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

a blue collarless blouse. There is a thin gold chain around her neck and a matching slimline watch on her left wrist. The suit is slightly rumpled and she is breathing hard and sweating from running up the stairs.

‘Hello,’ she says. ‘Who are you?’

Simon leaps up and hugs his mum and she’s hugging back while still giving me the eye because she’s wondering, Who’s this strange black girl and what’s she doing in my son’s room?

‘This is Abigail,’ says Simon, and lets go so he can jump back to stand next to me, beaming. ‘She’s my friend.’

‘How lovely,’ says Simon’s mum. ‘Where did you meet?’

‘I went to the shop,’ says Simon. ‘For Angelica.’

This is either a really good lie or a really bad one, depending on whether Simon really did run an errand for the housekeeper earlier today. ’Cause one thing I can tell for certain is that Simon’s mum is going to check.

‘Well, thank you for coming round, Abigail,’ says Simon’s mum. ‘But it’s getting late so I think perhaps you should go home.’

‘Mum,’ says Simon in a whiny voice that makes him sound five and makes his mum frown.

‘It’s eight o’clock,’ says his mum in a crisp head teacher voice which she turns on me. ‘I’m sure your parents want you back.’

As his mum herds me down the stairs, Simon asks her whether I can come play tomorrow.

‘That depends on whether you do your homework or not,’ she says.

When we are at the front door, Simon’s mum frowns at the darkening sky and asks me whether I don’t want to call my parents and have them come fetch me. I say I don’t have a phone because there’s no way I’m letting her see my clapped-out Samsung and weirdly that seems to cheer her up. She offers to ‘run’ me home in her car but I tell her I’ll be fine.

‘Are you sure?’ she asks reluctantly.

‘Sure,’ I say.

7

Stuff You Need to Know

You don’t actually have to cross the Heath to get from Simon’s house to mine. It’s probably quicker to walk down to South End Green and catch a 46 to the end of Prince of Wales Road, but I like crossing the Heath in the dark. The trick is to be faster and quieter than any potential mugger, child molester or general wasteman and there’s a thrill to it.

You don’t have to go over the top of Kite Hill, either. But I like the view.

So I’m running up the path that climbs the back of the hill, and I’m trying this trick I read about where you place your heel down first and roll over your foot instead of just slapping it down. Do it right and you run through the night as silent as a ghost, with just your heartbeat and the rush of the wind in your ears.

‘Oi!’ calls a voice behind me. ‘Hold up!’

I’m more annoyed than frightened, because you’d have to be Usain Bolt to beat me up this hill – and I’m thinking he’s got better things to do than chase me. I lean into the run, flinging my hands behind me the way Molly does, and fly up the hill.

‘Hold up – I need to talk to you!’ calls the voice behind me, much closer than it should be.

I push harder, abandoning the silent run and the jet plane arms and concentrating on pumping my legs as fast as possible. Ahead is the brow of the hill, a dark hump against the light-polluted sky.

‘Abbey Girl, stop!’ cries the voice and it’s right on my heels, but I finally twig what’s following me up the hill. I slow up a bit, but I don’t stop until we’re standing right at the top of the hill by the metal panorama plaque that tells you what all the landmarks are called. There are at least a dozen olds up here, walking their dogs or drinking beer and watching the view over London.

‘Not here,’ says the voice from down by my feet, and I feel the brush of fur against my calves as the speaker tries to hide behind my legs. ‘Somewhere where there’s fewer dogs.’

Too late – a white and black collie is padding towards us, tail down, head cocked to one side, eyes bright. Weird eyes, I notice, one dark, one light. Its nose wrinkles as it sniffs.

‘Listen, you sheep shagger,’ hisses the voice. ‘Any closer and you’re going to get yourself sanctioned.’

The collie stops, but I can see a shaggy Labrador zeroing in.

‘Shit,’ says the voice. ‘A gun dog – quick, pick me up.’

The Labrador is passing the collie, head down, intent, tail swishing back and forth.

‘Quick!’ says the voice.

Sighing, I reach down and grab the fox at my feet and pull it up into my arms. It’s heavy, twenty kilos at least, twice what a normal fox would weigh. It rubs the top of its head under my chin as I try to find a comfortable way to hold the squirming animal. The Labrador and the collie have stopped advancing and are looking at us with a Them humans is crazy look. I reckon the dogs know exactly what I’m carrying, but fortunately up in the growing darkness on Kite Hill their owners do not.

‘Let’s exfiltrate to a safe location,’ says the fox. ‘Before I wet myself.’

*

We are sitting on a bench next to the path that runs a hundred metres downslope of the main one across the summit. It’s shadowed by trees and bushes, and if people see us they’ll just think I’m a crazy person talking to my dog.

The fox is sitting in my lap and still nuzzling my chin, which is beginning to vex me so I tell it to stop.

‘Don’t you like that?’ says the fox. The voice is slightly wheezy and pitched high. I suspect this is a vixen. ‘In training they said it promoted co-operation in humans.’

‘Not if you don’t stop,’ I say, and the vixen stops. I ask her name.

‘Complicated,’ she says, and I