The Vanishing at the Very Small Castle by Jackie French

Author:Jackie French
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2021-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

The backyard smelled of dunny cans and tomcats. A few yellow cabbages were trying to grow in a handful of dust and grime. The warped back door was shut, the faded curtains at the windows drawn. Aunt Elephant rapped on the door. ‘It’s only us,’ she called.

‘Who are you?’ asked a woman’s voice shakily.

‘Friends,’ boomed Aunt Elephant.

‘Though you don’t know us yet,’ added Aunt Peculiar.

‘We’re Tish’s family,’ said Olive firmly. ‘Tish is Annie’s best friend at school.’

‘Are . . . are all those men still out there? And the police?’

‘No. They’ve all gone,’ Auntie Cake assured her. She looked awkwardly at Mr Manster.

He nodded understandingly. ‘I’ll wait in the car,’ he offered.

‘Just . . . just till we reassure them,’ said Auntie Cake hurriedly.

‘I understand,’ said Mr Manster quietly. He put down the chairs and table on the path.

Butter watched him go. Mr Manster suddenly seemed small, despite his size, and incredibly alone. He wanted to run after him, but they had to find Tish first.

The door opened. The woman who stood there wore a faded floral apron over a dress that had only a vague memory of a pattern in no real colours at all. She clasped a baby dressed in overalls made of soft old flour sacking. ‘I’m so sorry about all of that.’ Her voiced trembled. ‘I didn’t want any of it!’

‘It’s all right,’ said Auntie Cake soothingly. ‘We paid the rent.’

‘But I have the rent money! I mean thank you, it’s very kind of you,’ the woman added hastily. ‘But Jim — my husband — sent a money order this morning. He got a job fencing, and the farmer advanced him the money. But the bailiff wouldn’t take it.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, what am I thinking of? Do come in. I’m Annie’s mother, Mrs Davos. And this is Sammy.’ The baby stared at them all with big eyes.

‘Cootchie coo!’ boomed Aunt Elephant. The baby shrieked and hid his face in his mother’s shoulder.

Butter gazed at the kitchen, though there wasn’t much to gaze at, crowded with the Aunts, just a bucket of nappies soaking in a corner and a single saucepan on the stove, and what looked like a can of tinned spaghetti in it.

‘I’m Elephant O’Bryan, and these are my sisters, Peculiar and Cake,’ stated Aunt Elephant. She smiled at Mrs Davos’s shock. ‘Nicknames when we were children, but they stuck. And this is Olive, Tish’s sister, and Butter.’

Aunt Elephant and Aunt Peculiar picked up the table and carried it in. Auntie Cake and Olive took a chair each and followed them, and Butter came last, carrying the picnic basket.

The kitchen smelled of Sunlight soap, its bare wooden floor clean, the windows sparkling despite the factory smoke outside. Mrs Davos laid her baby on a knitted blanket in a wooden fruit box and set it chewing on a necklace of old cotton reels.

‘I’m sorry, the stove’s not lit,’ she apologised, ‘or I’d make tea.’

Butter held up the Thermos. Mrs Davos looked at it longingly.

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