4

I’m pretty certain I’ve died and gone to that paradise place in the sky. Though I don’t much mind where I am – it’s so warm and comfy here – just as long as no one asks me to move. When I open my eyes, though, I see sheets and blankets, a pillow squished under my head. For the first time in my life, I’m lying in a proper bed.

The kind-faced boy is here with me. He’s sitting beside my bed, reading, his pet duck perched on the back of his chair. The duck’s the first to spot I’m awake, and I swear he gives me the evils, like he doesn’t trust me an inch. I stare back at him, the stupid duck, which makes him quack crossly.

This gets the boy’s attention. As he looks up from his book, he smiles. ‘Bonjour! How are you feeling?’

I try to shuffle up the bed; it isn’t easy because my left arm’s been strapped across my chest. It hurts, too – everything does, like a bull’s stomped over me, then turned around and done the whole thing again.

‘I’ll live.’ I’m not exactly used to beds or being asked how I am, and feel a bit awkward. ‘Where are we?’

‘My house – I mean, my parents’ house. We brought you back here after the accident. Don’t you remember?’

I shake my head. Everything’s blurry round the edges still. I remember flashes of things – the view from up in the air, the popping noise my shoulder made. And something shadowy that I can’t quite get hold of, that makes my stomach turn with dread.

‘What’s your name?’ the boy asks. ‘I’m Pierre Montgolfier. And this –’ he turns to tickle the duck under its beak, ‘– is Voltaire, my pet duck.’

‘Big name for a duck,’ I remark.

Pierre grins. ‘Isn’t it? I named him after the writer, you know.’

I don’t. But I remember hearing from somewhere about Pierre’s lot owning the paper mill, which means they’re not short of a coin or two, so he obviously reads and writes and does clever things.

‘What’s your name?’ Pierre asks.

‘Umm . . .’ I’m thinking it might be simpler to make something up. But Pierre’s face is kind: I like it.

‘I’m Magpie,’ I say.

‘Magpie? Is that a girl’s name?’

I bristle a bit. ‘Well, it’s my name, if that’s what you mean.’

‘And your family name?’

I blink. A family name?

‘I don’t have a family. It’s just me and Coco,’ I reply.

I could tell Pierre that my father came from Algiers on a stolen boat, that I’ve got his dark skin and hair and taste for adventure. My mother had tastes of a different sort: she drank gin and died of it when I was barely old enough to remember. From then on, I had to fend for myself. And I did all right at it too. Families, I reckon, are over-rated.

‘Magpie,’ I repeat, firmly. ‘I’m Magpie. How long have I been here?’

Pierre counts on his fingers. ‘Two weeks and a day . . . no, two days.’

I’m horrified. ‘Really?’

But I never stay longer than a single night anywhere. A new night, a new doorway, that’s my motto. It’s safer that way. If you keep moving, nothing – or no one – catches up with you.

‘Have I been asleep all that time?’ I ask.

‘Pretty much, yes. You said some funny things in your sleep, too, something about gold coins and the deal being done? Does that mean anything to you?’

I shake my head. Yet the feeling of dread grows stronger. Just around the corner of what I can remember is someone I’d rather not meet again. If it’s known I’m here, they’ll come looking for me and I don’t wish any trouble on Pierre’s family.

‘Well ta for everything, but I’d better be off,’ I say, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

I try to stand but the floor has other plans. It tilts like a ship in a storm, making me drop down onto the bed again.

‘Nice try,’ Pierre says. ‘You’re not going anywhere until you’re better.’

‘I am better,’ I protest. ‘It’s decent of your family to take me in and all, but just tell me what you’ve done with my rooster and we’ll be on our way.’

‘That bird you gave to Papa? The one that sleeps all the time?’ Pierre asks. ‘He followed us home. We can’t get rid of him.’

‘Is he all right?’

Pierre nods. ‘He’s been waiting outside your bedroom door all this time. He’s pining for you, Magpie.’

Poor Coco. I’m almost teary. ‘Can I see him?’

Pierre opens the door. And there, just outside, is my dear orange-feathered friend. If a rooster’s face could fill with joy, his does just that. Before Pierre can even catch him, he’s dashed into the room and up onto the bed, where he settles into the crook of my good arm like we’ve never been apart. Instantly, I’m feeling better, and try again to get out of bed, but still don’t manage it.

‘Stop being so stubborn. You need to rest,’ Pierre tells me. ‘You fell a long way that day, helping us with our prototype.’

That funny word again.

It jogs my memory some more, and slowly, bit by bit, the fog inside my head begins to clear. Now I can picture ropes trailing along the ground. The wind was too strong for us, wasn’t it, the white object filled up with too much air or . . . or . . . something . . . and it was moving too fast, and lifting away from the ground.

But it isn’t the falling part I remember most. It’s the bit before – the flying part – that comes back to me the strongest. The field slipping away from me, the look of wonder on Pierre and his father’s faces. It was the most incredible, magical thing that’s ever happened to me. My heart thumps just from thinking about it.

‘I’d help again, too, honest I would,’ I say. ‘Shame you fell when you did because it was fantastic up there in the air. You’d love it.’

‘Believe me, I wouldn’t,’ Pierre replies. ‘No one was meant to fly that day, and I’ve no plans to repeat the experience. It’s completely unsafe.’

‘Maybe one day it will be, though.’

He quickly changes the subject. ‘I don’t mean to be rude Magpie, but you smell like an old donkey. No, actually, worse than an old donkey.’

‘Well, you smell like . . .’ The truth is he’s so clean he doesn’t smell of anything.

Half an hour later, a sullen-faced servant girl arrives. She’s sweating under her arms and down her back like she’s got a fever – no wonder when I see the tin bath she’s dragging behind her.

‘Brought this all the way up from the basement so you’d better be grateful,’ she says, scowling at me.

Dumping the bath, she disappears, returning again and again with jugs of hot water until it’s filled. On one of these trips she forgets to shut the door and I overhear her talking in the passageway.

‘I’m carrying this bathwater and can’t do nothing else, Madame Verte,’ she complains. ‘There’s the animals to feed and Monsieur Joseph’s gone all strange – one minute he wants his pencils sharpened, the next he’s shouting and screwing up paper and saying he can’t make his designs work any more.’

‘It’s this obsession with flying, Odette,’ replies an older woman. ‘Ever since his notes disappeared that night he’s more or less given up. But he won’t go back to working at the mill. He just sits up in his study all day, staring out of the window.’

My ears prick at this. Missing notes? Sounds familiar.

And the final bit of the puzzle comes to me, click, clunk, like opening a lock with a hairpin. Which was exactly how I broke in here that night, wasn’t it, though I’m not proud of it now. In fact, I’m out and out ashamed. Those papers I took – the different skies, the object floating in each one – were designs for Pierre’s father’s flying creation, weren’t they?

I groan miserably. I’ve done a shoddy thing, even by my usual low standards.

Odette’s talking again: ‘I reckon it’s the accident. Never mind what happened to that Magpie – from what I’ve heard, Pierre nearly came a cropper, too.’

‘Can’t risk losing the only son, can they?’ Madame Verte agrees.

‘Only child by the way Madame Montgolfier’s been recently. She don’t need anything else to fret about, that’s for sure.’

When Odette stomps back into the room, I try to make it look like I’ve not been listening. She hands me a lump of something wrapped in paper. I sniff it warily.

‘It’s soap.’ She stares in disbelief. From her apron pocket, she produces a pair of shears and comes at me with them.

Horrified, I shrink back into the pillows. ‘What are those for?’

‘Your hair. Madame Verte says it’s to come off. You’ve got lice.’

‘I haven’t.’ But I’m instantly scratching my head. I’m crawling with lice, of course I am.

She makes me get out of bed and sit on an upright chair. She isn’t gentle with the shears, either. Soon the floor’s covered in so much hair I can’t imagine there’s any left on my head. With a look of disgust, she sweeps it into a bucket for burning.

I’m wearing a nightgown-type slip, the sleeves of which roll up easily so Odette can take the strapping off my bad arm. Before I know it, she’s whipped the nightgown off too. And I’m stood there, starkers and shivering.

‘No looking,’ I warn her.

She rolls her eyes. ‘I’ve got better things to gawp at than your scrawny body.’

By now, though, I’m almost glad to get into the bath. It feels like sitting in a giant, lukewarm puddle, and that’s the nice bit. When Odette scrubs my back I’m sure she’s mistaken me for a stone floor.

Afterwards, she gives me a clean nightgown. The bath has left me so wobbly-weak I’m glad to get back into bed. Right on cue, Voltaire the duck’s head appears round the door, then Pierre’s.

‘You look better.’ He grins. ‘Can we come in now?’

I give a weary shrug. I suppose boys like him, and their ducks, don’t have much else to do all day. Taking the seat by the bed again, Pierre passes me a little mirror, the sort that’d make a few coins for its silver. ‘Have you seen yourself?’

Reluctantly, I take the mirror. I’ve seen enough of my reflection in shop windows and horse troughs to know I’m no beauty. Still, it comes as a shock to see myself without hair. Don’t think I’m vain, but my eyes look way too big and my freckles stand out like tea-leaves on my cheeks. I’m all sharpness and shadows. I thrust the mirror back at Pierre.

‘I look like a boy,’ I mutter, hugging Coco to me. At least he doesn’t seem to mind. Yet Voltaire, who’s sat importantly on Pierre’s knee, quacks. ‘See, even your duck thinks so.’

‘You look better than you did before,’ Pierre remarks.

I tense up: what before does he mean? Before the bath? Before, downstairs by the back door when I tried to steal the box? What if the scarf round my face didn’t fool him? Does that mean he knows who I am?

Once again, I get the feeling that this bedroom – this lovely, comfortable bedroom – is a trap.

‘I’m not under arrest, am I?’ I ask nervously.

‘Arrest?’ Pierre frowns. Thinks about it. ‘Well, I suppose that rather depends on what you are.’

‘What I am?’

‘All that talk of gold coins in your sleep. You could be a spy, working for someone.’

I cough back a laugh. ‘A spy?’ He’s definitely been reading too many books. But at least he doesn’t seem to think I’m a thief, and I’m glad. I’ve never cared for people’s good opinions before, but Pierre’s somehow seems to matter.

‘I mean it,’ Pierre says. ‘There are spies out there. We’ve had one break in here already recently, which made us realize the threat is real, though thankfully the papers stolen weren’t too vital.’

‘Really?’ My voice is a strangled squeak. ‘That’s … um … shocking.’

Heat spreads across my neck: I yank the covers up to hide it. I might as well have a big ‘guilty’ sign hanging over my head.

Amazingly, Pierre doesn’t seem to notice.

‘It was, Magpie. So we have to be doubly careful from now on,’ he explains, because he’s far too nice to think I might not be on his side.

And I have to admit, this talk of spies is intriguing. I wriggle up into a half-sitting position. ‘What’re they after, these spies?’

‘Knowledge,’ Pierre replies. ‘We’re not the only ones trying to invent a way to fly, you know. There’s a race on. And no one wants to be second.’

‘Who’re they working for?’

‘The English.’ Pierre blows out a sigh. ‘Though they’re not having much more luck than us, by the sounds of things. They can’t keep their structure inflated, either. Nor have they worked out the weight issue.’

I frown. ‘Weight issue?’

‘How much the structure can tolerate, so it’s able to get off the ground for a decent flight, but isn’t at the complete mercy of the weather.’

‘The wind, you mean?’ I say, thinking how the object had been tossed about like a scrap of paper.

‘Exactly.’

‘So the English are trying to steal your ideas, are they?’

‘I know they are, Magpie. I’ve seen them. Spies are easy enough to spot if you know the signs.’

‘Go on, then.’ I’m trying not to smile. ‘How d’you spot a spy?’

‘People acting out of place. Who let slip information that they couldn’t possibly know. Or . . .’ Pierre raises an eyebrow, ‘ . . . who sneak about in the middle of the night.’

‘Right. I see.’ I’m serious again. This spying lark sounds a lot like thieving. It’s taking something that’s not yours.

Though part of me thinks it sounds a bit farfetched, I honestly can’t forget what it felt like to fly. And like anything in this life that’s worth something, it’s not long before other people start circling, sniffing, wanting it for themselves. A thief like me knows that all too well.