? Did she burst into tears because her favourite jumper wouldn’t fit? Did she get really cross because her feet had swollen up so much all her shoes
were too tight? Did she fart ALL THE TIME? Did I kick her tummy as much as my soon-to-be little sister? Did she have someone like my dad to look after her?

It made me feel sad again. It made me wonder all the bad wonderings. Like, if my mum is going to love my soon-to-be little sister like she loves me, why couldn’t my other mother love me
like that too?

Why was I adopted?

I thought about it all the way home so, when we got back to Culver Manor, I went up to my bedroom and took out the photograph. I sat down on my bed and stared once more. I held the photograph up
to my face to see if there was anything I’d missed, any little clue that might tell me more than I could see, but there was nothing; it was just a photo of a beautiful girl with long black
hair standing outside some shop that could be anywhere.

I wanted to sleep, but I kept turning the questions over and over and over again. It felt as though I wouldn’t ever sleep again until I knew the answers, but how could I find out if I
couldn’t talk? How could I ask if I was too scared to speak? And now I had even
more
questions that I wanted the answers to it was like my head was bursting with mysteries I might
never solve. So I got up, switched the light on, grabbed the notebook and, turning to a clean white page, I wrote a list.

I drew a few little doodles too and when I heard footsteps on the hallway I quickly switched off the light and climbed back into bed.

I still couldn’t fall asleep, so I lay awake, listening to the owls hooting in the woods behind the house. I listened to the waves crashing on the shore and I decided there and then that
tomorrow I’d go to the beach once more.

If I said our new cottage was half the size of our old house, I’d be telling a massive lie. It wasn’t half the size or even a quarter either. It was so small that
you could fit the entire downstairs of the cottage into our old kitchen and there’d still be room for a car. The upstairs was a bit bigger, but there was only one bathroom and a shower that
had a slow, drip-like trickle that meant washing one leg would take about a week. My room wasn’t so bad. It was just big enough for the double bed that Hannah had given us and, when I lay
down on it, I could just look out of the window and see the sea.

After our big argument outside with everyone staring at us, I’d flopped down on my bed and lay there for ages. Then Mum knocked softly on the door and came in.

‘Zack, I’m sorry. I know this is a lot to take in. I know you’re mad at me, but if I’d told you that the beaches were not really good for bodyboarding, it would have made
you even madder. There is another beach though.’

I immediately thought about the little cove I’d found, but Mum didn’t mean that one.

‘I’ll take you on Monday if the weather stays like this. Woolacombe is about an hour’s drive away and that really is a surfers’ paradise.’

‘Isn’t there one I could maybe just walk to?’

Mum looked at me funnily. ‘No,’ she said, looking worried. ‘Well, there is a beach just round the headland, but you can only reach it at low tide and it’s private. Do you
know what that means, Zack? It means you do not ever go there. Ever.’ She pointed at me seriously. ‘Ever!’ she said even louder.

‘How come?’

‘Because . . . when I was younger . . .’ She paused, turning her wedding ring round and round. ‘When I was a bit younger than you, we . . .’ She stopped suddenly again
and looked down at the floor, bit her bottom lip and rubbed the corner of her jumper as though she was trying to get rid of an imaginary stain. I waited, but she didn’t say anything more. She
turned and left the room quickly, but came back a minute later with a large map.

‘I got this for you. You like maps, don’t you?’ I nodded and she unfolded the map and laid it out on the bed. ‘Look, here’s Porlock Weir. That is where we are,
that’s the village and the road into town. That’s where I stopped the car and the hill we walked up.’

I read the words ‘Porlock Hill’. My eyes scanned the map down across the vale to the sea. I liked that I could see all the places I’d seen from the hill. I read all the names
until I got to the headland at the far side of the beach. The place I’d been. The secret, hidden beach.

‘Culver Cove,’ I read and Mum nodded, but when I looked up at her she seemed kind of sad or something.

I traced my finger along the map where I’d seen the waterfall and when I stopped at a square symbol Mum turned to me.

‘That’s Culver Manor. Culver Cove belongs to that big house and you can only get there by the path above it or when the tide is really low and Zack,’ she said, looking at me
very seriously, ‘you mustn’t ever go there.’

She didn’t say anything for a while, but I watched her turn and look through the window and out to sea. She sat like that for ages and when she spoke again it was in a voice I hadn’t
ever heard before, like it didn’t really belong to her at all.

‘There’s a very, very dangerous current just there,’ she said, turning back to the map and pointing to the spot where I’d climbed up on to the massive rock. ‘I know
you’re a strong swimmer, but that undercurrent is dangerous. You can’t see it, you can barely feel it and before you know it you’re being dragged out here,’ she said,
pointing to the other side of the bay, ‘where you’ll be smashed against the rocks.’

‘OK, OK, Mum, I get it. I promise.’

Mum leaned forward and kissed the top of my head.

‘Now, how about we get ourselves some fish and chips?’

I grinned at her and the two us left the cottage, crossed the little stone bridge and headed out towards the glorious vinegary smell that filled the street.

The next day me and Mum had an extra-long lie-in. Actually, I can easily stay in bed until lunchtime, but Mum said we had to try and do all the unpacking which, on a scale of
one to ten of total boringness (ten being picking my toenails), was about a fifteen. And even though we didn’t have much stuff, and even though the cottage is really small, it took us ages to
get everything unpacked. Even then stuff still seemed to be missing because two days later I still couldn’t find the earphones for my iPod.

‘Let’s go into town then, Zack. It’ll give me a chance to show you around,’ Mum said.

I didn’t really want to be shown around. I didn’t care what the town looked like. I was like 678 per cent not interested. I rolled my eyes at her and turned back to the
television.

‘Zack, don’t be like that. You’ll need to be able to find your way around.’

I turned up the volume on the TV, but Mum didn’t like that very much.

‘Up! Now! Go on! Get your backside upstairs and get dressed into something that hasn’t been on your bedroom floor for two days!’ I stared up at her. She glared down at me.
‘Do you want new earphones or what?’ I legged it upstairs.

‘And by the way,’ she said, shouting after me, ‘a wet towel will not dry if it’s left in a heap on the floor!’

We drove back along the valley road away from the sea and through the tiny villages that were scattered up and down the valley, turning right at the blue sign to Minehead.

We parked up and Mum showed me the main street and where to get the bus from.

‘Nothing’s changed, you know,’ she said, looking into the window of an old café. ‘I used to come here when I was your age.’

I peered inside and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Just a plain old café like ones I’d seen a million times.

‘Come on,’ she said, ‘let’s get something to eat.’