Season of Secrets (5 page)

 

 

 

 

When I come back, Jack's raking our garden. I stand
on the gate and watch.

Jack lives next door to the shop, with Ivy. Ivy's a
bit batty. She shuffles around all day in slippers and
a pink hat with flowers on it. She's not supposed to
go beyond the garden, but sometimes she escapes
and wanders down the lane and Jack has to go and
bring her home. Once, I saw her escaping and ran
after her and brought her back. Jack was in the
kitchen and he said, “Eh, lass, where were you off to
this time?” She looked up and beamed this great big
beam, with no teeth in it, and said, “I was going to
the circus!”

I like Ivy.

I like Jack better though. Jack's a man, but he does
all their cooking and cleaning. He even washes Ivy in
the bath. He told me so. Jack and Grandma and
Grandpa have a big garden between them, and Jack
looks after it.

He rests his chin on his rake when he sees me, and
raises his hand.

“What's up, woodchuck?”

“Nothing,” I say. I climb over the gate and sit on
top of it. Jack carries on raking.

“I've got a flower,” I tell him.

“Have you?”

“A bluebell.”

I've got it in my pocket if he wants to see, but he
doesn't ask. He carries on raking.

“That's a brave bluebell,” he says. “Out in
October.”

“It's magic,” I say. “A man made it grow out of
nothing.”

Jack doesn't answer. He rakes his leaves into a pile.

“You believe me, don't you?” I say. “You do believe
in magic?”

Jack stops.

“Do you see those trees?” He points. I nod.
“I made them grow out of nothing.” He laughs.
“There's more magic in trees than in conjuring tricks,”
he says.

 

 

 

 

I go back into the house. I'm thinking a thought. Not
a big one. It's right at the back of my head; so small
that I don't dare bring it into the light or even think it
in anything but a sidelong sort of way. If I do, it might
crumble away to nothing, the way things do sometimes
when you show them to someone else.

The thought is this: if the man in the barn
is
a god,
and if he brings the summer, and plucks growing
things out of the air, and does whatever else a summer
god does,
what else can he do?

Not superpowers or jewels or fairy palaces. I don't
want these things. My wishes are simple and plain.

Could he make my dad take us back?

Could he bring my mum safe home?

 

 

 

 

He does something to my head, this man. When I go
and see him, I forget all the things I ought to ask –
like
Who are you?
– and get distracted by bare feet and
ivy leaves.

I don't even know his name. If I was one of the
Famous Five, I'd have solved this mystery by now.

Of course, if I was one of the Famous Five he'd be
either a smuggler or a gypsy or a detective in disguise.

But still.

On Saturday, at breakfast, I make a list of all the
questions I want answering, starting with,
What is your
name?
and working my way through,
Are you really a
pagan god?
right up to,
What else can you do besides make trees?
And could you teach me how, so I can do it too?

“Can I go out?” I ask Grandpa, but he shakes his
head.

“Not today, lovey.”

What's today? Another day out with Auntie Meg
or one of Mum's friends? Going to “play” with my
cousins, who are boys and at secondary school and
like computers and football and stare at us like they've
forgotten how to talk?

“Your dad's taking you out, love. Remember?”

Oh. Dad.

“Molly Alice,” says Grandma, putting down the
butter knife. “Don't look like that. You want to see
your dad, don't you?”

“Yes,” I say. I scratch the plastic tabletop with my
fingernail. “Of course I do.”

“I don't,” says Hannah. She spears her fork into her
egg and glares at Grandpa.

He looks away.

 

Every time Dad comes, I look forward and look
forward to it, and every time it's horrible.

We're in a car park. Hannah is scrunched as far
towards the other side of the car as she can get. She's
got her earphones plugged in and her music turned up
as far as it will go.

“Come on, love,” says Dad. “Come and have
something to eat.”

“Leave me alone!”

Dad is crouched by the door. You can tell he
doesn't know what to do. Mum usually does all the
talking and fighting in our family.

I'm standing next to him looking out over the car
park. I feel like we've been here for
hours
. I wish he
would just tell her what a brat she's being. Someone
(not me) ought to.

“Can't we just leave her here, Dad? I'm hungry.”

“Oh, grow up,” Hannah snarls, sudden as I imagine
tigers might be. “And keep your nose out of other
people's business.”

Dad rocks back. He opens his mouth, then, all of a
sudden, he shuts it again. He stands up and strides out
across the car park, without looking back at either of
us.

I run after him. Hannah's
always
horrible on days
Dad takes us out. Last time he took us to the Harry
Potter castle in Alnwick and she sang
I know a song that'll
get on your nerves
all round the tour. The time before
that we went to the beach and she tipped sand over his
seat and all the sandwiches because he said we couldn't
have fish and chips.

Today, she won't even get out of the car.

 

I catch up with Dad at the café queue. We're supposed
to be looking round some old house with gardens. I
don't know why. Dad hates gardens. And the only old
house I like is Newby Hall, because of the paddle
boats and the zip line.

I rub Dad's elbow to show him I'm there. He gives
me a quick smile, but it vanishes immediately.

“What do you want to eat?” he says. “There're
sandwiches over there – look. Go and choose
something.”

It's no wonder he doesn't want to have us, if all that
happens when he comes is that we fight. I go and pick
out a plasticky cheese sandwich from the fridge, with
horrible slimy-looking pickle in it.

It's cold.

Dad takes a seat right over from the window, like
he doesn't care about Hannah. But he keeps looking
over his shoulder at the car. It's not fair. This is my day
with Dad just as much as hers.

I take a sugar lump from the bowl and bite on it. I
expect him to tell me off, but he doesn't even notice.

“Can't we leave Hannah behind next time?” I say, to
make him look at me. “She's
always
horrible.”

Dad rubs his face with his hands.

“Hannah's not horrible,” he says. “Any more than
you are, or me. She's
. . .
” He hesitates, like he's trying
to think of a nice way to say “horrible”. “Well,” he
says. “This isn't easy for anyone.”

Rubbing your face means you're tired. Is Dad tired?
I don't know. He's older than other people's dads.
And uglier. He hair is thin and turning grey at the
edges, and his face is all squashed up and lopsided,
like a pug dog's.

“I don't know why you ever took up with him,”
Grandma used to grumble to Mum when she was ticked
off with him. And Mum would lean across the table, her
face teasing, and say, “He made me laugh, of course.”

Suddenly, I want him back very much.

“Maybe we should come and live with you,” I say.
“Then Hannah wouldn't be so huffy all the time.”

“I wish you could, sweetheart,” says Dad. But his
eyes don't come alive when he says it.

“We could!” I say. I lean forward. “I don't care how
much you work. Me and Hannah can look after
ourselves. We could cook you meals and everything.”

I can cook. I can make tea and coffee and
peppermint creams and chocolate crispy cakes and
soup and beans on toast and sandwiches. That's
enough to live on.

But Dad is shaking his head.

“No, sweetheart,” he says. “Don't let's start this
again. You can't stay in the house on your own and
neither can Hannah. Not at night. And with this job,
I can't guarantee I'll be around.”

This is unbelievably unfair. Loads of kids Hannah's
age stay at home on their own. And kids look after
their parents, if they're in a wheelchair or something.
I saw a
Blue Peter
about it.

“You could get a babysitter,” I say. “I wouldn't care.
Or a childminder, or an after-school club – lots of
people do.”

“Moll,” says Dad wearily. “Don't let's fight about
this now. You can't ask babysitters to come at the sort
of notice I can give. And you can't stay overnight at a
childminder's.”

Cold shivers down my spine.

“But we're going to come back with you,” I say.
“You said! You
promised
! We can't live with Grandpa
for
ever
!”

Dad closes his eyes and I stop, frightened. He's
leaving again. Would he just walk away from me, the
way he did from Hannah? I catch my breath, but then
his eyes open again.

“Not for ever, sweetheart,” he says, “I can't have you
right now, Moll. I can barely look after myself. Once
I've found another job, we'll look at it then.”

I'm angry at him for making me so frightened, and
for spoiling my happy day. It's not fair. Dads are
supposed to want their kids to have a good time.

“So find a job!” I say. “You just have to fill in a
form or go to an interview or something. It takes
about five minutes! It doesn't take weeks and weeks
and weeks like this!”

“I'm trying,” says Dad. “I really am, sweetheart.”

“Try harder. Everyone else has jobs. It's not hard!”

Dad used to wind Mum up something rotten by
not fighting with her, and he's doing it to me now. It's
as if there's a wall around him, and he won't let any of
my words get through.

“Come on,” he says. “Let's go back to Hannah.
Let's see if she'll let us into the car.”

In the car, Hannah's face is screwed up like she's
trying not to cry. Dad passes her a packet of slimy
cheese sandwiches and she opens them without saying
anything. He turns the car round and we head back to
the village.

When we get to Grandpa's house, Hannah bolts
out of the door and runs inside. Dad gives this sort of
sad shrug, like he doesn't know what to do. Dads are
supposed
to know what to do! That's their job!

“Come on, love,” he says wearily, putting his hand
on my shoulder. I pull away and run through the shop
door, past Grandpa and up the stairs.

Sometimes I know just what it feels like to be
Hannah.

Sometimes I hate Dad too.