Catching Falling Stars (13 page)

But it’s not because of my singing; it’s because of something in the now open stairwell doorway – a felt duck and knitted mouse who’re waltzing together in Rich’s arms…

“Oh, this is beautiful,” I say.

“The attic?” laughs Auntie Sylvia. “Why, Glory – it’s practically a zoological park for spiders up here!”

She stands on the ladder and passes me a box that’s packed with her mother’s clothes from downstairs. There’s another waiting to be handed to me, and two stuffed suitcases are already up here. We really have worked hard together this morning, clearing old Mrs Saunders’ things from the bedroom, and other parts of the house as well.

“No,
this
!” I say, shoving the box under the eaves and shuffling along on my knees till I can reach out and run my fingers over a black enamel-painted sewing machine. Curlicues of gold meander their way across it, which is made more obvious now that I’m brushing a woolly layer of dust away.

“You know, I used to make all my own clothes,” says Auntie Sylvia with a smile, her head and shoulders poking through the trapdoor. “But, well, Mother didn’t like the racket it made, so I told Father he might as well store it up here.”

Mrs Saunders Senior must have ruled this cottage and its inhabitants with a rod of iron from her sickbed. But since last night, when Auntie Sylvia played that sweet old-fashioned tune on the piano, it’s as if the genie has been let out of its bottle. The whole mood in the house is definitely lighter and brighter this morning.

And while Rich has been busy feeding the hens, introducing them to Duckie and Mr Mousey and going off on an errand to the shop, I’ve been more than happy to help Auntie Sylvia with her out-of-season spring clean.

“Our flat back in London is on the ground floor, so we don’t have an attic,” I say, gazing around at the treasure trove of interesting chests and pictures and bric-a-brac. “All that’s upstairs from us is another flat, where Mrs Mann used to live… But Mum said in her letter that some very nice new people have moved in.”

“Your mother must miss you very much,” Auntie Sylvia says quite kindly. “And your father.”

I feel a prickle of tears in my eyes at the mention of Mum and Dad.

“And you must miss
your
parents,” I say, thinking – with a twinge of yearning – that Mum would be proud of me for that adult and thoughtful comment.

Auntie Sylvia’s eyes cloud over a little. “Well, yes, though it was … difficult at times. Anyway, all this chatter isn’t getting these last things moved, is it, Glory?”

She disappears back down the ladder. As I wait for her to lift the last box up, I flick through a pile of old frames next to the sewing machine. Most of them are dark brown and empty of pictures, except for the occasional stained and faded watercolour.

And then there’s this one.

“Here!” Auntie Sylvia wheezes, slapping the box up on to the attic floor.

“Miss Saunders—”

“I thought we’d agreed on Auntie Sylvia?” she says, with a faint, hopeful smile.

“Oh, yes!” I laugh shyly at my mistake. “Auntie Sylvia, if you don’t mind me asking, who’s this?”

I turn the sepia photograph of a handsome young man around towards her. He has a dark moustache, laughing eyes and is wearing a soldier’s uniform.

And straight away I wish I’d left it alone.

The smile slips away from Auntie Sylvia’s face, and the sunshine feeling of the morning goes with it.

“He was … well, my sweetheart, Glory. But the war – the
last
war – came between us.”

I shouldn’t have asked! Here’s some young local man who might have married Auntie Sylvia and given her a new surname. She might have had children galore in a happy, noisy house instead of being stuck here in silence looking after her elderly parents. Her beloved must have died in some foreign field, taking all her dreams with him. And now I don’t know what to say to make everything better. I’ve cast a shadow over the nice time we’ve been having.

“I think I should go and look for Rich – he’s been gone a long time,” I say, delicately placing the portrait against the eaves.

“Yes. Yes, you probably should, dear,” Auntie Sylvia agrees, and backs down the ladder so I can clamber after her and escape.

And outside I run, run, run to the shop, glad of the sudden autumn chill in the air. After her kindness and apologies, the last thing I want to do is upset Auntie Sylvia. So if I can help Rich carry the groceries home from the shop, we can start afresh. I see the way Auntie Sylvia looks at him, in that same adoring way he looks at his Duckie and now Mr Mousey.

But wait … the
Closed
sign is on the shop door.

I whip around, looking for Rich on the green, chasing butterflies amongst the cabbages or throwing stones in the pond.

He’s not there.

He’s nowhere.

“Rich?” I call out.

Where IS he? If I lose him, Mum will never forgive me. Same goes for Auntie Sylvia, I suspect.

“RICH!!”

“Looking for your little brother, are you?” someone calls out.

I glance around and see Jess from school, leading – of all things – a grunting, fat pig out from behind the pub.

“Yes,” I answer cautiously, as if I expect her to trip me up with a tease or some meanness. “Have you seen him?”

Jess stares hard at me. Her eyes – a strange pale, glassy green – are small in her pinched face. I can’t tell whether she hates me or simply thinks I’m less important than the pig at the end of the rope she’s holding.

“He went up Eastfield Farm,” she says finally, chucking a thumb over her shoulder, as though Rich and Eastfield Farm couldn’t be of less interest to her.

“Why?” I say out loud, but soon realize it’s pointless; Jess isn’t going to give me a straightforward answer.

Sure enough, all I get is a shrug.

I whirl round and run, leaving Jess to walk her pig who knows where, and head in the direction of the lane and the farm.

It only takes me a couple of minutes to sprint as far as the sign. And as soon as I take the turning, I see the five-bar gate where Lawrence and Archie were sitting staring that first day – and hear boys’ voices coming from the messy yard beyond.

I’m too breathless to call out for Rich, but reach the gate and see him anyway.

And what I see makes me gasp.

“What’s going on?!” I yelp.

The three of them glance round, and at least Lawrence and Archie have the decency to look embarrassed.

For some unknown reason, they have brought Rich here and persuaded him to take his clothes off! He’s standing there – in the yard – wearing just shorts, boots and socks, with his jumper, shirt and vest piled up on the straw-and-mud-covered ground.

“We ain’t – we ain’t—” Archie garbles uselessly, his blue eyes staring pleadingly at me like a stray dog that’s just stolen someone’s dinner.

I realize I’ve never heard Archie talk at school, only snigger at something either Jess or Lawrence has said or done. Well, if he makes as little sense as this, I don’t feel as if I’m missing anything.

“Rich, get your stuff and come here now!” I order my startled brother.

His face whiter-than-white, his eyes filling with panicky tears, Rich does as he’s told, scooping up his clothes and scrabbling over to me.

“Hurry!” I hiss at him, helping him over the gate.

“Look, we didn’t do—”

“I don’t care what you did or didn’t do!” I yell over my shoulder at Lawrence as I hurry away, hauling Rich with me by the hand. “Just stay away from my brother!”

That’s it.

It doesn’t matter how nice and kind Auntie Sylvia has turned out to be, there’s no way we can stay in this stupid village with these mean children (and teachers!) a moment longer than we have to.

The minute we get back to the cottage, I’m writing a letter home, telling our parents we need to be rescued…

“You and Richard must simply stay away from them,” says Auntie Sylvia, taking her long strides towards church this Sunday morning, her head held high.

She keeps her gaze directly ahead, catching no one’s eye, as if she’s got blinkers on, same as a racehorse.

“Those boys are no good,” she adds. “The whole family is no good.”

I told Auntie Sylvia something about Lawrence and Archie yesterday, but not all of it.

I told her I’d caught them teasing Rich, but ended it there.

I
meant
to say more; I’d planned on ratting the boys out, hoping she’d go storming up to Eastfield Farm and give them and Mr Wills a piece of her mind, same as she’d done with Miss Montague at the school. But when me and Rich got back to the cottage, we’d found her sitting staring at the sheet music on the piano, her hands in her lap, not playing.

It was my fault, of course. I’d reminded Auntie Sylvia of her long-ago love, the boy snatched away by war. And suddenly it didn’t seem right to make her angry as well as sad.

“Richard,
please
keep up, dear,” Auntie Sylvia turns to say. Rich gives up his sulky stone-kicking and hop-skips to her side, clutching Duckie and Mr Mousey.

At the same time, he gives me a hurt puppy look, knowing I’m cross with him but not really understanding why.

“I was only showing them my chest!” he’d said yesterday when I hurried him back to the cottage.

“Well, that’s not for strangers to see,” I’d said briskly, bundling him back into his vest, shirt and jumper. “And anyway, those boys are silly and just want to laugh at you. All right?”

“But, Glory—”

“You don’t have to understand,” I practically snapped at him, I was so cross. “You just have to do as I say, Rich.”

Of course, my brother isn’t used to me talking that way, which is why he’s acting upset and wary with me now.

And Auntie Sylvia might be upset with me too, if she knew what the letter in my hand actually said…

“Is it all right if I go and post this?” I ask Auntie Sylvia, holding up the stamped envelope.

Last night she dared to try the wireless, and was delighted to find it still worked. So while we listened to a show, Rich read one of his old comics, Auntie Sylvia darned, and I wrote to Mum and Dad with my “news”. News that secretly contained the “come get us” plea.

Because comfy as we are at the cottage, I know I need to protect my brother from mean and hurtful people, like those awful boys at the farm.

“Yes, certainly,” says Auntie Sylvia. “Richard – can you stay with your sister? I want a quick word with Reverend Ashton before the service starts.”

With that, she hurries around the green towards the church, while Rich and I take a shortcut through the cabbages to reach the postbox outside the grocer’s shop.

But now I wish we hadn’t – I’ve just spotted Jess sitting with her back to the oak tree, as the pig she seems to be in charge of crunches at acorns scattered on the ground.

“Hello!” Rich says brightly to her.

“Hello to you, Titchy-Rich!” says the girl.

Titchy Rich? She has a
nickname
for my brother? I didn’t even know she knew what his first name
was
. That suddenly makes me mad. She has no right to act like she knows him so well!