The Forever Girl

5



They had decided to investigate more closely what was happening at the Arthur house. The onset of cooler weather in December meant that Mr Arthur, who normally worked in an air-conditioned study, had opened his windows. The house was built in the West Indian style – both Mr Arthur and his wife came from Barbados – and had wide doors and windows under the broad sloping eaves of a veranda. If the windows of Mr Arthur’s study were closed to allow the air conditioners to function, then they could not see what was going on within, even with the telescope. But with the windows open and a light switched on inside, then they were afforded a perfect view of Mr Arthur, framed by the window, at work at his desk.

“What does he do?” asked James. “He just sits there and phones. Is it all spying?”

“Teddy says that he sells ships. I asked him, and that’s what he says his father does.”

James looked doubtful. “Where are all the ships? In his yard?”

She agreed that it was an unlikely story. “That’s probably what he’s told Teddy,” she said. “Because he’ll be ashamed to tell his own son he’s a spy. Spies don’t like their family to know.”

“Yes,” said James. “You can’t trust your own family not to tell other people.”

One afternoon, they saw a man come into the study. Clover was at the telescope, but yielded her place to James. “Look,” she said. “Somebody’s come to see him.”

James crouched at the telescope.

“What’s happening now?” she asked.

“There’s a piece of paper,” said James. “Mr Arthur is giving it to the man. The man’s handing it back to him.”

“And now?”

He hesitated. “Now he’s … Look. You just look. He’s burning it. He’s set fire to the paper.”

She resumed her place at the telescope. The instrument had shifted, but a small movement brought it back to focus on the lighted window, and she saw a man’s hand holding a piece of blackened paper, then dropping it.

“Burning the evidence,” she said.

“The codes,” James said. “Burning the codes.”

They stared at each other in silence, awed by the importance of what they had just seen.

“We’re going to have to do something,” James said at last.

“Such as?”

She waited for his reply.

“I think we need more evidence,” he said. “We need to take photographs.”

She asked how they would do that.

“We go and see Teddy. Then we take photographs while we’re there.”

“Teddy doesn’t like us,” she pointed out. “He’ll wonder why we’re there.”

That was not an insurmountable problem in James’s view. They would make overtures to Teddy – they would invite him to their tree-house, even ask him to join in their counter-espionage activities.

“But it’s his own dad,” objected Clover. “He’s not going to like that.”

“We start off by watching our own parents,” he said. “That’ll show him we’re not just picking on him. We’ll say that we have to watch everybody – with no exception. We’ll say that his dad is probably innocent, but we need to prove that he’s innocent.”

“That’ll work,” she said.

He took the leadership in these matters. It was her tree-house and her telescope, but he was the leader in these games. It had never been discussed, but that was the way that things were ordered. And this was to be the case always; she would always be the one in waiting, the one hoping for recognition, for some sign from him.

She looked at him; something quite different had crossed her mind. “Have you ever heard of blood brothers?”

The question did not seem to interest him. He shrugged.

“Well, have you?” she pressed.

“Maybe. It’s stupid.”

She frowned. “I don’t think it’s stupid. You mix your blood. That makes you blood brothers. Lots of people do it.”

He shook his head. He was still avoiding her gaze. “They don’t.” He paused. “Name one person who’s done it. Name them.”

“Lance Bodden. He’s a blood brother with Lucas Jones. He told me. He said they both cut themselves and then put the blood together. In the palm of their hands. He said there was lots of blood.”

“You can get things from that,” he said. “You get the other guy’s germs. There are lots of germs in blood. It’s full of germs, especially if you’re Lucas Jones. He’s dirty.”

She did not think there was much of a risk. “Blood’s clean. It’s spit that’s full of germs. You don’t mix your spit.”

“I wouldn’t be a blood brother anyway,” he said. “Not me.”

She hesitated. “We could be blood brothers – you and me.”


Now he looked at her incredulously. “You’re joking.”

“No, I’m not. We could be blood brothers. Not with lots of blood – just a little. We could use a pin – pins don’t hurt as much as knives.”

This was greeted with a laugh. “But you’re a girl, Clover. We can’t be brothers. You have to be a boy to be brothers.”

She blushed. “Girls and boys are not all that different.”

He shook his head. “They are.”

Her disappointment showed. “They can be friends. Best friends even.”

He rose to his feet. “I have to go. Sorry.”

“Because of what I said? Because you don’t want to be blood brothers?”

“Not that. I’ve got to go home – that’s all.”

He began to climb down the ladder. From above she watched him. She liked the shape of his head. She liked his hair, which was dark blond and a bit bristly up at the top. Boys’ hair seemed different, but she could not put her finger on the reason why it seemed different. Could you tell if it was just a single hair you were looking at? Could you tell under a microscope?

He reached the bottom of the ladder and looked up at her. He smiled. She loved his smile too. She loved the way his cheeks dimpled when he smiled. She loved him. It was a strange feeling – a feeling of anticipation, of excitement. It started in her stomach, she thought, and then worked its way up. She slipped her hand under her T-shirt and felt her heart. You fell in love in your heart, she had heard, but she was not sure how you could tell. Could you feel your pulse and count it? Was that how you knew?


Teddy was keen.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve often thought that people round here are hiding something.”

“There you are,” said James. “So what we have to do is just make sure that everybody round us is okay. We check up on them first, and then we move on to other people. We’ll find out soon enough who’s a spy and who isn’t.”

“Good idea,” said Teddy. He looked puzzled. “How do you do it?”

“You watch,” Clover explained. “Spies give themselves away eventually. You note where they go. You have to keep records, you see. And you take photographs. I’ve got a camera.”

“Me too,” said Teddy. “For my last birthday. It has this lens that makes things closer …”

“Zoom lens,” said James knowingly. “Good.”

“And then we can load them onto the computer and print them,” said Teddy. “I know how to do that.”

“We can begin with your dad,” said James casually. “Just for practice.”

Teddy shook his head. “No. Why begin with him? Why not begin with yours?”

James glanced at Clover.

“All right,” she said. “We don’t have to start with your dad, Teddy. We can start with mine. Or even my mum. My dad’s out at the office most of the time. We can start with my mum.”

“Doing what?” asked Teddy.

Clover put a finger to her lips in a gesture of complicity. “Observation.”