Alice-Miranda Shows the Way (11 page)

‘Well, I think that's very unfair,' Alice-Miranda said. ‘If people just took the time to get to know you, then every year when you come back to the village they could catch up with you as friends.'

Millie had been watching Alice-Miranda and the dark-haired girl from a distance. They seemed to be having quite a long conversation. She slipped down off Chops and walked towards them, leading the pony behind her.

‘So where's your horse?' Fern asked Alice-Miranda.

‘I've left him over at Chesterfield Downs. He's keeping Rockstar company for a little while. For some reason they've taken quite a shine to one another and he's helping get Rockstar out of his dark mood,' Alice-Miranda explained.

‘Who's Rockstar?' Fern asked.

‘He's a beautiful stallion, and a rather exciting racehorse,' Alice-Miranda replied.

Fern's ears pricked up. ‘
Oh.
I
have
heard of him.
Isn't he supposed to be the best racehorse in the world?' Fern offered just a small titbit about her life: ‘Alf always bets on him. And he always wins, too.'

Alice-Miranda heard the clip-clop of hooves as Chops approached. ‘Millie, you remember Fern from yesterday.'

‘Yeah,' Millie said curtly.

‘I said that Fern should come up to the house with us and let Mrs Howard take a look at her wrist,' Alice-Miranda explained.

Fern eyed Millie nervously. The red-haired girl didn't seem nearly as friendly as the little one with the chocolate curls. Fern shook her head. ‘No.'

She began to walk away.

‘You should come,' Millie said.

Fern stopped and looked over her shoulder.

‘I don't bite, you know,' Millie said. ‘Chops might, but I promise I haven't bitten anyone since I was a toddler.'

Fern tried hard not to smile.

‘Come on.' Alice-Miranda reached out to hold Fern's good hand.

The girl looked at her and pulled a face. ‘What are you doing?'

‘Well, now that we're friends I thought you might let me hold your hand. It's what friends do.'

Fern's amber eyes filled with tears. She tried hard to blink them back but one fell with a plop onto her cheek.

‘I'm sorry, did I hurt you?' Alice-Miranda asked.

Fern brushed the moisture away. ‘No.'

‘Come on, then, let's go and find Mrs Howard and see about that wrist.'

A
lice-Miranda suggested that Millie ride Chops back to the stables and meet her and Fern at the house.

As they walked up the driveway, Alice-Miranda pointed out various landmarks around the school. ‘That's the library over there with the clock tower. It's almost new but it looks like it's been here for as long as the rest of the buildings, and that's Winchesterfield Manor where Miss Grimm has her study and the flat attached where she lives with her husband, Mr Grump.'

‘Are you serious?' Fern asked. ‘Your headmistress is called Miss Grimm and her husband is Mr Grump? They sound like a match made in heaven. Not!'

‘Oh, they are,' Alice-Miranda nodded. ‘They have the most romantic love story ever. I'll tell you about it one day. And that's the dining room at the back of the courtyard and some of the classrooms and over there, that's Grimthorpe House where we all live.'

Fern's eyes widened as she took it all in. ‘Do you like it here?' she asked her guide.

‘Oh yes, it's the most wonderful school in the world, except for Mrs Kimmel's in New York – it's amazing too. I've just spent a month there,' Alice-Miranda chattered.

‘In America, you mean?' Fern asked.

‘Yes. Mummy and Daddy were there for business and so I got to go for a month too and see what school's like there and explore the city.'

Fern could hardly imagine such a thing. ‘Are your parents rich?' she asked.

Alice-Miranda thought for a moment. ‘I suppose if you mean are they rich because they have a lot of money, then yes, my parents both run big businesses and they employ lots of people. But I think
everyone's rich in their own way,' she replied. ‘We all have things that we're good at and ways we can help people. You don't have to have lots of money to be rich.'

Fern pondered the child's response. She and Tarquin weren't rich. Sometimes she thought it would be nice to try it for a while. But she was glad that they had each other.

Alice-Miranda led the way to Grimthorpe House. Along the front veranda a long rack played host to several pairs of joggers and some riding boots. An old church pew stood on the other side of the large black front door. There was a buzzer beside it and a giant lion's head knocker in the middle. But Alice-Miranda did not buzz or knock; she simply turned the handle and opened the front door. The child wiped her feet on the doormat and walked into the hallway. Fern stood outside on the path.

‘Come on.' Alice-Miranda smiled and nodded towards the door. ‘I'll just go and find Mrs Howard. You can wait in my room if you like.'

Fern hesitated, as if her feet were stuck in wet cement.

‘It's all right, really it is,' Alice-Miranda promised.

The taller girl took a few steps towards the veranda and then scurried across the threshold and into the hallway, as if by merely entering the building something terrible might happen to her.

Alice-Miranda led the way down to her and Millie's room.

Fern was surprised by how plain it was. White walls, bare timber floors with a small rug and practical furniture. She had been expecting something much fancier – like the time her mother took her to have a peek inside a historic mansion that was having an open day. She had spent the entire time with her mouth open, hardly believing that anyone actually lived in a place as fancy as that.

‘You can sit on the bed or the chair over there,' Alice-Miranda instructed. ‘I'll be back in a minute.'

Alice-Miranda scampered out the door and headed to the sitting room at the rear of the house but Mrs Howard wasn't there. She ducked into the downstairs kitchenette but it was empty too. Alice-Miranda ran upstairs to Mrs Howard's flat, where she knocked at the door but it seemed that she wasn't at home. In fact, Alice-Miranda hadn't encountered a single girl either. But it wasn't unusual for the house
to be deserted on a Sunday afternoon with girls off doing this and that.

Downstairs, Fern was looking around the room. She picked up the photographs beside AliceMiranda's bed, which she assumed were of the child's mother and father. She felt her chest tighten as she thought about her own mother.

Fern had loved her more than anything in the world. But now she was gone. She wandered over to look at the ornaments on top of the dressing table. There were some tiny figurines of cats in different positions. She picked one up and held it in her hand. It was a grey tabby with a smug look on its face. She'd feel smug if she lived here too, Fern thought.

Out the front of the house, the garden gate clanged as Mrs Howard charged up the path, pushed open the door and blustered into the building.

‘Myrtle Parker will be the death of me – this list of jobs is as long as my left arm.' The words bubbled and frothed on Howie's lips. ‘I need a cup of tea, and not that awful dishwater Myrtle serves up – a proper strong brew.' She barged her way along the hall. ‘And when will I get all of my work done here, now that she's taken up most of the day with her petty little meeting and all those ridiculous questions?' Upon
seeing the door to Alice-Miranda and Millie's room open, Howie stopped.

‘Alice-Miranda, Millicent, are you back?' She walked into the room to find a dark-haired girl standing next to Alice-Miranda's dressing table.

Fern heard the voice and froze.

‘Hello, may I help you?' Mrs Howard looked the child up and down. She was tall and lean with the darkest of hair and the most unusual tawny-coloured eyes. ‘Are you looking for something?'

Fern shook her head.

‘May I ask what you're doing here?' The housemistress had started to wonder about the child. She was very poorly dressed and seemed to be clutching something in her hand. ‘What's that you're holding?'

Fern knew what was coming next. She was about to be accused of something she hadn't done.

She threw the cat onto the bed and made a run for the door.

‘Where do you think you're going?' cried Howie as the girl ducked under her outstretched arms and fled along the hallway. ‘Come back here, young lady!'

On hearing Howie's shouts, Alice-Miranda raced
downstairs to find Mrs Howard standing at the open front door.

‘What's the matter, Mrs Howard? Where's Fern?' Alice-Miranda asked.

‘Fern?' the housemistress repeated.

‘Yes, my friend Fern. I brought her back to the house with me because I thought you could have a look at her arm. I think it might be badly injured and it was my fault because I asked the boy to play football and then she got into an argument with Pete.' Alice-Miranda finally paused to take a breath.

‘Oh dear,' Howie replied. ‘I'm afraid that she's run off. She was in your room holding one of your little cat ornaments and I asked her what was in her hand.'

Alice-Miranda and Mrs Howard looked at one another, knowing full well the implication of Mrs Howard's question to Fern.

‘I have to find her and tell her it was all a misunderstanding,' said Alice-Miranda hurriedly. She ran down the path towards the gate. ‘Fern!' she called. ‘Fern, please stop, Mrs Howard didn't mean anything.'

The child dashed onto the driveway and saw the older girl in the distance. She had almost reached
the front gates. Alice-Miranda ran as quickly as she could, calling out all the way, but Fern seemed determined to ignore her.

‘Fern, please stop,' Alice-Miranda cried. ‘You didn't do anything wrong. It was just a misunderstanding. Mrs Howard didn't mean anything.'

By the time Alice-Miranda reached the road, the tall girl had completely disappeared from view. Alice-Miranda looked towards the village and in the other direction towards the railway line but it was as if Fern had vanished.

Fern ran and ran until she finally allowed herself a moment to catch her breath. Something told her that she shouldn't have run away, but it was instinctive. It wouldn't have mattered if she had tried to explain. It never did. She looked up and realised that she was in the middle of the village, standing opposite the church with its pretty stone gate and stained glass windows. A climbing rose grew along the fence and the hedge was neatly trimmed. Beside the church, the graveyard grew its own granite garden of crosses and headstones.

Without thinking, she crossed the road and pushed open the gate. It was as if her legs were taking her somewhere that she really didn't want to go, but she had no power to stop them.

The graves at the front of the cemetery dated back over a century but towards the rear the newer inhabitants took their place. A small temporary cross bearing her name and the year of her birth and death was all that remained of Fern's mother Gina. Alf had said that he would arrange a proper headstone but Fern knew that he never would. That cross made of timber would eventually rot away and there would be nothing to mark the spot at all. Tendrils of grass had inched their way across the mound of compacted earth.

Fern knelt in front of the grave. Tears sprouted from her eyes and ran like rivers down her cheeks.

‘Why did you go?' she sobbed. ‘Why?'

Up until now Fern hadn't cried for her mother. She hadn't allowed it.

‘Be strong for your brothers,' her mother had told her as she closed her eyes and fell asleep forever, and so Fern had been. But now in the stillness of the cemetery, her grief poured out of her like a waterfall.

She curled up into a ball and lay on the warm earth.

Fern had no idea how long she had been there when a voice interrupted her dream-filled slumber. It was a man. Fern opened her eyes and realised that the light was fading. Her wrist was throbbing a dull drumbeat.

‘Fern,' the voice whispered.

Fern looked around. She wondered if she was still dreaming.

‘I'm over here,' the voice whispered again.

She sat up and could see the outline of a young man heading towards her.

She rubbed her eyes. ‘Liam? Is it really you?'

The lad rushed forward and wrapped his arms around Fern, tears spilling down both their cheeks.

‘Where have you been?' she asked.

‘It doesn't matter.' He looked at her bandaged arm. ‘Are you all right?'

‘It's nothing. It's getting better, I'm sure.' She stepped back and looked at him. ‘You know you can't be here. If Alf finds out I don't know what he'll do.' Fern's heart was hammering inside her chest.

‘I know. But don't worry. I'm going to make
things right and Alf's going to get what's coming to him.' The lad blinked back more tears. ‘But I need you to help me. I need you to do whatever I ask you to – no questions.'

Fern gulped.

‘You don't think I actually did what he said?' the young man asked, studying Fern's face closely.

She frowned. ‘No, of course not.'

‘I didn't do it, Fern. I didn't take all that money. You know me better than that.' He placed his arms on her shoulders. ‘Will you help me?'

Fern nodded. She wanted to believe her brother more than anything. ‘Where will you be?' she asked.

‘It's best you don't know. But tell Tarq that I love him and I'll find you when I need to.' He hugged Fern again, then turned and disappeared among the headstones.

Fern felt as if she could hardly breathe. She hadn't realised just how much she missed him.

She scurried out of the churchyard towards the village, hoping that Alf was too busy to notice her absence.