8 LONDON
As we drive along, the smell of diesel, rotting wood, algae and salty air starts to creep under the tarp.
It makes memories peep out of hiding in my head. The nose-bouquet is almost identical to the damp fog-funk that used to roll off the River Thames.
Our estate was behind the Royal Victoria Dock. The least posh part of the docklands, despite the name.
The old wharf was mine. I’d watch the cargo ships and tug boats and dream about stowing away. Not that I didn’t like living with Nan, but she had this habit of saying, ‘as soon as you’re sixteen, you’re out, devil’s spawn’.
And I was about to turn sixteen.
A Chinese Freighter captain took me on, probably because I was so good at miming. We didn’t need words, me and the Cap.
But I learned a few in the month as a galley hand.
Gāisǐ de báichī.
That was me—the crew’s favorite, I never learned what it meant, but every day they called me ‘Gāisǐ de báichī’’[1].
After the excellent ocean crossing, we docked at the bottom of Havengard in a city called Southernhampton. Finally I’d got to the place where magic was supremo. I was here and I was going to get my spark, I just knew it.
But Cap somehow got muddled, I guess, then handed me straight to immigration. Who put me straight into Quo. Turds. Never did get a moment to find the magic.
My second escape from Quo has gone much better than the first.
I give Shane a quick mental squeeze. He’s forever going to be my hero.
Love him.
I don’t like thinking about the time in-between my two Quo visits, it makes the red tattoo on my chest throb. Happily the truck pulls to a stop so my brain can be occupied with other things.
“End of the line,” Rex’s voice calls out as Shane pulls back the tarp. The wet rotted smell gets stronger. Oooh-er, it’s trying to pull me down memory lane again. But my next lot of memories are onay ogay.
“London?”
A soft hand strokes my face. I focus on her Kitten-blue eyes as she leans closer. “You OK? You zoned out for a beat.”
No, no, no. No zoning out around my kitty-cat. I sit straight up and wiggle off the blues. As she gives me one of her special looks, I hop out and straighten my cardigan buttons. “I’m right as the rainiest rain, Kitten,” I tell her. “What’s next? Fishing? Kissing?”
I saw her and Burt snogging in the hallway which made me very happy. Burt needed that, but so do I.
And Shane. His vibrations got proper-twisty when he watched them.
Silly Billy.
No brainy, Shaney.
But maybe he doesn’t see the dance like I do.
Kitten is our maypole, and we are the ribbons that wrap around her.
“Thanks, Rex,” Burt grunts, his new baseball cap pulled so low I can only see the prickly line of his jaw.
It makes me a bit jelly, I’ve yet to grow a beard, and I’d really like one.
I put up a hand to stroke Burt's bristles but he slaps my hand away, focusing on his Tyrannosaurus Rex friend. “You should get out of here, establish an alibi somewhere. We’ve been lucky so far, but that can change.”
Rex nods. “Don’t I know it. Luck never holds for people like me.” He jumps into the cab, jams the truck into gear, then wheels out spraying mud all over my nice new jeggings.
Burt shoves the rusted sliding door of the nearest warehouse open. “Inside. Now,” he orders.
It’s wonderfully dark inside. It smells like old iron, dead crabs, and has that deep hollow sound that makes my footsteps go ‘slap, slap, slap,’ across the concrete floor.
Blimey, just imagine what my hooves would sound like!
“You’ve got your magic back?” Kitten asks Shane.
“Mostly, and you?”
Kitten shrugs. “I can feel my spark, but nothing's connecting yet.”
Ooh, spark. That must be the thing inside me. “Teach me a spell, Shane. I think I’ve got the zip-zaps too!”
Sadly, he doesn’t hear me. Instead he follows Burt into a little room tucked in the corner.
An office, I think, for people who liked desks and piles of paper.
It has a cracked glass window that lets in the gray harbor light.
All the cabinets are covered in a thick blanket of dust, like Sleeping Beauty’s furniture.
“Here, look at this,” Kitten says, her yellow mackintosh rustling like a bag of crisps. She’s looking at a map.
No, it’s a sea chart.
Burt drops our very important bag of food on the floor.
Good thing dented tins make the best suppers.
He presses his mitts flat against the paper, making it flat as a pancake.
“This is good, shows both islands, though what we really need is intel. An internet search would give us plans on what’s built where. ”
Shane steps up. Maybe he’s got cyber-powers? I wonder if he makes that whirring, noisy dial-up sound?
If he does, it’s disappointingly silent. “This one has actual routes marked, but the other just has brown dashes—that’s private roads. Doesn’t take a genius to guess where a hidden brothel would be,” Shane says, being clever.
I don’t want to one-up him, so I just nod my agreement. No need to point out that I knew that as I’ve actually been to the baddest island in the world before. And anyway, I hate thinking about that. Instead I can focus on the charts.
I love chart-art!
I elbow my way in between him and Burt. “This line is the shipping channel,” I tell them, tapping a long, purple mark with my fingernail. “The magenta ones mean it’s a Traffic Separation Scheme, see? Proper highway for the big boys, so the cargo hulls don't go bonk in the night.”
Burt gives me a look, the kind he uses when he thinks I’m about to start whistling or doing a dance. “London, do you actually know what you’re talking about?”
I huff, adjusting my floral cardigan because it’s bunching up at the armpits.
“See the little numbers scattered all over the blue bits. Look at that twenty-two right by the entrance. It’s in fathoms and feet.
Six feet to a fathom, everyone knows that!
Twenty-two fathoms means it’s deep enough to hide a whale, but right next to it—see that little six with the underline?
That’s a drying height, silly billy. It means when the tide goes out, the mud comes up to say hello and your boat goes crunch. ”
Shane blinks, his dark eyes narrowing as he leans closer to the dusty paper. “You actually have this knowledge?”
“Of course!” My fingers dance across the crinkly paper, following the wiggly contour lines that look like giant thumbprints.
“And look here, at the gap between the mainland and the first island. You see those tiny magenta feathers on the arrows? That’s the tidal stream.
The numbers next to them—three-point-five and five-point-zero—that’s the knots at springs and neaps.
If you try to take a little jaunt through there when the ebb tide hits the western wind, you’ll get the yikes. ”
Burt’s brow is so furrowed it looks like a plowed field. “And this?” His finger traces over a tiny symbol—a little circle with dots around it and a line through the middle. “There be a sunken wreck right there, matey, arrr,” I grin in my best pirate voice.
Kitten snuggles into my side, making me the happiest chappy in kingdom-come. “Where did you learn this, London?”
“Sailed the sea with Captain Xi,” I tell her. “You should see me with a sextant.” I give a wink.
“This is great. So what boat shall we steal?” Kitten asks, getting all excited about doing some naughty nautical nicking.
Shane has been awfully quiet. His vibrations aren't wobbling at all. It’s like he’s frozen. I pinch him on the bottom to make sure he’s not stuck.
“Get off me, un imbécile absolu.”
Oh, phew. He’s still with us.
“Yeah, a boat.” Burt looks at me. “Thoughts?”
My chest swells with pride. Burt? Asking me for my thoughts? That hardly ever happens. In fact, it’s never happened. Aw, love him.
“Something shallow-draft would be super-duper, then we can zoom over sandbanks even at low tide. Hmm. But we’ve got some real sea to cross, so a jon boat might be too oopsie. A dingy, I think. Sailing dingy with oars, then we can pull the keel up. Lovely job.”
Burt looks at Kitten, then at me. “You can get us there without putting Rory in any danger?”
I do a little tip-toe wiggle. “Yes sir, I can boogie, but not tonight. Can’t go in the dark.”
Kitten’s face falls, so I cheer her up. “But we can scout out our trusty steed. Want to go shopping?”
“In the dark?” Shane does his face. “Aurora needs food and rest. It makes the most sense to find our vessel at first light.”
Hmm, that’s when all the fisher men and ladies get busy, but I don’t want to rain on Shaney’s parade, so I zip my mouth. And anyway, I’m cream crackered, and I can tell that Kitten is too by all the cute yawns.
Burt and Shane huddle, and start murmuring about watch rotations and locking down the warehouse doors. I take a bean can, which handily has a pull-tab top, then grab Kitten and pull her onto the floor next to me.
“Here.” I hand her a sliver of wood, and find one for myself. “Two hundred and eleven in three minutes. Shall we try?”
She gives me a smile that squeezes my heart, then tucks in.
Kitten is nowhere near fast enough for a record, but that’s OK, she can work up to it.
My bottom is freezing to a solid block on the cold concrete floor, so I imagine her sweet cheeks are as well. In the bleat of a goat, I shift, then pull her onto my lap. “Better?”
“Much,” she sighs, putting the beans onto the ground, then looking up at me through the gloom.
Her eyes are all watery and blue, and then she collapses against my wooly pecs.
I wrap the cardie around her, pulling her close until her head is tucked right under my chin.
I turn up the faun-fire until I’m perfectly hot-water-bottle temp.
Kitten lets out a long, shaky breath, her body softening into my ribs as the warmth hits her. “I’m just so tired, London. My head won't stop spinning with everything.”
“Then stop the wheels,” I tell her gently. “Close the old eyeballs. London’s got you.”
She rests her hand against my chest, right over my heartbeat, her breathing slowing down to match mine. I rest my cheek against the top of her head and start to sing a shanty.
Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies.
Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain.
For we've received orders for to sail for old England.
But we hope in a short time to see you again.
“Isn’t that what they sang in Jaws?” she murmurs.
I’m not sure what she’s talking about, so I just keep singing.
We’ll rant and we’ll roar like true British sailors,
We’ll rant and we’ll roar all on the salt sea.
Until we strike soundings in the channel of old England;
From Ushant to Scilly is thirty five leagues
I sing it real quiet, rocking her like I’m her bunk on a clipper.
Across the room, Burt and Shane stop talking. I can feel their eyes watching us through the dark. By the time I get to the verse about the white sandy bottoms, Kitten’s hand goes completely loose against my shirt. Her breathing is deep and crisp and even, just like the feast of Stephen.
Except he was never snuggled under a cardigan with me.
I’ll keep humming into the dark, watching the shadows, and keeping the cold world away from our maypole for as long as it’s needed.
Sleep, Kitten.