Twitch Page 3

  Twitch ran up to his battered blue front door, slipped his key into the lock and let himself in.

  “I’m home,” he called, dropping his rucksack and lifting off his binoculars, hanging them over the banister as he went into the kitchen. “Mum? Have you heard? A robber has escaped from prison and the police think he’s in Briddvale.”

  “Hello, pet, how was school?” Twitch’s mum, Iris Featherstone, smiled at him from the old leather armchair. The shadows around her eyes showed she was tired from her shift at the Elderberry Care Home. She still had on her light blue work tunic. A blaze of evening sunlight streamed through the window behind her, crowning her fine grey-blonde, scraped-back hair with a halo. She looked like a benevolent angel. Her hands were cupped around a steaming mug of tea and her bare bunion-blighted feet were resting on the lumpy footstool.

  “School was brilliant,” Twitch said, filling a glass from the tap, “because it finished.” He downed the water, suddenly realizing how thirsty he was. Leaning over the sink to the window ledge, he switched the radio on. A tune was playing so he turned the volume down and said, “A robber has escaped from Dovelock Prison. The police are searching Aves Wood.” He checked the clock. It was nearly six thirty. “Do you think it will be on the news?”

  “Aves Wood?”

  “I went there after school. There was a police helicopter, and an officer sent me home. He said we should lock all the windows and doors.”

  “Oh dear!” His mum blinked, looking dazed. “That’s a bit frightening.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”

  “Thanks, pickle.” She smiled warmly.

  “I can make dinner, if you like?” Twitch offered. “If the chickens have been laying, we could have omelette and chips.”

  “Omelette and chips sounds lovely, and we’ve plenty of eggs. But I’ll make it, pet. You see to the birds.”

  Twitch pointed at the machine-gun-sized orange water pistol that was leaning against the armchair. “You’re nearly out of ammo.”

  “When I got home from work, I’d just put my feet up, when Clarty Cat came nosing around.” She scowled. “He’s after the blue-tit chicks. They’re vulnerable, being so close to fledging.”

  “I hate that cat,” Twitch muttered, scanning the high wall that enclosed their back garden.

  “Well, today he got a soaking.” Her blue eyes twinkled proudly as she took a sip of tea. “He’ll not be coming back in a hurry.”

  Twitch grinned. “Nice one, Mum.”

  The radio issued a series of beeps signalling the news headlines. He turned it up, but the doorbell went and so he ran to answer it.

  “Twitch!” Amita Inglenook greeted him with a smile as he opened the door. “I come bearing gifts, and compostables.” She thrust an old square tin at him, brimming with sweetcorn husks, wilting lettuce and apple cores.

  “Brilliant, the chickens will be delighted.” Twitch moved backwards to let her in.

  “Well, you tell those ladies, I expect them to turn my compost into yummy eggs for breakfast, hmm? No clucking excuses.” She shuffled past him in her lilac saree and beige cardigan, cackling at her own joke.

  Twitch lived at the end of a row of small terraced houses. Amita shared an adjoining wall and had always been their next-door neighbour. Her house had a mirrored layout to his, but where his house had woodchip wallpaper painted magnolia and furniture they’d inherited from his grandparents, Amita’s house was a riot of patterns, curious objects and clashing cushions.

  He followed her back through to the kitchen, hurrying to the radio.

  “Iris, how are you doing? No, no, don’t get up, please. I’ll sit down.” Amita put her large wicker picnic basket with twin lids on the table, and took out a Tupperware pot.

  “My feet ache from doing bed baths today,” Iris replied as Amita pulled out a chair, “but I’m fine.”

  “Shh…” Twitch turned the radio up as loud as it would go and they were silenced by the rounded vowels of the woman reading the news.

  “The police are searching for a convicted armed robber, who escaped from Dovelock Prison yesterday afternoon…”

  “Are you hungry?” Amita opened the plastic container and offered it to him. “I made kachoris to send to Ramith and Danvir. They miss their amma’s cooking. Would you like one?”

  Twitch took one of the flattened spicy balls of bread as he listened to the news. Amita’s children were all grown up now. They had children of their own. But she still cooked for them, posting them home-baked treats in the hope they’d remember how much they missed her food and visit more often.

  “You are too skinny.” She poked him gently. “Your chickens are fatter than you are. You’re a growing boy. You must eat more.”

  “Did you hear about the escaped robber?” Twitch nodded at the radio, hoping Amita would stop talking so he could listen.

  “Dear me, yes. It is very frightening. That robber could be anywhere – hiding in Briddvale.” Her eyes grew wide. “And did you hear that Ryan is a killer!”

  “Who got killed?” Twitch asked. Amita suddenly had his complete attention.

  “Ryan’s gang attacked a security van from the bank.” She leaned forward, her silver eyebrows raised and her brown forehead creasing as she looked from Twitch to Iris and back to Twitch. “They stole five million pounds!”

  “Five million,” Twitch echoed, realizing Amita’s story matched what Peaky and Madden had been saying in Aves Wood.

  “Yes, and Ryan was the worst of them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, after the robbery, Ryan killed all the other robbers” – she dragged her finger across her throat – “then escaped with the money and hid it.”

  “Where?”

  “Nobody knows. The police never found it. That five million pounds is still out there somewhere. That’s quite a treasure hunt, hmm?”

  Twitch nodded, thinking about what the police officer in Aves Wood had said. “Sure is.”

  “Imagine if you found it, Twitch.”

  “It would be brilliant,” he whispered, thinking of the expensive camera with the long lens that he secretly dreamed of owning to photograph birds.

  “We would be rich!” Amita clapped and Iris laughed at the pair of them. “Take more kachoris.” Amita nudged Twitch with the Tupperware pot. “I can tell you’re hungry.”

  “… it is not known if the convict is armed,” the newsreader said. “The public are advised not to approach the escaped prisoner and to report any sightings to the police.”

  “Today I made raspberry jam from my allotment canes.” Amita lifted one of the basket’s hinged flaps and brought out three pots. “These are for you.”

  “Oh, lovely,” Iris said. “We’ll have a dollop in our rice pudding tonight.”

  “But, whilst I was making the jam, I had an accident.” Amita opened the basket’s other flap, glancing at Twitch before she lifted out an ocean-blue teapot decorated with an ornate gold pattern of star-like flowers.

  “Oh, Amita, your beautiful teapot!” Iris cried. “What happened?”

  “I was sterilizing the jam jars and dropped one onto my teapot. It sheared the handle right off. A teapot is no use without a handle.” She held it out to Twitch. “I thought you might like it for your collection.”

  He took it reverently and set it down on the kitchen counter. “Thank you.”

  Twitch had long admired Amita’s big blue teapot. It would be the prize pot of his collection. He lifted the lid. The broken handle was inside. “Don’t you want to glue the handle back on? I could do it for you.”

  “Goodness me, no. It’s not safe! What if the glue were to give when the pot was full, hmm? I could drop a pot of scalding hot tea on my legs. Burns are terribly slow to heal. I’m too old to live so dangerously.”

  “I’ll hang it in the tree tomorrow,” Twitch promised, smiling at his mum.

  “It will give me great pleasure to look from my window and see it feeding the birds,” Amita said.

  “Amita, I wanted to ask you a favour. The girls from work have invited me out on Tuesday. Would you be able to keep an eye on Twitch for me?”

  “Mum! I’m twelve years old,” Twitch protested. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t cramp your style.” Amita winked at Iris. “Have you got plans for your summer, Twitch? Any big parties? Hmm?”

  “I’m going to train my pigeons,” Twitch replied, emptying the tin of scraps into a bucket by the back door and returning it to Amita.

  “Train them for what? The Olympics?” Amita chuckled.

  “To be homing pigeons, and carry messages, like the ones in the Second World War.” Twitch’s eyes landed on Amita’s picnic basket.

  “Good! So, on Tuesday, when you want Aunty Amita to come and read you a bedtime story, you send one of your pigeons with a message and I’ll bring my spectacles.” Amita beamed and Twitch’s mum laughed.

  But Twitch wasn’t listening. “Amita, can I borrow your basket? There’s something I want to do tomorrow and it would really come in handy.”

  Amita pursed her lips. “I’ll lend you the basket in exchange for two eggs.”

  “Deal.” Twitch picked up the bucket of scraps. “I’ll go feed the chickens and see if there are any freshly laid.”

  “Be careful out there.” Amita waggled her finger at him. “There’s a murderer on the loose.”

  “Yeah, but he’s not going to be hiding in our back garden, is he?” Twitch replied, opening the door. “Anyway, we’ve got the birds to protect us.”

  The teapot tree was an old wild lilac that grew in the middle of Twitch’s garden. From its thatch of leaves and white blooms peeked his collection of broken teapots. Some were hung by their handles and stuffed with straw ready for any bird searching for a nesting box; others had holes where there should’ve been spouts and were filled with birdseed or fat balls. There were sixteen brightly coloured teapots hanging in the tree like exotic fruit; Amita’s blue pot would be the seventeenth. The first teapot had been his grandmother’s big yellow six-cupper. When the lid had smashed, his mum had cried, and so Twitch had announced they should hang it in the lilac tree as a bird feeder, in loving memory of Maude Featherstone. Over time other teapots had joined it. Now, when his mum looked at the teapot tree her face lit up with a smile that made Twitch’s soul lift like a red kite on an updraught.

  As he passed under the tree with his bucket of scraps, Twitch scanned the branches for a spot to hang Amita’s teapot. He thought it would make a good drinking fountain, if he secured the lid below the spout to catch rainwater. A cool breeze tousled his hair and he suddenly shivered, his eyes darting to the shadowy parts of the garden, checking for men in black masks. He knew there was no one hiding in the bushes, but his mind was alert and jumpy. He stopped still as a thought popped into his head. Amidst the drama of Aves Wood, he’d forgotten about Billy. Billy, a stranger, who’d appeared in Briddvale that very day, and asked him for an out of the way place to park his van. He felt this was a suspicious coincidence. Could Billy be something to do with Robber Ryan? He’d been wearing a hat. Was there a shaved head underneath it? Was he the escaped criminal?

  As he walked to the end of the garden, he ran through the events that had taken place that afternoon: Billy scaring away Jack and the others, helping him to his feet, chatting about birds, going into the newsagent’s to buy the newspaper and Fruit Gums. He hadn’t seemed like a robber or a murderer. Twitch had liked him.

  Opening the gate to the chicken run, he crossed the bald dirt, broken by rashes of dandelions and a clump or two of grass, and peered into the brick outhouse. Once a toilet, it was now the chicken coop. The hens were shut in every night to keep them safe from predators. Twitch was five when his grandad had taken out the lavatory, installing shelves and nesting boxes for their first chickens. He remembered it fondly. Reaching in, he collected two eggs, one fawn and one a dark beige.

  It struck Twitch that there were only two things that were odd about Billy: the first was him asking about somewhere to park his camper van, and the second was him talking to old Mr Bettany about the weather and the state of the roads when his newspaper headline provided a much more interesting and current topic for conversation.

  Had Billy purposely steered the conversation so as not to have to talk about Robber Ryan’s escape?

  Fandango, a rust-coloured chicken with a buff breast and feathered shanks that looked like boots, strutted towards him, her scarlet wattle wobbling. She got her name from the way she moved, performing a Spanish dance of wing flaps, head jerks and claw stomps.

  Dodo, Twitch’s fat red hen, was hunkered down in a wheelbarrow of straw. Her beetle-black eyes were fixed on the bucket he was carrying. Dodo was lazy. If a fox ever got into the enclosure, she’d be dead in an instant. Even her squawks were lacklustre. The only thing that made Dodo move fast was the rain. She hated getting wet.

  Eggbum, the oldest and Twitch’s most beloved chicken, whose name came from her being a great layer of eggs, was sat in a terracotta plant pot of soil, growling with pleasure as she gave herself a dust bath. She fluffed up her white feathers, kicking a cloud of dirt over her head and fleshy red comb.

  “OK, ladies, grub’s up.” Twitch shook the bucket as he went to their trough.

  Fandango ran with jerky strides, zigzagging to his side. Dodo clucked, barely bothering to flap her wings as she tumbled gracelessly from the wheelbarrow.

  “There’s plenty for everyone,” he said as he poured the scraps into the trough. “Come on, Eggbum, it’s supper time.” Fandango and Dodo pecked hungrily at the food; Eggbum took her time coming over.

  On a hunch, Twitch went over to the pot where she’d been having her bath. “Bingo.” He picked up the warm pale oval, adding it to the two in his left hand, and a thought struck him that made him gasp. When he’d been telling Billy about Aves Wood, they’d heard police sirens. Billy had glanced over his shoulder and then suggested they go into the newsagent’s.

  Billy hadn’t wanted to buy him sweets – he’d wanted to get off the street until the police had gone!

  Twitch was unsettled by this thought and uncertain what to do about it. Returning to the kitchen, he said nothing, not wanting to worry his mother, and knowing she’d tell him off for talking to a stranger. He showed Amita the three eggs, saying, “All the girls laid today.”

  Amita pushed her picnic basket across the table and held her hands out for the eggs. “We have a deal,” she said happily as Twitch handed her two of the eggs.

  Grabbing the basket, he made his excuses, and hurried up the stairs to the bathroom. He needed to establish the facts of the case in his head.

  Billy wanted to park his van somewhere free and private.

  Billy seemed to be avoiding the police by entering the newsagent’s.

  Billy might have steered the conversation away from Robber Ryan.

  None of these things were a crime, and Billy had saved him from eating a worm. Twitch sighed. If the man was something to do with the escaped convict, the police would catch him. There was nothing he could do. Instead he’d concentrate on his plan to train his squabs.

  When training pigeons Twitch knew it was important to get them to recognize home as soon as they were old enough to fly, but too weak to fly well, or they would disappear into the sunset. Older pigeons weren’t trainable. One of the reasons Scabby had stuck around was his injuries, and the free food. Pigeons were intelligent birds.

  Putting the picnic basket on the floor, Twitch picked up a small blue watering can and filled it from the bathroom tap. Clambering out of the window onto the flat kitchen roof, he pictured Mum and Amita looking up at the sound of his feet above their heads. The wardrobe-come-pigeon-loft had four stubby legs and stood to the left of the window, against the brick wall. Twitch had spent his Easter holiday building it. In two of the four wooden crates that he’d bolted inside the wardrobe to make nesting boxes sat a pair of pigeons: Scabby and Maud in one, Frazzle and Squeaker huddled together in another. “Come on, squabs,” he said softly through the mesh in the door, “time to stretch your wings. Let’s teach you to use the trapdoor” – he put his hand through the cat flap-like hole at the top of the door – “so you can get in by yourselves.”

  He unlatched the wardrobe door and opened it wide. Maude shot out over his shoulder like a missile. Leaving the door open, Twitch sat down, stretching out his legs, enjoying the heat radiating from the black bitumen roof. He watched Maude circle as she climbed, getting smaller and smaller, and his thoughts turned to Jack Cappleman. What had he done to get on the wrong side of Peaky and Madden? Twitch almost felt sorry for him, but then he remembered the worm.

  “Go on,” he said to the two squabs cowering in the wardrobe. “Go join your mum.”

  As if hearing him, Squeaker, the paler of the two, gave a tentative flap of her wings and launched herself up, swimming through the air towards her mother.

  Looking utterly disinterested in flying, Scabby fluttered down to the roof beside Twitch and pecked his shoe.

  “I’m not feeding you till you’ve had some exercise. Go on. Go and fly about a bit; you’re getting fat.” Scabby stared at him, then gave him another peck. Twitch laughed. The sound startled Frazzle, who fell out of the nesting box, snapped out his wings and careered up into the sky.

  “All right, Scabby.” The bird was tugging at his shoelace with his beak. “You win, but don’t tell the others.” Twitch prised off the lid of the tub beside the pigeon loft and grabbed a fistful of seed. Scabby fluttered up, perching on his wrist and pushing his beak greedily into the gaps between Twitch’s fingers.

  As Twitch fed Scabby, he watched the pigeons reeling around one another in the sky. He wouldn’t be able to go to Aves Wood tomorrow, unless the police caught Ryan tonight. But he could still take the squabs out for their first homing flight. He hoped they were ready. Amita’s basket was the perfect way to carry them. He’d put them in the basket, secure the lids and strap it to his bike. He had to cycle a mile from the loft to release them. The thought of either bird not making it home made his stomach lurch. Instead, he thought about where the five million pounds might be hidden. Imagine if if it was in Aves Wood.