Four Children and It Read online

  ‘Never mind. You did sing fantastically, and everyone absolutely adored you. You were a superstar,’ I said.

  I waited for her to say I was a superstar too, a brilliant best-selling author – but I waited in vain.

  ‘Anyway, let’s phone Dad and Alice and – and I suppose Dad will drive all the way over and fetch us home,’ I said. My stomach lurched at the thought, but I knew we should do it immediately.

  ‘He’ll go nuts. He hates driving in London,’ said Robbie. ‘I can’t stand it when he shouts at us. Can’t we call Mum instead?’

  ‘She’s at her Summer School. We can’t drag her out of it – and she hasn’t got her car with her anyway,’ I said.

  ‘We don’t need a car,’ said Smash. ‘We’ll go home by ourselves. Then maybe we can sneak in somehow and nip up to our bedrooms and pretend we were there all the time.’

  ‘What planet are you on, Smash? As if that could happen in a million years!’ I said.

  ‘As if I could have a sell-out concert at the O2 arena!’ said Smash. ‘Now shut up and let’s try and find our way out of here.’

  She jumped down off the stage. We all held hands in the dark and stumbled to an exit door.

  Please don’t let it be locked, I said inside my head, my heart beating fast – but the door opened easily enough.

  We stood blinking in the brightly lit corridor.

  ‘But aren’t we in the wrong bit? We need to get back to that dressing room. We left Giant there,’ said Robbie.

  ‘Giant?’ said Smash.

  ‘My dog Giant,’ said Robbie. ‘Do you think Bulldog might have taken him for a walk?’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Robs. Giant doesn’t exist any more – or Bulldog for that matter.’

  Robbie bent his head.

  ‘I loved Giant,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Look, I loved my little kitten –’

  ‘I’m quite glad that parrot’s not real. Gobby-Bird was a bit too gobby,’ said Smash. ‘But I do miss my clothes and those glorious shoes. Have I still got any of my make-up on?’ She rubbed her face experimentally. ‘No, worst luck!’

  ‘Monkey!’ said Maudie mournfully. ‘Want Monkey!’

  We didn’t know if she meant the chinchilla or the Psammead itself. Perhaps Maudie didn’t either. She just knew she was tired and hungry and stuck in a strange corridor, feeling lost and miserable. She started crying.

  ‘Don’t cry, darling,’ I said, shifting her to the other hip.

  Maudie cried harder.

  ‘She wants me,’ said Smash, grabbing her. ‘You want your Smash-Smash, don’t you, Maudie? Come on, we’ll go home and tomorrow you’ll see Monkey again. We can wish for heaps of monkeys if you like and you can play with all of them.’

  ‘I thought it was my turn to make a wish – though I suppose Maudie can go first as she’s little,’ I said.

  ‘I think we should all wish Dad doesn’t get cross,’ Robbie sniffed. ‘Because he will be, especially with me. He just always is.’

  ‘No, he’ll be crossest with me, because I’m the eldest,’ I said, sighing. ‘Look, can’t we just text him, Smash, to let him know we’re safe and on our way home? Though how are we going to get home? We can’t walk, it’s miles and miles and miles, and we don’t even know the way.’

  Robbie and Maudie were already crying and I felt very near tears myself.

  ‘You are pathetic, you lot,’ said Smash. ‘Follow me.’

  I don’t think she really knew where she was going, but she strode along the corridor determinedly, shifting Maudie so that she was riding piggyback. Robbie and I shuffled along after them.

  ‘Hey! What are you kids doing here?’

  A security man stood right at the end of the corridor, staring at us in astonishment.

  ‘How did you lot get in?’

  It was going to be a waste of time trying to explain.

  ‘Run!’ said Smash.

  So we ran for it.

  Robbie and I can’t run very fast, and Smash was carrying Maudie, but he was still a long way away. We thundered back down the corridor, saw a door and hurtled through it – into a busy complex of shops and restaurants.

  ‘Keep on running!’ Smash yelled, though he didn’t seem to be following us now. We saw a sign overhead: To the Underground.

  ‘Aha!’ said Smash. ‘Come on, you lot! We’ll get the tube.’

  ‘By ourselves?’ Robbie said.

  Smash snorted contemptuously.

  ‘I suppose you two always go everywhere with Mumsie-Wumsie,’ she said.

  ‘Shut up! Of course not,’ I said – though she was right.

  Smash marched forward confidently and we bobbed along in her wake.

  ‘What are we going to do about tickets?’ I asked anxiously, wondering if Smash was planning to try jumping over the gate.

  Smash rolled her eyes.

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to donate some of my pocket money,’ she said.

  She took a plastic Mickey Mouse purse out of her jeans pocket.

  ‘But it’ll cost heaps,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve got heaps,’ said Smash, fingering a little wad of paper money.

  She asked for two children’s travel cards at the kiosk, and handed one to me.

  ‘What about Maudie and Rob’s?’

  ‘They’re too little to need tickets. Don’t you know anything?’ said Smash.

  I didn’t seem to know anything, even though I was a year older. Though I’d travelled on a tube in London before I had no idea which platform to go to or where to get off, but Smash just glanced at a strange underground map and worked it all out in a flash.

  The underground was quite crowded and several couples stared at us.

  ‘Are you children all by yourselves?’ one middle-aged lady asked, looking concerned.

  ‘Yes, we are,’ said Smash. ‘But it’s all right. I’m looking after them.’

  I blushed furiously, aware I was taller than Smash and clearly the eldest.

  ‘Does your mother let you travel around after dark by yourselves?’

  ‘She doesn’t have any choice,’ said Smash. ‘She’s got this illness and she’s in a wheelchair and our dad cleared off ages ago.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ said the lady, taking her seriously. ‘But surely – surely there must be someone who could help?’

  ‘We don’t need help, thank you,’ said Smash.

  The tube train rumbled into the station, making Maudie suddenly start whimpering in alarm.

  ‘There now, Maudie, it’s okay, darling. It’s just a funny train,’ said Smash, jogging her up and down. ‘On we get.’

  Robbie didn’t like the tube either. He wouldn’t get on. He froze like a statue, his foot hovering over the gap. He peered at the dark track below anxiously.

  ‘We could fall down,’ he said.

  Smash would normally have groaned at him, but now she coaxed him gently.

  ‘Come on, Robs, it’s quite safe, honestly. You can’t fall – and if you do I’ll catch you!’

  Robbie didn’t look convinced, but the woman seemed very impressed.

  ‘What an amazing plucky little girl,’ she murmured.

  Smash smirked at me, enjoying herself enormously. I wasn’t so sure she’d become a rich and famous singer in the future. It seemed more likely she’d become a rich and famous actress. Or even a London Tour Guide – she seemed to be able to find her way around instinctively. She signalled for us all to get off the tube at Waterloo and led us along mystifying tunnels.

  Maudie had nodded off to sleep, but Robbie was ultra wide awake and fearful still, hating the tube noise and the tunnels and the muffled announcements to mind the gap and stand clear of the doors. He didn’t like the escalators up to the mainline station either. I had to practically drag him up with us.

  Smash consulted the indicator board. I did too, of course, though I wasn’t even sure which station would be nearest to Dad’s house. While my eyes were still swivelling up and down the lists of places, Smash shouted