In a panic, Pip spun around and looked up to see a pale, narrow face, lots of dark hair and a heavy, hairy coat. It was the girl with the guitar, Frankie, and she didn’t look any happier with Pip than Houdini did.
‘What are you doing here? Did you follow me?’ she hissed.
Pip shook her head. ‘No, I’m catching a train.’
Frankie’s scowl lifted a little. ‘That’s right. Byron, wasn’t it?’
‘Ssshhh!’ Warily, Pip glanced around but no one paid them any attention. She got to her feet, brushing herself down. ‘What are you doing here?’
Frankie shrugged. ‘Trying to make some cash, but nothing doing.’
‘How?’ Pip hoped Frankie wasn’t a pickpocket like her racetrack friend, Ginger, although he’d promised he’d given up his old ways now that Mr Blair had helped him find work as an apprentice.
Frankie held up a rough sign that said HUNGRY – PLEASE GIVE GENROUSLY. Pip wondered if she could really be that hungry after a burger with the lot.
But she didn’t say that. Instead, she just pointed out the spelling mistake. ‘There’s a missing E.’
Frankie shrugged. ‘I don’t think that made any difference. You’d think people would be more generous with Christmas just around the corner.’
‘Did you play your guitar for them?’ Pip had seen a few people singing and playing music outside the shops in Spring Hill now that it was getting close to Christmas. They usually had a box or a cap that people would drop coins into if they liked the songs.
‘I told you, I don’t do that anymore!’ Frankie snapped. She seemed very angry about something.
‘Why did you run off with the deluxe beach burger?’ Pip asked, thinking she should change the subject.
‘You would have too if you’d seen how much work I was expected to do to pay for it.’
‘It wasn’t so bad once you got into it,’ Pip said. ‘And he gave me food afterwards, even though he didn’t have to.’
‘What do you mean?’ The scowl was back. ‘You didn’t…’
‘He was going to call the cops on you.’
‘No way! Not over a stupid burger,’ Frankie scoffed, but she did look the tiniest bit ashamed.
‘He said it was a deluxe burger with the lot, including beetroot. Anyway, it’s not nice being arrested.’
‘Oh yeah, and how would you know?’
Pip really didn’t want to say too much. It had been a humiliating episode involving Ginger, the races and a dropped wallet. ‘It was a misunderstanding.’
‘You’re not old enough to be arrested.’
‘I had to go to the police station in a cop car.’ In other circumstances it would have been a highlight of Pip’s life, but under suspicion for stealing and knowing she would likely be sent into foster care, it had turned out to be one of the scariest moments instead.
‘I’m too smart to get caught,’ Frankie boasted.
Pip reckoned it was smarter not to do it in the first place, but she knew Frankie wouldn’t welcome the advice. In that instant, she wondered if this was how her mother had been: rebellious and convinced she knew best.
‘How old are you, Frankie?’
‘Nineteen.’
Cass might have been about the same age when Pip was born, maybe younger. If she had been, Pip could understand why Cass had felt Pip might be better off with Sully and his Em.
‘How old are you?’ Frankie asked.
‘Ten.’
Just then, the TV news rolled onto the screen above the ticket counter. As she glanced at it, Frankie let out a gasp.
‘That’s you!’ she exclaimed, turning to Pip.
Although the TV was fortunately on silent, the old fuzzy photo of Pip was unmistakeable.
RUNAWAY PIP VANISHES AGAIN said the caption.
‘Ssshhh!’ Pip whispered to Frankie.
For the first time, Frankie seemed the slightest bit impressed as she looked Pip up and down, although when she opened her mouth, she was her usual sardonic self. ‘You know you’ll be picked up before you get anywhere close to Byron, a kid on your own.’ She nodded towards the ceiling.
Pip stared into the dark round eye of a camera fixed there. Across the other side of the ticket office was its twin.
‘I’ve got an idea, though,’ Frankie was saying.
‘What?’ Pip was trying to surreptitiously move out of the camera’s line of sight. Glad she’d packed her cap, she slapped it on her head, hoping it would make her less recognisable.
‘Everyone’ll be looking for a kid with a dog. On your own, you’ll ring alarm bells right away, you know, but not if you’re with an adult.’
‘Who?’
‘Me.’ Frankie gave a triumphant grin. It was the first time Pip had seen her smile. ‘If you’re not what people are looking for, their eyes just slide right past you. It worked for me. If I’d had short blonde hair and sparkly earrings, I’d have been sprung like that.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Everyone knows what Frankie J. looks like. But no one gives a girl in an ugly coat with long dark hair a second look.’
Pip had about a million questions for Frankie, but just then a sharp whistle sounded from the platform.
Frankie grabbed Pip’s arm. ‘It’s heading your way. Let’s go!’
‘But I don’t have a ticket yet!’
‘No time. We’ll think of something.’ Frankie charged ahead, dragging Pip and Houdini along with her through the surging crowd.
And before Pip knew it, Frankie had tucked Houdini inside her coat and they were cramming onto the train, along with what seemed like half the population of Australia. The train tooted, the guard yelled something Pip couldn’t make out, and the train slowly rattled out of the station.
‘The train doesn’t go all the way to Byron Bay, you know,’ Frankie said once they’d found a quiet corner near a window where she could put Houdini down and they could look out at the scenery rushing past.
Pip stared at her in alarm. ‘What do you mean?’ Frankie pointed to a route map on the wall, and Pip’s heart plummeted like a stone. It was true. There was Byron Bay right on the coast, just before New South Wales became Queensland. The last station was some distance from Byron. But it was closer than she was now, much closer.
Putting a brave face on it, she said, ‘That’s where I’m going, then. I’ll work out how to get the last bit of the way once I get there.’
‘Why do you want to go to Byron Bay?’ Frankie asked.
‘My mother might be there.’
Frankie snorted. ‘Don’t you know?’
‘I know she was there.’ Pip fished the crumpled postcard from her pack and showed it to Frankie.
‘Look at the date! She sent this nine years ago. She could be anywhere by now.’
‘I know that!’ Did Frankie think she was an idiot?
‘You’re crazy, you know,’ Frankie said, confirming that she did. ‘Anyway, if I were you, I wouldn’t bother. Parents just get on your case.’
‘What do you mean?’ Pip asked.
‘Oh, you know.’ Frankie rolled her eyes as if that explained it all. ‘They want to know about everything you do, who your friends are, where you’re going. And when you tell them, it’s like “Frankie, be sensible. Frankie, you need to grow up. Frankie, those people are a bad influence. Frankie, why don’t you stay at home tonight?”’
None of that sounded unreasonable to Pip, who could imagine the Brownings saying much the same kind of things to Matilda in a few years’ time if she ever turned wild, not that that was likely.
‘Isn’t it their job to say sensible stuff?’ she pointed out. ‘That’s why they’re the grown-ups.’
‘Oh yeah? And you always do what grown-ups tell you? No, I didn’t think so, or you wouldn’t be here, right?’
Pip didn’t know what to say to that. She looked out the window as the train flew through suburbs and small stations, occasionally checking the route map to work out where they were. When the train stopped at a bigger station, plenty of people got off and only a few got on. She and Frankie snagged a corner booth, where Pip tucked Houdini safely out of sight under the seat in case dogs weren’t allowed, and Frankie stowed her guitar on the luggage rack above.
‘Shame we haven’t got anything to eat,’ she said. ‘That burger was a long time ago.’
Pip remembered the pie. She gave Frankie half, and split the remainder for herself and Houdini.
‘Frankie,’ Pip whispered, no longer able to hold back on the questions that had bubbled away since they’d climbed aboard the train. ‘Why did you used to be blonde?’
‘Because…someone said I’d have a better chance of winning if I was blonde. So I wore a wig.’ She smiled, but as though at a bitter memory rather than a sweet one.
Pip stared at her. ‘Winning what?’
Frankie uttered a snort of laughter. ‘You obviously don’t watch Star Seeker.’
Pip’s eyes widened and she sat up straight in her seat. ‘My friend Matilda talks about it all the time. It’s like a contest on TV to find the best singer.’ When Frankie said nothing, she added, ‘Were you on that show?’
Pip had met all kinds of people since she’d first gone on the run after Sully’s stroke, but she’d never met anyone famous before. Looking at the shaggy (and rather smelly) coat, the defiant brown eyes and long, uncombed hair, it was hard to imagine Frankie on a glamorous television show.
After a moment or two, Frankie nodded. ‘Just over a year ago. And it was mine to win. I had the best voice, the best song, the best everything. But you know what happened?’
Mesmerised, desperate to hear the rest, Pip shook her head.
‘You know the Star trophy they give to the winner of the final round?’
‘I think so. It’s like a ginormous gold star on a stand.’ Matilda sometimes pretended to be awarded the Star and make the winning speech.
‘That’s it. Well, a few days before the final round, the TV people pretty much told me I was the winner. They said the judges thought I was the most talented singer they’d seen in, like, forever. When I won, I’d get to record my best song in a proper studio, and people would be able to buy my records. And best of all, I’d have the Star trophy and my name – Frankie J. – would be engraved on it. One of the judges wanted me to sing at one of her concerts. I’d get an agent to help me with my career.’
Pip could only imagine it. ‘That must have been very exciting.’
‘Oh, it was. I was beyond excited, and when I sang in the final, it was my best performance ever.’ With her eyes closed, it was as though Frankie was back there, savouring her moment of glory. ‘Waiting backstage for the winner to be announced was the longest moment of my life, and when the announcement came…’
‘What?’ Pip was on the edge of her seat.
‘They announced the other finalist’s name. He’d won the Star, and I’d lost.’