What Abigail Did Tha Summer, Ben Aaronovitch [if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt] 📗

the fence and walks beside me as I head for my block.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ I ask.

‘I’m coming with you,’ she says. ‘I’m assigned to shadow you.’

‘You can’t,’ I say. ‘My mum will freak.’

‘No, she won’t,’ says Indigo. ‘Because she’s not in your den – she went with your brother in a vehicle.’

I check my phone and there’s a text from my mum.

Appointment brought forward see you tomorrow dinner in the fridge.

‘What about my dad?’

‘At work,’ says Indigo. ‘Not scheduled back until second sleep.’

One of the posh white leaseholders pops out of the front door, wheeling her pushbike ahead of her. She nods politely and holds the door for me, her eyes widening as Indigo trots in beside me.

She don’t say anything ’cause on the Peckwater Estate we have our leaseholders well trained.

We’re in the lift, which is small and smells of spilt orange juice.

‘How do you know where my dad is?’ I ask.

‘We have your den under continuous surveillance,’ says Indigo. ‘A team based out of Kentish Town Station.’

‘But why?’ I ask.

‘Orders from Control,’ she says.

‘Yeah, but why does Control want me monitored?’

‘That’s beyond the scope of my current need to know,’ says Indigo.

‘You better be house-trained,’ I say as I let us into the flat.

Indigo refuses to explain why I’m under surveillance, even though I give her the chicken salad my mum left in the fridge and let her sit on the sofa when we watch The White Queen on the TV.

She wants to sleep in my room, so I move a sofa cushion in and put it on the floor by my bed.

‘Where did the goth girl go?’ I ask while Indigo is making herself comfortable.

‘She exited the green zone into the Brick where it sticks into the Heath and the machine men hibernate,’ says Indigo, and I think she means the Vale of Health but I can’t be sure.

‘Who are the machine men?’ I ask.

‘The whirligig men,’ she says, stamping down with her front paws to ensure the cushion knows its place. ‘The slide men, the crash bang operatives, the barkers and change men.’

Whirligig, barker, slide – Indigo means the pitch where the Showmen rest up their rides between shows. Definitely the Vale of Health then. So if I left the Heath there – where would I be going?

Not Whitestone Pond and Jack Straw’s Castle, because if you were heading there you’d stay on the Viaduct Path. Not the houses lower down, because why would you go up first.

It’s too warm to get under the duvet so I lie down on top and turn the light out.

So either Goth Girl and Nerd Boy stayed in the Vale of Health, or they walked up to the top bit of Hampstead proper.

Indigo makes a breathy noise like a sigh and I close my eyes.

*

I wake up the next morning to find Indigo on the bed with me, her head resting on my hip.

‘Why didn’t you stay on the floor?’ I ask.

‘I’m not used to sleeping on my own,’ she says. ‘Do the scratchy thing.’

Indigo’s fur is soft and she makes little whiny sounds as I scratch. It’s so easy to make her happy that it’s hard to stay vexed.

‘What’s the operation today?’ asks Indigo.

‘You’re going back to the Heath to keep an eye on Simon for me,’ I say. ‘I’m going to visit the hospital and then I’m going to the library.’

5 This is contemporary youth slang for ‘hard’ or ‘difficult’ – presumably because their attention spans are so truncated that mastering any task of even moderate difficulty is seen as taking an inordinate duration.

10

Deeping It

I am sitting at a mahogany reading table in a library on the ground floor of a large Regency building that sits on the south side of Russell Square on the corner of Bedford Place. It’s easy to walk by it, because it blends in with the terraces that line that part of the square. It has a grand entrance with SCIENTIA POTENTIA EST written above the door, a square atrium with balconies that goes all the way to the roof and is topped by the dome, and it has at least two teaching laboratories, a lecture hall, bedrooms upstairs, and a kitchen and shooting range in the basement.

It is called the Folly, and when I have passed my Latin GCSE this is where they will teach me magic.

There is a white and brown short-haired terrier sitting upright on a chair and staring at me across the width of the table. His name is Toby, and either he can smell Indigo on me or he wants a sausage. Probably both.

This place is quiet, old and forgotten. I can concentrate here – despite Toby.

I’ve got my notebook out and a couple of sheets of expensive writing paper because the Folly hasn’t yet caught up with the discount A4 pad. The paper is smooth and dense, and I use a fountain pen because it’s like writing on money. I’m making a list of all the things I know – it’s a short list.

Natali comes round to recruit me – which is definitely sus in and of itself.

Jessica tries to recruit Simon – which is double sus.

Jessica and Natali both disappear long enough to become the subject of an active police inquiry – which is triple sus because the Feds don’t have the manpower to roll out for teens unless there’s concerns.

And then they get themselves ‘returned to their families’.

But I saw Goth Girl and Nerd Boy buck up at the same meeting place Natali and Jessica told me and Simon about. Coincidence? At least I know where they left the Heath, even if Indigo said it was outside her ‘operational parameters’ to follow them.

The talking foxes think something sinister is lurking on the Heath and want me to check it.

Something the foxes can’t track directly.

A white man walks into the library. He’s dressed in an old-fashioned charcoal-grey suit, has an old-school haircut and grey eyes. He’s got that effortless posh style that