The Fire Within Read online

  “Get off,” she shouted, as he grabbed her shoulder.

  “Lucy, listen!”

  “Why did you stop me from telling him it was Conker?!”

  “Because he doesn’t like squirrels! It would only have made things worse!”

  “Wrong,” said a voice, “it’s already worse.” The kitchen door opened and Liz was part of the argument as well. “Would someone like to tell me what is going on? I don’t cook these meals for fun, you know. Your dinner is on the table. If it sits there much longer there’ll be frost on it!”

  “Mr. Bacon made a rat trap,” Lucy wailed. “But there isn’t a rat! He’s going to catch Conker! He’s going to kill him! And David doesn’t care!” She slapped the tenant in the chest, then pounded up the stairs, crying loudly.

  Liz folded her arms and glared at him, hard.

  “I can explain.”

  “Don’t bother, David. Put a baked potato in it instead.” She swept upstairs after Lucy.

  It was half an hour before Liz came down. By then, the kitchen was empty. The table was cleared, the dish washing done, and two untouched meals put back in the oven on a very low heat.

  Taped to the breadbox, Liz found a message.

  Gone for a walk. Took bottles to the recycling bin. Bonnington threw up a hairball. I cleaned it up. Hope Lucy’s OK. It’s my fault. Sorry. Won’t happen again.

  David

  It was eight before he returned. Liz was in the kitchen, making a drink. “Long walk,” she said.

  The tenant hovered sheepishly in the hall.

  “David, hang your coat up, for goodness’ sake. If I wanted you out, you’d have found your teddy in pieces on the step.”

  David sighed with relief and slipped off his coat. There was a slight clacking sound as he put it on the hook.

  “What was that?”

  “Oh — my knee against the telephone stool. How’s Lucy?”

  The kettle clicked off. Liz filled a mug. “Fretting, as you might expect. Actually, you arrived home just in time.”

  The tenant furrowed his brow.

  Liz handed him the mug. “Hot chocolate, for her. Go and make a happy house again. Hmm?”

  “Who is it?” said a slightly surprised little voice.

  David took his knuckles away from the door. “It’s me. Can I come in?”

  A blanket rustled. “All right.”

  David stepped in. Lucy was sitting up in bed, wearing a pair of blue pajamas. Her eyes were red, her cheeks a little blotchy. David put the hot chocolate on her bedside table and sat down on the end of the bed.

  “Did you come to read me a story?” she sniffed.

  David shook his head. “Not tonight, Luce.”

  A few seconds passed. Lucy dabbed her nose with a tearstained tissue. “Conker’s in danger, isn’t he?”

  David glanced across the room. The eyes of Gawain stared rigidly back. In the pale yellow glow of the bedside lamp the dragon might well have had fire in its jaws.

  “I want to save him,” Lucy sniffed. “I don’t want Mr. Bacon to catch him in his trap.” Her bottom lip shuddered and she started to sob.

  David found another tissue and handed it over. “We are going to save him. I’ve got a plan.”

  Lucy looked up, her eyes like pools.

  “Promise me you won’t say a word to your mom?”

  Lucy swallowed hard and looked at Gawain. “What are we going to do?”

  David glanced away into the corner of the room. “I haven’t worked out all the details yet. A lot depends on whether I can find a good box or not.”

  Lucy’s mouth fell open slowly.

  “Yes,” said the tenant, guessing her thoughts. “If Henry can set a trap, so can we. We’re going to try to catch Conker ourselves….”

  IN THE ATTIC

  The next day, David got his box.

  “A rabbit hutch? Where?”

  “Up there,” hissed Lucy, pointing to a hatch in the landing ceiling. “You open that door and a ladder comes down. Mom shoves all our useless stuff up there.”

  David ran a nervous hand through his hair. “Your mom’ll turn me into useless stuff if she ever finds out I’ve been rummaging through your attic.”

  “We’ll get it down later when Mom’s not here. She’s going to a craft fair soon.”

  Liz’s voice rang out from the foot of the stairs: “Lucy, come on, get yourself ready. I want to be out by one.”

  “I’m not going, Mom. David said he’d help me look for Conker.”

  “Lucy?” David pulled her toward him. “We’re supposed to be keeping this quiet, remember?” He clenched his fists and looked over the banister. “Erm, she was so upset last night that I said I’d … well … y’know.”

  Liz gave him a green-eyed Pennykettle stare. “I don’t know which of you is worse: her for twisting you around her little finger or you for being weaker than the average jellyfish. All right, she can stay. But you’re responsible for her. If I come back and find her shoes and jeans caked in mud, you’re the one who has to wash them, agreed?”

  “Agreed,” David groaned, and turned his eyes to the attic.

  With the sun streaming in through a dusty skylight, it didn’t take long to spot the hutch. It was over in a corner by a couple of cases, with some wallpaper samples and an old roll of carpet. David made his way across the joists, teetering slightly at every step. Lucy, who’d been banned from entering the attic on the grounds that she’d get her jeans dirty, watched from the top of the landing ladder.

  “Is it OK?” she asked, as David crouched down to examine the hutch.

  “Perfect,” he said, dragging it toward him. “Soon we’ll — Ooh, what’s that?”

  “What?” said Lucy, coughing into her fist.

  “Light,” said David. “Coming in from somewhere. Hang on a sec.” He crossed two joists and moved the roll of carpet. A beam of light skimmed the floor of the attic. “There’s a hole in the brickwork,” David reported, leaning forward for a closer look. “And … oh, gosh.” His words faded into silence. Lodged in the rafters, close to the hole, was what looked at first like an old bird’s nest. But it was bigger than a nest, and rounder, too. No bird had made that. It was a squirrel’s drey.

  “Can I see?” begged Lucy, when David told her.

  “No,” he said firmly. “You stay there. It looks abandoned anyway.” He crouched lower and squinted out of the hole. “Hah, I can see the sycamore tree. That must be how the squirrel got in; it climbed up the tree, then hopped into the roof. Clever. I bet it’s really cozy in — waargh!”

  “Hhh!” squealed Lucy, gripping the ladder as David unexpectedly tumbled backward. A cloud of dust puffed into the air as he landed with a thump that made the ceiling shake.

  “Are you all right?” Lucy cried.

  “Yes,” said David, getting to his feet. He dusted down his clothing and picked up the hutch. “I saw a bird outside. A crow, I think. It landed on a branch while I was looking through the hole. Its eye sort of filled the space. It was dark and beady; made me jump, that’s all.” He licked a finger and tried to rub a mark off his sweatshirt. “It probably nests around here. I found a crow’s feather in the garden once, and — oh, what was that?” He broke off and stared at the attic floor.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Lucy.

  “I heard a fluttering sound downstairs. I think there’s something in the Dragons’ Den.”

  “I’ll see,” said Lucy, hurrying down the ladder.

  “Lucy, wait.” David clambered down after her. “It sounded like a small bird — a sparrow or something. It’s probably best to let me have a look. Here, take this.” He handed her the hutch. Then he was past her and into the den.

  He peered around the shelves of green-eyed dragons, at Guinevere resting on her stand, at the stained-glass ornament dangling in the window. Nothing remotely birdlike moved. “That’s odd,” he said. “I’m sure I heard something.” He moved closer to the shelves. Lucy dashed in front of him.

&
nbsp; “I know!” she exclaimed. “It was a sparrow. They shake around in the gutter sometimes. Mom says they have a bath in the dust.”

  David walked to the window and craned his neck upward. “Hmm. Might have heard an echo in the roof space, I s’pose.”

  “Yes,” said Lucy, looking pleased with herself. “Let’s go and do the trap now, shall we?”

  David clicked his tongue. “Of course, there is … another explanation.”

  Lucy braced herself.

  “Could have been a dragon flying around.”

  Lucy went white and bit her lip.

  “I’m joking,” David laughed, tousling her hair. “Come on, we’ve got work to do. Bring a small chunk of clay down, will you?” And he swept through the door, still chuckling to himself.

  Lucy breathed a sigh of relief. She let her gaze pan slowly sideways — to the shelf by the door where Gruffen normally sat.

  “Typical,” she muttered.

  The dragon wasn’t there.

  TO CATCH A SQUIRREL

  As she hurried downstairs to catch up with David, Lucy asked, “Do you think it was Conker who lived in our roof?”

  David put the hutch on the kitchen table and swung it around so the cage front was facing him. “If he did, he doesn’t now. I’m worried that Conker can’t climb very well. If he runs in circles when he’s on the ground, imagine what it’s like for him trying to climb a tree.”

  Lucy closed one eye and squinted at the ceiling. “But where does he go when he wants to sleep? Squirrels live up trees.”

  David unclipped the cage front and pulled it away. Apart from a few old strands of straw, the box was clean and dry inside. “I’d guess he’s got a hiding place, low to the ground. And the sooner we find it, the better.” He popped the cage front back, then raised the sliding plywood panel that formed the only door of the hutch. He let the panel go. It rattled shut. “Excellent. Did you bring that piece of clay I asked for?”

  Lucy plopped a chunk on the table.

  David rolled a small piece into a ball. From his pocket he produced a length of string and pressed one end firmly into the ball. He slid the door panel up and used the clay to wedge it open, then he handed Lucy the free end of string. “Pull.”

  She gave it a tug. The clay came away and the door slid shut.

  “Hey, presto,” said David, looking pleased. “Not quite as high-tech as Mr. Bacon’s, but it just might do the trick.”

  Lucy still looked a little confused. “But who’ll pull the string when the box is in the garden? I have to be in bed by eight o’clock.”

  “Conker will,” said David. “All we have to do is tie your end of the string to a treat and when he picks it up and gives it a tug … click. With any luck, we’ll have him.”

  Just then, Bonnington popped in through his cat door. He leapt onto a chair, twitched an inquisitive nose at the hutch, and rubbed his cheek along the mesh.

  “Hmm,” went David, frowning a little. “That’s something I hadn’t considered: how to keep nosy-paws out?” He mentally measured the entrance to the hutch. The opening wasn’t overly big, but any self-respecting cat could easily wriggle in.

  “I know!” Lucy said suddenly. She dived into the undersink cabinet and returned with a plastic squeeze bottle. “We can stop him with this.”

  “CatOff?”

  Lucy unscrewed the cap and squirted some orange-colored gel into her palm. She pushed it under Bonnington’s nose. Bonnington reeled back as if he’d been punched. With a hiss of indignation he jumped off the chair and dipped out through his cat door again.

  “It smells like oranges,” Lucy explained. “He hates oranges. Mom puts this near the roses so Bonnington won’t poop there.”

  David took the bottle and read the instructions. “Yeah, but if it works for Bonnington it might work for Conker. The last thing we want is SquirrelOff on the box. No, we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed that Bonnington doesn’t go near it and that Conker comes our way — which he will, when he sees what I’ve got for him. Go and look in my coat pockets — and don’t spill anything.”

  Lucy hurried away. She returned carrying a brown paper bag. “Acorns!” she gasped. “Where did you get them?”

  “Never mind,” said David. “I feel weird enough about stealing them as it is. Come on, it’s time to lay the trail.”

  After a brief debate, they decided to set the trap behind the rock garden. David scrabbled over the crumbling stones and carefully placed the box out of sight. Then he took a handful of acorns and sowed them at intervals across the patch of ground between the rock garden and the brambles at the end of the garden. He saved most of the acorns for the box itself, tilting it slightly so the nuts rolled into the deepest corner. Finally, he took an unshelled peanut off the bird feeder and tied the string very tightly around it. “That’s his ‘treat,’ “ he told Lucy, leaving the bait just inside the hutch. He lifted the sliding door of the trap and wedged it open with the ball of clay. “That’s it, we’re ready.”

  Lucy, perched like a pixie in front of the rock garden, could hardly speak. “What now?”

  “Now it’s up to Conker,” said David, wiping his hands on the front of his sweatshirt. He flicked an acorn cup into the stones. “All we can do is wait.”

  GOTCHA!

  Lucy, being Lucy, couldn’t wait. She checked the trap at least half a dozen times before her mom came home that afternoon. On each occasion, nothing had changed. Every nut was exactly as David had left it. The only visitor to the trap was a tiny spider, who, according to Lucy, didn’t look strong enough to pull a cat hair, never mind a piece of string.

  “You have to be patient,” David told her, as the day wore on and darkness fell. “It’s a trap, remember. He might be suspicious.”

  Lucy stuffed her hands into her jeans pockets. She peered sadly through the kitchen window, her worry reflected in the rain-spattered glass.

  Liz came in then, cuddling Bonnington. “Come on, Lucy. Time for bed.”

  Lucy turned and walked out of the kitchen in silence.

  “Oh dear,” said Liz, putting Bonnington down. “I take it you had no luck with Conker?”

  David gave a doleful shrug.

  Liz tiptoed to the door and pushed it shut. “Never mind. She’ll cheer up when she sees what I bought her this afternoon.” She opened a cabinet and took an old cake pan off the top shelf. Inside was a small brown box. She handed it to David. “It’s her birthday next week. Take a look.”

  “Birthday?”

  “Sssh,” Liz said nervously. “She’s got ears like an elephant.”

  David flipped the box open. “Nice,” he smiled, sliding a camera out of the wrapping.

  Liz put a finger against her lips. “Do you think it’s all right for an eleven-year-old? You know a little about cameras, don’t you?”

  “Hmm,” went David, panning around the room. “This’ll be fine. All she has to do is point and —”

  Snap!

  “Oh, David. Don’t waste the film,” Liz chided. The camera lens was pointing straight at her.

  “Never touched it. Honest.” He waggled a finger above the shutter.

  Liz frowned and turned to the window. “Must have been something in the garden, then. I definitely heard a snapping sound.”

  David swung to his feet. “A snap? Not a clank?”

  “A snap,” said Liz. “Why, what’s the matter?”

  David backed away down the hall. “Don’t say a word to Lucy. I think it’s Mr. Bacon’s trap.”

  He ran next door and rang the bell.

  As usual, Henry looked irked to see him. “What now, boy? I’m watching the news.”

  “Your trap, Mr. Bacon. I think it worked!”

  Henry nearly leapt out of his slippers. “Back gate,” he hissed and closed the door. David hurried down the side of the house. Mr. Bacon unbolted the gate. David followed him into the garden. As they passed the kitchen Mr. Bacon reached in and threw a switch. A string of ornamental lamps came on
, lighting up the lawn like an airport runway. At the end of the runway was the dreaded trap.

  Its door was closed.

  “Gotcha!” Henry hooted, doing a jig. He dropped to his knees, took a flashlight from his pocket and shone it fervently through the mesh.

  David’s heart skipped a very large beat. He was wondering what sort of jail term he’d get if he knocked Henry out, stole the trap, and made off with Conker, when suddenly Mr. Bacon slapped a hand on the grass.

  “Drat. False alarm. Caught a hog instead.”

  David knelt down and took a quick look. To his relief, a young hedgehog was shuffling around in the box, nibbling away at the lump of cheese.

  “Where’d that thing come from?” Henry grumbled.

  “Probably lives here,” said David. “It is allowed.”

  “Do you want it?” Henry snapped.

  David gave him a withering look. “What am I going to do with a baby hedgehog? Come on, Henry, let it go.”

  Muttering about his lame knee, Mr. Bacon lifted the trap and carried it to the end of the garden. There, under David’s watchful eye, he let the hedgehog roll to freedom.

  “Have to place the trap higher,” he mumbled, looking around for a suitable spot as they filed back onto the lawn again.

  “Hmm,” went David, miles away. But as the gist of Henry’s statement sank in, he quickly saw a chance to do Conker a favor. “Yes! That’s a GREAT idea!”

  Henry bumped to a halt.

  “Be a terrible nuisance if you had to keep resetting the trap, wouldn’t it? If you raised it off the ground, hedgehogs and … other things couldn’t get in. Rats could, though, because they like to climb.”

  Henry tapped a foot. “Could put it above the flower pots, perhaps?” Near the kitchen window was a rack. On the lowest shelf of three was a row of flower pots. The middle shelf was empty. It had to be a meter off the ground at least.

  “Could dangle a rope bridge,” Henry mused, “so Ratty can scramble up and think he’s smart.”

  Fine, thought David. Put an exercise wheel in the corner if you like. Just get it off the ground so Conker can’t reach it.