Ring Around Rosie
Authors: Emily Pattullo
Ring Around Rosie
Emily Pattullo
Copyright
© 2012
Emily Pattullo
The right of Emily Pattullo to be identified as the Author
of this Work
has been asserted by her in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it
shall not, by way of trade
or otherwise, be lent, hired out, or otherwise
circulated in any form of
binding or cover other than that in which it is
published. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise)
without the prior written permission of the Author.
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, incidents, places and
dialogues are products of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual
people, living or dead, events or
locales is entirely
coincidental.
www.emilypattullo.com
As Rosie’s paintbrush swept carelessly over
the paper, searching out the picture beneath, she tried to ignore the gate with
its threatening sign. She could feel it beckoning her with its barbed wire
tentacles, tickling the back of her neck until the hairs stood on end. She kept
her gaze firmly on the scene in front of her, she’d promised her mum she was
only going to paint, that she could be trusted not to do anything silly. And,
to be fair, her mum had every right to be nervous after what had happened in
London.
Rosie felt her head twitch involuntarily
then snap impatiently, forcing her again to look over her right shoulder at the
wicket gate nestled in a low-lying hedge with a footpath beyond. If the sign
had said,
Come on in, Visitors welcome
, she wouldn’t have given it a
second glance, but the fact that it said,
Danger. Keep Out. Private
, was
like a lighted match to a pyromaniac. Or in Rosie’s case, an order she couldn’t
obey.
There was no disputing the beauty of what
lay before her: the brush-strewn cliff that plunged dramatically down to the
sea just inches from her feet, miles of open water stretching to the horizon.
Anyone else would have been in awe of it, and Rosie chastised herself for her
lack of attention. Why could she not appreciate the accessible things in life?
Rosie jumped as her mum shouted from the
house. Drat! It was like she could read her mind.
“Coming mum,” she shouted, waving over her
shoulder. She’d come back later, somehow.
Just as Rosie got up to the house, her
dad’s car pulled up.
“Hi, Posie, how are you liking the new
house?”
Rosie frowned at the familiar but sickening
nickname.
“Yeah, it’s alright.”
Her dad put his arm around her shoulder and
squeezed her to him.
“Bit quiet probably, but not so many
distractions, eh?”
“None at all, dad, not a single one.”
“How’s the painting going, Rosie?” asked
her mum as they walked into the house. Rosie shrugged and dumped her picture on
the table.
“See for yourself.”
“So that’s what the beach looks like,” said
her dad. “I haven’t had a chance to explore the place yet so it’s nice to know
what’s beyond the garden.”
“Looks like a cabbage threw up and then
wiped its mouth on the cookie monster,” said Ted, sauntering in and slumping
down on a chair.
“Ted! That’s not kind. I think it’s very
creative,” defended their mum.
Rosie held back the grin that threatened at
the corners of her mouth. Her brother could always make her smile, even when
she didn’t want him to.
“Yeah, it’s pretty rubbish. Perhaps
painting is not for me.”
“Of course it is, darling. The therapist
said it would be really helpful. Don’t give up, I think it’s beautiful, in fact
I’m going to hang it above the fireplace,” said her mum, picking up the canvas
and holding it aloft. “See, the colours really complement the curtains.”
“Thanks, mum, but I’d prefer it if the
whole world didn’t get to see my first ever painting.”
“The whole world?” scoffed Ted. “You’ll be
lucky if a single human being gets to see it way out here. The best you can
expect is a passing sheep to look in through the window, and even that’s
unlikely with that mental dog Raven chasing every moving thing away.”
“Come on guys, I know it’s secluded but
apparently this cove was a popular spot with smugglers back in the day,” coaxed
their dad. “The estate agent told me there’s a smugglers’ path that winds its
way up the cliff, round past some rocks at the east end of the beach. It’s
really
treacherous, he reckons, and he said the smugglers often lost their footing and
plunged to their death on the rocks, especially when they were over-laden with
treasure. Oo arrgh, me hearties!”
Rosie stifled a giggle. “They were real
pirates, then?”
“Well, no, not necessarily, I was just
doing that for effect. You know, adding a bit of foreboding to the story, help
you sleep tonight.”
Ted scoffed. “Great dad, very scary.”
“Alright, Cheery Beard, don’t enter into
the spirit of the place, then. I think it adds to its character though, don’t
you, Rosie?”
“I guess.”
“Come on you two, you wouldn’t have found
any smugglers or pirates in London, now would you? Maybe a few drug barons but
not genuine one-legged villains. There may even be a few old barrels of rum or
moonshine washed up on the rocks too!”
“What’s moonshine?” asked Rosie.
“It’s illegally distilled spirits, like
whiskey. It was notoriously the drink of choice for English smugglers.”
“Now yer talking!” said Ted, sitting up and
taking an interest. “Where can I get this stuff?”
“Clue’s in the word ‘illegal’, Ted,” said
their mum, laying the table. “And I’m not sure talk like that is hugely
appropriate, Sam,” she scolded her husband, nodding in Rosie’s direction.
“Oh please, mum. Like I’m going to race
down to the beach and start licking the rocks in case there’s
a-hundred-year-old alcohol on them. Give me some credit!”
“Sorry, darling, you’re right. What could
possibly be way out here that would have any bearing on what happened back in
London?”
Rosie felt her guilt lurch. Probably
nothing, but she would have to make sure.
Rosie stood staring at the gate, her
unfinished painting discarded in the long grass that rolled gently on the cliff
edge. Of course her mum had let her ‘give the painting another go’. What other
temptations could there possibly be out here?
she’d
said. Her mum
trusted her now… or at least she was trying to, and that thought smouldered in
Rosie’s chest like a discharged gun, as she climbed the forbidden gate and
walked down the path.
Flanked by a hedge on one side and a wooded
area on the other, the path wound round and then over a small wooden bridge
that crossed a narrow, sunken stream. The water was murky, and bubbled around
an obstacle blocking its flow. Rosie knew how it felt. The path steered her
around another couple of bends before it gradually began to widen into more of
a track.
Rosie stopped. To her left was another path
that led down into a wood and towards the beach, and to her right was a strange
building, half sunken into the ground. The roof was only one storey high and
there was grass growing up over it like it had been partially built into the
earth. A bomb shelter or bunker perhaps, from the war. She remembered not
really listening to a lesson at school about such things. And come to think of
it, this was sort of like she imagined one might look. There were no windows
but there were two chimney-like turrets protruding a couple of feet from the
top.
Suddenly, Rosie heard voices coming through
the wood behind her. She threw herself into the hedge beside the bunker and put
her hand over her mouth as if afraid she might let a noise escape.
“She’s gonna be a good one, I reckon,” said
one of the voices.
“Yeah, and she doesn’t have a clue. She
still thinks she’s going to find a better life here,” said another.
“Well, better for someone, but not for
her,” laughed the other. “She’s all dressed up with nowhere to go but down!”
“And up. And down and up and down and up,
down, up, down.”
They all roared with laughter.
Rosie peeped through a gap in the hedge.
Three men were coming up the path through the trees, two wearing jeans and
t-shirts, and one was in a boiler suit. They walked towards the bunker and
stopped just in front of it, within spitting distance of where Rosie was
hiding.
“I don’t get why we have to wait here for
so long, we’re nearly out of food and booze,” said the man who had spoken
first, holding aloft an empty rum bottle. He had a moustache, slicked-back,
greasy hair, and very hairy arms. He was also half the height of the other two.
“We’ve been through this, Rusty,” replied
the second man, rather irritably. There’s going to be another drop-off and then
we can leave.” He was the youngest looking of the three, with blonde spiky
hair, and he had an accent that Rosie couldn’t place.
The third man, the one in the boiler suit,
seemed quieter. He shifted nervously from one foot to the other, wringing his
hands together. He was the tallest of the three, very thin, and there was
something not quite right about him, Rosie thought. The young, blonde man
looked at him.
“I think it’s time for your pills, Griff,”
he said, patting him on the shoulder. They all walked around to the side of the
bunker and went inside. Rosie breathed again.
She waited for a while to make sure no one
else was going to appear. Just as she was about to crawl out from under the
hedge she heard a rustling coming from behind her. She swung round just as a
huge pink tongue engulfed her face.
“Raven!” she gasped, pushing him off her.
His wagging tail was lashing the hedge, and he was squeaking with excitement.
Rosie decided it was time to get out of there before the men came to see what
all the noise was about. She scrambled to her feet, hissed at Raven to follow
her, and ran.