Brightling (3 page)

5

Sparrow knew that amongst the rows of mountain peaks that rose up like sharp, spiked teeth on the hazy horizon, Dragon Mountain was the tallest. As long as she kept it in sight, she knew she was on the right track.

They had walked all morning, leaving the swamp far behind, and the sun was high in the sky when at last she spotted the first houses and farms in the surrounding countryside and hoped she was getting nearer to Stollenback.

Scaramouch had fed himself on mice and voles and other small creatures, but the few morsels of food Sparrow had put in her bag were gone. She had set her heart on reaching Stollenback before stopping, but maybe Stollenback was days and days away. She had no idea and now she was very hungry and thirsty.

The first dwelling they came to on the road was an old stone cottage beside a murgberry tree. The cottage had an enormous, shabby, thatched roof that reached over the windows like heavy eyebrows. There were holes in the thatch, and moss and frothy ferns sprouting from it. The paint was peeling from the door and tiny daisies and dandelions grew around the doorstep.

‘Doesn't look as if anyone lives here,' Sparrow said to Scaramouch, ‘but let's see. Perhaps there's a pump round the back – I'm desperate for a drink.' She was about to push the gate at the side when suddenly the door of the cottage opened.

A short, square woman with very black, beady eyes appeared. She looked at Sparrow through gold-rimmed, round spectacles, looked again, and must have liked what she saw, as a smile spread over her plain, wide face.

‘What a lovely,
lovely
day,' she said, looking keenly at Sparrow. ‘How can I help you, my lamb?' She had an upturned, pig-like nose, and thinning hair pulled into two long, shoelace plaits. Her bare feet were thrust into misshapen leather slippers. ‘I
can
help you, I'm sure,' she added.

‘I'm Sparrow and I didn't mean to  … ' Sparrow began. ‘I thought the house was empty and I need a drink of water.'

The woman flapped the ends of her plaits against her shoulders as she looked Sparrow up and down, up and down. Her smile grew bigger and broader. ‘Well, well,' she said. ‘Orphanage, isn't it?'

‘Yes, I was eleven yesterday. I came right through the krackodyles,' Sparrow added proudly.

‘Made it through the swamps, eh? You must be strong, though you don't look it.'

Again those black button eyes looked Sparrow up and down, appraising her.

‘Could I just have a drink, please?' Sparrow said. ‘I haven't had a drink for so long.'

‘Miss Knip your matron, was she?'

‘Yes,' Sparrow said.

‘She's a baggage, she is. Is that your cat?' the woman added. ‘A fine specimen; worth a penny or two, is that cat.'

Sparrow nodded. Scaramouch belonged to the orphanage if he belonged to anyone, and Miss Knip was just the sort of person who might accuse her of stealing him. ‘He's a stray,' she said brightly. ‘He's lovely, isn't he? He just appeared and joined me on the road. Come here, puss, come and say hello.' But Scaramouch had wandered off and was sitting on a tree stump cleaning his paws. He looked at Sparrow as if he barely recognised her.

‘He does just as he likes, doesn't he?' the woman said. ‘That's a cat all over, that is.'

‘Er, yes, isn't it? Just water, a drink of water, that's all I want,' Sparrow repeated. ‘Then I'll go. I'm going to Stollenback. I've walked all morning and I'm so thirsty.'

But it was like talking to a brick wall.

The woman bit on her plait and smiled thoughtfully. ‘I can't take my peepers off those little stitches in your jacket,' she said, after a few minutes of staring hard at Sparrow's sleeve. ‘Tiny, neat little stitches. That's not done by a sewing machine, is it?'

‘No. I made it at the Home. We all had to sew.'

‘I know – I mean, so I've heard. But not many are any good at it.'

Sparrow's mouth was so dry now; she could hardly speak. She licked her parched lips. She wanted to get on, but she couldn't without first quenching her thirst. ‘If I could just –' she tried again.

‘Of course!' The woman suddenly brightened up, as if she'd just heard some good news. ‘Come into our humble abode, Sparrow, dear – and you are as dainty as a little sparrow, aren't you? Come in and have some refreshment: a drink and something to eat.'

‘Thank you. I won't stay; I don't want to disturb you.'

‘Come in, that's right, come in and sit down, have a rest. My name's Betty, Betty Nash,' she said.

Betty slopped into the cottage in her loose slippers and Sparrow followed. The cottage was dark and gloomy; the overhanging thatch cut out most of the natural light. ‘Sit. Sit down. Rest, my little lambkin. I'll get you a drink.' Betty Nash hobbled off into a room at the back.

Sparrow sat tentatively on a chair and looked around. A jumble of brightly-coloured fabric on the table, all pinks and fiery orange, turquoise and emerald green, caught her eye. The colours stood out in the dingy room where everything else was brown or grey or black. She wondered what the material was for.

‘Here I am, lambkin, here I come,' Betty cried, shuffling back in with a thick glass tumbler and a jug. ‘And this is my little boy, Tapper.'

Tapper was not a little boy, but a young man. Sparrow couldn't suppress a shiver as he came in; it was as if a block of ice had entered the room. Sparrow inched away from him instinctively.

Tapper was dark and thin, with a long, narrow, straight nose. His hair was shaved close around his head except on top where it was very long and straight and kept back by constant swipes and smoothings. He came in and settled himself against the wall, folding his arms and crossing his legs as if erecting a personal scaffolding to keep him upright.

‘So you're an orphan, Sparrow,' he said, sweeping a hand over his hair and fixing his unfriendly eyes on her. ‘You don't have no parents, no one in the world who cares for you, so,' he said.

Sparrow would have spoken but he went on too quickly.

‘Ah, don't look ashamed!' he said. ‘Not your fault your parents didn't want you,' he added with a nasty grin.

Sparrow felt herself stiffen with anger. ‘I only stopped for a drink of water,' she said, running her tongue over her dry lips and eyeing the jug in Betty's hand. ‘That's all.' She glared at Tapper. Horrid. Horrid young man.

‘So give her a drink, Ma,' said Tapper. He came over and leaned his grubby hands on the back of her chair; it seemed he preferred to prop himself up on something  …  or some
one
, than to stand alone. ‘Poor little lonely thing,' he added. The lids of his eyes hung, half-closed over his pale-grey eyes, which made him look sleepy and yet sneaky at the same time.

Sparrow turned to stare straight back at him. She was so thirsty. She must have a drink and then she'd give this Tapper something to think about.

‘Here you are, my lamb!' Betty handed her the heavy glass of water and set the jug on the table.

Sparrow grabbed it and gulped down the water gratefully. She quickly refilled it from the jug and drank a second. Mother and son watched her, mother chewing on her plaits and Tapper gnawing methodically around his nails.

Sparrow grinned at them as she wiped her mouth. ‘Told you I was thirsty,' she said and calmly poured out a third glass of water and drank it slowly, savouring the cool liquid as it trickled down her throat. Tapper took the empty glass from her. He was grinning stupidly as if he had a secret.

‘What's the matter?' Sparrow said. ‘Do I look funny? Thank you, Betty,' she added as she got up. ‘Now I must go.'

‘Oh no,' Betty said quickly. ‘You mustn't hurry off. We hardly have any visitors, my lamb, we want to keep you with us for as long as we possibly can.'

‘But –'

‘I've just made a lovely stew,' Betty went on, shuffling over and lifting the lid from the pot on the fire, ‘and I so want you to stay and share it with us. We're only poor folk, but we can't let you go hungry.' Her glasses misted up from the steam as she leaned over and stirred the gravy, but Sparrow could still see a greedy glint in her eyes. ‘Good bit of meat it is, Sparrow, dear,' she said. ‘Carrots and parsnips too.'

‘That's kind, but I couldn't. Really.' Sparrow didn't want to stay, even though now that Betty had opened the pot, the delicious aroma of beef stew was seeping into the room. She was hungry, but she didn't want to eat their food or stay a moment longer with them in this dingy house than was absolutely necessary.

And what about Scaramouch? she thought. Where was he?

‘So, think we can't afford to share our food?' Tapper said, looking offended. He sleeked back his long fringe of hair. ‘Think we're poor?'

‘No. Yes. Well, I don't want to take from you when I can't pay –'

‘Can't pay? Who said anything about reimbursing, my pretty little lambkin?' Betty said. ‘We just want to send you off well fed and ready for the next stage of your long journey.'

Feeling awkward, Sparrow got up and made for the door again, but Tapper was in the way.

‘Now, what's the hurry, lamb?' Betty Nash took her hand in her own broad one and held her back. ‘If you must go, you must. But first I want to show you something. Do wait so I can show you our little spitfyres. We're so proud of them and I think you'll appreciate them, being such a good needleworker yourself.'

‘All right.' The fear of being rude or seeming ungrateful was somehow worse than the fear of staying longer with these awful people.

Sparrow allowed Mrs Nash to sit her down again. Tapper brought over an old canvas bag and opened it. Kneeling beside her like a dark grasshopper, she could smell his greasy hair and a whiff of cheesy, dirty clothes, which consisted of a strange patchwork of dark blue and black scraps of fabric, sewn randomly over each other. Sparrow tried not to shrink from him as he lifted a fabric toy out of the bag and placed it in her lap.

‘So, it's a spitfyre,' he said. ‘We make 'em.'

Sparrow forgot how badly she wanted to leave when she picked it up. ‘It's a winged horse,' she cried, delighted. ‘It's so beautiful! How clever of you!'

Betty beamed with pleasure. ‘It's a cracker, isn't it? Tapper takes a big bag of them to town and sells them. Makes a tidy profit. He's a sweetheart, is my boy Tapper,' she added, beaming at her son.

How could something so charming, so delicate and pretty, come from the hands of two such unlovely people? Sparrow wondered.

The body of each flying horse was made from panels of different coloured, fine cloth. Each hoof was ringed with a semi-circle of gold or silver wire. The manes and tails were made of coloured thread, turquoise, green and yellow. Their see-through wings, held up by a network of finest wire thread, sprang out of their shoulders like exquisite, strange leaves. ‘I think they're gorgeous,' she said, quite truthfully. ‘Do they really exist, these winged horses? Or is that just in fairy-tales?' she asked. ‘We were never sure in the orphanage.'

‘Exist? They do so exist, all right,' Tapper said. ‘Up on Dragon Mountain there's a school where they keep 'em. The hoity toity Academy,' he added in a posh voice. ‘For snotty rich kids, so.'

‘I'd like to see a real spitfyre,' Sparrow said dreamily.

‘You might,' Betty said. ‘They do fly over sometimes, poppet.'

‘They drop out of the sky too,' Tapper said with a short laugh. ‘Vanish.'

‘
Drop out of the sky?
' Sparrow said. ‘What d'you mean?'

‘He doesn't mean a thing,' Betty said, ‘ …  only, this year one or two did sort of vanish. Just disappeared off the face of the earth!' She laughed. ‘It's in the newspapers. Everyone wonders who and how  …  There aren't many of them around – only those at the Academy. Now, look here, look at this little pink and purple fellow. Isn't he lovely?'

Betty lifted another spitfyre toy up for Sparrow to admire. Each one was different, with its own expression and character, with fiery eyes or gentle, secretive ones, an angry mouth or a soft one. They were pink or red or green or a mixture of all colours.

‘The finishing-off is hardest. You need sharp eyes for that,' Betty said, squinting through her glasses.

‘And nimble little fingers,' Tapper added.

Which neither of them has, Sparrow thought, so how did they manage?

‘Now do stay and have some grub, won't you?' Betty said.

Although she'd tried, Sparrow couldn't ignore the smell of the food any longer. Now she felt too hungry and weary to refuse it. ‘All right. Thank you, that's kind. Then I must go. I want to get to Stollenback before dark.'

‘No, dear. Even on a horse you wouldn't make Stollenback today. It's a long way off,' Betty said.

‘Well, at least I need to get started,' Sparrow added lamely.

Betty shrugged and smiled. ‘We'll see.'

Soon they were sitting at the table and Betty was spooning the stew onto Sparrow's plate. There had never been such delicious food at the orphanage and despite herself she ate two platefuls.

Tapper carried the dirty dishes out himself. That's good of him, Sparrow thought. Had she misjudged him? she wondered.

Two seconds later there was a cry of pain and Tapper stumbled back into the room, clutching his right hand to his chest.

‘I'm in agony!' he yelled, rolling against the wall. ‘Aw! I burned my hand, Ma!' He jumped around and paced up and down. ‘Aw, it's hurting bad!'

‘You need to put it in cold water,' Sparrow suggested, getting up. ‘Let me see, I could –'

‘No, no, don't touch it!' Tapper yelled. ‘I'll go put it under the pump. Oh, my hand! The pain!'

Betty did nothing to help him, but remained at the table, mopping up the gravy on her plate with a wodge of bread. Sparrow sighed. She couldn't leave now, she'd have to help with the clearing and washing up. She glanced at the window, wondering about the time and how Scaramouch was doing outside.