Seven for a Secret Never to be Told

Mia brushed her hair then got into bed and read to her Nan for a while. She was reading the story of the boy who cried wolf. It was part of the homework she’d been struggling with earlier. She had to choose an old story with a moral. A story that shows how you should or shouldn’t behave and then make up a modern story with the same idea.

The boy who cried wolf was a shepherd who was bored with minding the sheep and kept crying ‘wolf, wolf!’ The villagers would come running thinking a wolf was attacking the sheep but all along it was just the shepherd boy pretending. Eventually he cried ‘wolf’ when there was a real wolf and nobody came. It was a story that explained that if you tell lies then when you eventually tell the truth, no one believes you.

‘I don’t like the shepherd boy,’ said Mia.

‘No, he wasn’t very nice was he?’

‘Did the wolf eat him?’ asked Mia, ‘It doesn’t say in the story.’

‘I hope not,’ said Mia’s Nan. ‘He probably learnt his lesson after that!’

‘It’s hard thinking of a modern story,’ said Mia.

’Hm…what about when we used to play at the park and you’d come running to me to say you’d found a puppy in a bush. I’d dash over full of anticipation and find out it was a ‘pretend’ puppy. Then one day you said ‘Nan, I’ve found a puppy’ and I told you to stop making up stories, but you dragged me to the ditch behind the swings and there really was a puppy.’

‘Bear…’ smiled Mia. ‘That’s a good story. I’ll use that one because it has a happy ending.’

‘Time for lights out now,’ said Mia’s Nan kissing her and tucking her in, ‘night sweetheart.’

‘Night Nan, see ya in the morning.’

Mia was dreaming and in her dream she heard a voice shouting ’help me, help me’. It was a boy’s voice. Over and over again he was calling for help. In her dream Mia was in the field behind her Nan’s cottage. She was walking away from the willow trees in the hollow. Walking away from the place where Bear had dug up the talisman. Walking away from the spot where Miss Jaggers had swum in the bather as a little girl. Walking away from the boy shouting ’help me, help me’. It was cold. Snow was gently falling and settling on the ground. She was with a group of children. Boys. She put her hand in her pocket and could feel a round, wooden disc. ’Help me!’ shouted the boy’s voice and she woke up.

Mia opened her eyes and knew she was in her bedroom, she could vaguely see the outline of her chest of drawers. There was a shaft of light cast by the moon across her duvet where the curtains weren’t pulled quite together. She sighed and her eyelids began to feel heavy again. Just as she began to relax she heard it. Immediately she was wide awake. She lay very still and listened. There it was again. It wasn’t her imagination. There was definitely someone crying.

She lay motionless, heeding every sound, trying to work out where the sobbing was coming from. Outside. Yes, it was definitely outside, but close, very close. She was too frightened to get up and look out of her window and just lay there for what seemed hours, listening to the heart breaking sound of what she was sure now was a child crying. At some point she must have fallen asleep because when she eventually woke up her Nan was in her room taking her school clothes out of the cupboard.

‘Morning Mia, I’m just going to walk Bear in the field out the back for 10 minutes. You’ll be able to see me from the window. While I’m gone get yourself dressed and I’ll warm up your pain au chocolat when I get in.’ She led Mia’s school clothes on the bottom of the bed and opened the curtains. The morning light flooded her room. ‘Mia, are you awake?’ She bent over and kissed her cheek. ‘Come on lovely…I’ll be back in 10 minutes, move yourself.’

Mia grunted and stretched, then everything that had happened in the night came flooding back to her. She was surprized that she felt more curious than scared. What was happening? Was it her imagination? She got dressed, brushed her hair and walked over to the window. There was an old hornbeam tree at the end of the garden and she watched a magpie hop into the twisted branches with a twig in its mouth. Her Nan and Bear were walking back to the cottage. She waved but her Nan didn’t see her.

Mia picked up her school bag and went downstairs. She took a packet of crisps from the larder for Safi and diluted some blackcurrant squash to drink. Walking into the back room she saw the pile of photographs. The picture of the boys holding their wooden talismans was on the top. She picked it up and looked closely at all the faces.

There was Miss Jaggers’ brother with his tightly fitted jacket, taller than the others with an air of arrogance about him. Then Dennis Gregory, he sported a neat parting in his wavy black hair. He must have moved when the photograph was taken as his face was slightly blurred. …And there was Bobby Bassett. Or was it his twin brother? Two boys were identical, how they looked was the same and what they wore was the same, but Mia could see they were different from their expressions. One held his head high and had a cheeky grin on his face the other looked more serious with his head down and his eyes lifted to catch the camera. She put the photograph in her bag with the crisps. Safi would have a lot to think about when she saw him later.