A Talent for Trouble Read online

  Alice was Fergus’s friend. She had no business smiling at Jesse all the time.

  “I thought we were in a hurry,” he said loudly.

  The squirrel, startled, pounced. For a few seconds, as it flew across the path high above them, they saw it outlined in full flight against a patch of sky. Then it landed and disappeared, a few swaying branches the only sign that it had ever been there. Still Alice stood, rooted to the spot, hoping for another glimpse, while Jesse waited and clever Fergus marched on ahead, blood boiling, ready to do something really, really stupid.

  The path widened as they came out of the wood, tracing a wide loop around a lush green meadow dotted with yellow flowers. Jesse stopped to show them the map.

  “We follow the path round the meadow,” he said, “then we start to climb—these circular lines close together mean it’s quite a steep hill—and then on the other side there’s a valley, and that is where the flag is.”

  “Says who?” asked Fergus.

  Jesse frowned. “Says the map.”

  A little voice at the back of his mind told Fergus he was being an idiot, but he didn’t listen.

  “I think, if you want to save time, you should just walk across the meadow,” he announced. “I think the map’s wrong.”

  Jesse looked appalled. “The map is never wrong!”

  But there was no reasoning with Fergus in this sort of mood. He looked wild and mutinous. Alice realized with alarm that he was also enjoying it.

  “Let’s have a race!” he shouted, and took off at a sprint across the meadow.

  “Fergus, don’t!” Jesse shouted. “Fergus, come back!”

  But Fergus was already running.

  He got halfway across the meadow before his feet sank straight into the ground.

  “What’s happening?” cried Alice.

  “It’s a bog,” Jesse said grimly. “And he’s stuck.”

  “A bog?”

  “Like a swamp, without the crocodiles. People drown in them.”

  Alice took off at a run.

  “Come back! Alice! Oh, for— ALICE, WAIT!”

  “We have to rescue him!” she shouted, and sank, without warning, up to her knees in mud.

  WHOOSH! Jesse, running up behind her, lifted her clear and threw her, then himself, to the ground.

  “We have to distribute our weight so there’s less chance of sinking,” he explained. “Otherwise we’ll all get stuck, and then—”

  “It’s over my knees!” wailed Fergus, flailing around.

  “Just stop moving!” Jesse shouted. “I’m coming!”

  “And then what?” asked Alice.

  “Then, I guess, unless they find us—we all die. Now, can you drag yourself back to the path? Please? While I help Fergus?”

  Flat on her belly, she slithered across the stinking bog, freezing mud seeping in through the collar and cuffs of her weatherproof clothing, until she felt dry ground beneath her. Breathlessly, she watched as Jesse slithered toward Fergus—as Fergus stopped thrashing about and listened, then started to slowly, slowly raise one leg clear and take a step backwards, and then the other leg—as he fell flat, like Jesse, and with Jesse dragged himself back to the path, where he collapsed, panting.

  “And that,” said Jesse, “is why you need to do exactly what I say.”

  Sixteen

  Kings and Queen

  “We’re going on,” said Jesse sternly, when Fergus was able to speak again and had asked if they could go home, because he didn’t feel very well.

  “It’s very cold,” Alice ventured.

  Be the boss, Jesse reminded himself as he tried to stop his own teeth from chattering.

  “You’ll warm up when you start walking,” he said. “And Fergus is fine. Now, shut up, both of you, while I try to make up time.”

  Damp, muddy, shame-faced, and bedraggled, their clothes steaming gently in the sun, Alice and Fergus sat meekly on boulders eating soggy, only slightly muddy sandwiches while Jesse studied the map.

  “There’s another shortcut,” he announced. “See this path here? I reckon if we cut out this loop and climb up these rocks—they’re quite steep—we should shave off twenty minutes.”

  At the mention of the steep rocks, Fergus glanced at Alice. She stuck her chin forward and refused to look at him. Instead, jumping to her feet, she pulled her map from the plastic wallet hanging round her neck and produced a compass from her pocket. This was her chance, she decided, to show Jesse that she wanted to be his friend and that the First Day Challenge was forgotten.

  It was not the moment for vertigo.

  “This way,” she announced, and set off in the wrong direction.

  Jesse sighed, reached for her map, turned it the right way up, and pointed the other way.

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  He rounded his eyes. “The compass never lies.”

  Jesse had been right; the rocks were steep. But Alice, by breathing deeply and looking straight ahead, was fine. She may have started to cry at one point, and they may have had to hold her hand, and she may have begged them to go ahead without her and leave her to die. And Jesse may have lost his temper and said you could only win if the whole team came back, so she had better not die. And Fergus may have made a sarcastic remark about Jesse’s excellent and sympathetic leadership, which may have led to Jesse shouting again. But they made it. And when they reached the top—which was flat, and wide enough for the ground to feel good and firm beneath Alice’s feet, and had splendid three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views of the mountains—well, it was absolutely worth it, because the world was at their feet and they felt like its kings and queen.

  Far below them, planted in a mound of grass, the unclaimed blue and white school flag fluttered, but Jesse made no move toward it. Instead, he pulled binoculars from his pocket to watch an eagle flying overhead, before passing them to Alice.

  You could be a hero in a place like this, he thought.

  It was Alice who saw through the binoculars the other team coming from the north (or the east—she wasn’t quite sure), marching across the flat land, making slow but steady progress toward the flag.

  “Jesse!” she screamed. “RUN!”

  And oh, how he ran! Tumbling down the hill, sprinting through the heather, leaping over brooks, his mud-streaked jacket billowing behind him. The other team spotted him and began to run too, but they stood no chance against Jesse, now bounding gazelle-like toward his prize.

  He plucked it from the ground and waved it in the air, then, because he was too excited to be tired, ran back toward the others, who were tearing down toward him, and they all hugged and high-fived and punched each other, screaming, “We won we won we won!”

  How nice, when happiness is simple.

  Schoolwards they returned—filthy, smelly, sweaty, with blisters forming where their damp socks rubbed their heels, but happy, because they had won, and the universe was on their side.

  The loch was purple today, with playful amethyst waves. Alice stopped to admire it, then tramped up the stairs to her room, leaving a trail of dried mud behind her. She was going to have a shower and wash every millimeter of dirt from her body, and then she was going to go down to tea and eat as many cakes and buns as she physically could, and then there were more vegetables to study for French, and some math problems, and after dinner (where she was sure she could eat a horse) she would watch a film with Samira, or visit some new piglets with Fergus, or just read a book. All of which were good options.

  For the first time since she’d arrived, she realized there was nowhere else she wanted to be.

  Which all goes to show that the universe has a pretty ironic sense of timing, because when she finally reached her room, there was a letter from Barney, waiting on her desk.

  Seventeen

  The Lake Isle of Innisfree

  Rome, 10 May

  Alicat!

  How goes Scotland? Is it raining? I remember it always rains!

  Guess what? I’m coming to see y
ou! Auntie P says she’s going to a gig called Visitors’ Day, and I’m coming with her! I’m already polishing my shoes! (Joke—you know I always wear sneakers!)

  Be good, Alicat—and if you can’t be good, don’t get caught!

  Kisses,

  Dad

  P.S. You should be receiving a parcel from Italy soon. Don’t open it! It’s a secret!

  It was not, in any way, a satisfying letter. In fact, it wasn’t a letter at all but a postcard, with Barney’s short message on one side and a picture of a great big naked statue peeing into a fountain on the other. The postcard had been stamped and addressed and then, inexplicably, posted in an envelope with another stamp. Alice read it twice, then stared at the picture, as if the peeing statue might contain some hidden message she couldn’t understand.

  It didn’t.

  * * *

  Barney, at Stormy Loch, for Visitors’ Day! In just under a week, he would be here, and she could show him everything—her little room, the farm, the keep, the castle . . . She could take him to Madoc’s field, where she had counted hares and rabbits; they could look for red squirrels; they could go boating on the loch . . . She could introduce him to her friends . . .

  So why was she not dancing about the room?

  Perhaps if the postcard had not come today, when she was so happy . . .  Perhaps if his message were not so short compared to her own long, chatty emails and if he had remembered that Alice had also mentioned Visitors’ Day to him, many times—perhaps then she could have been over the moon. As it was, she was just . . . confused.

  She tucked the postcard into her notebook and laid the notebook neatly right in the middle of her desk. Then, still in her muddy clothes, she sat down and stared at it . . . opened it, read a few lines of her latest story, about the drowned village in the loch . . . picked up a pencil and tried to write, but gave up when no words came.

  Barney, at Stormy Loch!

  She didn’t know what to think.

  The parcel from Italy arrived the following day by registered mail, a small yellow padded mailer tightly bound with brown tape. She took it to her room and lay with it on her bed, trying to guess what was inside. Barney had brought many presents back from his travels—lace fans from Seville and elephant carvings from Kenya, Indian puppets, Italian sweets . . . She wondered what this one could be. The parcel weighed about the same as a short hardback book, and it was squishy, like bubble wrap, but inside the squishiness she felt something like a small square box. She almost opened it—angry, suddenly, at the secrecy and the short letter. She went as far as asking Jenny in the room next door for some scissors and slid them beneath the brown tape—but stopped.

  It’s a secret, he had written, and she didn’t want to spoil the surprise.

  She put the parcel away in the drawer of her desk and tried to forget about it.

  Which, on the one hand, was a shame. Opening it could have avoided a lot of heartache. And danger, and betrayal, and the near-death experiences I’ve already mentioned.

  On the other hand, opening it would have turned this into a very different story.

  * * *

  The weather was gloriously sunny for all of the week leading up to Visitors’ Day. More and more teachers moved their classes outside, with Madoc organizing dawn hikes to the mouth of the valley to search for orchids, and Mr. Busby, the biology teacher, leading pupils to the shallow end of the sparkling blue loch to look for newts. The major, ever optimistic, decided that Visitors’ Day should take place outdoors. A tent went up for the picnic lunch and tea, an outdoor stage was erected for the entertainment. Rehearsals for the blue-painted “Democracy Failing” and the rendition of “Scotland the Brave” with its extra Brazilian drums were moved to the rose garden, which overnight had burst into bloom and color. Professor Lawrence, the chemistry teacher, who had been perfecting her daytime fireworks, rowed out to the middle of the loch for a practice run and let off three flares that traced perfect arcs of pink, orange, and green against the bright blue sky. To the Year Sevens, who had no summer exams, it felt like a holiday, yet still Alice could not shake off the feelings provoked by Barney’s letter.

  On a baking Wednesday afternoon, Dr. Csintalan, who taught literature, took to the loch with the Year Sevens for a poetry class.

  They set out in a flotilla of rowboats, with swallows dipping in and out of the water around them, right into the middle of the loch, where they formed a floating island, the prows of their boats touching, each craft secured to the next by students holding oars, and Dr. Csintalan announced, “I will now recite a poem! ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree,’ by Irish genius W. B. Yeats!”

  “What, here, sir?” asked Zeb.

  “Yes, here! You will see how appropriate it is! Now, pay attention! I shall attempt to project my voice, but it is not so easy when one is wobbling about on water.”

  Poetry was serious business to Dr. Csintalan, who had been raised by Hungarian immigrant parents on a steady diet of English classics. He stood up in the little rowboat and, eyes closed, head thrown back, struck a dramatic pose. The students stared. Fergus nudged Jesse. “Rock the boat,” he mouthed. Jesse, who liked Fergus better since they had won the orienteering exercise but still did not approve of him, said no. Dr. Csintalan opened his eyes and began.

  “‘I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree . . .’”

  It was a lovely poem, about a poet who wanted to go to an island in a lake and build a cabin and grow beans and keep bees and listen to birds and crickets. Alice listened, entranced, as Dr. Csintalan recited it from memory without once faltering.

  I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore

  While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

  I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

  Dr. Csintalan finished reciting and gazed at the loch and the mountains as if he had never seen them before. “‘I hear it in the deep heart’s core,’” he murmured. “Is there a more beautiful line in poetry? Yeats wrote this poem when he was in London, far from home, about an island in a lake that he loved. ‘I hear it in the deep heart’s core’—the idea that our heart is trying to tell us something, if only we would stop and listen . . .”

  He saw Alice watching and smiled.

  “Homework! Five hundred words on the deep heart’s core and what you hear when you listen to it. Yeats’s poem is about longing—for home, for beauty, above all for peace. What do you long for?”

  Someone said, “No more homework, ever,” and everybody laughed.

  “No, no,” said Dr. Csintalan. “I am not asking what do you want. I am asking what do you long for?”

  Alice looked around at her pensive classmates and tried to guess their answers. She knew, for example, that Samira had a sister who was very ill in hospital. If Alice were Samira, what she would long for more than anything was for her sister to be better. And Duffy—how many times had she heard him rage against being so small? She could perfectly imagine him longing to be tall. She knew that Fergus, though he never spoke about it, longed for his parents to be back together, and she had guessed long ago that Jesse yearned for a talent he could be proud of . . .

  What did she long for?

  Fergus, who could never be serious for long, suddenly yelled, “Water fight!” and splashed Zeb with his oar. Zeb leaned out to splash Fergus and accidentally on purpose fell into the loch, and then Duffy got overexcited and jumped in, and someone pushed Esme in, until the whole class was bobbing about in the water, including Dr. Csintalan, and Alice forgot the question in the general mayhem and happiness. But later, doing her homework, she sat at her desk and stared for a long time at what she had written.

  Once there was an old house in a garden full of trees, where a little girl lived with her family. Her mother would tell her stories every evening, and sometimes when it rained they would bake together, using a book of family recipes her mother had brought with her when she left her country. The little girl had a bedroom from which in the summer she could
pick cherries, and the whole top floor was attics where her aunt could paint, and her father made her a swing, and people loved her, and she felt safe.

  What I want most in my deep heart’s core is . . .

  She stared and stared, but she had no idea what she longed for. She only knew that she wanted it so much it hurt.

  Eighteen

  Baby Birds and Kittens and Other Waifs

  On the night before Visitors’ Day, Alice had a nightmare. It was one she had had many times since her mother died, and it was a memory as much as a dream. A few days after her mother’s funeral, she had woken in the middle of the night and run down the landing to Barney’s room, only to find that he had gone away. Aunt Patience, trying to comfort her, had said it was just for a few days. To grieving seven-year-old Alice, those few days had felt like years. She had dreamed of the empty hallway every night until his return, and she still dreamed of it now whenever he was away or due to come back.

  She woke in a cold sweat in the small hours on Visitors’ Day and did not sleep again. The dread of the nightmare stayed with her through breakfast. Each in his way, Jesse and Fergus tried to look after her. Jesse, knowing little about Barney, heaped her plate with food. Fergus, knowing more, tried to distract her with jokes.

  She did not eat. She did not laugh. She talked even less than usual.

  The students cleared breakfast, swept the dining hall, made their beds and tidied their rooms, put up bunting in the picnic tent and flower garlands on the outdoor stage. At eleven o’clock, the first bus arrived, bringing visitors from the bottom of the hill. The first parents came out. Duffy’s dad, small and sturdy like his son . . . Tatiana’s mother, wrapped in fur . . . Jesse’s mum, smooth and golden in pale tweed, his dad, dark and handsome in a navy blazer, his laughing, joking brothers . . .

  The second bus came. Jenny’s jolly mother appeared, then Samira’s parents, with a very thin, very frail little girl beaming from ear to ear . . . The flash of apple-green coat—Aunt Patience! Alice’s heart soared with hope.