‘So, Dad, does this mean you’re not too angry with Bella?’ I asked tentatively as we drove home.
We’d spent an hour on the ward with Sam, helping him to settle in and making sure he had the stuff he needed. Dad went to the shop to buy him water and chocolate and some toothpaste because he’d run out while he was at the cottage. Sam looked like he was struggling not to cry at one point and Dad had patted him on the shoulder and told him to get some sleep.
‘Why would you think that?’ Dad grunted.
‘Well, you seemed OK with Sam … not angry with him any more, I mean.’
‘Sam’s in far too fragile a state to cope with my anger on top of everything else. Besides he’s been punished enough. Bella is a whole different story. She’s got all the family support she could possibly need and yet she’s done nothing but go behind our backs, causing trouble ever since we got here.’
‘She’s been really unhappy, Dad.’
‘Not as unhappy as she’s going to be. It’s time she learnt that it’s not just her feelings that matter in this family, Libby. When I think how we moved here so she could sit her exams next year at St Clara’s, and how she promised never to keep secrets like the bullying from us ever again … and how we trusted her …’
‘She didn’t want to keep Sam a secret, Dad. She felt like she didn’t have a choice, because you wanted to split them up. And it’s not like she wanted to move here or go to St Clara’s. She’s really nervous about it. She thinks she’ll never catch up with the work and that everyone will think she’s thick. And she must be really worried about what you’re going to do now. She won’t guess that you’re going to let Sam stay with us. I bet she thinks he’s going to get sent back to his mum’s.’
‘I probably would send him back if she’d have him,’ Dad grunted.
I paused, sensing a shred of common ground now.
‘His mum doesn’t sound very nice,’ I said slowly.
‘Not a maternal bone in her body, I’d say,’ he muttered, shaking his head as if he found her lack of parental concern totally bewildering. ‘OK, so she was a kid herself when she had him but she’s not a kid any longer. And there are plenty of young mums out there who care a hell of a lot more than that!’
I didn’t say anything else. Dad was on Sam’s side now, which was all that mattered.
We got home to find Mum in the kitchen making dinner and Grace in the living room doing a jigsaw. I presumed Bella was up in our room, sulking.
‘Libby, why don’t you help Grace do her jigsaw?’ Dad said. ‘I need to speak to Mum.’
‘Can I go and see Bella first?’
‘No. Stay with Grace. I’ll talk to Bella after I’ve spoken to your mother.’
‘Libby!’ My little sister immediately pulled me over to the table where she’d started to set out a jigsaw that Aunt Thecla had bought for her. It had way too many pieces because our aunt thought she needed ‘a bit of a challenge’.
I half expected Bella to come downstairs now we were back. Unless she was lying on her bed with her earphones in and hadn’t heard us come in.
After a while Dad went up to speak to her and Mum came through to the living room to tell us dinner was almost ready. We heard Dad calling out Bella’s name. Then he shouted down from the landing, ‘She’s not up here.’
‘Well, she’s not down here,’ Mum said, heading up the stairs to join him.
I started to feel my heart thumping in my chest even before I heard Dad exclaim, ‘Wait! There’s a note!’
I raced upstairs with Grace close behind wanting to know what was wrong.
I glanced around our bedroom, trying to spot if anything was missing. Bella’s rucksack usually hung on a peg on the back of the door along with her summer jacket. Both were gone. And I knew what had happened even before Dad started to read out her note …
Two hours later, Grace had gone to bed and my parents were sitting at the kitchen table looking shattered. Since we’d found out Bella had run away we’d tried everything we could think of to locate her.
Aunt Thecla hadn’t seen her or heard from her. I’d phoned Sam at the hospital to see if she’d contacted him, but she hadn’t. Dad had even phoned the ward and spoken to a nurse, who confirmed Sam hadn’t had any visitors since we’d left. Her bike was still in the shed, so she hadn’t cycled anywhere. I just couldn’t understand where she’d gone when she was totally without money. That’s when I remembered the brooch.
I rushed to check her jewellery box, where I knew she kept it.
‘It’s not here,’ I said.
We started trying to work out how long Bella had been gone. Apparently when Dad had phoned Mum to let her know we were at the hospital with Sam, Bella had begged to be allowed to catch the next bus to Castle Westbury to go and see him. But Mum said no and that she should wait for Dad and me to get back. After that Bella had stayed in her room – or so Mum thought.
‘Do you think she’s going to try and sell the brooch?’ Mum asked me.
‘No way!’ I said at once. ‘She loves that brooch!’
‘But she doesn’t have any money. Where will she sleep tonight? If only we hadn’t confiscated her phone …’
‘She wouldn’t have answered it, Nina,’ Dad said sombrely. ‘She’s not daft. She must have a plan. And I bet it involves Sam – even if he doesn’t know it yet.’
‘She might have called him at the hospital already and he’s just not telling us,’ Mum said.
‘How can she call him when she hasn’t got her phone?’ I pointed out.
‘There’s such a thing as an old-fashioned telephone box, Libby,’ Dad said drily. ‘Though come to think of it, would she even know how to use one?’
Mum rubbed her eyes. ‘Libby, are you sure you can’t think of anywhere else she might have gone? What about that girl you’ve been hanging out with recently?’
‘Tansy? Bella hardly knows her.’
‘Phone her anyway, just to check.’
I did, and Mum spoke to Tansy’s dad, but they hadn’t seen Bella either. Aunt Thecla phoned some of her friends to ask if anyone had seen her in the village that evening, but none of them had. Mum started phoning B & Bs and guest houses in Castle Westbury to see if any girl who sounded like Bella had checked in.
Finally she told me to go to bed. As I lay there I tried to think what I would do if I was Bella. Where would I go? I tried to imagine how she must be feeling and why she’d decided to run away.
I slept fitfully that night, worrying about Bella every time I woke up.
In the morning the first thing I did was run downstairs to see if there was any news. Aunt Thecla was in the kitchen. Mum and Dad had already left the house to look for Bella in Castle Westbury.
‘I told them she’ll probably come back under her own steam,’ Aunt Thecla said. ‘After all, she can’t very well run off with that boy now he’s got a broken leg. It’s not like he can whisk her away on the back of his motorbike, is it?’
‘Do they think Sam knows where she is?’ I asked.
‘The boy’s not answering his phone apparently. But for sure she’ll be at that hospital to see him at some point today. I told them they should just go there and wait.’
I went upstairs and tried Sam’s phone myself, but it went straight to voicemail. I started to worry that Bella had already contacted him and that they were planning to run away together. After all, neither of them knew that Dad was willing to let Sam stay at our place. She probably thought she would have to take matters into her own hands if she didn’t want to be separated from him.
I tried to think what Bella and Sam might do next. They couldn’t ride off into the sunset together on his motorbike, that was for sure. But if Sam was planning to run away with her he would first need to make some sort of arrangement for his bike. I knew he wouldn’t just abandon it. In fact, if he couldn’t use it himself any more maybe he would even try and sell it.
I threw on some clothes and raced out of the house before Aunt Thecla could ask any questions. I arrived at the garage just as Bill was opening up.
‘Bill, have you heard from Sam?’ I asked him breathlessly. ‘He’s broken his leg. I think he’ll need some help with his motorbike. Maybe he’ll even need to sell it. I thought he might have contacted you about it?’
‘No.’ He looked puzzled and I immediately felt deflated until he added, ‘It would make more sense if he was phoning me about that, right enough.’
‘What? Wait – so he has phoned you?’
‘He called last night. One of my customers owns a jewellery shop in Castle Westbury. Sam did a bit of work on her car while he was here. He wanted to know the name of her shop.’
I instantly felt excited. ‘Did he say if he wanted to sell some jewellery?’
‘Sell? Oh wait …’ He was looking worried now. ‘She buys antique jewellery, but she won’t touch anything dodgy. He’s not fencing stuff, is he?’
‘Oh no, it’s nothing like that!’ I said at once. ‘It’s just my sister’s got something she might be trying to sell and she might have asked him to help.’
He told me the name and address of the shop and I rushed back home, knowing I couldn’t do the next part on my own. I was going to have to ask Aunt Thecla for help.