place dug out of the earth, and in there was the skeleton of the pedlar.’
Adam left room for her to gasp, and Ruby did.
‘Those old ladies had murdered him and stolen all his money and stuff, and it was
his
ghost that was so angry that he, like,
lured
the man up there and sort of put it into his head where to look for his bones, so that his body could be found and given a Christian burial.’
Ruby shivered and Adam did too, even though he knew the story already.
‘Wicked, hey?’ He grinned.
But Ruby only looked over his shoulder and said slowly, ‘
That
fireplace?’
Adam rolled over to follow her gaze.
The fireplace stared silently back at them, squat and square and grey, with ashes in its middle, and blackened all around by centuries of scorching.
All cold now.
The waves crashed and hissed below, and the stones rumbled, and Ruby was suddenly very aware that the only thing between them and the sea was an inch of rotten wood and a one-hundred-foot drop.
She scrambled to her feet. ‘I want to go home.’
‘Don’t be scared,’ said Adam. ‘It’s only a story.’
‘I know that,’ said Ruby. ‘I’m not scared. I have to do my homework.’
‘Me too,’ said Adam, and got up.
Both of them avoided looking at the fireplace, and Ruby knew for sure that if they
weren’t
scared, they would even now be sifting through the ashes and lifting the flagstones to find the secret hiding place that was big enough to hold the body of a murdered man.
‘You’re shivering,’ said Adam.
‘I’m cold,’ said Ruby.
‘Do you want to wear my hoodie?’ It was thick and red with BIDEFORD COLLEGE on the back.
Ruby nodded, and Adam took it off and Ruby put it on. She didn’t try to zip it up in case it wouldn’t fit and Adam saw how fat she was. Still, its fleece lining was cosy, and it smelled like detergent and warm boy.
They went less cautiously than usual down the brambly, muddy steps into the village. At the steepest part, Adam reached up and took her hand.
When they got to the gate of The Retreat, she gave his top back to him and said thank you.
‘No problem,’ he said. He didn’t turn and leave though. He lingered.
‘Don’t tell anyone I told you that story, OK?’
‘OK,’ she agreed. ‘Bye then.’
‘Bye,’ he said.
When she shut the door, Ruby noticed he was still standing at the gate.
7
MUMMY HAD GONE to work and left a chicken pie and a note about how to heat it up. Ruby looked up at a noise from her parents’ room. She’d thought Daddy was fishing, but when she went upstairs, there he was.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Cleaning the house,’ he said. ‘Want to help?’
‘OK,’ said Ruby, and went in and sat on the bed and watched him take stuff out of the wardrobe, look at it, then put it back exactly where he found it. He only threw away about three things, and that was all make-up that Mummy didn’t need.
Ruby saw a little book with ‘Diary’ on it.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I have a diary!’ She opened the diary to see what kinds of things Mummy wrote in hers, but there was only boring stuff like ‘School, 4.40. Double shift Thurs/Fri. Knickers for R.’
She
was R. She remembered getting the knickers from the market in Bideford – they had the days of the week on them and Friday was spelled ‘Fiday’. She always hoped she didn’t get hit by a bus on a Friday.
‘Let’s see,’ said Daddy.
She gave him the diary and he flicked through it while she carried on cleaning. There was a first-aid box with some old plasters, a bottle of Calpol from when she was little and a box of Paracetamol.
‘Can I put a plaster on?’
‘Sure, Rubes.’
She chose a cute round one from the box and stuck it on her face so it looked as if she’d been shot with an arrow.
There was a crumpled plastic bag that held a few old boxes containing necklaces and things. Mummy didn’t wear jewellery because it made her look cheap, and she didn’t have any good stuff anyway. Not like