The Secret Hen House Theatre (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Confessions

They stood motionless as the sound of Martha’s running feet faded away.

There was a terrible silence. Then Lottie slowly turned to Hannah. “You know what? I’ve got a horrible feeling she didn’t do it.”

Hannah’s insides felt like swirling soup. “What do you mean?”

“I’m just thinking … her face when she saw all this. She looked … shocked.”

Tell her, Hannah said to herself. You have to tell her.

But no words came.

“But if
she
didn’t tell them,” Lottie said, “then who did? They can’t have found it by accident. Unless they followed us.” She stared, wide-eyed, at Hannah. “That must be it! They followed us one day and found out where it was! Don’t you think? Hannah?”

The stage door rattled with three loud knocks. Hannah’s stomach flipped over. Nobody ever knocked at the door.

Was it Dad? Had Martha gone and told him
everything? Already?

“Cooeee! Charlotte, Hannah!”

Lottie’s mum! Relief surged through Hannah. Lottie pulled a face and pushed the door open a fraction.

“What do you want?”

“Lovely to see you too, light of my life. I thought you might be in need of sustenance, with your busy day ahead.” She held out a box of biscuits. “Where’s Hannah?” She pulled the door open further and stepped in. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. “Good grief! What on earth has happened here?”

They said nothing. But Vanessa’s eyes fell on the message on the mirror.

“‘Got you back’?” she said, and there was fear in her voice. “What does that mean? Who’s got you back for what? What’s going on here?”

They stood there, silent. Vanessa waited for a minute. Then she fetched three chairs from the auditorium and placed them in a circle.

“Right,” she said. “Sit down and tell me everything.”

The girls stayed standing. Hannah could feel Lottie looking at her but she couldn’t meet her gaze.

Lottie was obviously fed up with Hannah’s silence, because she sat down and said, with a distinct edge to her voice, “It was Jack Adamson and Danny Carr, from our class. They did it to get back at Hannah because Hannah found out they started the fire in the barn and she told the police.”

Vanessa actually seemed lost for words for a moment. “Jack and Danny burned the barn down?” she said eventually.

“Not on purpose,” Hannah blurted out. Lottie let out a snort and Hannah wished she had kept her mouth shut. “They lit a fire in there,” she explained to Vanessa in a tiny voice. “And they didn’t put it out properly.”

“What idiots!” said Vanessa. “What absolute irresponsible idiots.” She shook her head. “Your poor father. How dreadful for him. I hope they get properly punished. And then to do all this!” She gestured at the wreckage. Then she frowned. “But how did they find your theatre?”

Lottie went through all her theories of how the boys could have found out. Then she looked at Hannah. “What do
you
think? Why aren’t you saying anything? What is wrong with you?”

Vanessa was looking at Hannah too. Hannah’s heart was thumping so hard against her ribs that she felt dizzy.

She had to speak. It was now or never.

In a strangled voice, she said, “It wasn’t Martha. It was me. I told Jack where the theatre was.”

Lottie stared at her, her eyes getting bigger and bigger.

“
What
?”

Gripping the back of the chair, with her eyes fixed to the floor, Hannah told them everything. How she’d invited Jack to the dress rehearsal. The conversation between Jack and Danny that she’d heard outside
the theatre. And the part they already knew – how she’d found the matchbox and eventually told her father.

She didn’t look at either of them as she spoke, but when she finished, she glanced up at Lottie.

She wished she hadn’t. Lottie was glaring at her, eyes blazing with fury.

“You traitor! How
could
you? You stupid, stupid cow! All the time I thought it was someone else, someone who hated us, and it was
you
! What was the point of all the secrecy, all the work we did, if all the time you were just going to ruin it? What was it all for?”

She was standing up now, gesturing wildly and shouting into Hannah’s face. Hannah slid on to the chair and curled up in a ball. She wished she could just dissolve. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so, so sorry. I was so stupid and if I could do anything to take it back I would.”

“But you can’t,” snarled Lottie. “So what’s the point of saying it? Of course you’re sorry now, when everything’s ruined. But that didn’t stop you inviting your precious Jack to our dress rehearsal behind everybody’s backs, did it?”

Vanessa stood up. Now she’s going to start shouting at me too, thought Hannah. And I deserve it, I know I do.

But Vanessa put her hands on Lottie’s shoulders and pressed her back into her chair. “That’s enough, Charlotte,” she said. “Calm yourself down.” Lottie pushed her mother’s hands off, but she sat down,
with her jaw jutted out and her arms folded.

Vanessa turned to face Hannah. Hannah stiffened up all over. But instead of shouting at her, Vanessa knelt down, put her arms around her and gave her a hug. Then she moved back, but she stayed kneeling and kept her hands on Hannah’s arms as she said, “Now, Hannah, you have got to stop blaming yourself. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Oh, sure she didn’t,” said Lottie.

Vanessa whipped her head round. “Be quiet, young lady.” She turned back to Hannah and her voice softened. “Think about it. All you did was invite somebody to your play. A friend – or so you thought.
You
didn’t burn the barn down. You didn’t vandalise the theatre. And you couldn’t possibly have known he would do those things either.”

“Yes, she could,” said Lottie. “Everyone knows Jack Adamson’s a pathetic loser.”

“Well, he’s always seemed perfectly charming to me,” said Vanessa. “And he’s a lovely-looking boy.”

Lottie snorted. Vanessa stood up and fixed her with a gaze. “And another thing, young lady. Who did you invite to your dress rehearsal and your performance today?” Without giving Lottie a chance to reply, she started counting on her fingers. “Your mother, your father, your auntie, your uncle, your cousins. And who did Hannah and her sisters and brother have to come and watch them? One person. Their grandmother, who, lovely as she is, is eighty years old and very frail. So just try to put yourself in your friend’s shoes for once, Charlotte, and maybe
you’ll show a little more understanding of why she invited somebody else to her play. All right?”

Lottie scowled. But the tightness in Hannah’s throat slackened a little.

Vanessa stood up and clapped her hands together. “Right,” she said. “Now that we’ve sorted that out, the question is, how are we going to get all this mess fixed before the judge arrives?”

They stared at her.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Lottie. “There’s nothing we can do. There’s no way we can get it cleaned up in time. You saw the costumes. They’re slashed to pieces. We’ll just have to phone the judge and tell her not to come. And Miranda Hathaway will win the competition, like she wins everything.”

“So don’t let her!” said Vanessa. “Come on, you two. Everyone will help. Rachel’s old sewing machine must still be in the house somewhere. I’ll take it home. With Charlotte on hers too, we can mend the costumes and the rest of you can clear up in here.”

“But the judge is coming at three,” said Hannah. “And the theatre’s completely wrecked. Even if we tried to mend stuff it would never look as good. There’s no way we could win now.”

“Hannah Roberts,” said Vanessa, “that’s not like you. You’re not someone who gives up.”

But the full force of what had been done to them suddenly hit Hannah like a demolition ball. She curled herself up on the concrete and wrapped her arms around her head. “I can’t do it. It’s ruined. The
theatre won’t ever be the same now.”

Vanessa crouched down and put her hands on Hannah’s shoulders. “Hannah, those boys have done a terrible thing, but you can’t let them win. The way you’re responding now, that’s exactly what they want. They wanted to demoralise you and make you give up. You must rise higher than them. Show them they can’t defeat you.”

Hannah didn’t move. “They have defeated me. They win.”

From her curled-up ball, Hannah heard Vanessa give an exasperated sigh. “Well, I’m going to take these costumes out to the car and then I’m going inside to find that sewing machine. Come home and help me when you’re ready, Charlotte. And, Hannah,” she called from the door, “if I have to squeeze into the queen’s costume myself and perform in front of the judge, then I will. But I couldn’t do it half as well as you could, and it wouldn’t be a pretty sight. Is that really what you want?”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Hope

After what seemed like a very long time, Hannah felt Lottie’s arm on her shoulder.  

“I’m sorry I yelled at you.”  

Hannah’s tensed muscles melted in surprise and relief. “Don’t say sorry. You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.” Her voice came out muffled through her knees. “I deserved it. I’m so, so sorry. But I know it’s no good saying that.”  

“Well, you were unbelievably stupid,” said Lottie. “But I know you’re sorry.”  

Hannah uncurled herself a tiny bit. “Thank you.”  

“I’m still mad at you.”  

“Yes.”  

Lottie stood up and started to pace around the dressing room. When she spoke again, her voice was back to normal. “You know what? I think she’s right. We should fight back. We can’t let them defeat us.”  

“I can’t do it. I haven’t got the energy.”  

“Hannah, imagine how we’ll feel in the future if we don’t do this. If we just let them win. And, quite frankly, since you got us into this mess, you, more than anyone, should be helping to get us out of it.”

She slipped through the wings on to the stage. “Look, we
will
be able to clear it up, you know. It looks worse than it is. I mean, there’s loads to do, but if we get the Beans in, there’ll be four of us to do it.” She looked at her watch. “And we’ve got nearly five hours before the judge arrives.”

A chink of light sneaked into Hannah’s head. She lifted her face from her knees. Then she saw the shattered make-up and the crushed jewellery. “But what about all this? You can’t mend make-up.”

“No, but we can borrow some. Mum’s got loads of make-up. I’ll put it back before tonight. She’ll never know.”

Lottie was so brave. Hannah could imagine Vanessa’s reaction if she caught them using her Chanel eyeliner to draw moustaches on to ten-year-olds.

“And we don’t really need jewellery,” said Lottie. “I mean, I know it’s great to have it, but we can manage without.”

“But she’s a queen,” said Hannah. “She has to wear jewellery.”

“Oh, come on, Hannah. It’ll be a challenge. You like challenges.” She started to gather up the rest of the costumes from the floor. “I’m going to go home and help Mum mend these. You find the Beans and start clearing up in here.”

Maybe. Maybe it would be possible. Maybe they could actually put on their play.

But then, like a sledgehammer, it struck her.

“Lottie, we can’t. Martha won’t be in it. We can’t
do it without her.”

Lottie stopped in the act of picking up Prince John’s jacket. “Maybe that was just a threat? She’s threatened it before and she always turns up in the end.”

“Not after what you said to her just now. I’m telling you, she definitely won’t come back this time.”

Lottie put the costumes on the chest of drawers, picked up the broom and started to sweep the shattered jewellery into a pile. “Well then, we’ll have to ask my cousin Alice to be Esmeralda. She’s coming to the play anyway.”

“What, the one who never took her eyes off her book last time?”

“Yes. She’s got a really good memory. I bet if we gave her a script now she’d know the words by three o’clock.”

Hannah narrowed her eyes. “Isn’t she the one whose school play you went to see and you said she was the worst actress you’d ever seen in your entire life?”

Lottie shifted her eyes away. She picked up a heap of broken jewellery and tipped it into a bin bag. “I never said that.”

“You said she was so atrocious you were ashamed to be related to her. You said if they’d put a plank of wood on stage it would have been more realistic.”

“I must have been exaggerating. She’s not that bad. At least she won’t mess around like Martha.”

“At least Martha can act.”

“But there’s no way Martha’s going to come back. So what’s the point of even saying that?”

“Unless…” Hannah glanced at Lottie. “Unless you apologise to her.”

Lottie’s eyebrows shot up. “Me?!”

“You were the one who accused her.”

“Yes, because
you
hadn’t told me the truth.”

Hannah paused and took a deep breath.

“Yes. You’re right.” She stood up, and she felt some of her strength come back. “OK. If we’re going to do this competition, we’ve got to do it properly. I’m going to apologise to Martha.”

“Really?”

“Yes. If we’re going to do this play, it needs to be the best that it can be.”

Now Lottie took a deep breath. “Right. I suppose I’d better come with you. I guess I’m going to have to apologise too. Even though the whole thing’s your fault.”