The Secret of Platform 13 (5 page)

‘And the dear boy?’ Gurkintrude now asked eagerly . ‘ Dear little Raymond? He is well?’

There was a pause while Ernie and Mrs Partridge looked at each other and the ghost of the apologizing lady stared at the ground.

‘He’s very well,’ said Ernie.

‘In the pink,’ put in Mrs Partridge.

‘And knows nothing?’

‘Nothing,’ agreed Ernie.

It now struck the rescuers that there was very little bustle round the gentlemen’s cloakroom and that this was unusual. Last time the gump had opened there’d been a stream of people going down: tree spirits whose trees had got Dutch Elm Disease, water nymphs whose ponds had dried up, and just ordinary people who were fed up with the pollution and the noise. But when they pointed this out to Ernie, he said: ‘Maybe they’ll come later. There’s nine days to go.’

Actually , he didn’t think they’d come later. He didn’t think they’d come at all and he knew why .

‘Let us plunge into the bowels of the earth,’ said Cornelius who wanted to be on his way.

But the Underground had stopped running and so had the buses. ‘And I wouldn’t advise waking Raymond Trottle in the middle of the night,’ said Ernie. ‘I wouldn’t advise that at all!’

So it was decided they would walk to Trottle Towers and rest in the park till morning. There was a little summer house hidden in the bushes, and close to Raymond’s back door where nobody would find them. The only problem was the wizard who was too tottery to go far and the giant solved that by saying: ‘I pig him on back.’

This seemed a good idea. Of course they’d have to watch out for people who’d be surprised to see an old gentleman having a piggy back in mid-air, but as the ghosts were coming along to show them the way, that wouldn’t be difficult.

Odge had gone back into the cloakroom to do something to her suitcase. They could hear a tap running and her voice talking to someone. Now, as she stomped after the others down the platform, Ernie took a closer look at her. At the unequal eyes, the fierce black eyebrows which met in the middle . . . at a glimmer of blue as she yawned.

Not just a little girl, then. A hag. Well, they could do with one of those with what was coming to them, thought Ernie Hobbs.

‘Goodness, isn’t it grand!’ said Gurkintrude, looking at the house which was as famous on the Island as Buckingham Palace or the castle where King Arthur had lived with his knights.

Gurkie was right. Trottle Towers was
very
grand. It had three storeys and bristled with curly bits of plasterwork and bow windows and turrets in the roof. The front of the house was separated from the street by a stony garden with gravel paths and a high spiked gate. On the railings were notices saying
TRADESMEN NOT ADMITTED
and
IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN TO PARK
– and on the brickwork of the house were three burglar alarms like yellow boils.

The back of the house faced the park and it was from here that the rescuers had come. The ghosts had returned to the gump. Dawn was just breaking but inside the house everything was silent and dark.

Then as they stood and looked, a light came on downstairs, deep in the basement. The room had barred windows and almost no furniture so that they could see who was inside as clearly as on a stage.

A boy.

A boy with light hair and a friendly , intelligent face. He was dressed in jeans and a sweater – and he was working. On a low table stood a row of shoes – shoes of all shapes and sizes: boots and ladies’ high-heeled sandals and gentlemen’s laceups – and the boy was cleaning them. Not just rubbing a cloth over them, but working in the polish with a will – and as he worked, he whistled; they could just hear him through the open slit at the top of the window.

And the rescuers turned to each other and smiled, for they could see that the Prince had been taught to work; that he wasn’t being brought up spoilt and selfish as they had feared. Something about the way the ghosts had spoken about Raymond Trottle had worried them, but the boy’s alert face, the willing way in which he polished other people’s shoes, was a sign of the best possible breeding. This was a prince who would know how to serve others, as did his parents.

The boy finished the shoes and carried them out. A second light went on and they saw him enter a scullery , fi ll a kettle and lay out some cups and saucers on a tray. This job too he did neatly and nimbly, a nd Odge sighed for it was amazing how right she had been about the Prince; he was just the kind of person she wanted for a friend, and she held on even tighter to the suitcase, glad that she had brought him the best present that any boy could have.

The scullery light went off and a light appeared between the crack in a pair of curtains which the boy now drew back. As he did this, they could see his face turned towards them: the straight, light hair lapping the level brows, the wide-set eyes and the pointed chin. Then he made his way to the bed and set the tray down beside a fierce-looking lady who didn’t seem to be thanking him at all, but just grabbed her cup.

‘That must be Mrs Trottle,’ whispered Gurkin-trude. ‘She doesn’t look very loving.’

The boy’s tasks were still not done. Back in the scullery , he took out a mop and a bucket and began to wipe the floor. Was he perhaps working a little
too
hard for a child who had not yet had breakfast? Or was he on a training scheme? Knights often lived like this before a joust or a tournament – and boy scouts too.

But nothing mattered except that the Prince was everything a boy should be and that the day they brought him back to his rightful home would be the most joyful one the Island had ever known.

‘Can’t we go and tell him we’re here?’ asked Odge.

There was no need. The boy had come out of the back door carrying a polythene bag full of rubbish which he put in the dustbin. Then he lifted his head and saw them. For a moment he stood perfectly still with a look of wonder on his face and it was almost as though he was listening to some distant, remembered music. Then he ran lightly up the basement steps and threw open the gate.

‘Can I help you?’ he asked. ‘Is there anyone you want to see?’

Cor the Wise stepped forward. He wanted to greet the Prince by his true name, to bow his head before him, but he knew he must not startle him, and trying to speak in an ordinary voice (though he was very much moved) he said: ‘Yes, there is someone we want to see. You.’

The boy drew in his breath. He looked at Gurkie’s round, kind face, at the grassy patch on the wizard’s head, at Odge who had turned shy and was scuffing her shoes. Then he sighed, as though a weight had fallen from him, and said: ‘You mean it? It’s really me you’ve come to see?’

‘Indeed it is, my dear,’ said Gurkintrude and put her arm round him. He was too thin and why hadn’t Mrs Trottle cut his hair? It was bothering him, flopping over his eyes.

The boy’s next words surprised them. ‘I wish I could ask you in, but I’m not allowed to have visitors,’ he said – and they could see how much he minded not being able to invite them to his house. ‘But there’s a bench there under the oak tree where you could rest, and I could get you a drink. No one’s up yet, they wouldn’t notice.’

‘We need nothing,’ said Cor. ‘But let us be seated. We have much to tell you.’

They made their way back into the park and the boy took out his handkerchief and wiped the wooden slats of the seat clear of leaves. It was as though he was inviting them to his bench even if he couldn’t invite them to his house. Nor would he himself sit down, but stood before them and answered their questions in a steady voice.

‘You have lived all your life in Trottle Towers?’ asked Cor.

‘Yes.’ A shadow spread for a moment over his face as though he was looking back on a childhood that had been far from happy .

‘And you have learnt to work, we can see that. But your schooling?’

‘Oh, yes; I go to school. It’s across the park in a different part of London.’

Very different, he thought. Swalebottle Junior was in a rowdy , s habby street; the building was full of cracks and the teachers were often tired, but it was a good place to be. It was the holidays he minded, not the term.

The ogre had managed to follow them to the bench with his eye shut, but the Prince’s voice pleased him so much that he now opened it. Cor frowned at him, Gurkie shook her head – they had been so careful not to startle the Prince and invisible ogres
are
unusual; there is nothing to be done about that. But the boy didn’t seem at all put out by a single blue eye floating halfway up the trunk of the tree.

‘Is he . . . or she . . . I don’t want to pry , b ut is he a friend of yours?’

Hans was introduced and the visitors made up their minds. The Prince was entirely untroubled by magic; it was as though the traditions of the Island were in his blood even if he hadn’t been there since he was three months old. It was time to r eveal themselves and take him back.

‘Was that Mrs Trottle to whom you brought a cup of tea?’ asked Cor. ‘Because we have something to say to her.’

The boy smiled. ‘Oh, goodness, no!’ he said. ‘Mrs Trottle lives upstairs. That was the cook.’

Cor frowned. He was an old-fashioned man and a bit of a snob and he did not think it absolutely right that a prince should have to take morning tea to the cook.

But Odge had had enough of talking.

‘I’ve brought you something,’ she said in her abrupt, throaty little voice. ‘A present. Something nice.’

She put the suitcase down on the grass. The words
ODGE GRIBBLE
–
HAG
had been painted out. Instead she’d written
THIS WAY UP
.
HANDLE WITH CARE
.

The boy crouched down beside her. He could hear the present breathing through the holes. Something alive, he thought, his eyes alight.

It was at this moment that, on the first floor of Trottle Towers, someone began to scream.

All of them were used to the sound of screaming. Odge’s sisters practically never stopped, banshees wailed through the trees of the Island, harpies yowled and the sound of bull seals calling to their mates sometimes seemed to shake the rafters. But this was not that sort of a scream. It was not the healthy scream of someone going about their business; it was a whining, self-pitying black-mailing sort of scream. Odge re-fastened the catch of her suitcase in a hurry; Gurkintrude put her arm round the Prince, and the Eye soared upwards as Hans got to his feet.

‘What is it, dear boy?’ asked Gurkie, and put her free hand up to her head as though to protect the beetroot from the dreadful noise.

‘Is it someone having an operation?’ said Cornelius. ‘I thought you had anaesthetics?’

The boy shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing like that. It’s Raymond.’

A terrible silence fell.

‘What do you mean, it’s Raymond?’ asked Cor when he could speak again. ‘Surely you are Raymond Trottle, the supposed son of Mr and Mrs Trottle?’

The boy shook his head once more. ‘No. Oh, goodness, no! I’m only the kitchen boy. I’m not anybody . My name is Ben.’

As he spoke, Ben moved away and stood with his back to the visitors. It was over, then. It wasn’t him they’d come to see; he’d been an idiot. When he’d seen them standing there he’d had such a feeling of . . . homecoming, as though at last the years of drudgery were over. It was like that dream he had sometimes – the dream with the sea in it, and soft green turf and someone whose face he couldn’t see clearly , but who he knew wanted him.

Only dreams were things you woke from and he should have known that it was not him but Raymond the visitors had come to find. Everything had always belonged to Raymond. All his life he’d been used to Raymond living upstairs with everything he wished for and parents to dote on him. Raymond had cupboards full of toys he never even looked at and more clothes than he knew what to do with; he was driven to his posh school in a Rolls Royce and just to tear the wrapping paper from his Christmas presents took Raymond hours.

And so far Ben hadn’t minded. He was used to living with the servants, used to sleeping in a windowless cupboard and working for his keep. You couldn’t envy Raymond who was always whining and saying: ‘I’m bored!’

But this was different. That these strange, mysterious, interesting people belonged to Raymond and not to him was almost more than he could bear.

‘You’re sure he isn’t being tortured?’ asked Cor as the screams went on.

‘Quite sure. He often does it.’

‘
Often
?’ said the wizard and shook out his ear trumpet in case he had misheard.

Ben nodded. ‘Whenever he doesn’t want to go to school. Probably he hasn’t done his homework. I usually do it for him but I couldn’t yesterday because I was visiting my grandmother in hospital.’

‘Who is your grandmother?’ Odge wanted to know.

‘She’s called Nanny Brown. She used to be Mrs Trottle’s Nanny and she still lives here in the basement. She adopted me when I was a baby because I didn’t have any parents.’

‘What happened to them?’

Ben shrugged. ‘I don’t know. They died. Mr Fulton thinks they must have been in prison because Nanny never mentions them.’

Talking about Nanny Brown was difficult because she was very ill. It was she who protected him from the bullying of the servants – even the snooty butler, Mr Fulton, respected her – and if she died . . .

The rescuers were silent, huddled together on the bench. Hans had closed his eye and was covering his face with his invisible hand. He was used to the silence of the mountains and felt a headache coming on. Odge was crouched over the suitcase as though to comfort what was inside.

It was a
child
who was making that noise; the child they had come so far to find. And the boy they liked so much had nothing to do with them at all!

‘What is it, my angel, my babykins, my treasure?’ said Mrs Trottle, coming into the room.

She had been making up her face when Raymond’s screams began. Now her right cheek was covered in purple rouge and her left cheek was still a rather nasty grey colour. Mrs Trottle’s hair was in curlers and she gave off a strong smell of Maneater because she always went to bed covered in scent.