The Tail of Emily Windsnap - Liz Kessler [49]
“Look — you’ll need to go soon,” he said, holding me away from him.
“But I’ve only just found you!”
“The dinner bell is about to ring, and we need to get you out of here. I don’t know how you got your way into this place, little gem, but you sure as sharks don’t want to get caught here. Might never get out again.”
“Don’t you want me?”
He held my hands and looked deep into my eyes, locking us into a world of our own. “I want you alive,” he said. “I want you free, and happy. I don’t want you slammed up in some stupid place like this for the rest of your life.”
“I’ll never see you again,” I said sadly.
“We’ll find a way, little gem.” I liked how he called me that. “Come on,” he said, looking quickly from side to side. “We need to get you out of here.” He opened his door and looked down into the corridor.
“How come you can do that?” I asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be locked up in here?”
He pointed to a metal tag stapled to the end of his tail.
“Does that hurt?”
“Keeps me in my place. If I take it across the threshold”— he pointed at the doorway —“and I know what I’m talking about — it’s like being slammed between two walls.”
“You tried it?”
He rubbed his head as though he’d just bashed it. “Not to be advised, I tell you.”
I giggled. “Why have doors then?”
He shrugged. “Extra security — they lock ’em at night.” He swam back toward me. “You understand, don’t you?”
“I think so.” I suddenly remembered Mr. Beeston’s words, how he said my dad ran off because he didn’t want to be saddled with a baby. But Mr. Beeston had lied about everything. Hadn’t he?
“What is it, little ’un?”
I looked down at my tail, flicking rapidly from side to side. “You didn’t leave because . . . It’s not that you didn’t want me back then?” I said.
“What?” He suddenly swam over to his bed. I’d totally scared him off. I wished I could take the words back.
He reached under the bed. “Look at this.” He pulled a pile of plastic papers out. “Take a look. Any of them.”
I approached him shyly. “Go on,” he urged. “Have a look.” He passed me one. It was a poem. I read it aloud.
I never thought I’d see the day,
They’d take my bonny bairn away.
I long-ed for her every day.
Alas, she is so far away.
“Yeah, well, it was an early one,” he said, pulling at his ear. “There’s better than that in here.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the poem. “You . . .”
“Yeah, I know. Jewelery, poetry. What next, eh?” He made a face.
But before I could say anything else, a bell started ringing. It sounded like the school fire alarm. I clapped my hands over my ears.
“That’s it. Dinner. They’ll be here soon.” He grabbed me. “Emily. You have to go.”
“Can I keep it?” I asked.
He folded the poem up and handed it back to me. Then he held my arms tightly. “I’ll find you,” he said roughly. “One day, I promise.”
He swirled around, picked up the bracelet from his bedside table, and quickly tied a knot in it. “Give this to your mother. Tell her —” He paused. “Just tell her, no matter what happens, I never stopped loving her, and I never will. Ever. You hear me?”
I nodded, my throat too clogged up to speak. He hugged me one last time before swirling around again. “Hang on.” He pulled the poem off his wall and handed it to me. “Give her this as well, and tell her — tell her to keep it till we’re together again. Tell her to never forsake me.”
“She won’t, Dad. Neither of us will. Ever.”
“I’ll find you,” he said again, his voice croaky. “Now go.” He pushed me through the door. “Be quick. And be careful.”
I edged down into the corridor and held his eyes for a second. “See you, Dad,” I whispered. Then he closed the door and was gone.
I wavered for a moment in the empty corridor. The bell was still shrieking — it was even louder outside the cell. I covered my ears, flicked my tail, and got moving: back along the corridors, into the cleaning cupboard, through the tiny hole, out across the murky darkness, until I found the tunnel again.
Shona was waiting at the end of it, just like she’d said she would be. We fell into each other’s arms and laughed