Scareground (eBook)

“Now, now, Henry!” scolded Hettie Crumpet. Her hair was tied back with a white scarf, and her apron was of red gingham. “Be off and wash those hands before supper. You’ll dirty my best tablecloth!”

“Such a fuss on a Thursday,” mumbled Henry Crumpet as he hurried off. “There’s no peace for a man at the end of a hard day.” His pepper-grey hair was splattered with flour. Black streaks of dirt covered his overalls.

Thursday was oven-cleaning day, a day when Ma Crumpet usually suffered from a sudden (and most convenient) bout of dizziness. Cleaning the cold oven meant lying down flat inside its tomb-like walls and scrubbing them with newspaper until the nostrils were fit to burst.

“And, by that comment, Henry Crumpet, are you suggesting I’ve been eating cream cakes and sipping tea all day?” Ma Crumpet winked at Nancy, then whispered, “He’ll lose the grumps as soon as he tucks into my pie.”

Nancy grinned. They both knew he loved a freshly baked pie.

Pa Crumpet smiled warmly at Nancy before he left the room. “Tuck in, love. Before it gets cold!”

Thursday suppers were always the same. Ma Crumpet would lay out a selection of the finest sweet treats, and, if they were lucky, there would be an egg-custard pie. Tonight was no exception. A delicious golden pie sat pride of the feast. Nestled in the crust was a small pastry chick ankle deep in cream.

Hettie Crumpet untied her apron and folded it neatly to one side. She brushed non-existent crumbs from the table and fixed Nancy a look.

“Florence Witherby called out Dr Green today. A nasty case of a rash, I heard.” Eyebrows lifted towards a flour-dusted hairline.

Heat stormed up Nancy’s neck. “Maybe she ate…” She cleared her throat nervously. “A sour blackberry?”

“You think that’s it, do you?” Ma Crumpet cut into the pie with the precise execution of a Harley Street surgeon: three perfect cuts in a clockwise manoeuvre. “A sour blackberry. Well, I heard a peculiar ball of flour was discovered at the bottom of the chimney. Some babbling nonsense about pigeon feathers and rotten eggs.”

“Which I’m sure Nancy knows nothing about,” insisted Henry Crumpet, returning to the table. He’d changed into a fresh grey shirt and a black waistcoat that was bursting at the seams. “Nancy was playing on the rooftop all afternoon. I can vouch for that, especially if that old—”

Hettie Crumpet sliced her hand through the air as though cutting bread. “Thank you, Henry. I’m sure Nancy had nothing to do with such a terrible, terrible thing. Florence muttered about ghosts! Again! What is it with that woman and spooks?”

Nancy bounced her knees nervously. She was pleased the explosion of white flour had looked ghostly. It was exactly as planned. “The pie looks extra lovely this evening, Ma Crumpet. Especially with the little chick in the middle.”

The table fell silent until Henry Crumpet burst out laughing. His belly jiggled up and down and his chin danced several waltzes. Seconds later, he was choking into a white handkerchief, tears of laughter streaming down his cheeks. “Never…liked…that woman… much, anyway.”

It didn’t take long for Hettie Crumpet to join in, muttering, “Blackberries, indeed!” under her breath. Nancy laughed too, relieved she wasn’t in too much trouble.

Supper continued at its usual jovial pace. When the last piece of egg-custard pie was devoured, Ma Crumpet pulled out a fresh cream meringue. A mountain of clouds. Nancy licked her lips. Golden stars trimmed the edges, and a silver coin sat in the middle, resembling the moon.

Only as she finished her last mouthful, wiped her mouth, and hugged her groaning belly did Nancy pluck up enough courage to ask them about what was dancing around her mind. The moon, the stars, and the beautiful sky were all a part of her life, like the horse mark on her wrist.

She pulled back her sleeve and stared at it, running her finger around the edges. “Why is it shaped like that? It looks like an Arabian horse from a fair.”

A clatter of china followed as Hettie Crumpet almost dropped her rose-printed teapot. Hot tea pooled over the tablecloth, followed by urgent flapping as Henry Crumpet hurried off to fetch a cloth, muttering under his breath, “Nowt to do with a fair, that’s for sure…”

Hettie Crumpet froze, before barking in horror, “Off with you, Henry! Muttering such stuff and nonsense! Frightening the child with stories of a fair!”

Nancy was mortified. “I’m sorry! I…I should have waited until supper was finished. And I’m not frightened. Truly, I’m not.” This had not gone to plan at all.

“Not your fault, Nancy,” said a flustered Ma Crumpet, a starchy smile on her face. “My hands aren’t as steady as they used to be.” She tut-tutted as the stained tablecloth was promptly removed and dunked into a small wooden barrel.

Henry Crumpet lifted the cast-iron urn from the fire and poured boiling water into the barrel. “That’ll do it,” he muttered. “Nothing like hot water for a tea stain.”

Nancy wished she could take the last few minutes back. The change in the atmosphere was arctic.

Hettie Crumpet’s cheeks were flushed, and she kept looking nervously about the room. “Henry—stop fussing with that cloth and be still. All that nonsense about fairs and a ghost carriage! You’ll be frightening young Nancy to death.”

“A carriage?” asked Nancy. “Pa Crumpet never said anything about a carriage.” What were they talking about? More importantly, what were they not talking about? They were acting very peculiar.

She remembered the fair music near Oxleas Wood. Should she tell them the truth? Or had she ruined the evening enough already?

“The last time a fair came to Greenwich,” sighed Pa Crumpet, sitting back at the table, his cheeks flaming red, “there were reports of a tragedy. A fire. An abandoned ghost train carriage. That was twelve years ago.”

“And ghosts,” whispered Ma Crumpet, forgetting she wasn’t supposed to be talking about it. “Florence Witherby said as much.”

“That woman sees ghosts everywhere,” said Pa Crumpet. “It’s not that we are against the fair, Nancy. It’s the very strangeness of it all.”

“And that’s all Nancy needs to know,” said Hettie Crumpet, fanning her face with a napkin. “Fairs aren’t for the likes of young ladies, especially not a Crumpet!” She stacked the supper plates into two neat piles and yanked Pa Crumpet’s napkin from beneath his elbows.

Henry Crumpet frowned. “But there’s—”

“Nothing more to tell,” spluttered Hettie Crumpet, her cheeks the pink of raspberries. “As you said, if we believe Witherby’s tales of ghosts, then we can also believe the tale of sour blackberries!”

Nancy’s cheeks flamed. Why had she asked them about the horse? Now she’d spoiled everything. She slipped from the table, planted a kiss on both their cheeks, and hurried from the room. She’d barely reached the door when Hettie Crumpet spoke again.

“Nancy?”

Nancy’s heart jumped hopefully. “Yes?”

“People are born with all kinds of little quirks and marks. Things that make them special. Because that’s all it is, Nancy. A quirk. Something that makes you special.”

Nancy nodded, wanting to believe such wise words. Yet, for a horrible moment, tears threatened to fall. Because, like herself, Hettie Crumpet was also a terrible liar. The red splotch crawling up the baker’s neck gave her away.

She hurried from the room, only stopping outside the door as she heard raised and urgent voices.

“What were you thinking?” Hettie Crumpet hissed. “We agreed.”

“The girl needs to know the truth about her past, Hettie. Ghost trains and all.”

“And you chose a Thursday-night supper to break it to her?”

“You were the one who mentioned it first!” spluttered her husband.

Something twisted then popped. Nancy recognised the sound: Hettie Crumpet’s tablet pot. She only took the small red pills when she had a headache, and she only had a headache when something upset her. Nancy felt terrible. This was all her fault.

“She’s our child now, Henry. I won’t let anyone take her away!”

Nancy froze. What did Ma Crumpet mean? Why would anyone take her away?

Fleeing to the rooftop, desperate for air, a sickness stewed in her stomach. She’d been adopted. She had come to the Crumpets as part of the Child for Life movement. Every child should have a home, the authorities promised, and Nancy could not imagine more loving parents than the Crumpets. Bakers who would look after her forever. No one—no one—could take her away from them. However, their words had filled her with dread, and no comfort from the stars or tickle from the wind would make her unease go away. Because the Crumpets were keeping a secret, and she was certain it had something to do with a fair.

Nancy...