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

the headphone cable flexing with every step. Her hair is dripping with sweat and she’s breathing hard, but her expression is far away and I wonder what she’s listening to and feel a bit jealous.

Simon nudges me – he wants a story.

‘Alien,’ I say. ‘Trapped on Earth when her starship crash-landed in the Model Boating Pond. She’s not running for her health but ’cause she’s got to find a missing bit of her ship that fell off during the crash.’

Indigo makes a noise halfway between a sneeze and a laugh.

‘Are there aliens?’ Simon asks Indigo.

‘Not that I know of,’ she says. ‘Unless you count cats.’

‘Cats are aliens?’ asks Simon, but I’m not listening because I’ve got a shiver and a sensation like someone’s waving an open tin of Whiskas under my nose.

Then somebody starts screaming.

9 Showmen is the collective noun for those who live an itinerant life taking attractions from fair to fair. The equivalent term in the US is ‘carny’.

13

Rushing In

I am running towards the screams.

I’ve been warned about this, by Nightingale. Just after he had a sit-down with my parents regarding my extracurricular ghost-hunting activities. Not a coincidence.

‘Bravery and a desire to help are all very commendable,’ he said. ‘But, when rushing towards the action, one should be cognisant that there might come a point where one should stop rushing and take cover.’

‘Take cover from what?’ I’d asked, and made a mental note to look up ‘cognisant’ later.

‘Ah,’ said Nightingale. ‘Perhaps “take cover” was not quite the right term. It’s important to have some understanding of what precisely it is one is dealing with before you take action. You don’t want to inadvertently put yourself or anyone else at risk.’

What I’m looking at right now is a fight between the Cat Lady, who is the one doing the screaming, and Nerd Boy, who is shouting. The Cat Lady’s all-terrain shopping trolley has fallen over to scatter plastic food containers and cardboard boxes across the path.

The Cat Lady has both hands locked around Nerd Boy’s upper arm while he desperately tries to pull free. He is shouting, ‘Get the fuck off me!’ and pushing at the Cat Lady with his free hand.

I am less than two metres away when he balls his fist and punches the Cat Lady square in the face.

‘Hey!’ I shout.

Nerd Boy whips his head around to look at me.

‘Help me!’ he yells, and punches the Cat Lady in the face again. The Cat Lady lets go of his arm, staggers backwards and sits down hard on the path. Her hands are pressed to her nose.

I skitter to a halt in front of Nerd Boy and realise that I have no idea what to do next.

‘She attacked me,’ he says, and flinches as Simon arrives at my side.

‘Stay there,’ I say, and crouch down by the Cat Lady to see if she’s all right.

‘She’s mental,’ says Nerd Boy.

‘That’s not a nice thing to say,’ says Simon.

I ask the Cat Lady if she’s okay and quick as a flash she grabs my wrist – she’s incredibly strong. Close up she smells of cat food, old clothes and something else – an electric ozone smell.

‘Beware the Pied Piper,’ she hisses. ‘If you follow him he’ll take you to the cave of happiness.’

‘Told you,’ says Indigo, who is hiding amongst the long grass by the path. ‘Her mind has been softened by exposure to alien cats.’

‘You’re not helping,’ I say.

‘Sirens,’ says Indigo, and a moment later I can hear sirens in the distance.

Nerd Boy looks around, panics and runs away.

‘Do you want me to catch him?’ asks Simon.

‘No,’ I say. ‘You and Indigo run and hide – stay away from the Feds.’

Both boy and fox ask me who the Feds are at the same time.

‘Police,’ I say, and add that his mum isn’t going to like it if they start asking her questions. That’s enough to scare him off, and Indigo darts after him.

‘Who’s the Pied Piper?’ I ask the Cat Lady, who has let go of my wrist and is prodding at her nose – which is not bleeding. She looks surprised now, rather than angry. But it doesn’t seem she wants to get up. I repeat my question, louder, and she turns to look at me.

‘Man with a flute,’ she says. ‘Lures away rats and children.’

The siren is getting louder.

‘What’s he look like?’

‘Man in red and yellow, red and yellow with a flute and dancing feet.’

‘Did you see him?’

‘Don’t be daft,’ said the Cat Lady. ‘Nobody sees him. But they hear him, yes they do. They hear him and they follow him to the cave of happiness.’

The siren stops and I look up to see a white Ford Fiesta pull up. It has a light bar on its roof, yellow and blue police livery and the word CONSTABULARY written across the bonnet.

‘Do you know where the cave is?’ I ask.

‘On the other side,’ says the Cat Lady.

Two Feds get out of the car, both white men. The Heath has its own small police force, the Hampstead Heath Constabulary – they work for the City of London Corporation and have all the normal Fed powers of arrest.

‘Could you stand up, miss?’ says the lead Fed.

And they have the normal Fed attitude.

‘A big boy attacked her,’ I say. ‘And ran away.’

*

‘You were a long time,’ says Simon. ‘We thought they’d arrested you.’

Long enough for the world to turn away from the sun and evening to start. We are walking along the causeway between Number 1 and Number 2 Hampstead Ponds – a short cut to South Hill Park Road, where Simon lives. Indigo insists on wearing her lead again – we get some strange looks but nobody has tried to chat or taken pictures yet.

‘Nah,’ I say. ‘Feds always make you wait around while they’re calling people on the radio and stuff.’

Peter says it’s a feature, not a bug. No matter how rowdy someone is, if you make them stand around or sit still for half an hour