Healer by Peter Dickinson Page A

used to rush at Mr. Stott. She threw her arms around him and nuzzled her face into his chest. At the same time she tried to jump up and down.
    â€œHi, mind my toes,” said Barry.
    When he put his hands round her rib cage to lift her free, she giggled and clung to him yet more ferociously so that he wasn’t sure he could force her loose without hurting her. He twisted his head and gave Mrs. Butterfield a sorry-not-my-fault shrug.
    Mrs. Butterfield was watching, still with a smile on her lips but a slight frown on her forehead. She answered his signal with a warning shake of the head. He stopped struggling against Pinkie’s hug and went limp.
    It worked. As she let go, she pinched him hard on the hip.
    â€œOi!” he yelped.
    She rushed away, around to the back of the big sofa, where she stopped and turned to watch him, so wild with excitement that her laughter was more like screams, unpleasant to listen to. Suddenly she crouched, peeping at him over the back of the sofa. Yes, of course. If she was treating him as a sort of substitute for her grandfather, the next thing would be…
    He glanced around the room. It was an airy space, lit by its three big barred windows, one in the north wall and two in the east. Beyond the stable roof was a view of wooded fields sloping up to the skyline, lit by the strong afternoon sun. Despite the height and light and openness, there was something prison-like about the room, just as there had been about the close little house in Viola Street. Perhaps it was the bars on the windows, though they obviously hadn’t been put there just to keep Pinkie in. They looked much older than that.
    â€œOkay,” he said. “You want to play a game?”
    She poked her head up and nodded violently.
    â€œIt’ll mean pushing the furniture around,” he said to Mrs. Butterfield.
    â€œIn that case why don’t you wait till after tea?” she said. “It’s all in the hatch, and the kettle’s just boiled. Then you can push the furniture around to your heart’s content. It sounds as if your game will be a bit too active for me.”
    Pinkie straightened up, looking sulky. Then she seemed to make a deliberate effort and switched to her other self, the one Barry knew and preferred, sedate and rather secret.
    He smiled encouragingly at her, and she signalled back with a tiny movement of her lips. But she’d changed. There was something different about her, though he couldn’t at the moment see what.
    â€œPinkie will show you where the hatch is, and I’ll make the tea,” said Mrs. Butterfield.
    Pinkie led the way out into the corridor, where she opened the doors of what looked like a cupboard set into the wall. Inside there seemed to be only one bare shelf with a rope going up from its centre, but Pinkie took hold of another rope which ran down by the hinges and gave it a tug. With a deep, rattling groan from above the shelf slid upward, and another came into view, carrying a tray loaded with crockery and cutlery. Yet another shelf and tray appeared, this time with honey, jam, butter, scones, and a walnut cream cake. There was a dull thud as the whole contraption stopped rising. Now it looked like an ordinary cupboard, apart from being unusually deep. They each took a tray and carried them back into the room.
    â€œThat’s quite a gadget out there,” he said to Mrs. Butterfield.
    â€œThe old lift? It goes right down to the kitchen passage. This all used to be the nursery wing, you see, with a nanny and at least a couple of nursemaids and a whole brood of children. Poor darlings, they’d never have gone down to eat with their parents until they were almost grown-up, except on birthdays and times like that. Mostly they’d stay up here and have all their meals sent up in the lift. Boiled mutton and sprouts, my mother told me. She used to live in a house a bit like this. Help me down into my chair, will you,