Other Alice (31 page)
Authors: Michelle Harrison
I opened it up. Inside was a story called
Nine Lives
. The edges of the pages were grubby, smeared with inky black fingerprints and something else that was
dark, but not quite black. I started to read.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl called Dorothy Grimes who lived in a special hospital. She had been sent there, because she did something bad and the doctors
thought that her head was all wrong, but Dorothy did not agree. She thought her head was perfectly fine, thank you very much, and she said so many times to her cat, who was a rather special
cat, but we will come to that in a moment.
The cat was one of Dorothy’s favourite things, but not her absolute favourite. No.
Her absolute favourite thing was writing stories, which were also special – but we will come to that in a moment, too.
One day, a little while before she went to live in the hospital, Dorothy was thinking about something. She poked the cat, who was asleep, and said, ‘Names are important, don’t
you think?’
‘Eh?’ the cat replied, because this cat was one of those rare cats that could talk. (This was one of the reasons she was special, but there were more.)
‘Names,’ Dorothy repeated. ‘Pay attention.’
‘I was asleep,’ the cat said grumpily. ‘Is this important?’
‘Yes,’ said Dorothy. ‘You know, considering I saved you from being tortured, it’s as if sometimes you don’t even like me at all.’
‘Who said liking you had to come into it?’ the cat retorted. ‘Anyway, spit it out.’
‘You’re cute when you’re grumpy,’ Dorothy said, giggling. ‘Where was I? Oh, yes, names. If my stories are going to be famous one day, I’d better think of
another name for myself, hadn’t I?’
‘What do you mean?’ the cat replied. ‘What’s wrong with the name you already have?’
‘Grimes is not a name for an author,’ said Dorothy. ‘It sounds like a chimney sweep. Like dust and dirt and unwashed things. I want another name to go on my stories. A
pen-name. What’s the proper word for it? A pseudonym.’
‘Fair enough,’ said the cat. ‘What do you want instead?’
‘I’ve been thinking about spiders’ webs and all the work that goes into them. And how people say lies are like webs. Well, stories are like that, too. So I’ve decided on
Weaver.’
‘Dorothy Weaver,’ said the cat. ‘Like it.’
‘No, no, not Dorothy,’ she snapped.
‘You don’t like Dorothy, either?’
She scowled. ‘It gets shortened to Dot, or Dotty. Dotty means mad and I’ve had enough of people saying that.’
‘So what will your first name be?’
Dorothy took down a doll from the shelf and stroked its long, golden hair. ‘I think I like Dolly.’ She picked up her scissors and started to snip, snip, snip. Chunks of yellow hair
fell in her lap. ‘A dolly can be whatever you want it to be. You can dress it how you want, and make it say and do what you want. A bit like a character in a story.’ She pressed the
blade of the scissors into the doll’s eye, gouging. There was a soft pop and it rolled out on to the floor.
‘Yes, Dolly it is.’ She smiled, crushing the glass eye underfoot. ‘Dolly Weaver.’
‘Excellent choice,’ said the cat. ‘Now do you think I could have a cup of tea?’
Turncoat
I
SLAMMED THE PAGES DOWN
. There was no need to read the rest. ‘Piper, start burning the stories now!’ I hissed.
‘We’re in trouble!’
‘What is it?’ Gypsy asked.
I held up the folder, displaying the name on the front.
Her mouth dropped open. ‘
Dolly Weaver?
’
‘It’s a pen-name,’ I said. ‘The pen-name of Dorothy Grimes. Dolly Weaver
is
Dorothy Grimes!’ I pointed to the stains on the
edges of the paper. ‘Look, it makes sense now. Dolly’s gloves – she was hiding the state of her hands . . . she’s a writer. The stains on her fingers are ink.
Our plan can’t work. And that’s not the worst part.’
Ramblebrook hammered on the door, cutting me off. ‘What are you hollering about?’
Gypsy glanced fearfully at the door. ‘What is it, Midge? What else does it say?’
‘The cat, Tabitha.’ I felt a stab of betrayal as I said her name. ‘She’s
in
this. She’s Dolly’s – I mean,
Dorothy’s cat! She must have been working against us the whole time, listening and spying and feeding information back!’
‘And now we’re trapped in here and the cat’s gone,’ Gypsy said, horrified. ‘She knows Alice is on my boat, with only Ramone to protect her . . . She
hasn’t gone to fetch help at all . . . she’s gone to take Dolly to Alice!’
Ramblebrook thumped the door again. ‘What are you whispering about? I know you’re up to something in there!’
‘We’ve got to make him open the door,’ I said. ‘We have to get back to Alice now!’ Papers rustled around us, a few floating into the far corners. ‘And
I’ve got to solve that riddle. If Dolly gets to Alice before we do, I need to be master of that cat.’ I pushed the story into my rucksack and pulled out the riddle, reading through it
again, but still it was no clearer. Nettles . . . bees . . . scorpions.
A vessel of venom that can kill with a sting . . .
Which one was it? What was I missing?
‘What are you doing in there?’ Ramblebrook demanded, his voice rising. ‘That sounded like paper crumpling! You’d better not be meddling with my work!’
‘Oh, we’re meddling all right!’ Piper shouted. ‘We’ve opened up all your boxes and, if you don’t let us out, we’ll start on the stories one by
one!’
‘What?’ Ramblebrook growled. ‘You’ll start doing
what
?’
Gypsy strode to the door. ‘Burning them.’
‘You wouldn’t dare!’ he raged. ‘You’ll put everything back in those boxes at once, do you hear me?’
‘Make us!’ Piper crowed. ‘Open the door. I’ll count to ten, then the first story goes up in smoke!’
‘Don’t you dare!’
Piper put his hand on his chin and spoke in an exaggerated voice. ‘Hmm. I don’t think he believes us. Let’s see . . . what’s this one?’ He picked up
a couple of loose pages from the floor.
I leaned closer, reading the title aloud. ‘
The Silver Cage
.’
‘Are you fond of
The Silver Cage
?’ Piper called.
‘By T. M. Winter,’ I added.
‘By T. M. Winter? Because it’s about to vanish for ever!’
‘Put that back this instant!’ Ramblebrook cried.
‘One, two, three, four . . .’
‘I’m warning you . . .’
‘. . . .ive, six, seven, eight . . .’
‘If you’ve so much as wrinkled it, I’ll wring your neck!’
‘. . . .ine, ten.’ Piper sighed. ‘I don’t think he’s gonna open the door yet, do you? And it’s
so
cold
in here.’
There was utter silence as Gypsy and I waited, unsure whether he would carry out his threat. On the other side of the door, I sensed that Ramblebrook was hardly daring to breathe. The hiss of
the match being struck was oddly loud. even Ramblebrook heard it.
‘No!’ he wailed.
Piper held the flame to the paper. It was dry and brittle with age, and the flame took hold easily.
‘Whoa!’ He threw it into the grate and stepped back from the orange glow. A curl of grey smoke spiralled up the chimney. The pages blackened and fell to ash.
‘One story gone,’ I said, oddly sad about it. ‘Are you ready to let us out?’
There was no reply, but we could hear that he had begun to pace.
‘Good,’ said Gypsy. ‘You got his attention. Burn two stories this time.’
I picked up a handful of stories from the hearth and looked at the top two.
‘
Never Gone
by Woody Wickens, and
Les Chats . . . Les
. . .’ I squinted
in the faint light. ‘I can’t read this one.’
Gypsy took it from me. ‘
Les Chats Formidables
. It means
The Great Cats
in French and it’s
by—’
Ramblebrook stopped his pacing. ‘No!’ he howled. ‘Not that one!’
‘Then open the door!’ Piper yelled. ‘Let us go and we’ll stop!’
There was a roar of rage as Ramblebrook grappled with his decision. Then the pacing began again, faster this time. Piper stuffed the two stories into the grate and threw the match. The words
charred and vanished into black.
‘Another two gone,’ Piper declared. ‘How many more are you willing to sacrifice?’
The pacing continued, along with the horrid scraping sound of something sharp being dragged over the walls, scratching and gouging in anger.
The key.
‘Keep going,’ said Gypsy, her voice low. ‘He’s going to cave, I can feel it . . .’
She seized another stash of paper and began reeling off titles, too quickly for me to even take them all in, and with each one she threw it on to the flames.
‘
The Mischief Spell . . .
gone!’ she shouted. ‘
The Yellow Tree House –
gone!
Three Sisters . . . The Witch in the Bottle
,
The Tale of Spinney Wicket
. . .
gone, gone, GONE!’
‘Enough!’ Ramblebrook flew at the door, jamming the key in the lock. ‘Enough, I say!’
We huddled together as the lock clicked back, and then the door was thrown open, sending a freezing draught into the room. It lifted the pages, scattering them further into the corners.
Ramblebrook stormed in, halting as he took in the scene. He lifted his hands to his head and a horrible sound groaned out of him. A loose leaf of paper wrapped round his leg, like it was trying
to comfort him. He staggered to the fireplace and dropped to his knees, weeping and pulling at the burning pages with his bare hands.
‘What’s he doing?’ Gypsy said. ‘He’s crazy if he thinks he can save them!’
Piper shoved us towards the door. ‘Just go,’ he hissed. ‘All we need to think about is saving ourselves and Alice.’
We fled the room, thumping down the stairs. Then Piper stopped in front of me, turning back up the stairs.
‘Piper, no!’ Gypsy caught his hand. ‘Where are you going?’
‘My flute. It rolled out somewhere in that front room when I fell before.’
‘Forget the flute!’ she cried.
‘I can’t, you know I can’t.’ He pulled away from her and limped on to the landing.
I hesitated. ‘I’ll get it; you can barely walk. Go and I’ll meet you downstairs.’
‘No . . .’
I pushed past him, racing along the landing to the first room we’d been in. It was darker in here; the vast amount of boxes blocked what little light there was from the bare window. I
knelt, feeling around blindly, my fingers gathering grime and dust. Then they brushed something smooth and cold. I wrapped my fingers round the flute and scrambled out and across the landing to the
top of the stairs.
Something, fear perhaps, made me glance into the room where Ramblebrook was. What I saw rooted me to the spot.
He was on his hands and knees and, having removed his jacket, was swatting at the burning papers with it in an effort to put them out . . . but he’d only spread the flames
further. Glowing embers had drifted to the moth-eaten curtains. The bottom of the fabric was smouldering, and already I could see dark, toxic smoke leaking away from it.
He looked so broken, so pitiful, that I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.
‘You have to get out.’ I coughed as something bitter caught in my throat. ‘The flames are spreading and this whole place is full of paper. You can’t save it.’
I sensed he’d barely heard me over the crackling of the flames, but his eyes flickered in my direction. All I saw in them was madness; the look in them told me all this paper meant more to
him than his own life.
Then Gypsy was next to me, tugging me away, breathless.
‘Leave him. He has time to get out if he’ll only make the choice.’ She urged me towards the stairs and I almost stumbled, wheezing as fumes invaded my lungs. We clattered down
the stairs, to where Piper waited by the open front door. As I stepped outside and tasted the sweet, fresh air, I took one final look back at the stairs, willing Ramblebrook to come down them, but
all that followed us were scraps of fiery orange paper, floating into the night like burning confetti.
‘Run,’ said Piper, grimacing. ‘I won’t be far behind you.’
We raced to the end of Pike Street. Before I turned the corner, I looked back at Piper. He was true to his word, keeping up well, but we’d still beat him to the boat. Behind him, orange
light lit the upstairs window of Ramblebrook’s place. I turned away, my breathing ragged and my throat sore. I couldn’t think about him now.
The moon sailed above us, half clouded, unmoving, making everything seem slower, though speed had never been more crucial. Each time my feet pounded the ground, all I could think was
Alice
.
Alice, Alice, Alice
.
Please be all right
.
‘I told you . . . that cat . . . would bring bad luck!’ Gypsy panted.