they’re the right ones.”
Howard felt ashamed of being distrustful, but he did unfold the papers and glance over them. The typing seemed to be Quentin’s. He recognised the way half the capital letters soared into the air, so that their tops were cut off. He had no way of knowing quite what his father had written, but near the beginning, his eye caught: and if Corn Street were to fill with old ladies, clubbing policemen with handbags and umbrellas. He folded the paper up again. “This looks all right,” he said. “Thanks very much. And thanks for the tea.”
“You’re welcome, dear,” Dillian said, smiling radiantly.
Howard stowed the papers carefully in his blazer pocket and held out his hand for Awful in the way that meant she was to come along at once. Fifi stood up and held out her hand, too. Awful shuffled over to them. “I don’t want to stay in this old hole anyway,” she said rudely.
“I shall smack you!” Fifi whispered. She and Howard dragged Awful out from among the flowers. Awful let her feet trail and made them tow her across the shiny floor. Howard looked back in embarrassment and saw Miss Potter had taken another cake and settled back smugly in her chair, to show she was staying on. But Dillian gathered her ball dress up and came gracefully to the front door with them. It made Howard sweat with embarrassment at the way Awful was behaving. He dragged Awful through the mighty wooden door, and through the porch, and then down the driveway, knowing Dillian was waving and smiling behind them, and promised himself he would hit Awful as soon as they were in the road.
But Awful escaped just outside the gate because Howard’s hand was so slippery with sweat by then, and Fifi let go of her too, in order to sigh heavily. “Oh!” Fifi said. “I’d give my ears to look like Dillian! Wasn’t she glamorous!”
Howard laughed. As they turned and walked downhill, he was distracted from his annoyance with Awful, and even from sweet thoughts of getting rid of the Goon in half an hour, by the sheer contrast between Fifi and Dillian. He looked at Fifi’s peaky little face and frizzy light brown hair and laughed again. “You couldn’t look like her. She’s twice your size for a start.”
“I’ve always wanted to be that tall,” Fifi said yearningly.
“Stupids!” Awful called out. She was lurking a safe distance behind Howard. “She’s an evil enchantress. And she dyes her hair.”
“A lot of people dye their hair,” Fifi said over her shoulder. “Do come on. There’s no such thing as enchantresses.”
“Yes, there is!” Awful said indignantly, still hanging behind. “Why do you think I didn’t have any tea? Bubbling things are going on inside me, I’m so hungry. But I was right. You and Howard just sat there getting enchanted, and I didn’t.”
Fifi raised her eyebrows at Howard and sighed. “Come on!” she called back. “Before your mum gets home!”
“Not until Howard makes sure we’ve really got Dad’s words,” Awful called. And she dug her hands into her pockets and stood still.
Howard’s hand went irritably to check the pocket where he had put the papers. It felt limp and flat. He plunged his hand inside. Apart from half an old pencil and a rubber band, that pocket was empty. Unable to believe it, he felt in his other pockets. Then, frantically, he searched his trouser pockets too. There were no papers in any of them. “I don’t believe it!” he said.
“Maybe you put it in your schoolbag,” Fifi suggested.
Howard knelt and turned his bag out on the pavement on the spot, halfway down Pleasant Hill Road. He sorted through everything and shook out all the books. Awful came up and watched, keeping safely on the other side of Fifi. When Howard had found a note about history homework but absolutely nothing else that was typed, she said, “Now do you believe me?”
“They dropped out,” Fifi said firmly. “Let’s go back and look. Look carefully, both of you.”
They went back uphill. Fifi scanned the hedges; Howard looked in the gutter. Awful sauntered behind, still with her hands in her pockets, looking superior. And she seemed to be right. There was nothing that looked remotely like paper all the way to the top of the hill or anywhere on the downward slope beyond. Here Howard suddenly noticed that the house he was searching beside was numbered 104.
“We’ve come too far,” he said to Fifi. “Let’s go and look in her driveway. And if it’s not there, I’m going to knock on her door and ask her.”
They went back up the slope. And before long they found themselves going downhill again. They stopped beside a gate labelled 18.
“This is ridiculous!” said Fifi. “Go back and check the numbers.”
Back uphill they trudged again. Awful planted a hand on each gate and called out its number as they went. “Twenty-four. Twenty-six. Thirty. Thirty-two – Howard! It’s gone!”
Even Awful had not expected this. She looked thoroughly depressed.
They stood in a huddle, dumbfounded. There was no Number 28 now or any room for one between 26 and 30.
“We’re on the wrong side of the road,” Fifi said at last.
So they crossed the road and looked there. But on that side all house numbers were odd ones, and there was no Number 28 between 27 and 29 there either.
At that point Fifi at last admitted that Awful might be right. “The – the old hag!” she said angrily. “Let’s go home anyway. It’s late.”
“Before I die of hunger,” Awful said pathetically. “Do you believe me now, Howard?”
Howard nodded dismally. He felt thoroughly depressed, almost too miserable, as they trudged home, to be angry at the way Dillian had cheated them. He had hoped to get rid of the Goon and put everything right, and nothing had happened at all. On top of the rest he felt as hungry as if he had had nothing to eat at all. “No wonder Miss Potter’s so thin,” he said to Fifi. Fifi nodded. He thought she was trying not to cry.
When they got to the bottom of Shotwick Hill, Howard borrowed some money from Fifi and bought Awful a doughnut in the shopping centre. He thought she deserved it. She had done valiantly.
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