Amber’s Secret

Amber’s Secret Ann Pilling It is 1953, Coronation year, and Sally finds herself having to stay with her crabby old nextdoor neighbour. Her mum’s seriously ill in hospital, her dad’s abroad, and her brother is doing his National Service, and when the grandfather clock breaks into a million pieces, her life goes terribly wrong…A young girl’s struggle to mend her mother’s favourite grandfather clock set against Coronation year in 1953.Sally’s determination against seemingly impossible odds, will capture every child’s imagination. The people she meets – including the gypsy girl, Amber – and her conviction that her mother will die if she can’t get the clock mended, keep one turning the pages of this delightful story to the very end. Dedication (#ulink_f820e446-596c-5795-be98-127744d9dbf5) for my grandson Francesco Joseph and for his great grandmother Elizabeth Irene Epigraph (#ulink_73947fb3-4c20-5445-a023-0e4428c8b27a) Things men have made with wakened hands, and put soft life into are awake through years with transferred touch, and go on glowing for long years. And for this reason, some old things are lovely warm still with the life of forgotten men who made them. D H Lawrence Contents Cover (#u42349420-785e-5af8-b204-fa547570968b) Title Page (#u76717ffe-c2a0-53d9-8408-61aefc7af931) Dedication (#ulink_ade1d001-b585-585b-a0e3-5803492ef069) Epigraph (#ulink_ff68d2e9-9a67-5a6c-b7ca-ae4b69380dca) Chapter 1 (#ulink_58d30909-0f09-5850-8127-77e4003c7036) Chapter 2 (#ulink_753b1a3a-0f49-54f5-a3a9-5ad1f410eafc) Chapter 3 (#ulink_58669d7e-8842-5239-af9b-65e558339e92) Chapter 4 (#ulink_d8010c7c-f488-52a3-886e-2d3dcc339380) Chapter 5 (#ulink_140fda5f-c4d7-5739-80e0-51a8b8f8575f) Chapter 6 (#ulink_9b07d4f5-dfd8-5fc3-bd97-647ab36669bd) Chapter 7 (#ulink_1325c7c5-f8fc-5738-9030-4ec79ecb998a) Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo) Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo) Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Copyright (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) 1 (#ulink_a4e964fa-c00e-5ac3-b1f0-efc6a64269ab) ‘Did you know,’ said Amber one day to her friend Sally, ‘that if you pick up the phone and ring Appleford 616 you can talk to God?’ Sally stared. Amber was a gypsy child, she knew secrets. She knew the place on Furze Hill where rabbits came to graze in the afternoon. She knew where the kingfisher lived at Tolly Reach. She could ride her pony bareback across the fields. If anyone knew about talking to God it would be Amber. But there was something uncertain about her, something vanishing. She only came to school when the Fair was in town, at Christmas time, and in the summer. Sally would have liked Amber to be her very best friend but she was always going away. They were sitting by the stream at the end of the allotments. It was by this stream that they had their most important talks. Sally stared at the water. Then she said, ‘Have you tried it?’ She needed to talk to someone like God very much, or to an angel, or to some helpful human being who might know what to do. Something terrible had happened at home. ‘Oh no,’ said Amber. ‘It’s only for emergencies.’ Sally was disappointed. She thought for a little while then she said, ‘You mean like 999? You mean like Police, Fire, Ambulance?’ ‘Sort of. But it’s a lot more special.’ ‘Will you write that number down for me?’ said Sally. But Amber scrunched her lips again. She looked as if she was going to say ‘no’ and the trouble was that Sally forgot things. ‘Scatterbrain Sally’ was what her mother called her. ‘Please,’ she whispered. As she waited, the terrible thing at home became ten times more terrible. ‘What will you give me if I do?’ said Amber. This was the one bit of Amber that Sally didn’t like, the bit that made bargains. She felt in her pockets while Amber watched very carefully, her glossy black head moving now this way, now that, like a bird. On to the bank Sally put two sweets, a piece of blue string and a rubber shaped like a frog. Then she found a stub of pencil and laid it beside the rest. Amber inspected everything. ‘Is that all?’ she demanded. ‘That’s all. . . today,’ Sally said slowly, as if, on normal days, her pockets were stuffed with treasures. Amber swept everything except the pencil into the brilliant patchwork bag she brought to school with her things in. Then she picked up the pencil stub and wrote down the number on Sally’s hand. ‘Ouch!’ squeaked Sally. Amber was pressing much too hard. ‘Pencil’s not much good on skin,’ said Amber. ‘I’ve got to press.’ When she had finished, Sally inspected her hand. ‘I can’t really see it,’ she told Amber nervously. ‘Could you write it on some paper?’ ‘Haven’t got any paper,’ Amber said. She sounded grumpy now. She wrapped her long sunburnt arms round her knees and stared moodily into the slow brown water. Her little gold earrings glinted in the sun and her rainbow-coloured dress was like bright feathers. Sally, who had thick blonde plaits and short stubby legs, felt boring and plain next to Amber, plain as bread. She said, ‘I’ll get some paper. Wait here.’ And she ran off up the path that went through the middle of the allotments. When she reached the place where they made bonfires she rummaged about among the rusty oil drums. Very soon she soon found a brown paper bag, the kind one of the old men might have brought, with his sandwiches in. A lot of quite old people came to grow things on the allotments, and stayed the whole day. ‘Will this do?’ asked Sally, holding it out to Amber. Amber inspected the greasy bag, tore a piece off the corner and scribbled down the number. But she still seemed cross. It was as if giving Sally the important number was like telling somebody your name for the very first time, as if it gave that somebody a kind of power over you. ‘There you are, Sally Bell,’ she said, slapping the scrap of brown paper into Sally’s hand, and the next minute she was gone, running very fast along the path towards Tolly Reach where the kingfisher was and where, across the fields, in a lay-by on the main road, the gypsies had their caravans. ‘Sally Bell’. That didn’t feel very friendly. Sally called Amber ‘Amber’. If the gypsy girl had another name then nobody knew it; it was one of the magic things about her. Sally walked home looking at the faint writing on the palm of her hand. From time to time she felt inside her pocket for the tiny scrap of brown paper. She must put it in a very safe place. It was a good thing she had that paper because she couldn’t memorise the number. In the place where other people had a memory, Sally had a ‘forgettery’, that’s what her mum said. As she lay in bed that night she discovered that the bath water had washed the faint pencil marks quite off her hand. But hanging over a chair was her blue cotton frock with the deep pockets and in the left-hand pocket was Amber’s special number. The thought of it comforted her as she drifted off to sleep. It was like a warm hot water bottle held against her tummy. It promised help, help to sort out the terrible thing. 2 (#ulink_3087e475-e01f-535b-864a-5091bba9d69a) The terrible thing hadn’t happened in the house in which Sally had gone to bed. She was sleeping at ‘Next Door’s’, where Mrs Spinks lived. Mrs Spinks was looking after her because her mother was in hospital. This was awful for Sally but it wasn’t the terrible thing. The doctor had told Mrs Spinks and Mrs Spinks had told her that Mum would get better soon. So Sally tried not to worry and it was all right until the day she went to the hospital and wasn’t allowed to see her mother because they had put her in a special room for very ill people. After that, Sally worried very much indeed and she asked Mrs Spinks to write to her father straight away, or even to send him a telegram, to Abroad where he was working. But Mrs Spinks said no, not yet anyway. It was Abroad where Mum had caught the illness, when she last visited Dad. Mrs Spinks said that she had her instructions from Mum. These were that Dad mustn’t be told about the illness because it would only worry him, and besides, she really was going to be all right. The doctor had said so. Sally tried and tried to believe Mrs Spinks but she didn’t succeed. Why had they put Mum into that special room if she was going to be ‘all right’? When she’d said this to Mrs Spinks, she’d just turned her thin old-lady lips into a single line. That meant ‘No more questions, Sally Bell’. Her big brother, Alan, suddenly going away with the army, to do his National Service, wasn’t the terrible thing either, though if he hadn’t gone, they could have stayed together in their own house, till Mum came back. Alan was good at looking after Sally. But he’d said, ‘When a soldier gets his orders, Sally Bell, he has to obey. It’s like school.’ It was funny how Alan called her ‘Sally Bell’, like Amber and Mrs Spinks; but he didn’t do it in a grumpy way. No, the terrible thing had happened the day before Sally had slept her first night Next Door at Mrs Spinks’s. It had happened when she was all alone in their own house. It had happened in the hall. She’d borrowed the key from where Mrs Spinks kept it, under a red plant pot on her kitchen windowsill, and gone home to feed William her pet mouse. Mrs Spinks didn’t like mice, not even clean white ones who lived in clean cages. So William had to stay behind. Sally had made him a promise. While she was at Mrs Spinks’s she would come and see him every day, and give him a run around. What nobody knew was that Sally often gave him quite big runs around, when no-one was looking. He knew Sally’s voice and he always came back to his cage. He was a brilliant mouse. But that day, William seemed to be in a mood. He wouldn’t even come out when Sally opened his cage, he just sulked in a corner. When she put her finger inside and made wheedling noises he disappeared into a cocoon of straw. She knew what was wrong. William was sensitive. Sally was sad so he was being sad too. She sat in the middle of the carpet and looked round the big square hall. Its walls were covered with the carved wooden masks of animal-people and bird-people which Dad had brought home from Abroad. The house itself felt sad, as if it knew they had all gone away and left it. Even the grandfather clock had stopped ticking. Mum loved the old clock. It had belonged to her mum’s mum’s dad. Nobody touched it but Mum because she said she knew its little ways. ‘Look after Grandfather for me, Sally,’ Mum had said, when she went off to the hospital. But now even Grandfather had fallen silent. Something felt very bad indeed. Sally decided to wind the clock up. She knew exactly how to do it and where Mum kept the key. She had a feeling that if Grandfather started ticking again, Mum might start getting better. Sally sometimes got these funny feelings but she didn’t tell anybody about them. She just did what they advised. To Sally, the old clock felt more like a person than a piece of furniture, and she knew a lot about Grandfather because, once, a man had come to clean him. The week he came their class had been doing a school project on ‘Time’, so she’d asked him a lot of questions and written down all the answers. Her project had ended up being all about their very own grandfather clock and she had been given a gold star for it. She had discovered, for example, that when the clock was made, in the olden days, it had been made in three different parts which all fitted nicely together. There was a bottom part, which stood firmly on the floor and held everything else up, and into this slid ‘the trunk’, which had a door in it. You could open the door and see the huge weights and the pendulum swinging to and fro. On top of the trunk was a carved case which held the painted face and the shining brass hands and, hidden behind all this, the actual works of the clock, the most important part. This wooden case also slid on and off and it was called the ‘hood’. When Mum and Dad read Sally’s project, and admired the gold star, they said that she knew more about the old clock than anybody. Sally fetched the key and the stool Mum stood on, when she wound Grandfather. But she was much shorter than her mother and she couldn’t reach the keyholes in the face of the clock. So she put the key into her pocket and went into the study where Dad kept all his books. She found four enormous ones on the bottom shelf. They were so huge and heavy that she had to carry them into the hall one by one. With the books, she made a neat platform and on to this she put the stool. Then, very carefully, she climbed up. The stool wobbled a bit so Sally did everything slowly, to keep her balance. She still couldn’t reach the holes so she went back to Dad’s bookshelves and fetched four more books. It was quite a tall platform now and the stool felt more wobbly. But Sally was determined to get Grandfather ticking again. Very carefully, and holding on to the clock very tight with her left hand, Sally opened the glass door that protected the face. She had never been so close to Grandfather before. Now she could see that the little girls painted in each corner had pretty, rosy faces. From down below they had looked like little blobs. One had a fur coat on, she was Winter. One was picking daffodils, she was Spring. One stood in the middle of a field of golden corn, and was Summer. One held a basket of apples, and was Autumn. In between Winter and Spring there was a moon with a big, kindly face, a moon that moved slowly out of sight as the days ticked by, and changed into the sun. Underneath were some numbers that also changed and, under them, the months of the year. And she could see now that the clock had stopped on the second day of July, the day that Mum had been taken into hospital. Sally stared at the face of the clock and felt like crying. Just as she took the key out of her pocket, something unexpected happened. William must have crept out of his cocoon of straw and come to see what she was doing. Suddenly, without any warning, he ran straight up the clock, his tiny pink feet scurrying along her bare arm and up her fingers. When he reached the very top he sat on one of the carved wooden roses that decorated the case, staring down at her cheekily, his beautiful whiskers all of a quiver. The feel of his cold little feet on her skin was such a shock that Sally jumped violently, started to sway, and then to wobble. She knew she mustn’t panic so she stayed exactly where she was until she got her balance again. She was cross with William, so she ignored him. Carefully, Sally inserted the big old key in to the left-hand winding hole and began to turn it. The clock made gentle creaking noises and there was a dull thudding from inside. She knew that it was the sound of the huge weight banging against the door as it travelled up to the top on its thin, strong thread. When she stopped winding, the clock struck three times. Sally was excited. That meant the striking part of Grandfather was properly wound up again. But now she had to wind up the part which moved the hands round, and told you the time, so she put the key into the right-hand winding hole. From on top of the clock, William gave a pitiful little squeak. He wanted to come down again. He liked playing in Sally’s hair, he liked making nests in it. Sally looked up. ‘You’ll just have to wait,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m concentrating on this.’ But William took no notice. He had discovered that it was much easier to run up things than to slither down them and Sally’s nice thick hair spelt safety. To William it was like the safety blanket held out by firemen for someone stuck on the top of a burning building. He bunched himself up into a tight white ball and took an almighty leap. ‘What the— oh no— help. . .!’ The shock of William landing on her head sent Sally grabbing at the clock. She dropped the key and the stool tipped over and crashed on to the floor and she was left hanging on to the clock by her fingertips, clutching at the polished wooden columns that held up the beautifully carved face. She could hear both the weights bumping about very heavily and now Grandfather seemed to have come to life. He had started to move forwards with a terrifying, lurching motion. There was a strange scraping noise, like a big, obstinate rusty nail being pulled out of something, and the clock was coming away from the wall – it was falling over! It had been screwed to the wall by Dad, but now— Sally screamed, threw herself to one side, and landed in a heap on the far side of the hall as the clock toppled right over and hit the floor with the most enormous crash, followed by all kinds of weird noises. As she lay on the carpet, quite unable to move for shock and terror, there was a chinking noise, then a lot of funny bonging sounds, then the steady tinkle of glass. Then, after all the noises, an awful silence fell. Sally shut her eyes tight, she didn’t want to look. But as she lay on the carpet she could hear wheezy, creaky sounds coming from the direction of the clock. It was like a very old person settling down to sleep. She listened, thinking about Grandfather Bell, who had lived until he was one hundred and one years old. Grandfather Clock was even older, and the thing Mum loved best after Dad, Alan and Sally. At last, she made herself get up from the carpet. She made herself walk across the hall. She made herself look at the clock. And when Sally saw what had happened, she really did burst into tears and once she had started to cry she felt she would never stop. Grandfather’s ‘trunk’, the case that held the pendulum and the weights, had split into two pieces. The wooden columns which had risen up on each side of the glass door, holding up the roof of the clock with its two wooden roses, and its pointy carvings, were broken into tiny little bits, and all the other carvings seemed to have vanished completely. It was as if some evil magician had waved a magic wand and turned them into a heap of rubble. All round the wreckage were pieces of fine glass. The pendulum must have flown out of Grandfather’s insides as he crashed down because the springy piece of metal, stuck on to the shiny round thing that ticked steadily to and fro, was all twisted and bent. Both the weights lay on the carpet and all round them were tiny pieces of wood, pieces smaller than matchsticks. Only when Sally’s eyes had taken all this in did she pluck up the courage to pull the face of the clock out of the wreckage so that she could look at Grandfather’s face. And when she looked she turned away almost at once. What had happened to it was too awful to see. The fingers of the clock, once so beautiful, were bent double like hairpins and one had snapped right in two. The moon face still looked out at her, in its kindly way, but the four little girls were all scratched and spoiled. Sharp pieces of glass and metal must have been hurled against them in the fall. They were almost unrecognisable now; in fact they were more or less blobs again. Sally turned her back on it all and sat down on the carpet, staring dumbly at the front door. She sat and stared for a very long time. The awful thing was that it felt such an ordinary day. Out in the street she could hear a little child talking to its mother. Then someone rode past on a bicycle, ringing a bell, and the church clock down the road chimed five. At the same moment Mrs Spinks Next Door banged three times on the wall. This meant ‘Tea Time, Sally Bell’, – it was a signal. It meant ‘Lock up carefully and come back’. And it meant immediately. Mrs Spinks was strict about meal times. Slowly, Sally went over to the little side window where people on the front door step could see into the hall. She pulled the curtains across, making everything dark. Nobody could look into their house now, nobody could see the remains of Grandfather, scattered all over the carpet. She went outside, pulled the front door shut and pushed her way through the dusty privet hedge to Mrs Spinks’s house. Only when she looked down at her plate and saw that it was cheese on toast for tea, did Sally remember William, who liked cheese very much, at any meal. 3 (#ulink_e4189479-4179-5c8e-8817-5547a0ae6b86) The day after the terrible thing happened was the day Amber had given Sally the phone number. It was also the day when Sally had to be very clever indeed. She had to make sure Mrs Spinks didn’t go into their house and see the clock. But what could Sally do? Mrs Spinks could let herself in at any time, she had the key. And she was the kind of lady who worried very much about burglars. ‘I think I’d better pop in to your mum’s, Sally,’ she said at breakfast time. ‘Just to check round.’ Sally must have gone very pale because Mrs Spinks said, peering at her, ‘Bit off colour today are you, dear? Been to the toilet, have you?’ (As well as worrying about burglars Mrs Spinks worried if you didn’t go to the toilet regularly.) Please, Sally said silently to herself, don’t let Mrs Spinks go next door. She really thought she was going to have to tell a lie. Perhaps she would tell Mrs Spinks that she’d dropped Mum’s front door key down a drain. But then she had a brainwave. She said, ‘Mrs Spinks, I’m very sorry but my mouse has escaped from his cage. He’ll be in our house somewhere but I really don’t know where.’ Then she added, ‘He likes running up people’s legs.’ This time it was Mrs Spinks who turned pale and she gave a little scream. ‘Oh my goodness gracious. If I ever—’ Then she turned her old-lady lips into the thin line. ‘Sally Bell,’ she said severely, ‘until that mouse is back in its cage you must be a very grown-up girl. When you go to put his food out you must water your mother’s plants for me. You must bring the letters over here and you must make sure there have been no—’ ‘Burglars. I know, Mrs Spinks,’ Sally said in her most grown-up voice. ‘And I’ll look under all the beds.’ Then she added, ‘I might find my mouse.’ ‘Ugh,’ said Mrs Spinks, fanning herself with the morning paper. ‘I’m sorry, Sally, but if your mouse ran up my leg I think I should have a heart attack. When my Billie was a little boy we got him goldfish. There’s never any trouble with goldfish.’ So at least Sally had arranged things so that Mrs Spinks wouldn’t go next door, and without telling a lie. But that didn’t solve the problem of Grandfather. When people died you had to have funerals, she thought. So perhaps she could get a very big box, tip all the broken pieces in, and leave it out for the dustbin men. But that didn’t feel right. Grandfather Clock was like a person and you wouldn’t leave a dead person out for the rubbish men. Also, there must be somebody in the world who could stick him together again. It now occurred to Sally that being able to get stuck together with glue was one way in which things were luckier than people. It was because she was going to try with all her might to get Grandfather beautifully mended and ticking again, that she had needed Amber’s special phone number, the one that got you through to God. Nobody else would do. Sally woke up very early the day after Amber had given her the number, yawned, rubbed her eyes and got out of bed. It was the first day of the holidays and the sun was shining. No more school. Normally, she would have felt happy and light. Normally, she would feel like singing and skipping about. But today she felt as if there was a big stone on her chest, a stone that was crushing her. She felt all heavy. It was because of Grandfather. She must go home straight away and phone that number. She wouldn’t have a wash till she’d done it, she would just put her blue dress on and slip out. With any luck, Mrs Spinks might not be up yet. She had a little lie-in on Saturdays, had a cup of tea in bed, and did the crossword puzzle. But when Sally started to put her clothes on she found that her blue dress had turned into a red check one. Mrs Spinks had a craze about doing the washing. She must have decided it was dirty. Sally crept out on to the landing and listened hard. Mrs Spinks’s bedroom door was open and her bed was already made. She pulled on the red dress and went downstairs. But Mrs Spinks wasn’t in her kitchen, she was in her wash house, a little brick hut across the back yard which you had to cross to reach the garden. Mum had a wash house, too. The kitchen door was open. Sally crossed the yard and peeped round the corner of the wash house door. It felt all soapy and steamy and Mrs Spinks was turning the handle of a wooden mangle that squeezed water out of the clothes before they were hung on the line to dry. She was very red in the face. Mum had a mangle, too, but it was electric and went on its own. Mrs Spinks liked turning the mangle herself. ‘The old ways are the best,’ she had told Sally. ‘Hello, Sally Bell,’ she said. ‘You’re up early.’ ‘So are you,’ answered Sally. This must have sounded a bit rude because Mrs Spinks gave her a funny look. But all Sally could think of was her blue dress. What had happened to it? ‘Did you take my blue dress to wash, Mrs Spinks?’ she said. ‘I certainly did. It’s soaking in that sink. I noticed you’d got all mud on it. Been down those allotments again, have you? Been sitting by that dirty old stream? My Jack used to come home filthy from those allotments. “Everything into the wash house, Jack”. That’s what I’d say to him.’ Sally said, ‘I don’t suppose you emptied the pockets, Mrs Spinks?’ Mrs Spinks blinked. ‘No, I can’t say I did.’ Then she seemed to panic. ‘You didn’t leave anything like a pen in them, did you, because pens run something shocking and I don’t want my washing all blue.’ ‘No, it wasn’t a pen. It was. . . Oh, it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t important.’ Sally didn’t dare try and fish her dress out of the old brown sink. It would look too suspicious. But it was quite easy to please Mrs Spinks. She beamed. ‘That’s all right then. Now, what about a bit of breakfast? Eggs on toast all right?’ Sally ate her soggy toast in misery. She liked scrambled eggs, but not when Mrs Spinks scrambled them because Mrs Spinks still used powdered eggs that you had to mix with water, the kind people had in the war, when you couldn’t get fresh ones. It hadn’t been the war for ages but Mrs Spinks said she’d got used to the taste. It was watery eggs on soggy toast every Saturday morning. Lunch would be a plate of very sloppy stew with boiled potatoes, and tomorrow’s lunch would be slices of dried-up chicken, and on Monday it would be fish cakes and mashed-up carrots. Pudding was always stewed fruit. The endless, pale-coloured meals stretched on and on. Sally ate her breakfast very quickly, so that she could escape. 4 (#ulink_13c17510-8924-5440-ac60-2b1615e82478) She would have to find Amber and get the telephone number again, unless, by trying really hard, she could actually remember it for herself. Appleford – it was definitely Appleford – 661, that was it! But then she wasn’t sure. Could it have been Appleford 116? Sally thought and thought. She was certain it was one or the other. Then she had an idea. She could try both numbers; she could go home and use their own phone. Mrs Spinks had a long thin garden with vegetables right at the end, and she’d gone out to see how everything was growing. Sally left a note on the kitchen table. Gone to feed my mouse and do plants. Might go and see my friend Amber. Back soon. Love from Sally Because she thought Mrs Spinks might be cross with her, for going off without permission, she added a few kisses, although Mrs Spinks was not really that sort of person. ‘Appleford 661, Appleford 116, Appleford 661.’ Sally kept repeating the numbers as she let herself into their house. She went quickly through the hall where Grandfather lay in pieces (she did not look at him) and along the corridor into the kitchen where the phone was. The plants were droopy and the kitchen had a stale, unused smell, but Sally went straight to the phone, before she forgot the numbers. She picked up the telephone and a lady said, ‘Number, please?’ ‘Appleford 116,’ replied Sally. ‘Hold the line, I will try it for you,’ the lady said next and there were some clicking noises. But then she said, ‘Madam, is it a company you are calling?’ Sally hesitated. ‘Er, no, it’s not a company. It’s. . . I’ve been told I can talk to God, on this number.’ There was a little gap, then Sally heard the lady talking to someone, at her end, and laughing. Then she said, ‘God what, Madam? What is the second name of the person you are calling, please?’ ‘There is no second name,’ said Sally. ‘It’s just God. My friend told me the number was Appleford 116. But it could have been Appleford 661. I’ve got a bad memory.’ ‘Hold the line, please,’ the lady requested. She had stopped laughing now and seemed more helpful. ‘I will try that number for you.’ Sally waited. She heard three rings then the phone was picked up, and a man’s voice said ‘Hello? Hello?’ He sounded very annoyed that Sally hadn’t answered immediately. She said, ‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ (that was how Mum always began), ‘but I’ve been given this number for talking to God.’ ‘Don’t be so damn silly,’ said the man, and he slammed the phone down. Tears stung behind Sally’s eyelids. But then she thought of the heap of wood and glass lying all over the hall carpet, the heap that had once been Grandfather. Then she thought of Mum getting back from the hospital and walking into the hall, and seeing only a long shadow on the wall, where the clock had been, and she just knew she had to get it mended. So she picked up the phone again and asked the lady who answered (a different one this time) to try Appleford 116 again. This time the lady managed to get a phone to ring, at her end of the line, so Appleford 116 was a real number! Sally held her breath. But the phone just rang and rang. She was just about to give up when a voice said, ‘Hello, this is the Paradise Centre. How may I help you?’ Her heart skipped a beat; this sounded more promising. Wasn’t ‘Paradise’ something to do with God? ‘How may I help you?’ the voice said again. ‘Um, I’m not quite sure,’ said Sally uncertainly. Quite suddenly the voice became very crisp and bossy. ‘Well,’ it said, ‘we have several services we can offer you at this time. We represent Paradise Sales and also Paradise Holidays. And we have a new line, Paradise Pets. While you are away we can look after your cat and your dog. We can feed your tropical fish. We can—’ ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Sally said, interrupting. ‘I think I must have been given the wrong number.’ And before she could say anything else the crisp, bossy person had slammed her phone down. But Sally did not burst into tears, or crash around the kitchen in a rage, though she very much wanted to do both. She just sat on the floor and had a very long think. At last, she stood up. She had made a decision. There was only one thing left to do. She must find Amber and get the correct number from her. Very quietly, because Mrs Spinks might hear from over the wall, Sally went down the garden and pulled her bicycle out of the shed. She pushed open the back gate, closed it very quietly and pedalled quickly down the lane. This was the weekend the Fair left town and they would be packing up. She must hurry. But when she reached the field where the Fair had been she found nothing left except a lot of paper blowing about. There were only some smoking black rings where fires had been and a little white dog that whined underneath a broken down cart, a dog that looked as if it had been left behind. Quickly, Sally climbed back on to her bicycle and set off across the next two fields, towards the big main road and the lay-by where Amber’s caravan had been. But she got there just in time to see the last of the caravans setting off, for the next town. Amber’s was right at the back, pulled by a brown and white horse. It was buttercup yellow with a bright red chimney and it had been her great grandfather’s. It must be as old as Mum’s clock. Sally started to pedal very fast, and to wave, and to ring her bell. ‘Amber!’ she shouted. ‘Amber!’ A face appeared in the doorway of the caravan. ‘What do you want?’ it said crossly. ‘We’re off to the next town.’ ‘Please stop,’ Sally called out. ‘I’ve lost that number. Mrs Spinks washed my dress and it was in the pocket. Please, Amber.’ ‘Please what?’ The horse was clop-clopping quite fast along the road and Amber’s face was turning into an egg-shaped blur, she was nearly out of sight. But Sally couldn’t pedal any faster. She was puffing hard, and her legs ached horribly. ‘The number!’ she yelled. ‘What was that special phone number?’ By now the yellow caravan was almost out of sight. Amber shrugged at first, and shook her head, but then, all of a sudden, she started to draw in the air with her finger. ‘6-1-6’ she was writing then she yelled, ‘616! It’s Appleford 616!’ At that same moment the caravans all disappeared round a bend in a cloud of dust, and Sally was all alone again, sitting in the grass at the side of the road and trying to get her breath back. But her heart felt lighter. Amber had told her what she needed to know and what she had forgotten. How silly she had been, not to try the numbers in that order. It seemed so obvious now. Good old Amber. She could be so peculiar and grumpy sometimes but there was nobody quite like her. Sally climbed on to her bicycle again and pedalled back across the fields, and all the way home she repeated over and over again, ‘Appleford 616.’ 5 (#ulink_1c47b0bc-011d-52d2-97d5-119fe4d4f0f1) When she got back she saw Mrs Spinks outside the front door, bending over Mum’s tubs with a watering can. ‘Is that mouse back in its cage, Sally?’ she said, as she came up the path. ‘I think I’d better come in and check round. I did look through the hall window, but I see you’ve shut the curtains. Why?’ ‘Well, because of burglars, Mrs Spinks,’ said Sally. Mrs Spinks narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘Mmm. . .’ she muttered. ‘If you promise to keep that mouse out of my way, I’ll come in with you.’ Sally thought very rapidly. ‘He’s still out, Mrs Spinks, and – I know it’s awful – but I’ve a feeling there might be other mice in our house, the brown kind. Mum finds droppings. She was thinking of getting a cat.’ Mrs Spinks shivered and picked up her watering can. ‘I’ll get back to doing the dinner,’ she said. ‘If you ask me, your mother should get the rat man in. Don’t be long now, and mind you shut all the bedroom doors.’ ‘Yes, Mrs Spinks.’ Sally wheeled her bicycle round to the shed, then came back to the front of the house and let herself in. She walked straight past Grandfather, not stopping to look for signs of William. Instead she went down the hall that led to the kitchen, picked up the telephone and asked the lady to try Appleford 616. After quite a few rings, someone answered. It wasn’t the Paradise person and it wasn’t the rude man who’d said ‘damn’. It was a very old and creaky voice, a voice full of puffings and wheezings and it said, ‘Appleford 616. To whom am I speaking?’ Sally’s heart thumped. Then she plucked up her courage and said, ‘This is Sally Bell here, I live at The Cedars, Villa Road, Broadfield. I am the daughter of Professor Thomas Bell and Mrs Ruth Bell. My father’s Abroad and my brother’s doing his National Service and Mum’s in hospital and I have a really terrible problem—’ ‘I see.’ There was a pause, then the creaking voice said, ‘In what way can I help you, Sally Bell?’ Though it was the voice of a lady, and Sally had always imagined that God was a man, she felt encouraged because it sounded quite kind. So after a minute she said, ‘Well, I was given your number by my friend Amber. She said that if you rang this number you could speak to God. She hadn’t tried it herself because she said it was only for emergencies. Well, this is an emergency.’ The creaky old-lady voice said nothing to any of this. There were just a lot of wheezings. Sally waited, then she said, ‘Hello, are you still there?’ ‘Yes, I’m still here, Sally Bell. Could you repeat what your friend told you, please? I’m a little hard of hearing.’ ‘She said that if you rang Appleford 616 you could speak to God.’ ‘I see.’ There was another long pause, and more wheezings. ‘So is God there?’ Sally said. ‘I really would like to speak to him.’ Then she added, ‘Please.’ ‘The person you refer to,’ said the voice, ‘does indeed live here. But he is in hospital, I’m afraid, like your mother.’ Now it was Sally’s turn to pause. How could someone like God be in hospital, or even have illnesses? There must be some mistake. ‘So I can’t speak to him?’ she said. ‘I’m afraid not.’ Sally took the telephone away from her mouth and sat holding it, on the kitchen top. She didn’t know what to do. All she could think of were the tiny little pieces of wood and glass that had been Grandfather, and of her mother opening the front door, and seeing them. The person who was called God was not available to help her. Sally began to cry. She cried for a quite a long time. This crying kept on happening and she knew that it was because she was worrying more and more about Mum. Sally wasn’t a cryer, not like some people. She was certain the lady would have replaced her telephone by now, which would be just as well, because she could be no help. But when she reached up to put the phone back, too, she could just hear the creaky voice saying anxiously, ‘Little girl, little girl, please don’t cry.’ ‘I’m not crying,’ Sally said, then she added, ‘now,’ for she was always truthful (the bit about the mouse droppings was true, though it had happened a long time ago, and only once or twice). ‘Would you be able to come to see me?’ the lady continued. ‘The person you wanted is too ill to be contacted at present but I just might be able to help.’ ‘Is it near?’ Sally said. She had promised Mum she would stay with Mrs Spinks and not go anywhere big without her permission. ‘From the end of Villa Road you could get the number Nineteen bus. Stay on for three stops and when you see the Appleford sign get off. My house is by the bus stop. It has a blue door.’ Sally looked at the kitchen clock. Mrs Spinks served dinner at one o’clock on the dot. But if the bus came quickly she might get there and back and not be late. But ought she to go at all? She had been told never ever to talk to strange people and this was worse than talking to them. This was going to their house, on a bus. She had decided she must say no when the creaky voice said, ‘Is your father an archaeologist, Sally? Does he dig up strange and wonderful things?’ ‘Yes,’ Sally said. He was quite famous but to Sally and Alan he was just Dad. ‘He was once a little boy at my school. He was very good at sums and very bad at singing.’ ‘He can’t sing in tune,’ Sally said. Then she added loyally, ‘But you can’t be good at everything.’ ‘It would be best if you came now, Sally,’ said the lady. ‘I like to have my lunch on time, at one. Then I like to have a little rest.’ ‘I’ll come at once,’ Sally said. What the voice had said about lunch on time was the only bit which reminded her at all of Mrs Spinks. 6 (#ulink_da696389-4693-5505-b3fb-e9889e6ed627) The bus came almost at once and going three stops didn’t take long. Very soon Sally was standing outside the blue door. Walking from the front gate to the house was like pushing your way through a jungle. Big trees hung over the pebbled path, and bushes and shrubs and creeping green things were growing all over the place. It looked as if nobody had done any gardening for years and years. The front door itself had ivy trying to grow up the corners but the creaky voice had definitely said ‘blue door’ and ‘the house by the bus stop’. So Sally looked for a bell. She found a big brass handle, a bit like the wooden one that worked Mrs Spinks’s downstairs lavatory. Under the handle was a card with curvy writing. It said Mr G. Button and Miss A. Button. Sally pulled it and from somewhere inside she heard a far-away tinkling noise, then the slow shuffling of feet. The door opened and the voice she had heard on the telephone said, ‘Sally Bell?’ and she was looking down into the face of the smallest lady she had ever seen. ‘Are you Sally Bell?’ she repeated. But Sally forgot to reply. She was too busy thinking, Well, she’s not all that small. Amber’s granny’s very little and Mrs Spinks is quite little, too. Then the little lady said again, ‘Well, are you Sally Bell?’ ‘Oh yes, yes, that’s me,’ she spluttered, all in a rush. ‘I mean, yes, that’s who I am.’ ‘That’s me’ didn’t feel quite correct, and the very little old lady sounded just a bit school teachery. ‘Come in, then,’ said Miss A. Button. She led Sally down a long cold passageway into a kind of greenhouse in which the walls and roof were covered with trailing plants whose leaves and stems had got all tangled together making a lovely greeny light. They sat down, in two creaking chairs made out of stuff that looked like raffia matting. It suddenly went very quiet. The raffia chairs creaked and Miss Button made little wheezing noises in her chest, and some goldfish in an old sink kept plopping up to the surface with open mouths. ‘They want me to feed them,’ said Miss Button and she sprinkled some fish food into the water. ‘Mrs Spinks says goldfish are a good idea,’ said Sally. ‘She says they’re much better than mice.’ ‘Who is Mrs Spinks?’ ‘She lives next door. I’m staying with her while Mum’s in the hospital. Alan’s in the army now and Dad’s Abroad. He’s doing a very important Dig. I think it’s in the desert. Mum says he mustn’t be worried because she’s going to get better very soon. But I don’t think so. She’s in a special room, in case she gets germs.’ ‘Which hospital, Sally?’ Miss Button had leaned forwards in her creaky chair. ‘The big white one, the one on the hill.’ ‘Oaklands Hospital?’ ‘I think that’s it. But I can’t go and see her at the moment, because of the germs.’ ‘I am very sorry, Sally,’ said Miss Button. ‘You do seem to have a lot of troubles.’ Sally didn’t answer at first. Then, because Miss Button had a kind voice, and had been Dad’s teacher when he was a little boy, she said, ‘I’ve not told you my biggest trouble. It’s why I phoned up,’ and she explained all about the clock. The little old lady listened very carefully. Then she gave the greedy goldfish a bit more food. Then she took off her spectacles, rubbed at them and put them on again. Then she looked at Sally. ‘And that’s why you wanted to talk to God?’ she said. ‘Yes,’ said Sally, ‘but you said he’d gone to hospital. I didn’t understand that.’ ‘No,’ Miss Button answered. Then she said, ‘Sally, you seem like an intelligent girl. Did you really believe that, by ringing a telephone number, you could talk to God?’ ‘Well, Amber said you could,’ Sally told her, ‘and Amber’s right about lots of things. She’s not much good at lessons but she knows about all sorts of, you know, special things. I just thought this God person would be the one to talk to. I get these hunches.’ Miss Button thought for a moment, then she said, ‘Sally, my brother is called Godfrey Button, and he is in hospital. He fell down the stairs and broke his hip. I think he is the person you were trying to speak to. I can’t imagine how your friend Amber would know that some of his old friends used to call him “God”, which was rather naughty of them I think. It was because his name is Godfrey, and also because he used to be in charge of a church.’ ‘Amber knows all kinds of things,’ Sally whispered. Secretly she was thinking, No God to talk to, only an old man whose friends joked about his name. Just for a minute she felt as if the bottom had quite dropped out of everything. How could this help with the clock? She said, ‘Why was it naughty, calling your brother God?’ She thought it was quite funny herself but she didn’t dare say so. ‘I suppose some people might think it wasn’t very reverent,’ Miss Button replied. ‘I mean, you have to treat God with respect.’ ‘Have you ever seen Him?’ asked Sally. ‘Not exactly.’ Miss Button looked down at the greedy goldfish and said quite snappily, ‘You’ve had more than enough.’ Somewhere in the house a clock chimed once. That meant it was half-past twelve. Sally stood up. ‘I’ll have to go home,’ she said. ‘Mrs Spinks gets cross if I’m late for my meals.’ Then she had a thought. ‘Was that a grandfather clock striking? It sounded a bit like ours.’ ‘Well, sort of. It’s a grandmother clock. It’s a wee bit smaller than yours, I should think. Come along. You must go home in a taxi cab. I’ll ring Ron.’ They went back into the chilly hall where a telephone stood on a table. Miss Button picked it up and asked for Appleford 123. That was an easy number to remember, Sally thought wistfully, thinking too of how she’d pedalled off so furiously, to find Amber. ‘Arabella Button speaking,’ said the old lady. ‘Please will you send a taxi to Seventeen, Norland Avenue. I have a visitor who has to get to The Cedars, Villa Road. It’s Professor Bell’s house. Thank you.’ ‘I think I would like to speak to your Mrs Spinks, Sally,’ she said, as they waited. ‘I think I should phone her. I would like to write to your father. I could send him a telegram, that would be quicker.’ But Sally clutched so hard at her thin old-lady arm that Miss Button jumped. ‘Oh no, please don’t talk to Mrs Spinks. You see, she doesn’t know about the clock, or anything. If you could just. . . don’t you know anyone who could help me? You’ve got a clock, too.’ Someone rang the doorbell and a voice said, ‘Taxi to Villa Road.’ Miss Button opened the door and said, ‘Good afternoon, Ron. This is Miss Sally Bell. She must be home by one.’ ‘Rightio,’ the taxi man said cheerfully. ‘But I have no money,’ Sally whispered. Miss Button put some coins into her hand. ‘If there is any change you can give it back when we next meet. Could you be by your phone tomorrow at ten o’clock?’ ‘Yes,’ Sally said, ‘and thank you very much.’ It was steamed fish for dinner. The peas were a sickly bright green and the boiled potatoes had no taste at all. Sally said, ‘Please could I have some butter, Mrs Spinks?’ Mrs Spinks pushed a pot of margarine towards her. ‘Marge’ was another war thing. ‘This is just as good as butter,’ she said. ‘And it’s cheaper. We all have to count the pennies, these days.’ Sally didn’t want to annoy Mrs Spinks so she took a little piece of the greasy-looking marge and smeared it over her potatoes. But she was thinking, I bet Miss Button has butter on hers. And for the rest of the day she practised saying, ‘I bet the Buttons eat best butter,’ to take her mind off things. 7 (#ulink_c9b58d90-8968-5b65-bc02-87b110b65e67) Next day, Sally got up early. She mustn’t be late for Miss Button, who seemed to be the sort of person who liked to be on time for everything. She made her bed and tidied her room and brought her clothes down to be washed. Mrs Spinks seemed to wash every day. Mum wasn’t like that. Their washing sat around for ages till it turned into a mountain; then Mum had what she called a ‘blitz’ and did it all in one go. ‘I found this in the pocket of that blue dress,’ said Mrs Spinks, as Sally came into the kitchen for breakfast, and she gave her a scrap of brown paper. ‘Was that what you were looking for?’ Sally tried to look very casual. ‘I suppose it must have been,’ she replied, ‘but it doesn’t matter any more,’ and she threw it into the waste bin. She’d got the phone number firmly fixed in her head now. She was just getting the key from under the plant pot, to go next door to her own house, when Mrs Spinks called out from her pantry, ‘Could you climb up and get some jam jars for me, Sally? I don’t trust my old legs on this step ladder.’ It was strawberry time and it looked as if Mrs Spinks had decided to make some jam. Sally got the jars but they were all covered with dust and fluff. Mrs Spinks looked at them in dismay. Then she said, ‘Now here’s a nice little job for you. Fill the washing-up basin with nice soapy water for me, will you, and wash those jars.’ Sally glanced up at the kitchen clock, but Mrs Spinks noticed. ‘Too busy this morning are you, Sally Bell?’ she said, in a hurt kind of voice. ‘Well, I’m quite busy myself. I’m going out soon but I’ve got to do my jobs first.’ ‘No,’ said Sally. ‘I’m not too busy. It’s just that, well, I suppose I ought to go and try to catch my mouse. I’m late leaving his food out, and he’ll be hungry.’ Mrs Spinks folded her arms. ‘All right, off you go. Not sure we oughtn’t to set a trap for that mouse of yours.’ Sally was horrified. ‘Mrs Spinks, he’s my pet.’ ‘I know, but mice are vermin, Sally. They carry diseases.’ ‘I think it’s rats which do that, Mrs Spinks.’ Sally’s dad had told her all about the Great Plague of London and how rats had spread it. Then she added, ‘Anyway, William is a very clean mouse. He’s always washing himself.’ ‘Ugh,’ said Mrs Spinks. It was the only word she had for mice. As Sally let herself into the hall the phone was ringing. Sally ran down the hall, tripping over a fat blue letter that lay on the mat, grabbed the receiver and said, ‘Hello, hello?’ ‘Did you oversleep, Sally?’ It was Miss Button and she sounded a bit school-teachery again. ‘Oh no. I was up early. But just as I was coming to phone you, Mrs Spinks asked me to wash some jam jars. I’m sorry.’ The kitchen clock told her that it was just five minutes past ten. Old people seemed to be so strict about being on time. Would she Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/ann-pilling/amber-s-secret/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.