The Night Rainbow A Novel - By Claire King Page 0,70

my bedroom window I sneak a look back down into the courtyard. The sun is already drying up the water. With my finger in the air, I trace over the last dissolving letters of you, but then it is as if she had never written it.

At supper time there is a strange feeling in the kitchen. Maman has made ratatouille. She heaps our plates with yellow couscous and spoons the rainbow sauce on top. The food is too colourful for our moods. Maman seems to agree. She doesn’t eat hers at all, just sits at the end of the table and fans herself with a table mat. We have glasses of water with ice cubes that crackle and clunk against the glass as they melt.

You’re quiet, Maman says.

It wasn’t such an interesting afternoon in the meadow, I say. And I’m sorry about my dress.

She nods. Thank you for cleaning the other clothes, she says.

You’re welcome, I say.

I wonder how long I have to sit at the table before I can go to bed.

Chapter 17

We have played hide and seek. We have poked around in the fairies’ garden. We have picked four-leaved clovers (two) and we have paddled in the stream. We have made guns out of plantain stalks and popped them at each other. It is hot and we are thirsty. We have climbed the trees and eaten some apples, a little bit sour but not too bad. Not enough juice to make the thirst go away, though. We have picked through the blackberries and found some that were ripe at last. We have eaten a handful. Sweet, soft, but still not enough juice. We have eaten handfuls of elderberries, but they taste like lemons and make me even thirstier. There is nothing by the girl-nest again. No water. Nothing. No sign of Merlin and no sign of Claude. It is too early to go home.

What did we do before we had Claude and Merlin to play with? I say to Margot.

It was just you and me, she says.

But what did we do?

This and that, she says. Margot is not so funny today.

The meadow seems empty without Claude. We’ve been here all day, waiting. I wonder what we did to make him cross, I say.

Perhaps he’s sick, says Margot.

He could be, I say, or maybe he died.

Right, says Margot, that’s it. We have to say a decision. What if Claude needs help and no one is helping him? Maybe only we know he is in terrible danger.

Yes, I say. We have to investigate.

We cross the road carefully and walk along the edge until we reach his gate. Heat comes up off the road and down from the sky. The tarmac is sticky under my sandals, shining in the sunlight. Claude’s gate is open and I click the latch closed behind me. In the driveway is a car. It is the same blue as blue jay feathers; it looks old, but clean. It snaps with Claude. I run my finger along it on the way by.

The car is a clue, says Margot.

By the front door is a spade, a dirty one.

The spade is a clue, says Margot.

I reach up to the metal door knocker and clonk it three times. No one answers.

We are standing outside the door to Claude’s house, and I am not sure what to do next. It has been three days now since he came to the low meadow.

What if Claude is dead? I say. There won’t be anyone to look after Merlin. If Claude doesn’t give Merlin his food and drink, Merlin will die.

Maybe Merlin has a clue, says Margot.

Do you understand his talking? I ask her. I don’t.

I can try, she says.

So I call the dog. Merlin!

There is no bark. I shout louder. Merlin! It’s me, Pea!

Nothing at all. It is scary-quiet at Claude’s house.

This is a big clue, says Margot.

Something is wrong and the darkness is in my stomach.

We have to do something grownup, says Margot. Maybe we should call the police?

How do you call the police? I say.

I don’t know, actually, says Margot.

So really there is no deciding to be done. We have to go and see if Claude is dead. I clonk the door knocker again, three times, and then three times harder, and then a lot, very hard indeed. Nobody comes.

I wonder if maybe Claude has been got by the bad men, or maybe he . . . On the wall by the front door a praying mantis lands with a clatter,