Текст книги "Doctor Who: Magic of the Angels"

Автор книги: Rayner Jacqueline

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Chapter Four

RORY HELPED WALK Mrs Collins and Mrs Hooper back to their minibus. He had an arm round Mrs Collins and could feel her shaking. Miss Leake was leading Mrs Hooper.

Miss Leake was in charge of Golden Years Home for the Elderly. She told Rory this, and a lot of other things that didn’t interest him, as they walked to the car park. She also kept being cheerful at the old ladies. ‘Now, don’t let’s be sillies!’ she said. ‘It was just a silly old magic trick, nothing to be scared of. Fancy being scared of ghosties and ghoulies at your age, Mrs Collins and Mrs Hooper!’

‘Monster...’ muttered Mrs Hooper.

‘It wasn’t a real monster, it was just a young lad. Like this lad here!’ Miss Leake said, waving a hand at Rory. ‘You’re not scared of him, now, are you?’

Rory thought that Sammy Star must be at least fifteen years older than him. He didn’t mention it, though. It was hard to get a word in edgeways when Miss Leake was talking.

‘Lost,’ said Mrs Collins. ‘So lost.’

‘You’re not lost, Mrs Collins! We’re in London – LONDON,’ said Miss Leake loudly. ‘Now you just need to get on the bus and we’ll take you home. I said, we’ll take you BACK HOME. Back to lovely Golden Years for a cup of cocoa then beddy-byes.’

Miss Leake unlocked the minibus and Rory helped the two ladies up the steps. ‘Now I’m going to ask this young man to be very kind,’ said Miss Leake to her charges. ‘I’m going to ask him to stay here with you while I go back for the others. I hope they’ve not got up to mischief while I’ve been gone!’

She turned to Rory and gave him a would-be winning smile. ‘Now, you don’t mind waiting, do you? I won’t be long. I can’t leave my girls alone, though!’

Rory nodded. ‘That’s fine.’

‘There, do you hear that? He says it’s fine. It’s FINE. You don’t have to worry, because he’s a nurse,’ Miss Leake said, with a little giggle in her voice. ‘Oh, they love a male nurse, do my old dears! Maybe you should be the one to worry!’

Rory forced a smile onto his face. ‘I’m sure we’ll be OK.’

Miss Leake went off, still giggling a little to herself. Rory shut the door of the minibus, and sat down on a seat. Mrs Collins and Mrs Hooper were in the seat behind, and he swivelled round to talk to them. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

They nodded slowly. The tears had stopped falling now, but both old ladies still looked sad. They had a haunted look, Rory thought, as if they were thinking of a past tragedy.

They all sat in silence for a while. The two women were holding hands tightly, clinging to each other for comfort.

‘What was it, Mrs Collins?’ Rory asked softly after a while. ‘What’s the matter? What scared you?’

‘Kylie,’ she said.

Rory just gazed at her in surprise. It seemed a very odd thing to be scared of.

‘Kylie,’ she repeated. ‘My name. Call me Kylie. Not Mrs Collins.’

‘Amber,’ said Mrs Hooper. ‘I’m Amber. I’m not mad.’

‘Of course you’re not,’ said Rory. ‘Who says you are?’

‘We have to be careful,’ said Mrs Hooper. She didn’t seem to be talking to Rory, her eyes were looking far away. ‘We mustn’t tell the truth. They’ll think we’re mad.’

‘We’ll get locked up if we tell the truth,’ added Mrs Collins.

‘Is something bad going on?’ Rory asked, worried now. ‘Is something bad going on at the Golden Years home?’

To his relief, Mrs Hooper shook her head. ‘Not there,’ she said. ‘A long time ago. A very long time ago.’

Mrs Collins nodded fiercely. ‘A very long time ago,’ she agreed. ‘Today. A very long time ago today.’

Rory had thought he was getting somewhere, but that answer made no sense at all.

‘It was VE Day,’ said Mrs Hooper. ‘Victory in Europe. I didn’t know what that meant, then. We didn’t do it at school.’

‘They asked me why I was in my nightie,’ said Mrs Collins. ‘Why I was walking around in a daze.’

Mrs Hooper almost smiled. ‘I was dazed too. They said there was a girl like me, a girl who was confused. They wondered if we knew each other. That’s how we met. We’ve stuck together ever since.’ She squeezed her friend’s hand.

‘They said it must have been a bomb,’ said Mrs Collins. ‘A bomb must have come down and hurt our heads. That’s why we didn’t know what had happened.’

Mrs Hooper nodded. ‘They said they’d thought the last Doodlebug had fallen months ago. People were upset to think there’d been more bombs. They said it would be the last one, though. There was peace in Europe at last. We knew it wasn’t a bomb, but we didn’t know what had really happened. So we went along with it.’ She paused. ‘We knew there must have been other girls, but we didn’t look for them. It’s not the sort of thing you can ask people.’

‘They made us join their party,’ said Mrs Collins. ‘It was the biggest party I’d ever seen. Right there in Trafalgar Square. They were all so happy. We danced and danced and danced. We were so scared and so lost, but we danced.’

‘I danced with a soldier,’ said Mrs Hooper. ‘His name was Albert. It was a summer’s day like this when we got married...’ Tears began to fall from her eyes again, and she began to sing. ‘It may be an hour, it may be a week...’

Mrs Collins lifted her voice and joined in. ‘It may be fifty years...’

Rory felt tears pricking at his eyes too. The two old ladies were so sad, yet so dignified.

The moment was broken. The door to the minibus clunked open, and Miss Leake began helping elderly people up the steps. ‘Everything all right?’ she called to Rory, but didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I’m sure you’ve been fine, even with that cheeky pair! Mrs Collins and Mrs Hooper are so naughty sometimes. They do play such jokes. Why, the other day they tried to tell me they were born in 1993! 1893 more like, I said, didn’t I, Mrs Hooper? But you will have your little joke.’ She didn’t seem to care or even notice that Mrs Hooper ignored her.

When the old people were seated, Rory got up and walked down the bus to the door. ‘Bye then,’ he said to Miss Leake.

‘Goodbye, and thank you so much,’ she replied, sitting herself down in the driver’s seat. ‘Oh! By the way! You know those friends you were with? That nice red-haired girl and the young man in the plastic bowler hat?’ Rory nodded. ‘Well, they got thrown out of the theatre! Awful, isn’t it? So I wouldn’t go back there looking for them if I were you.’

Rory sighed and shut the bus door behind him. Amy and the Doctor had been thrown out of yet another place. Lucky he still had his mobile phone. He kept it with him out of habit. At least in England around his own time it should work.

As he moved away from the minibus, he could hear the whole busload of elderly people joining in the song. ‘It may be an hour, it may be a week, it may be fifty years. But I know we will find loving hearts still entwined, on the day we meet again.’

The wartime song always made him think of Amy. He’d waited nearly 2,000 years for her. Fifty years was nothing compared to that. The song told the truth, though. Even after all that time, their love had still been strong.

Rory smiled.

Chapter Five

THEY MET IN Trafalgar Square.

‘There was a VE Day party here,’ Rory told the Doctor and Amy as he sat down beside them. He was still thinking of the two old ladies, Mrs Collins and Mrs Hooper.

The Doctor nodded. ‘Eighth of May, 1945. Thousands gathered here. Churchill made a speech and they played it over loudspeakers.’

‘Good old Winston,’ said Amy. ‘What?’ she cried as Rory gave her a look. ‘I can namedrop too! It’s not just the Doctor who’s been everywhere and met everyone.’

‘I wasn’t at the VE Day party,’ the Doctor pointed out. ‘I just heard about it from other people.’ He sighed. ‘One happy day. One great big happy day for them all. Then real life got them again. Japan was still fighting the war. Everyone had lost loved ones. Homes had been bombed. There were no bananas.’

‘They were there,’ said Rory. ‘Those two old ladies. They were at the Trafalgar Square party on VE Day. Strange to think of it, really. More than sixty-five years ago. They’d just have been teenagers, and they were dancing right here. Maybe on this very spot.’ He smiled. ‘Poor old dears. I couldn’t really follow what they were saying. I tell you what was weird, though. They were called Kylie and Amber. You don’t think of old people being called Kylie or Amber, do you?’

‘Hang on,’ said Amy, looking shocked. ‘Doctor...’

The Doctor stiffened. For a moment he didn’t say a word, then started leafing through the pile of posters beside him. He picked out the one he had shown Amy earlier, and another of a blonde girl. He held them up so Rory could see them.

MISSING: KYLIE DUNCAN. MISSING: AMBER REYNOLDS.

Rory frowned. He took the poster of Amber Reynolds and stared at it. ‘I don’t understand...’

‘That’s because you missed the end of the show,’ said Amy. ‘We’ve got a lot to tell you. Sammy Star is using a Weeping Angel in his act. It’s sending girls back into the past.’

‘I think you’ve just found out where in the past they’re ending up,’ the Doctor told Rory. ‘One minute they’re in a West End theatre in the twenty-first century...’

‘... and the next they’re in 1945. At a party in Trafalgar Square,’ finished Rory. ‘Oh no.’ He jumped up. ‘We’ve got to go and rescue them! We know where they are and when they are, so we can go in the TARDIS!’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘We also know they stay there, in that time. They grow old.’

‘We could get them back to their own time!’ Rory cried.

‘They get back to their own time,’ said the Doctor. ‘They just take the long route. It takes them about sixty-seven years.’ He shook his head again. ‘I’m sorry, Rory. We can’t change that.’ He stood up. ‘But we can make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else. Come on, Ponds, we’re going back to the theatre. We’ve got less than twenty-four hours to stop Sammy Star.’

The sign above the theatre was still lit up. The words Sammy Star’s Magic Show! shone out.

‘The city never sleeps!’ the Doctor said. He rattled the theatre doors. They were locked. ‘It seems the people who work here do sleep, though. Never mind.’ He pulled the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. ‘I have a key.’

The foyer looked haunted in the gloom, more haunted than the stage graveyard. They crept across it in silence and went through a door marked NO ENTRANCE.

‘I know the way,’ the Doctor whispered. ‘I went for a snoop around during the interval. I had a feeling something was wrong. My seventh sense.’

‘Don’t you mean sixth sense?’ asked Rory.

‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘I already have six well-used senses. This was my just as well-used but often ignored Finding Evil sense. Of course all my senses are finely honed – ooof.’

He broke off as he walked straight into a large security guard.

‘What are you doing here?’ growled the guard.

The Doctor fumbled in his pocket and brought out his psychic paper. ‘I’ve come to inspect the magic,’ he said, holding out the open wallet. The guard peered at the blank paper, seeing only what the Doctor wanted him to see.

‘Says here you’re with the Magic Oval,’ he said.

‘Ah yes,’ said the Doctor as he brushed himself down. ‘It’s like the Magic Circle, only... stretched. We inspect tricks at night so no one else finds out how they’re done. If you could just escort us to Sammy Star’s prop store, we’ll get on with our checks.’

He made to walk past the guard, but the burly man put out an arm to stop him. ‘Does Mr Star know about this? He never said you were coming.’

The Doctor tutted. ‘Well, of course he doesn’t know. It wouldn’t be a random secret magic check at night if he knew about it. You’ve heard of secret shoppers? They buy things in shops and then report back on the service.’

The guard nodded his head.

‘Well, we’re secret magic-checkers. We check the tricks then report back to the Magic Oval.’

Amy held her breath. For a moment it looked like the guard might let them through.

‘Well...’ he said. Then he paused. ‘Hey, haven’t I seen you before?’

The Doctor looked puzzled. ‘I don’t think so. I’ve just got one of those faces.’

‘Yes I have!’ The man frowned. ‘I threw you out of here an hour ago. I noticed your plastic bowler hat at the time.’

‘Lots of people wear these!’ the Doctor said. ‘They’re cool.’

‘No they don’t,’ muttered Amy under her breath. ‘And no they’re not.’

‘Yeah, but I also noticed your funny T-shirt and that you had a red-headed girl with you,’ said the man. ‘Come on, you’re not fooling me. You’re trying to nick something so you can cheat in the contest tomorrow. Well, you’re out of luck. Out you go!’

‘And stay out!’ the Doctor yelled as he landed on the pavement for the second time that evening.

‘I already have “theatre” on my list of places we’ve been thrown out of,’ Amy complained. ‘We could at least have found somewhere new.’

‘Well, look on the bright side,’ said the Doctor. ‘At least we were thrown out before we got to the guard dogs. They looked fierce.’

Amy blinked. ‘There were guard dogs?’

‘Just a couple. I saw them when I was scouting around during the interval. Oh, and a lot of padlocks. Sammy Star really doesn’t want people going through his props.’

‘So what do we do now?’ asked Rory.

The Doctor didn’t answer at once. He looked deep in thought. ‘We’ve got to find a way of getting into the prop store,’ he said after a moment.

The others nodded.

‘We need to do it before the next show. The Angel mustn’t get any more girls.’

They nodded again.

‘Did anyone else hear that guard mention a contest?’

Amy and Rory nodded again. ‘I don’t know what he was talking about, though,’ said Amy.

The Doctor jumped up. ‘One way to find out!’ He went back over to the theatre. The guard could still be seen in the foyer, his shadow on the window. The Doctor found a letterbox in the main door, and knelt down to it. ‘Excuse me!’ he called through the letterbox. ‘What contest were you talking about just then?’

A few seconds later a flyer plopped out onto the pavement from the other side of the letterbox. The Doctor picked it up. ‘Thank you!’ he called.

He rejoined Amy and Rory. ‘Aha!’ he said. ‘What do you think about this, then?’

Amy took the flyer from him and read it.

‘Have you got what it takes? If you think you’re as good as Sammy Star, come to the Britain’s Got Magic try-outs. Show your tricks to TV judges Austin Hart, Daisy Mead and Bill Evans. With special guest judge, Sammy Star.’

‘So?’ said Rory. ‘It’s a thing for daft people who want to get on telly.’

‘Yes,’ agreed the Doctor. ‘The thing is, though, the try-outs are tomorrow, and they’re at this theatre.’

‘Right!’ Amy got it. ‘You mean you’re going to enter?’

‘Not quite,’ said the Doctor. ‘I mean, we’re going to enter. Just call us daft people who want to get on telly. We’re just going to rescue a few damsels in distress at the same time.’

Chapter Six

THE DOCTOR, RORY and Amy were making plans.

‘We have to go to the try-outs in disguise,’ the Doctor said. ‘Sammy Star might spot us. So might that guard, if he’s around. Even if I take my cool hat off.’

‘I’d suggest taking your cool hat off anyway,’ said Amy. ‘You know, just in case.’

‘I’ve seen those programmes on TV,’ said Rory. ‘People queue up for hours to get in. We’ll have to get there really early in the morning.’

‘No, we’ll have to get there really early in the morning,’ the Doctor told him.

Rory looked puzzled. ‘Er, that’s what I said.’

‘No,’ the Doctor told him. ‘You said “we” meaning you, me and Amy. I said “we” meaning just me and Amy. I’ve got another job for you, Rory.’

He told the others what he had in mind. Rory would go to the Golden Years Home for the Elderly. There he’d talk to Kylie Collins and Amber Hooper and find out all they knew about Sammy Star. Meanwhile, he and Amy would disguise themselves and go to the theatre. Once inside, they’d find out where the Weeping Angel was being kept.

‘What do we do when we find it?’ Amy asked.

‘Good question,’ said the Doctor. ‘Great question, in fact.’ He stopped.

‘So what’s the answer to my great question?’ said Amy.

The Doctor looked slightly sheepish. ‘Well, I’m sure I’ll have worked out something by then. We’ll have a whole day to sort it out. Rory, make sure you’re back by the evening for the show.’

‘Right,’ said Rory. ‘You can count on me.’

‘Good,’ said the Doctor. ‘Because I have a feeling we’re going to need all the help we can get.’

The next morning, Rory caught a tube then a train and made his way to the Golden Years Home for the Elderly.

He hadn’t been keen on Miss Leake, but was quite glad when she opened the door. At least she knew who he was.

‘I was, er, just passing,’ he said stiffly. He didn’t like telling even little white lies. ‘So I thought I’d pop in and see how Mrs Collins and Mrs Hooper are today.’

Miss Leake beamed at him. ‘Oh, it’s the nice young man from last night! Well now, aren’t you sweet? Come on through, they’ll be so thrilled!’

She led him into a large room. High-backed chairs were all around the edge, each with a tiny table next to it. Every chair held an elderly person, and every table held a cup of tea. A TV set blared in one corner, but no one was watching it. They were all staring ahead at nothing. Although the sun shone brightly, the French windows onto the garden remained firmly shut.

‘Mrs Hooper! Mrs Collins! I’ve brought a visitor for you!’ shouted Miss Leake. ‘Isn’t that nice? They’re very pleased to see you,’ she added to Rory, although they hadn’t even looked at him.

‘Er, I’ll be OK from here,’ Rory said, hoping to get rid of her. To his relief, she just patted his hand and left the room.

He went over to the two elderly ladies, who were sitting next to each other. Not seeing any spare seats, Rory moved an empty cup and sat on the table between them. Then he stood up again. ‘This is silly,’ he said. ‘Let’s go into the garden.’

Mrs Hooper and Mrs Collins looked as though he’d suggested bunking off school. For a second, he saw the cheeky schoolgirls they’d been once. Of course, if the Doctor was right, these old ladies had been schoolgirls only a few months ago.

Rory opened the French windows and helped the two ladies over the step into the garden. They all sat down on a little bench by a rose bed.

‘It’s lovely out here,’ said Rory. ‘You ought to come outside more. Not just sit indoors.’

‘There’s no point,’ said Mrs Hooper dully.

Mrs Collins raised her face to the sun. ‘It makes me think of being young,’ she said.

‘What happened when you were young?’ asked Rory softly. ‘Can you tell me?’

She shut her eyes, letting the sun play on her eyelids. ‘We got lost,’ she said.

‘Lost,’ Mrs Hooper echoed. ‘We were so lost.’

‘That’s what I want you to tell me about,’ said Rory. ‘I want to hear about the time you were lost. It was Sammy Star, wasn’t it? It was him who sent you back in time.’

There was silence. Rory didn’t want to rush them, but after a few seconds asked again. ‘Was it Sammy Star who sent you back in time?’

Mrs Hooper gave a loud gulp. Rory looked at her, and found to his horror that she was crying. Both old ladies were crying, huge, choking sobs. ‘Please don’t cry!’ he said helplessly.

Mrs Collins smiled. In fact, Rory could now see that they were both smiling through the tears. He was surprised. ‘You’re not upset?’ he asked.

‘It was real, then...’ Mrs Collins whispered. ‘It really happened.’

‘We’re not mad!’ said Mrs Hooper. ‘We were never mad!’

‘Of course you’re not mad,’ said Rory. ‘If you knew some of the things I’d seen... No, you’re really not mad. It really happened, all of it.’

‘We had to forget,’ Mrs Hooper went on. ‘We could never talk about it. It felt like it was a dream from long ago.’

‘You saw Sammy Star, though,’ said Rory. ‘Miss Leake said you saw the poster and kept talking about him. You knew who he was, didn’t you?’

‘He was just part of a dream. Someone we might have seen long ago. Then the dream came true.’

Rory leant forward. ‘Please will you try to think back? It could really help.’

‘So long ago.’ Mrs Hooper shook her head. ‘It was so long ago. We had to forget...’

It was long ago for them, Rory knew, but it was happening right now too. Somehow he had to get them to recall the past. It might save some other girl from going through the same thing.

He had a sudden thought. The MISSING poster of Amber Reynolds. He didn’t think he’d given it back to the Doctor. Had he folded it up and put it in his pocket? Yes! There it was. He pulled out the poster and unfolded it. Then he handed the paper to Mrs Hooper.

‘Amber Reynolds,’ he said. ‘Was that you?’

She put out a nervous hand but stopped, seeming too scared to touch the picture. ‘Reynolds,’ she whispered. ‘That was my name before I married Albert.’

‘Think back,’ said Rory softly. ‘Think back to who you were then. To what happened to you.’

Mrs Hooper wiped her tears away. Then, after taking a deep breath, she spoke. ‘It was Max.’

Rory was puzzled. He’d not heard of a Max. Was this Max in league with Sammy Star? ‘What did Max do?’ he asked.

She smiled. ‘Oh, he was so lovely. He would run up and give me a great big lick when I came home from school.’

‘Oh, Max was your dog!’ said Rory in relief as he figured it out.

‘I loved him so much. He was my only friend. Dad hit me. Mum let him. Max cared, though. He loved me as much as I loved him. Then...’

‘Yes?’ Rory asked, as she paused.

‘Then my dad sold him. That was the thing that made me run away. He was my dog and my friend, and my dad sold him. A stranger came to the door and offered him loads of money for Max, and my dad said yes.’

‘That’s awful,’ said Rory.

She nodded. ‘I thought I could earn lots of money in London. Then I could find the stranger somehow and buy Max back. Instead I got... lost. I never saw Max again. I hope he was happy.’ Tears ran down her cheeks again and this time she didn’t brush them away.

Rory gave her a few moments with her long-ago grief. Then he asked, ‘What happened then? What went on when you got to London?’ She didn’t answer. ‘Please,’ he tried again. ‘I have to know. The Doctor’s counting on me to find out.’

‘The Doctor?’ said Mrs Hooper at last. ‘I think I met a doctor. Back then. Back in the dream.’

‘No,’ said Rory. ‘This isn’t a doctor – it’s the Doctor. Not someone you see when you’re ill.’

‘I thought he was mad,’ she said, not taking any notice. ‘Him and the red-haired girl. Both of them, mad.’ She sighed. ‘They were the last people I saw before I was lost.’

Rory didn’t like the sound of that at all. A mad doctor and a mad red-headed girl. That just had to be the Doctor and Amy. That meant that the young Amber Reynolds was still out there somewhere. She hadn’t been sent back in time yet.

Whatever the Doctor was up to, it seemed as though his plan was doomed to fail.

Miss Leake came out into the garden. She had a folded magazine under one arm and was carrying a cup. ‘I wondered where you were!’ she said. ‘All of you out here, now mind you don’t catch the sun.’ She handed the cup to Rory. ‘I just knew you’d like a nice cup of tea.’

Rory thanked her, even though he didn’t want a cup of tea

‘See, they’re fine this morning after a good night’s sleep,’ Miss Leake carried on. She didn’t seem to mind that the people she was talking about were in front of her. Waving the magazine at the two women, she said, ‘Look, that nice Sammy Star’s going to be on TV soon!’ She turned back to Rory. ‘They’ll enjoy that. It’ll make up for all the silly upset at the show yesterday.’

Rory didn’t agree, but he nodded. He wanted her to leave so he could find out more from Mrs Hooper. Then, as she tucked the magazine back under her arm, he noticed a photo on the open page. It showed Sammy Star in front of a gravestone, holding an apple. ‘Could I just have a look at that, please?’ he asked, taking it from her before she could answer.

He read the first few lines. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Now we’re really in trouble.’