Chapter 47
It was getting dark outside now. Lily knew that from looking out through the crack in the door of the store cupboard. This would be her second night. One. Two. She counted on her fingers, just as they did in the bed game at playgroup.
A funny gurgle came from her tummy. Lily had eaten her way through the packet of stale biscuits in the cupboard and now there were no more left. It was cold, so she’d snuggled up to the soft pink blanket that she’d had since she was a baby, even though those oil marks on it made it smell nasty.
When it got really dark, she would go out on the top and look for Mama like she had last night.
‘Lily! Lily!’
Lily pulled the store-cupboard door shut and wrapped her pink blanket around herself to keep safe. She’d heard the same voices yesterday and earlier today. Voices that she didn’t recognise, which called out this name that wasn’t her name at all.
It belonged to another girl, Mama had explained in their own private language that no one else understood. ‘You have to pretend you are her. It’s like the dressing-up game you play at Puddleducks. Remember, if you play it well, the lady in sunglasses will give us more money so we can live in a proper house. But if you don’t, they will take Mama away and she won’t see you for a long, long time.’
That prospect was so terrible that Lily would have done anything to prevent it happening. But she needed to see Danny in his London hospital. When she’d left that lady called Miriam, who smelt like funny cheese, to go to the gift shop, she had spotted the boat on the canal. It was like the one she and Mama were living on, except this one was green. And it was about to move!
Maybe, she thought, as she hid in the cupboard, it might take her to London. Then she could give Danny his present. But it had been going very slowly. It could take ages. Almost as long as it had taken her and Mama to get here in that big lorry all the way from their homeland.
‘Lily! Lily!’
The voices were coming closer. She could hear people talking. The same people who were driving the boat. Lily had learned many English words from playing with Billy and Danny. She could pick up some now.
There were other phrases that she didn’t understand. What did ‘Just come from the south?’ mean. She needed to find out. Mama said she had a good ear for language. It would take them far.
Footsteps! She could hear people coming down the steps into the boat. The voices were now right outside her cupboard home! Lily’s throat tightened as though someone had put a rope round it, which is what Mama had said might happen if they were caught in the lorry.
‘No! No!’ she cried out.
But the doors were opening and there was a woman standing there with a black hat on and a black coat. No, she screamed again. And then she started singing. Singing the song they’d learned at nursery because even though she didn’t understand all the words, they made her feel better. Besides, when Dillon had got locked in the car, they had sung the song with Mrs Merryfield and then a nice man had come along and let him out.
‘We are the little Puddleducks …’
‘It’s all right, Lily,’ said the strange voice. ‘I’m a policewoman, dear. You’re safe now.’
Lily looked up at her in disgust. For some reason, now they were face to face, the fear had gone. Be brave, her mother had said. Always be brave, especially if the people in black uniform found them.
‘My name is not Lily. My name is Natasha.’