Part 8 (2/2)

'Well, she probably will, you know. Or goats. That'd be a good one. I wonder what the ”Neighbourhood Residential Committee” would think of that?'

John smiled, despite himself. 'She couldn't do that, though,' he said. 'Her relatives would be ent.i.tled to collect, wouldn't they?'

'What relatives? Lizzie hasn't got any relatives.'

'Yes she has. I met her niece today, or her great-niece or something.'

Oliver was shaking his head with a certainty that infuriated John. 'Nope,' he said. 'Not Lizzie's, you didn't. She told me herself that she has no one left in England and she never had a family of her own here. ”I's all alone in the world and I likes it that way. I's no time at all for people, I hasn't. They takes up too much s.p.a.ce.”'

'Well, you're wrong this time, Olly. I-' He stopped abruptly. The gentle tapping of suspicion that he'd had when he first saw Tess had become a mighty hammering. 'Drink your tea, Olly,' he said as he stood up.

'Why? Where are you going?'

'We're going, Olly. Missing Persons.'

'I knowed it was going to happen,' said Lizzie. 'I knowed it as soon as I read about it in the newspaper.'

Kevin looked across at Tess and raised a quizzical eyebrow. Tess shrugged.

'I doesn't get newspapers to read,' Lizzie went on. 'I hasn't any interest in all them politics and wars all over the place. I gets the papers from Mr Quigley. That's the farmer who owns those cattle. He gives me his old ones to light the fire. I hasn't any time for fire-lighters. They smells like motor cars.'

Tess stroked the cat on her lap. She was relaxed now that she was sure she would soon be home. She didn't know what she was going to say to her parents, but she would think about that later.

'Sometimes I looks at them before I scrunches them up,' said Lizzie, 'and sometimes I doesn't. I always knows that if something's important it'll catch my eye. How can something be important if you has to go looking for it, that's what I says. So I wasn't surprised when I saw it.'

'Saw what?' said Kevin.

'About that drilling up there in the North Pole. I knew what would happen if they started all that carry-on. But people never thinks about what might happen. They wants oil and they wants money and cars and fire-lighters, and as soon as they's got them what does they do but want more of them? So I said to myself, I'll warn them. That's what I'll do.'

She got up a little stiffly and went over to the kitchen sink. The night had fallen, so she drew the curtains, and for a while the room was soft with firelight. Lizzie rummaged around in a drawer until she found what she was looking for, then turned on the light and came back to her seat.

'There,' she said, handing a piece of brown paper to Kevin. 'That's only a copy, mind. I always keeps a copy of letters. Not that I ever writes any these days. The real one was on good paper. The best you can buy, Mr Quigley said.'

Tess leant across and read the letter over Kevin's shoulder. At the top it said, 'To The Taoiseach And the Tanaiste of The Dail, KilDare Street, Dublin. From Mrs Elizabeth Larkin of TiBradden, Co. Dublin, OWNER of Much Land and VaLuable ProPerty.

'They has to know that you's someone,' said Lizzie, proudly, 'before they takes any notice of you. They doesn't pay no attention to commoners.'

Tess and Kevin read on. The writing was large and untidy, with small letters and capitals all jumbled up together.

'YoU Cant alloW ThoSe comPanY PeoPle to Go driLLing UP in the NorTh PoLe. OR elSe YoU WiLL LeT ouT The krooLs and Then YoU WiLL Be SoRRY.

YoURS finally, lizzie Larkin.

PS PLeaSe Send a coPY to The comPanY ThaT iS doing The dRiLLing becauSe I don'T have There adReSS.

Tess sat back in her chair. She knew without doubt where that letter would have ended its life, and she wondered how many similar letters from cranks pa.s.sed through government offices in the course of a year. She sighed and sat back. The cat made a tour of her lap and resettled itself.

'Well?' said Lizzie. 'What does you think?'

'It's a good letter, Lizzie,' said Tess. 'It's very good. But the trouble is, people don't ... I mean people in government don't very often take much notice of letters.'

'Whoever they're from,' Kevin added.

'You's right, there,' said Lizzie, 'and you knows why that is, doesn't you?'

'Why?'

'Because they thinks they knows it all, that's why.'

Tess's face was among the first that John Maloney saw in the room where the files on missing persons were kept. 'There she is,' he said to Oliver Griffin. 'I knew I'd seen her before.'

'Who?'

'Lizzie's niece.'

'But Lizzie hasn't got a niece,' said Oliver.

'I believe you, Olly,' said John. 'Now let's go.'

'People in general,' said Lizzie, 'thinks they knows it all. And if they doesn't know it then they puts it in front of a microscope or a periscope and makes it bigger, and there's things in this world should be left the same size they always was and not interfered with at all.'

Tess looked at her watch. She would be home before her parents went to bed.

'They doesn't use plain common sense,' Lizzie went on. 'They sees things that is plain and simple and they goes to great lengths to make them as difficult and complicated as they can. They sees that the world is cold at both ends so they comes up with a c.o.c.k and bull story about how we's all spinning around in the air like a football. But you can throw a football around all day and it never gets colder at the ends than it is in the middle.'

'I don't think it's the spinning that causes the Poles to be cold, Lizzie,' said Kevin. 'I think it's the way the earth tilts.'

'Tilts?'

'Yes. It's sort of leaning as it goes around, so some bits don't get as much sun.'

'And where did you find that out?'

'I read about it in the library.'

Lizzie got up angrily, spilling two cats on to the floor. 'That's exactly what I's talking about,' she said. 'What does a nice boy like you want to go poking around libraries for? Nosing out all kinds of nonsense you has no use for? Then when you gets a chance of learning what you needs to know, there's no room left in your head for it.' She strode over to the fire. 'And you get a move on!' she said to the kettle, giving it a poke.

'Why don't you tell us anyway, Lizzie?' said Tess. 'About your krools.'

'My krools?' said Lizzie. 'They isn't my krools. They isn't anybody's krools. They's just krools.'

'Well, tell us about them anyway, will you?'

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