The Book of the Banshee Read online

  But I can’t throw myself on Chopper and pin him down. If Chopper decides we’re sneaking back after supper to eavesdrop a parents’ meeting, then back we go. I’ve never understood how friendship works. Neither did William Saffery. All I know is, when Chopper, who isn’t bright, said to me firmly: ‘Quarter past seven. On the balcony. Right?’ I, who have brains enough, only said: ‘Right!’

  Chopper and I chummed home. We got to his house first, but since he was still busy plotting our separate routes to the balcony, he didn’t peel off. He just chummed me on to my house. Then I chummed him back. So as it happens it was after five by the time I got back again and walked into the kitchen. Mum was already home.

  ‘Have a good day, dear?’

  I was just wondering whether or not I had, when she said, ‘That’s good!’ and went back to making up her shopping list. She’s not a good listener, my mother. I’d never dream of taking her one of my problems. There’d be no point. My mother is one of those people who’s busy telling you what you ought to have done even before you’ve had time to finish saying what you did do. And with Dad standing outside Budgens waiting for her to show up with the shopping list, she wouldn’t even be trying.

  I turned to Muffy, who was at the table prodding her finger in the honey on her toast, and seeing how high she could lift each strip before it fell back on her plate again. Sometimes I wonder a little about Muffy. What goes on in her brain?

  ‘Don’t mess with it,’ I told her. ‘Eat it.’

  Mistake! Six little words, but they were quite enough to remind Mum how very capable I am.

  ‘Will,’ she said. ‘Be an angel. Look after Muffy while I’m gone.’

  And she was out the back door.

  Explain to me, please, just how it is that every time my mother and father disappear to do the weekly shop, Estelle always seems to have disappeared even faster. I let Muffy climb onto my lap, and must have read Rumpelstiltskin to her at least four times before I finally heard bathwater gurgling down the pipes, and Estelle floated in and started banging through the cabinets, looking for something to eat.

  ‘Sssh!’ I warned. ‘Muffy’s almost asleep.’

  Muffy uncorked her thumb and said, ‘No, I’m not,’ but Estelle couldn’t have cared less in any case.

  ‘Are we out of crunchy granola?’

  ‘You won’t have to wait long,’ I told her. ‘They’re at the supermarket now.’

  ‘Good.’

  She plonked herself down at the table. She looked a fright. Her hair was all over the place, as if she had gone to some trouble to tangle it, and the fluffy pink dressing gown Gran gave her for Christmas was buttoned up wrong from the collar to the hem.

  It’s not like me to be suspicious. But, then again, it isn’t like Estelle to be ready for bed by six o’clock.

  ‘Why are you in your dressing gown?’ I asked. And then, when I saw her smile: ‘What are you wearing underneath?’

  Still smiling, she fiddled with each button in turn, then whipped open the two halves of the dressing gown and flashed us.

  Muffy’s thumb fell out of her mouth. I was shocked, too. Estelle looked as if she’d stepped out of a horror film. She might have been Dracula’s daughter. She was dressed all in black: black blouse, black skirt, black tights. When I say ‘dressed’, I’m being generous, because the blouse was slipping off her shoulders, the skirt was all fringe, and the fishnet holes in her tights were enormous. Around her neck hung loop after loop of silver chain. As for her silver belt, it was made up from so many jagged splinters that when Estelle moved and it caught the light, it was quite painful to look at.

  Slipping her hand in her dressing-gown pocket, she drew out a heap more jewellery and spilled it onto the table. There it lay: dagger earrings, bracelets, scorpion rings.

  Muffy looked thrilled.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked. ‘Where are you going all dressed up like that?’

  Estelle gave one of her irritating smiles and tossed her head. But she wouldn’t answer.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘It’s Friday night. And you still think you’re going to Alison’s party!’

  ‘I don’t think,’ Estelle said loftily. ‘I am.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘They’ll never let you. It might have been all right while they still thought you meant the Alison from the swimming club. But from the moment they realized you meant Stormer Phillips’s big sister, you never stood a chance.’

  Estelle got up and slammed out.

  I thought for a while I’d put my foot in it. Estelle has always hated hearing the truth when it doesn’t fit with her plans. Those kings and queens who used to kill the messenger had nothing on Estelle, who once swiped me simply for reminding her, as she walked out of the door with her towel and her costume, that our local swimming pool was closed for repairs.

  But no. Just as Muffy and I were settling into our four-millionth reading of Rumpelstiltskin, she suddenly appeared again, carrying her huge box of make-up and hair stuff.

  I didn’t see why I shouldn’t say what I thought.

  ‘No point in tarting up. You know they’re not going to let you go.’

  I expect there are tigers less bad-tempered than my sister.

  ‘Listen,’ she snarled. ‘Mind your own business, will you? Keep your nose out of this.’

  ‘I’m only telling you.’

  She rooted in the box, spilling a whole lot of stuff that rolled off the edge of the table, where Muffy snatched at it. Estelle started doing something weird to her face with silver gunge, and Muffy pulled the top off some sort of apricot putty and started copying her. As fast as I prised one thing out of Muffy’s hand, she grabbed for another. Meanwhile Estelle finished grouting and greasing. Now she could speak again.

  ‘They’ll have to let me go,’ she said. ‘Practically everyone in my whole year is going. We’re meeting at half past nine.’

  ‘Half past nine! Where?’

  She gave me one of her cool wouldn’t-you-like-to-know looks, and started in on her eyes.

  ‘Is it at Alison’s house?’

  ‘Of course not!’ Estelle scoffed. ‘There wouldn’t be anywhere near enough room.’

  ‘Is it – at the Baptist Church Hall?’

  Estelle’s silver lip curled.

  I tried again, feeling like someone in a fairy tale offered their third and last guess.

  ‘Is it – at that club? Fiends?’

  The old storytellers were brilliant. My sister was so cross that, like little Rumpelstiltskin, she stamped her foot. Muffy stopped dabbing her nose and cheeks with measles of Green Apple Eye Stick and looked a bit nervous. Estelle gave me one of her evil stares. But I didn’t let her rays drain my crystals. I simply said:

  ‘They’ll never let you go. Fiends is famous for smoking and drinking. And worse.’

  ‘Maybe they don’t know that.’

  ‘Maybe they do.’ Suddenly a thought struck me. ‘You’ll have to tell them where you’re going,’ I said.

  She upped the radiation in her look. But I held out. And, in the end, it was Estelle who cracked.

  ‘I’ll tell them!’ she snapped.

  ‘When?’

  ‘As soon as they get back.’

  Muffy looked terrified. She may not speak much, but she isn’t daft. I felt her wriggle in my lap, getting ready for one of her getaways.

  Just out of curiosity, I asked Estelle:

  ‘Which one are you going to ask, Mum or Dad?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Depends which one is here.’

  ‘They’ll both be here. They’ll both be back from Budgens any minute.’

  If I was smearing things that near my eyes, I wouldn’t keep on talking.

  ‘Yes, I know that. But one of them will have to go straight out again, to this parents’ meeting.’

  I tipped Muffy out of my lap and went across to check the calendar.

  ‘She won’t go out again,’ I said. ‘She had clients all morning, a meet
ing this afternoon, and it looks from this as if, in her lunch hour, she had to go to the bank, pay the road tax, and get tickets for that puppet show for Muffy. By the time she gets back from shopping, all she’ll want is a long bath.’

  Estelle looked up, startling me with spook’s eyes.

  ‘Well, he won’t be going,’ she said. ‘He told me his mechanic is off sick, and he was going to have to man the telephones and do the servicings, as well as keeping his eye on that new girl on the forecourt. And he’s gone shopping too. So all he’ll want when he gets back is to fall onto the sofa and watch Who Killed Anton Dec? on telly.’

  ‘Maybe they’ll skip it . . .’

  Estelle laughed. And she was right. The day those two skip a school meeting will be the day they pack Muffy off to college on a train.

  ‘No,’ I agreed, leaning against the door. ‘One of them will go.’

  There was the sound of footsteps outside. Estelle drew her fluffy pink dressing gown more tightly around her, and I was thrown halfway across the room by the sheer force of the door flying open. Mum staggered in, behind a huge box of groceries.

  ‘You go, George,’ she was saying. ‘I’m not going. I had the most awful clients all morning, a frightful meeting that lasted almost all afternoon, and I had to use up my lunch hour going to the bank, paying the road tax, and getting tickets for that puppet show for Muffy. Not to mention going shopping. All I want is a long, hot bath.’

  Dad followed her in, carrying two more boxes, one on top of the other.

  ‘Well, I’m not going,’ he said. ‘You know my mechanic’s off sick. All day I’ve had to look after the telephones as well as taking care of the servicings, and keeping an eye on young Sarah. And I’ve been shopping too. The only thing I want to do is to put my feet up and watch telly.’

  ‘Maybe just this once we could skip it . . .’

  Dad dumped his shopping down and gave her a look.

  ‘No,’ Mum agreed. ‘I suppose one of us will have to go.’

  She stopped pulling tins of soup out of the box and had a look around. It was unfortunate that the first thing she saw was Muffy’s face.

  ‘My God!’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s just been mucking about with Estelle’s make-up.’

  So then Mum looked at Estelle.

  ‘My God!’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with her either. It’s just she’s going out.’

  Dad came across to take a closer look. Then he said, ‘Not looking like that, she isn’t,’ and wandered off to unpack the washing powder without even noticing Estelle was delivering him one of her microwave attacks, and marking him down in her Hate Book.

  You could see Mum decide to approach things a shade more tactfully.

  ‘Where are you going, dear?’ she asked Estelle – quite nicely, I thought, considering that Mum had been fighting her way around Budgens and Estelle had been lounging in a bath. ‘Are you nipping down the library before it closes?’

  Good job that at that moment she’d turned her back to shovel soups on a shelf. She didn’t see the look on Estelle’s face.

  But she did notice there was no reply, because she tried again. ‘Or are you going to help Mrs Hurley with the Brownies?’

  I don’t know about Mum, but I could feel the temperature in the room dropping to zero. I’m like William Scott Saffery. The one thing I can’t stand is those few moments of icy calm before an attack. Once William ‘accidentally’ fired his rifle simply to end the grim wait. I’m exactly the same.

  The words just popped out.

  ‘She says she’s going to Fiends.’

  Did I say the room was pretty cold before? Now we were down to glacial permafrost.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so, dear. It’s getting a bit late.’

  ‘Late! It’s not even half past six! It’s still daylight!’

  Mum eyed the kitchen window suspiciously, as if unconvinced that all that bright stuff outside was proper daylight. Then she changed tack.

  ‘Tonight’s not a good night, dear.’

  ‘Tonight’s when it’s on!’

  Mum ignored this.

  ‘And anyway,’ she persisted. ‘It’s silly to get dressed all over again, now you’re in your dressing gown and slippers.’

  What gave the game away? Estelle didn’t speak or move. I think Mum must read minds. Because, passing the bargain pack of scouring pads in her hand over to Dad, she stepped across the room and – slowly, carefully – unbuttoned Estelle’s pink dressing gown.

  Muffy hid her head in her hands. My stomach knotted. Dad looked quite shattered when he saw the skirt.

  And Mum went mad.

  ‘Listen to me, young lady. You can go straight upstairs and take off those horrible clothes. If you think for one moment that your father and I are going to let you walk out of this house looking like that—’

  Words failing Mum for a moment, Estelle took her chance.

  ‘Look, Mum!’ she said. ‘I’m not Muffy. I’m me! I’m not in nursery school. I’m an Intermediate. And I’m old enough to go out with my friends.’

  ‘You’re not old enough to go to Fiends.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because we’ve heard all about that club, that’s why,’ Dad broke in sharply. ‘And seen the types hanging around outside, smoking and swigging from their bottles. And worse.’

  Estelle stuck her hands on her hips. (Firing position 1.) Muffy scrambled into my lap and, opening Rumpelstiltskin, put on a blank face and pretended she wasn’t listening. She looked so unconcerned you’d never have guessed she was bothered in the slightest unless you knew, as I do, that Muffy can’t stand missing a single word in any of her favourite stories. And she was staring down at page fifteen.

  Estelle was definitely out of her basket now.

  ‘I’m not too young. I’m not! You just don’t understand how things are these days. Everyone in my year is allowed to smoke. Everyone’s allowed to drink. And everyone’s allowed to go out to Fiends. I’ve made arrangements. You can’t treat me like a baby. You have to let me go! You can’t keep me locked in this box!’

  Mistake! Mistake!

  ‘Box?’ You’d think from the dangerously calm tone of Mum’s voice that Estelle’s life expectancy was now measurable in seconds. ‘What box is this, Estelle? I’m looking round for a box.’

  Sarcastically, she made the gesture of glancing to left and right. Then, like a flare shooting up to light the sky:

  ‘This isn’t a box, Estelle! This is a home! A home your father and I have slaved for years to—’

  Muffy was tugging desperately at my woolly, trying to pull it down safely over her head. But suddenly Mum stopped. She just broke off. It was extraordinary, as if the flare, instead of sailing in its customary brilliant arc across the sky, had settled directly into a sizzling downward trail before spluttering out into blackness.

  ‘Oh, you tell her, George! I can’t be bothered.’

  Mum reached for her shoulder bag and undid the flap, checking she had her keys. ‘I’ll slip away to the parents’ meeting, and you stay here and explain to Estelle why she can’t go out tonight.’

  I’ve never seen Dad move so fast in my life. If Mum had been a live football, and the back door the goal, he couldn’t have moved more smartly to make the save.

  ‘Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no. I’ll go to the parents’ meeting. You stay here.’

  ‘No, really, George,’ said Mum. (She sounded so sweet and reasonable that Muffy even lifted up the edge of my woolly to peep in amazement.) ‘Your mechanic was off sick, and you had to answer the telephones and do the servicings, as well as keeping your eye on Sarah. And you’ve been out shopping too. What you ought to do is settle down on the sofa, put your feet up and watch telly.’

  It must be Courtesy Week at 27 Beechcroft Avenue.

  ‘No, no,’ said Dad. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Bridget. You had horrible clients all morning and the
n a meeting that went on practically all afternoon, and you didn’t even get a proper lunch hour because you had to go to the bank, pay the road tax and get tickets for that puppet show for Muffy. And you came shopping too. So what you need now is a nice long hot bath.’

  ‘No, no,’ Mum said. ‘I’ll go. You stay.’

  ‘No, no,’ insisted Dad. ‘You stay. I’ll go.’

  They were so taken up with making their chivalrous offers, they didn’t sense the rocket going off.

  ‘Fine!’ Estelle exploded. ‘Oh, lovely! Really nice for me! First you gang up to stop me having any fun! And then you fight to see who can get out of giving me one good reason why I should lead this boring, miserable life! You’re both mean and selfish and horrible!’

  This time Muffy pulled the front of my woolly so far down over her head, her mop of hair came spilling out of my neck hole.

  Dad took a very deep breath.

  ‘Now listen to me, Estelle—’

  ‘No!’ she howled. ‘No, I won’t! Ever since I could talk you’ve been telling me to listen! I’m not listening any longer! I’ve had enough!’

  She wrenched the door to the hall open so hard that, under the cover of my woolly, Muffy still heard it and reached up to put her hands over her ears.

  Bang!!!

  The whole house shook.

  Dad sighed.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I wonder how this house stays upright, the way Estelle slams doors.’

  He swung round.

  ‘Bridg—’ He stopped, aghast. ‘Bridget? Bridget, where are you? Bridget!’