The Keeper of Lost Things(40)
“We mustn’t feed him too much at once. His stomach will have shrunk, and if we overdo it he’ll be sick,” Laura warned.
Sunshine pulled a face which admirably communicated her disapproval of vomit.
“Maybe he needs another drink?” she suggested hopefully. Laura could understand her eagerness. She was desperate to do something to make the creature better; fatter, fitter. Happy. But sometimes not doing anything was what was needed, however hard that might be.
“I think he just needs to rest,” she told Sunshine. “Just tuck the blanket round him and leave him in peace for a bit.”
Sunshine “tucked in” very carefully for about ten minutes before Laura finally persuaded her to come and help with the website. Freddy arrived earlier than usual and found them all in the study.
“How’s the poor fella doing?”
Laura couldn’t bring herself to look up from the screen.
“A bit better, I think.”
Since the episode in the pantry, the awkwardness between Freddy and Laura hung in the air like smoke. Laura was desperate to clear the air and tell him what had really happened on her date, but somehow she could never find a way to begin the conversation. He went over to the fire and crouched down by the blanket. A pair of large, sorrowful eyes peered out at him. Freddy offered the back of his hand for the dog to sniff, but the dog’s flinch was instinctive, born from bitter experience.
“Hey, hey, steady lad. No one’s going to hurt you here. I’m the one who found you.”
The dog listened to his gentle voice and poked his nose out warily from beneath the blanket to take a tentative sniff. Sunshine was watching their exchange closely. With an exaggerated sigh she placed both hands on her hips.
“He’s supposed to be resting,” she said in a censorious tone.
Freddy held his hands up in surrender and came over to the table where Laura was in front of the laptop.
“So are you going to keep him?”
Sunshine replied before Laura could draw breath.
“That’s for double damn sure, cross my heart and learn to fly, we’re going to keep him! He was lost and you found him. That’s what we do,” she said, throwing her hands up in the air to underline and embolden her words. It took a little while for her thinking to catch up with her feelings, but when it did she added defiantly:
“But we’re not giving him back.”
She looked to Freddy and Laura in turn for reassurance. Freddy winked at her and smiled.
“Don’t worry, Sunshine. I don’t think there’s anyone to want him back.” But then he added, as though remembering his place, “Of course, it’s Laura’s decision.”
Laura looked across at the blanketed bundle still roasting by the fire, unaware that as soon as he had been carried over her threshold he was safe. From that moment he was hers.
“We’ll have to give him a name,” she said.
Once again Sunshine was already on the next page.
“He’s called Carrot.”
“Is that so?” said Freddy. “And that’s because . . . ?”
“Because he was hit by the car in the dark night because he didn’t see it.”
“And?” continued Freddy with an interrogative tip of his head.
“Carrots help you see in the darkness.”
Sunshine delivered her denouement speaking loudly and slowly like an English tourist in a foreign country.
After “the lovely cup of tea” which Sunshine permitted Laura to make while she stood guard over Carrot, Freddy went outside to work in the garden, and Laura and Sunshine returned their attention to the Keeper of Lost Things. Laura had begun the herculean task of entering the details of all the lost things onto a database that could be accessed via the website. Sunshine was selecting things from the shelves and drawers. Once Laura had entered the details of a particular object, it was marked with a sticky gold star bought in packets of fifty from the post office. They had bought ten packets, but now that they had made a start, Laura had a feeling that they might need a good few more. Sunshine placed the objects in a neat line on the table: a pair of tweezers, a miniature playing card (the king of clubs), and a plastic model soldier. The friendship bracelet remained in her hand.
KNOTTED-THREAD RED-AND-BLACK BRACELET—
Found, underpass between Fools Green and Maitland Road, 21st May . . .
Chloe felt her mouth water just before the first wave of vomit rose. The retching bent her double as she tried not to splash her new shoes. The concrete walls of the underpass reverberated with the sound of her shame and humiliation.
Everyone liked Mr. Mitchell. He was the coolest teacher in school. “The boys want to be him and the girls want to be with him,” her friend Claire had chanted only yesterday when he had passed them in the corridor. Chloe didn’t. Not anymore. She wanted to be anywhere other than with him. Mr. Mitchell (“Call me Mitch—I won’t tell if you don’t”) taught music, and at first she too would have danced to any tune he chose to play. He had the inestimable gift of plausibility. Coupled with a handsome face and slick charm, the adoration of Mr. Mitchell was inevitable. Chloe had begged her mother for the private singing lessons she knew Mr. Mitchell taught. From his home. Her mother was surprised. Her daughter was a quiet girl; happy to blend in with the chorus rather take center stage. She was a “good” girl. A “nice” girl. Money for singing lessons would be hard to come by, but perhaps her mother thought that they would be worth it if they gave Chloe a little more confidence. And Mr. Mitchell was such a brilliant teacher. He really seemed to care about his pupils, not like some of them at the school who simply put in the hours, took the money, and ran.