‘How many sleeps till we start our new school?’ Grace asked as the three of us got ready for bed in Mum and Dad’s room that night. Grace had a tiny single room next to theirs, while Bella and I shared the musty-smelling twin-bedded room across the landing.
‘Oh, Grace, it’s not for ages yet –’ I began.
‘Three weeks,’ Mum said as she came in to help her find her pyjamas. ‘Are you excited about it, Gracie?’
There was a brief silence, then, ‘Mummy, if I don’t like my new school can I go back to my old one?’
‘No,’ Bella snapped, before Mum had time to answer. When Mum glared at her, Bella said stroppily, ‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it? You’re not going to let us go back.’
Mum was silent. I guess there wasn’t much she could say to that since essentially Bella was right. Bella’s bad mood wasn’t making this easier for any of us though.
‘Grace, I expect you will like it because you’re going to be at the same school as Bella and me,’ I said, trying to make her feel better.
Grace said nothing but she looked like she was thinking about something worrying. She stayed quiet for a little while longer then said, ‘Remember that painting of the dead fox that Aunt Thecla gave Daddy for his birthday? The one she painted herself and Daddy said was more real-looking than he’d expected?’
‘Yes,’ Mum and I said together, wondering where this was going.
‘Was that road killed, do you think?’
‘Oh … well …’ Mum and I looked at each other, both of us floundering.
‘Maybe … but then at least it wasn’t ripped apart by hounds,’ Bella said sarcastically before she disappeared into the only bathroom and slammed the door behind her.
Once Bella and I were alone in our bedroom she said, ‘Hey, do you know the only good thing about renting this place?’
‘What?’ I asked suspiciously, because I was struggling to find anything good about it right now. Our room was small and dark with a low ceiling and it smelt really odd. According to Bella the smell was probably a mix of damp, mould and dust, and she said it was a good job neither of us has asthma.
‘At least Aunt Thecla’s hideous paintings have to stay in storage!’ she declared.
I smiled. ‘That’s true! But it’s going to be tricky now we’re living so close to her, isn’t it? I mean, we can’t just put up her paintings for the week she’s staying with us.’
‘Sam thinks it’s hilarious how Mum and Dad do that,’ Bella said.
Suddenly Mum appeared in our doorway, looking anxious.
‘Have you two brushed your teeth yet?’
‘Yes, Mum!’ Bella answered with a roll of her eyes. ‘And flossed.’
‘Why? What’s wrong, Mum?’ I asked when she didn’t look nearly as satisfied as she normally would.
Then Dad appeared behind her, holding a large bottle of mineral water. ‘It definitely comes from a tank in the loft, Nina … full of animal droppings and dead bats, most likely …’
‘What are you talking about?’ Bella demanded.
‘The water in the bathroom. Make sure you don’t drink any of it. In fact, I wouldn’t even use it to brush your –’
He broke off as Bella let out a fake retching sound and I murmured, ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
After Mum and Dad had gone, Bella hissed angrily, ‘I hate it here! I wish –’ She broke off abruptly as her phone buzzed. We’d had an intermittent signal since we’d arrived – more absent than present – and now it seemed the outside world was finally getting through.
‘Is it Sam?’ I prompted as I watched Bella read the text.
‘Shush!’ She swiftly turned on to her side away from me and started texting back, shutting me out again, just like she usually did.
The first couple of days in our rented cottage turned out to be anything but idyllic. Yes, it looked like a quaint little country cottage on the outside and, yes, it was right next to a field with horses in it and, yes, there was a riding school just along the road and a farm nearby which sold freshly laid eggs. But actual day-to-day life soon turned out to be a sort of endurance test.
First, the ancient boiler kept switching off, leaving us with no hot water, and now that we’d got the front door open it wouldn’t close properly. On day two, Dad lost his temper and kicked the door shut with so much force that one of the rusty hinges broke off, so we had to get a joiner in to repair it and plane some wood off the bottom of the door at the same time. The joiner looked at the staircase handrail and said it could do with replacing, but Mrs Fuller refused to have that done, claiming there had been nothing wrong with the handrail until we’d set foot in her house. Instead she sent her husband round to fix it back on so that it looked OK again, though Mum and Dad kept reminding us to be careful as we weren’t sure how secure it was.
On day three it rained and we discovered several holes in the roof, one of which was directly above my bed. Mum said that must be why our bedroom smelt so badly of damp. The only positive thing was that Dad climbed up into the loft that day and found that the water storage tank had a cover on it. Which was just as well because at night we’d definitely heard some weird scratching noises overhead.
Sam was texting Bella several times a day, though because of the bad signal she often wouldn’t get any of his messages until we left the cottage. I guessed Sam must be missing Bella a lot, though funnily enough she didn’t seem to be missing him as much as I’d anticipated. I’d expected her to shut herself away and refuse to show any interest at all in our new surroundings. In fact, she seemed keen to go out and about exploring, though she never wanted any of us to go with her.
On day four Grace said she’d seen a gerbil in the garden and she got all excited because she thought it must be someone’s pet that had escaped from its cage. She spent all afternoon outside on the patio trying to lure it into an empty shoebox with little squares of peanut butter on toast, because according to Grace that’s what gerbils like to eat.
We didn’t take much notice until lunchtime the following day when we were all sitting at the table by the window eating sandwiches.
‘Oh look, there are two of them now!’ Grace suddenly said enthusiastically.
Mum looked out at the patio and screamed.
Two large rats were feeding on the scraps Grace had put down. ‘Right, that’s it, Paul! We’re not staying here!’ Mum blurted.
‘They’re only rats, Nina.’
Mum immediately started listing off all the horrible diseases rats can pass on to humans: ‘Typhoid fever, rat-bite fever, tapeworm, salmonellosis, leptospirosis, toxoplasmosis, bubonic plague –’
‘OK, OK, don’t panic. I’ll put down some poison,’ Dad said impatiently.
Grace burst into tears. ‘You can’t poison them, Daddy! It’s cruel!’ She became completely hysterical when he offered to set some traps to kill them with instead.
‘Hey, what if those scratchy noises in the loft are rats?’ Bella said. ‘What if they’re inside the house as well?’
That afternoon Mum and Dad went to see our landlady, Mrs Fuller. Mum was usually perfectly happy to leave us in the house alone for short periods, but today she invited Aunt Thecla over to stay with us while they were gone.
‘Are you sure that’s necessary, Nina?’ Dad said, trying to dissuade her. ‘The countryside is much safer than the town, you know.’
But Mum wouldn’t be swayed and said that the countryside in general might be safer, but this particular cottage was a whole different matter.
Of course, as soon as Aunt Thecla arrived she was bursting with ‘I told you so’. Having seen and smelt our bedroom she offered to put up Bella and me in her spare room straight away. She didn’t offer for Grace to come with us. I think even she knows that Grace is too much of a mummy’s girl to agree. Besides, Grace’s bedroom wasn’t nearly as toxic as ours.
I’d expected Bella to kick up a fuss about moving in with Aunt Thecla, even for a short while, but to my surprise she readily agreed. ‘That would be brilliant, Aunt Thecla!’ she said, rewarding her with an unusually warm smile.
So that evening Bella and I left Rat Cottage (as Bella had christened it) and moved in with Aunt Thecla, while Mum and Dad began their search for alternative accommodation in the village.