The Secret of Platform 13 Read online

  That was how things always ended on days when Raymond didn’t feel well enough to go to school – with Raymond and Mrs Trottle, dressed to kill, going to have lunch in London’s grandest department store.

  The name of the store was Fortlands and Marlow. It was in Piccadilly and sold everything you could imagine: marble bath tubs and ivory elephants and sofas that you sank into and disappeared. It h ad a Food Hall with a fountain where butlers in hard hats bought cheeses which cost a week’s wages, and a bridal department where the daughters of duchesses were fitted for their wedding gowns – and none of the dresses had price tickets on them in case people fainted clean away when they saw how much they cost.

  And there was a restaurant with pink chairs and pink tablecloths in which Raymond and his mother were having lunch.

  ‘I’ll have shrimps in mayonnaise,’ said Raymond, ‘and then I’ll have roast pork with crackling and Yorkshire pudding and—’

  ‘I’m afraid the Yorkshire pudding comes with the roast beef, sir,’ said the waitress. ‘With the pork you get apple sauce and redcurrant jelly . ’

  ‘I don’t like apple sauce,’ whined Raymond. ‘It’s all squishy and gooey. I want Yorkshire pudding. I want it.’

  It was at this moment that the rescuers entered the store. They too were having lunch in the restaurant. When Ben had told them how Raymond was going to spend the day, they decided to follow the Prince and study him from a distance so that they could decide how best to make themselves known to him.

  ‘Only I want Ben to come,’ Odge said.

  Everyone wanted Ben to come, but he said he couldn’t. ‘I don’t have school today because they need the building for a council election and I promised my grandmother I’d come to the hospital at dinner time.’

  But he said he would go with them as far as Fortlands and point Raymond out because the Tr ot-tles had gone off in the Rolls and no one had seen him yet. Hans, though, decided to stay behind. He didn’t like crowded places and he lay down under an oak tree and went to sleep which made a great muddle for the dogs who didn’t understand why they couldn’t walk through a perfectly empty patch of grass.

  Gurkie absolutely loved Fortlands. The vegetable display was quite beautiful – the passion fruit and the pineapples and the cauliflowers so artistically arranged – and she had time to say nice things to a tray of broccoli which looked a little lonely . I n a different sort of shop, the rescuers might have stood out, but Fortlands was full of old-fashioned people coming up from the country and they fitted in quite well. The only thing people did stare at a bit was the beetroot in Gurkie’s hat so she decided to leave it in the fountain to soak quietly while she went up to the restaurant. It was as she was bending over the water to look for a place where the beloved vegetable would not be noticed, that she saw, beneath the water weed, a small, sad face.

  Bending down to see more clearly , s he found that she had not been mistaken.

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ said a slight, silvery voice. ‘Melis-ande. I heard you were coming.’ And then: ‘I’m not a mermaid, you know, I’m a water nymph. I’ve got feet.’

  ‘Yes, I know, dear; I can see you’ve got feet. But you don’t look well. What are those marks on your arms?’

  ‘It’s the coins. People chuck coins into the fountain all day long, heaven knows why . I ’ m all over bruises – and the water isn’t changed nearly often enough.’

  And her lovely, t iny face really did look very melancholy .

  ‘Why don’t you come down with us, dear?’ whispered Gurkintrude. ‘The gump’s open. We could take you wrapped in wet towels, it wouldn’t be difficult.’

  ‘I was going to,’ said the nymph sadly . ‘ But not now. You’ve seen him.’

  ‘The Prince, do you mean? We haven’t yet.’

  ‘Well, you will in a minute; he’s just gone up in the lift. There was a lot of us going, but who wants to be ruled by that?’

  She then agreed to hide the beetroot under a water lily leaf and Gurkie hurried to catch up with the others. The nymph’s words had upset her, but feys always think the best of people and she was determined to look on the bright side. Even if Mrs Trottle had spoilt Raymond a little, there would be time to put that right when he came to the Island. When children behave badly it is nearly always the fault of those who bring them up.

  ‘There he is,’ whispered Ben. ‘Over there, by the window.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘You’re sure?’ asked Cor. ‘There can be no mistake?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Ben.

  He then slipped away and the rescuers were left to study the boy they had come so far to find.

  ‘He looks . . . healthy , ’ s a id Gurkintrude, trying to make the best of things.

  ‘And well-washed,’ agreed the wizard. ‘I imagine there would be no mould behind his ears?’

  Odge didn’t say anything. She still carried the suitcase, holding it out flat like a tray, and had been in a very nasty temper since she discovered that Ben was not the Prince.

  What surprised them most was how like his supposed mother Raymond Trottle looked. They both had the same fat faces, the same podgy noses, the same round, pale eyes. They knew, of course, that dogs often grew to be like their owners so perhaps it was understandable that Raymond, who had lived with the Trottles since he was three months old, should look like the woman who had stolen him, but it was odd all the same.

  The visitors had looked forward very much to having lunch in a posh restaurant, but the hour that followed was one of the saddest of their lives. They found a table behind a potted palm from which they could watch the Trottles without being noticed, and what they saw got worse and worse and worse. Raymond’s shrimps had arrived and he was pushing them away with a scowl.

  ‘I don’t want them,’ said Raymond. ‘They’re the wrong ones. I want the bigger ones.’

  As far as Gurkie was concerned there was no such thing as a wrong shrimp or a right shrimp. All shrimps were her friends and she would have died rather than eat one, but she felt dreadfully sorry for the waitress.

  ‘The bigger ones are prawns, sir; and I’m afraid we don’t have any today.’

  ‘Don’t have any prawns,’ said Mrs Trottle in a loud voice. ‘Don’t have any prawns in the most expensive restaurant in London!’

  The waitress had been on her feet all day, her little girl was ill at home, but she kept her temper.

  ‘If you’d just try them, sir,’ she begged Raymond.

  But he wouldn’t. The dish was taken away and Raymond decided to start with soup. ‘Only not with any bits in it,’ he shouted after the waitress. ‘I don’t eat bits.’

  Poor Gurkie’s kind round face was growing paler and paler. The Islanders had ordered salad and nut cutlets, but she was so sensitive that she could hear the lamb chops screaming on the neighbouring tables and the poor stiff legs of dead pheasants sticking up from people’s plates made her want to cry .

  Raymond’s soup came and it did have bits in it – a few leaves of fresh parsley.

  ‘I thought I asked for clear soup,’ said Mrs Trottle. ‘Really , I fi nd it quite extraordinary that you cannot bring us what we want.’

  The rescuers had been up all night; they were not only sad, they were tired, and because of this they forgot themselves a little. When their nut cutlets came they were too hard for the wizard’s teeth and he should have mashed them up with his fork – of course he should. Instead, he mumbled something and in a second the cutlets had turned to liquid. Fortunately no one saw, and the liquidizing spell is nothing to write home about – it was used by wizards in the olden days to turn their enemies’ bones to jelly – but it was embarrassing when they were trying so hard to be ordinary . And then the sweet peas in Gurkintrude’s hat started to put out tendrils without even being told so as to shield her from the sight of the Prince fishing with his fingers in the soup.

  The Trottles’ roast pork came next – and the kind waitress had managed to persuade the chef to put a he
lping of Yo rkshire pudding on Raymond’s plate though anyone who knows anything about food knows that Yorkshire pudding belongs to beef and not to pork.

  Raymond stared at the plate out of his round pale eyes. ‘I don’t want roast potatoes,’ he said. ‘I want chips. Roast potatoes are boring.’

  ‘Now Raymond, dear,’ began his mother.

  ‘I want chips. This is supposed to be my treat and it isn’t a treat if I can’t have chips.’

  Odge had behaved quite well so far. She had glared, she had ground her teeth, but she had gone on eating her lunch. Now though, she began to have thoughts and the thoughts were about her sisters – and in particular about her oldest sister, Frede-gonda, who was better than anyone on the Island at ill-wishing pigs.

  Ill-wishing things is not all that difficult. Witch doctors do it when they send bad thoughts to people and make them sick; sometimes you can do it when you will someone not to score a goal at football and they don’t. Odge had never wanted to ill-wish pigs because she liked animals, but she had sometimes wanted to ill-wish people, and now, more than anything in the world, she wanted to ill-wish Raymond Trottle.

  But she didn’t. For one thing she wasn’t sure if she could and anyway she had promised to behave like the girls of St Agnes whose uniform she wore.

  ‘I want a Knickerbocker Glory next,’ said Raymond. ‘The kind with pink ice-cream and green icecream and jelly and peaches and raspberry juice and nuts.’

  The waitress went away and returned with Mrs Trottle’s caramel pudding and the Knickerbocker Glory in a tall glass. It was an absolutely marvellous one – just to look at it made Odge’s mouth water.

  Raymond picked up his spoon – and put it down again.

  ‘It hasn’t got an umbrella on top,’ he wailed. ‘I always have a plastic umbrella on top. I won’t eat it unless I have a – Ugh! Eek! Yow! What’s happened? I didn’t touch it, I didn’t, I didn’t!’

  He was telling the truth for once, but nobody believed him. For the Knickerbocker Glory had done a somersault and landed face down on the table, so that the three kinds of ice-cream, the jelly , the tinned peaches and the raspberry juice were running down Raymond’s trousers, into his socks, across his flashy shoes . . .

  Odge had not ill-wished Raymond Trottle. She had been very good and held herself in, but not completely . S he had ill-wished the Knickerbocker Glory .

  Six

  ‘I want some brandy for my teeth,’ said Nanny Brown.

  She lay in the second bed from the end in Ward Three of the West Park Hospital, in a flannel nightdress with a drawstring round the neck because she didn’t believe in showing bits of herself to the doctors. She had been old when Mrs Trottle persuaded her to come to Switzerland with the stolen baby and now she was very old indeed; shrivelled and tired and ready to go because she’d said her prayers every day of her life and if God wasn’t waiting to take her up to heaven she’d want to know the reason why . But she was cross about her teeth.

  ‘Now, Mrs Brown,’ said the nurse briskly, ‘you know we can’t let you soak your teeth in that nasty stuff. Just pop them in that nice glass of disinfectant.’

  ‘It isn’t nice, it’s smelly , ’ g rumbled Mrs Brown. ‘I’ve always soaked my teeth in brandy and then I drink the brandy . That’s how I get my strength.’

  And she had needed her strength, living in the Trottles’ basement helping to look after Raymond, but keeping an eye on Ben. She didn’t hold with the way Larina was bringing up Raymond; she could see how spoilt he was going to be and when he was three she’d handed him over to another nanny , b ut she wouldn’t let Larina turn her out – not with Ben to look after. Mrs Trottle might threaten her with the police if she said anything about the stolen baby, but the threat worked both ways. ‘If you turn me out, and the boy, I’ll tell them everything and who knows which of us they’ll believe,’ Nanny Brown had said.

  So she’d stayed in Trottle Towers and helped with a bit of sewing and ironing and turned her back on what was going on in the nurseries upstairs. And she’d been able to see that Ben at least was brought up properly . S he couldn’t stop the servants ordering him about, but she saw to his table manners and that he spoke nicely and got his schooling and he was a credit to her.

  That was the only thing that worried her – what would happen to Ben if she died. Mrs Trottle hated Ben; she’d stop at nothing to get him sent away. But I’m going to foil her, thought Nanny Brown. Oh yes, I’m going to stop her tricks.

  ‘There’s a burglar under my bed,’ she said now. ‘I feel it. Have a look.’

  ‘Now, Mrs Brown,’ said the nurse, ‘we don’t want to get silly ideas into our head, do we?’

  ‘It isn’t silly , ’ s a id Nanny peevishly. ‘London’s full of burglars, so why not under my bed?’

  The nurse wouldn’t look though; she was one of the bossy ones. ‘What will your grandson say if you carry on like that?’ she said, and walked away with her behind swinging.

  But when Ben came slowly down the ward, the old woman felt better at once. She’d been strict with him: no rude words, eating up every scrap you were given, yet she didn’t mind admitting that if she loved anyone in the world it was this boy. And the other patients smiled too as he passed their beds because he was always so polite and friendly , greeting them and remembering their names.

  ‘Hello, Nanny . ’

  He always called her Nanny, not Grandma. She’d told him to, it sounded better. Now he laid a small bunch of lilies of the valley down beside her and she shook her head at him. ‘I told you not to waste your money.’ She’d left him a few pounds out of her pension when she went into hospital and told him it had to last. Waste was wicked, but her gnarled fingers closed round the bunch and she smiled.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Oh fine, fine,’ lied Nanny Brown. ‘And you? What’s been going on at home?’

  Ben hesitated. He wanted to tell Nanny about his mysterious visitors, about how much he liked them . . . the strange feeling he’d had that they belonged to him. But he’d promised to say nothing and anyway he’d been wrong because they didn’t belong to him. So he just said: ‘Nothing much. I’ve got on to the football team and Raymond’s had another screaming fit.’

  ‘That’s hardly news,’ said Nanny Brown grimly . And then: ‘No one’s been bothering you? That Mr Fulton?’

  ‘No, not really . But . . . do you think you’re coming home soon, Nanny? It’s better when you’re there.’

  Nanny patted his hand. ‘Bless you, of course I am. You just get on with your schooling and remember once you’re grown up, no one can tell you what to do.’

  ‘Yes.’

  It would be a long time though till he was a man and Nanny looked very ill. Fear was bad; being afraid was about yourself and you had to fight it, but just for a moment he was very much afraid whether it was selfish or not.

  It was very quiet in the ward when the visitors had gone. All the other patients lay back drowsily , glad to rest, but Nanny Brown sat up in bed as fierce as a sparrow hawk. There wasn’t much time to waste. And she was lucky: it was the nice nurse from the Philippines who came round to take temperatures. Celeste, she was called, and she had a lovely smile and a tiny red rose tucked into her hair behind her ear. You could only see it when she bent down, but it always made you feel better, knowing it was there.

  ‘Listen, dear, there’s something I want you to do for me. Will you get me a piece of paper and an envelope? It’s really important or I wouldn’t ask you.’

  Celeste reached for Nanny’s wrist and began to take her pulse.

  ‘I’ll try, Mrs Brown,’ she said. ‘But you’ll have to wait till I’ve finished my rounds.’

  And she didn’t forget. An hour later she came with the paper and a strong white envelope. ‘Have you got a pen?’

  Nanny Brown nodded. ‘Thank you, dear; that’s a weight off my mind. You’re a good kind girl.’

  Celeste smiled. ‘That’s all right.’ She looked clos
ely at the old woman’s face. It wouldn’t be long now. ‘I’ll just make sure about the burglars,’ she said.

  She bent down to look, and as she did so Nanny Brown could see the little red rose tucked in the jet black hair.

  ‘Bless you,’ she said – and then, feeling much better, she began to write.

  Seven

  ‘Is simple,’ said Hans. ‘I bop ’im. I sack ’im. We go through gump.’

  The others had returned from Fortlands in such a gloomy mood that the poor ogre could hardly bear it. He’d had a good sleep and when he heard what had happened in the restaurant, he decided that he should come forward and put things right.

  Cor shook his head. It was tempting to let the giant bop Raymond on the head, tie him up in a sack and carry him back to the Island, but it couldn’t be done. He imagined the King and Queen unwrapping their stunned son like a trussed piglet . . . realizing that Raymond had had to be carried off by force.

  ‘He must come willingly, Hans,’ he said, ‘or the Queen will break her heart.’

  Ernie Hobbs now glided towards the little summer house where they were sitting. He usually allowed himself a breather in the early evening and had left the other ghosts in charge of the gump.

  ‘Well, how’s it going?’

  The Islanders told him.

  Ernie nodded. ‘I’m afraid it’s a bad business. We’ve been keeping an eye on him and he’s been going downhill steadily . Mrs Trottle’s a fool and Mr Trottle’s never there – there’s no one to check him.’

  ‘I suppose there can be no doubt who Raymond is?’ asked Cor.

  Ernie shook his head. ‘I saw her steal the baby. I saw her come back a year later with the baby in her arms. What’s more, he had the same comforter in his mouth. I noticed it particularly with it being on a gold ring. He’ll be the Prince all right.’

  ‘And what about Ben?’ asked Gurkintrude.

  ‘Ah, he’s a different kettle of fish, Ben is. Been here as long as Raymond and you couldn’t find a better lad. He can see ghosts too and never a squawk out of him. The servants treat him like dirt – take their tone from Mrs Trottle. It’ll be a bad day for the boy when his Grandma dies.’