Read Aliens In The Family Online

Authors: Margaret Mahy

Aliens In The Family (6 page)

BOOK: Aliens In The Family
6Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

"Hi," replied Jake.

"What are you doing?" asked Dora in a chatty voice.

"Talking about eagles," answered Lewis.

Dora suddenly decided to tell them what was troubling her. She knelt down beside Lewis, but it was Jake she looked at—her expression asking for her help and at the same time defying her to do her worst. "Can you keep a deadly secret?" she asked, twisting the greenstone at her throat. "I wouldn't bring you into it, but I don't know what to do. I've done something absolutely awful!"

"What is it?" asked Jake, beginning to look interested.

"I saved a boy from gangsters," said Dora. "He was being chased and I just opened the back door of the car and let him in—not actually
on
the back seat that is, but down in between the front seats and the back one. I covered him up with the car rug, and Mum came and got in and drove us home."

"Where is he now then?" asked Lewis, astounded.

"Locked in the garage," said Dora, and she began to cry. Lewis took no notice of the tears—Dora crying was nothing unusual—but Jake stared in surprise.

"What are you crying for?" she asked incredulously but without malice.

"He's locked in our
garage!"
exclaimed Dora, as if this explained everything. "If David and Mum find out, they'll kill me."

"Don't be silly! They wouldn't kill a snail, not even if they found it in amongst the cabbages!" Jake replied.

"But they'll be mad," said Dora. "I'm not even allowed any pets!"

"They said we can get a kitten sometime soon," said Lewis eagerly.

"Hang on! It's not the same!" declared Jake. "We're talking about a
person,
not a pet. They'd help a person who was being chased by gangsters."

"Mum wouldn't believe they were gangsters," Dora muttered.

"Do
you
believe they were gangsters?" Jake asked. "I mean to say... gangsters? It's pretty hard to believe."

"He came running out of a shop," said Dora. In her mind's eye the scene was as fresh as if it was taking place before her all over again. She had been gazing at the myriad of reflections on the glass shop window when suddenly, surfacing from that reflecting world as if swimming up through deep water, she had seen a golden boy, fleeing from unseen enemies.

"He came skating out of a shop," she corrected herself, recalling the way he had spun through the door in a blur of colour, his pale hair shining in the afternoon light.

"He might've been shop-lifting," suggested Jake. She had a way of half looking down at the floor and smiling, then looking up under her eyebrows that Dora found unnerving.

"It wasn't a shop-lifting sort of shop," said Dora crossly. "It just sold cards and envelopes and wedding invitations..."

"I still don't know how you can be sure he's a goodie," stated Jake. "Suppose it was the Mafia after him. They might have got blown over from Australia like waxeyes, or it might have been some legal organization like the SIS or the CIA who're after him—or his father, or something."

"The CIA's in America!" cried Dora.

"They get everywhere. They're probably checking us out all the time—that's what Manley says." Jake stopped abruptly. She had not wanted to mention Manley.

"Who's Manley?" asked Dora, confused to find a stranger suddenly brought in to the conversation.

"He's my mother's friend," mumbled Jake. Her lips barely moved as she spoke.

"You'd make a really neat ventriloquist!" commented Lewis respectfully.

Dora looked at Jake with renewed interest lighting her eyes. "Is he—a close friend?" she asked delicately. If Jake's mother married again there mightn't be the need for any more awkward visits like these.

"He's a pain in the neck," spat Jake vehemently. "Forget him. What about this rescued boy of yours, Dora? Did he tell you anything?"

"No—didn't have a chance. Mum arrived almost at once and now he's locked in the garage."

"He might run out of oxygen," said Lewis, staring at Jake and trying to talk without moving his lips.

"There's plenty of oxygen in the garage. It gets in under the door," Jake said knowledgeably. "We ought to check him out though. Do you have to pinch the keys?"

"No, just get them from the kitchen," said Lewis, "and lock up afterwards so no-one pinches our lawn mower and things."

Philippa was surprised when they came in to get the key, and even more surprised when the three of them walked out of the house together and across to the garage. She watched them roll up the door. Last night after the children had gone to bed she and David had had—not a quarrel so much as a disagreement, and she had felt very insecure all day. The new house and the new things in it, the tree-lined street and the nice neighbourhood suddenly felt fragile, like a cleverly-painted screen she had put up around her to hide the real, fierce world beyond. She was also frightened that there would be other disagreements that would turn into real quarrels and that once again she would find she had married someone she did not really want to live with. Thoughts such as these passed like dark spirits through her head and she felt as though the sparkling kitchen was not really hers—that nothing in the house had any history or permanence, everything was too new and she felt that she had no real place of her own.

Once inside the garage Dora unlocked the car and said "Are you there?" wondering as she did so if she had perhaps imagined the whole thing, and then,
Suppose he's smothered under that rug.
She had an uneasy feeling that he might not be there at all. However Bond rose up from under the rug looking like an amazing clown, his pale face smiling and faintly luminous in the shadows of the garage. Lewis and Jake clambered into the front of the car and Dora got in the back with Bond. All four stared at each other like conspirators who weren't altogether sure just what they were conspiring about.

"Thank you," Bond was saying. "I think I must have lost them by now. I must be out of their range. There's the whole city to look through."

Something about the words he used made Jake regard him very closely and she suddenly felt a sensation like pins and needles all over her body but could not explain why. Taken piece by piece Bond was ordinary enough. There was nothing impossible in his many pockets or his white hair or his wonderful transistor radio connected by a silver wire to his ear, or even in the way his hand lay on his chest as if he was hiding a bullet hole. Yet Jake felt as if Dora had rubbed a lamp and a genie had appeared.

"Who were they?" Dora asked Bond. "They weren't the CIA were they?"

Bond looked at her with a hesitation in his expression as if he was having to wait for her question to be absorbed into his mind. He did not reply immediately.

"Oh no," he said at last. "It was nothing like that. It was... er, a family matter."

"Was it your father?" asked Jake.

"Relations," replied Bond cautiously. "Distant relations. How far did we travel to get here?"

"Oh, miles and miles!" said Dora reassuringly.

Jake saw at once that this strange boy believed exactly what Dora said, although
she
knew very well that Dora simply meant that they had driven out of town—two miles at the very most. And, perhaps because the circumstances were so peculiar already, she noticed something else that also seemed strange to her. Bond looked at the three of them with an expression that reminded her of her father, though he didn't look at all like David. It was the expression of responsibility, of deciding to do something he did not want to do for the sake of others' happiness.

"Thank you for opening the door. I'm very grateful. But I mustn't stay. I have to move on."

Dora, who had been horrified at the thought of Bond staying in the back of the car, was now horrified at the thought of his going away. He stood for something too new and exciting to be lost. "Oh no!" she cried. "We can hide you here."

"How can we?" stated Jake reasonably. "You need room to hide someone, enough room to be warm in and to have something to eat. There's not even a bush in this place that you could hide behind. Nothing tangled."

Dora thought Jake was criticizing the new house, finding it plain and bare after her own country estate with its huge garden and woodland and stables. "I suppose you have masses of bush where you live," she said resentfully.

Jake frowned, then her mouth turned up at the corners very slowly as if a smile, amused and not at all sinister, was trying hard to be born. "We could hide him and ten more like him where I live," she said. "Come on, Dora, be fair! It's too well-kept here to hide anyone for long." It was the first time she had called Dora by name.

"I should leave now," repeated Bond, "but I need to sleep first if I can. Could I sleep in the car for an hour or two? I'd be most grateful."

"You'd better keep down then," said Jake, "because my Dad's car is just turning in at the gate."

"Lie down where you were before," hissed Dora. "I'll cover you up again and we'll come back later on. Don't let David see you." It occurred to Dora that she didn't even know this boy's name. She could only call him 'you'.

"Don't look so guilty," Jake warned her. "Just stay cool!"

However feeling guilty was part of Dora's way of enjoying the excitement. It was as if she was acting all the time for an invisible audience inside her head.
Hooray for Dora, the brave and beautiful!
they shouted whenever she came onto the stage. The gestures she made for their benefit were easily seen by anyone, but the applause was heard only by Dora herself.

David's car glided quietly into the garage. "Hello kids! It's nice of you to come and meet me. It makes me feel wanted." He spoke to them all but it was Jake on whom his gaze rested.

"We were just getting something out of the car," Dora said, so casually that Jake thought David would have to be suspicious. He didn't seem to notice.

"I hope it wasn't the steering wheel," he joked. It wasn't very funny but Lewis laughed so hard he nearly choked. "The steering wheel!" he repeated to himself and laughed again.

"I'll carry your briefcase," offered Dora.

"Really? That's very civil of you, Dora." As they walked up to the house, Lewis and David in front and the two girls trailing behind, Philippa appeared on the steps to meet them.

"She's put on a different dress and some lipstick! That shows they're in love," Dora murmured to Jake, her voice dreamy and sentimental.

"She'll soon get sick of it," said Jake cynically. "Not love—but getting changed when she doesn't have to."

"/ like getting dressed up for things," countered Dora defiantly.

"You would!" grumbled Jake, but she had a lot on her mind and didn't sound as contemptuous as she would have done earlier in the day.

Seven - Plans and Disguises

The patchwork family sat down to dinner rather self-consciously, smiling politely at one another.

"No more fights," announced Philippa, "because not only have I cooked this delicious meal, but I've been working out how to turn a corner of the living room into a bedroom for Jake. It would be like a sort of bedsitter for the duration of the holidays. I know someone we could borrow a folding bed from, and we could fit that in behind the sofa..." she turned to Jake, "if you don't mind having a leftover bit of space, that is, Jake?"

"I don't need much," Jake mumbled, turning red. "I don't want to be any trouble."

"Dora's room is so full of Dora's things," continued Philippa. "We thought it might work out to put you two together, but now I can see you're two totally different propositions."

"From your photo you looked more like Dora's kind—not like a tough cowboy," added Lewis, and wondered why his mother frowned at him and said "Lewis!" in her 'scolding' voice.

"People's things do make a difference," David agreed. "I like people, but sometimes I think it would be nice to get to a beginning place where there were just the people themselves—none of their things. No cowboy hats or second-hand jerseys..."

"No red car," said Jake sternly. David looked at her for a second, then nodded rather ruefully.

"All right—no red car. No green car. Just people themselves. No other clues."

"No
clothes?"
asked Lewis, seizing his table napkin as if he might need to cover himself at any moment.

'No hair dye..." added Dora generously.

"...or felt pens..." said Lewis, suddenly catching on. His felt pens were his favourite items. Drawing with his felt pens he could become anything he drew, even an eagle.

"...or history," said Philippa.

"No history!" agreed David, reaching for the salt. "History's the great clutterer. The world's full of people, all of us dragging our histories behind us like—like..."

"Like long, tangly tails," filled in Lewis quickly.

"...like long, tangly tails," repeated David. "It'd be nice to get to some clear place before things and history began and we could see one another very clearly and talk together like friends straight away, with no worry about the past or anyone's hair style, or what anybody wears and so on." He sighed. "Unfortunately, that can never be. Oh well, dreams are free!"

"I think a space behind the sofa would be really good," said Jake, returning to the original conversation. She was grateful to Philippa for her consideration and snowed it by smiling in a way that made Dora realize that Jake could still look like her photograph if she wanted to.

"That's settled then. So—let's go for a drive after dinner, shall we?" suggested David. "We'll drive over the hills, maybe watch the moon rise over the harbour, then stop at that place that stays open late for a milk shake before heading home. What do you think?"

Dora looked dismayed. "I can't come!" she blurted out.

"Dora, I thought you of all people would back me up." David looked surprised.

"Well, we're playing a sort of game we've got to finish," she rushed on. "It's a game of Monopoly and I've got a hotel on Mayfair. We have to finish it. Besides, it would be nice for you and Mum to have some time on your own." She smiled brightly at her own ingeniousness.

Overdoing it!
thought Jake.
What a fool! They must know there's no game of Monopoly set up anywhere in the house. It takes up half a room when you're playing it!

BOOK: Aliens In The Family
6Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Raiders Night by Robert Lipsyte
Crusader by Sara Douglass
Amanda Scott by The Bawdy Bride
Pyramid Lake by Draker, Paul
Wulfe Untamed by Wulfe Untamed