Sarah Jane’s parrot Grey lay flat on Sarah’s chest, eyes closed, cuddling like a kitten. Warm light from an oil lamp mounted on the wall beside the bed poured over all of them. It wasn’t a very big room, just room for Nan’s bed and Sarah Jane’s, a perch with cups screwed to it for food and water and a selection of toys hanging from it for Grey, and a wardrobe and chests for their clothes and things. If the wallpaper was old and faded, and the rugs on the floor threadbare, it was still a thousand times better than any place that Nan had ever lived in—and as for Sarah, well, she was used to a mission and hospital in the middle of the jungle, and their little room was just as foreign to her as it was to Nan, though in entirely different ways.
While only little Sarah had a pet from “home,” there were plenty of pets acquired here in England for the other children. To make sure that the children never forgot those who had sent them here, other reminders of absent parents were encouraged here, and there was a supply of paper, ink, and penny stamps in each room. Most schools encouraged letters—so long as they were written in class where the teacher could ostensibly check for spelling, grammar, and penmanship, but in reality making sure nothing uncomplimentary about the school or the teachers went out through the mails. There was a great deal of laughter in the Harton School, and the lessons learned were all the surer for it.
And that was the least of the eccentricities here, in a school where not all of the lessons were about what could be seen with the ordinary eye.
Nan was alone in not wanting reminders of her family; she had no idea who her father was, and her mother had finally descended (last Nan had heard) to the lowest rung on the social ladder her type could reach, that of a street whore in Whitechapel. She roamed the streets now with everything she owned on her back, without even a garret or cellar room, or even an under-stairs cubbyhole to call her own, satisfying first her craving for drink, before looking for the extra penny for a bed or a meal. She would probably die soon, of bad gin, of cold and exposure, of disease, or of everything at once as her chronically-damaged body gave out. Nan had neither time nor pity for her. After all, it had been her gran that had mostly raised her, not her mam, who’d only been interested in the money Nan brought in by begging.
Sarah had a very special sort of bond with Grey—who Sarah insisted was a great deal more than “just” a parrot. Nan was in wholehearted agreement with that estimation at this point—after all, it was no more difficult to believe in than to believe that wolves could adopt a mancub, and Nan was convinced of the truth of Mr.Kipling’s stories.
Sarah had a new set of lessons, now that they had learned she could on occasion, talk with, and see, the dead. This could be a very dangerous ability, so Mem’sab had told Nan, who had appointed herself as Sarah’s protector.
Well, if Nan and Grey had anything to say about the matter, danger would have to pass through them to reach Sarah.
“Nan tickle,” Grey demanded in her funny little voice, eyes still closed; Sarah was using both hands to support the bird on her chest, which left no hands free to give Grey the scratch she wanted.
Nan obliged by crawling up to the head of the bed, settling in beside her friend and scratching the back of Grey’s neck. It was a very gentle scratch—indeed, more like the “tickle” Grey had asked for than the kind of vigorous scratching one would give a dog or a tough London cat—for Nan had known instinctively from the moment that Grey permitted Nan to touch her that a bird’s skin is a very delicate thing. Of all of the people in the school, only Nan, Mem’sab, Sahib himself, and Agansing were permitted by Grey to do more than take her on a hand. Sarah, of course, could do anything she liked with the bird.
“Wish’t Oi had a friend loike you, Grey,” Nan told the bird wistfully, the remnants of her Cockney accent still clinging to her speech despite hours and hours of lessons. The parrot opened one yellow eye and gave her a long and unreadable look.
“Kitty?” Grey suggested, but Nan shook her head.
“Not a moggy,” she replied. “Mind, Oi loike moggies, but—Oi dunno, a moggy don’t seem roight. Not clever ‘nuff.”
Sarah laughed. “Then you must not be a witch after all,” she teased. “A witch’s familiar is always a cat, or a toad—”
Nan made a face. “Don’ want no toads!” she objected. “So Oi guess Oi ain’t no witch, no matter what that Tommy Carpenter says!”
Tommy, a recent addition to the school, had somehow made up his mind that she, Sarah, and Mem’sab were all witches. He didn’t mean it in a derogatory sense; in fact, he gave them all the utmost respect. It had something to do with things his own ayah back in India had taught him. Nan had to wonder, given whom he’d singled out for that particular accolade, if he wouldn’t be getting private lessons of his own with Mem’sab before too long. There was something just a little too knowing about the way Tommy looked at some people.
“But Oi still wisht Oi ‘ad—had—a bird friend loike Grey.” And she sighed again. Grey reached around with her beak and gently took one of Nan’s fingers in it; Grey’s equivalent, so Nan had learned, of a hug. “Well,” she said, when Grey had let go, “Mebbe someday. Lots’ve parrots comes in with sailors.”
“That’s right!” Sarah said warmly, letting go of Grey just long enough to give Nan a hug of her own, before changing the subject. “Nan, promise to tell me all about the Tower as soon as you get back tomorrow! I wish I could go—maybe as much as you wish you had a grey parrot of your own.”
“ ‘Course Oi will!” Nan replied warmly. “Oi wisht you could go, too—but you know why Mem’sab said not.” She shuddered, but it was the delicious shudder of a child about to be regaled with delightfully scary ghost stories, without a chance of turning around and discovering that the story had transmuted to reality.
For Sarah, however, the possibility was only too real that, even by daylight, that very thing would happen. It was one thing to provide the vehicle for a little child ghost who had returned only to comfort his mother. It was something else entirely to contemplate Sarah coming face-to-face with one of the many unhappy, tragic, or angry spirits said to haunt the Tower of London. Mem’sab was not willing to chance such an encounter, not until Sarah was old enough to protect herself.
So the History class would be going to the Tower for a special tour with one of the Yeoman Warders without Sarah.
Sarah sighed again. “I know. And I know Mem’sab is right. But I still wish I could go, too.”
Nan laughed. “Wut! An you gettin’ ‘t’ go’t’ Sahib’s warehouse an’ pick out whatever you want, on account of missin’ the treat?”
“Yes, but—” she made a face. “Then I have to write an essay about it to earn it!”
“An’ we’re all writin’ essays ‘bout the Tower, so I reckon it’s even all around, ’cept we don’t get no keepsakes.” Nan ended the discussion firmly.
“I know! I’ll pick a whole chest of Turkish Delight, then we can all have a treat, and I’ll have the chest,” Sarah said suddenly, brightening up in that way she had that made her solemn little face just fill with light.
Grey laughed, just like a human. “Smart bird!” the parrot said, then shook herself gently, wordlessly telling Sarah to let go of her, made her ponderous way up Sarah’s shoulder and pillow, and clambered up beak-over-claw to her usual nighttime perch on the top of the brass railing of the headboard of Sarah’s bed—wrapped and padded for her benefit in yards and yards of tough hempen twine. She pulled one foot up under her chest feathers, and turned her head around to bury her beak out of sight in the feathers of her back.
And since that was the signal it was time for them to sleep—a signal they always obeyed, since both of them half expected that Grey would tell on them if they didn’t!—Nan slid down and climbed into her own bed, turning the key on the lantern beside her to extinguish the light.
***
It was a gloomy, cool autumn day that threatened rain, a day on which Nan definitely needed her mac, a garment which gave her immense satisfaction, for up until coming to the school she had relied on old newspapers or scraps of canvas to keep off the rain. Getting to the Tower was an adventure in and of itself, involving a great deal of walking and several omnibuses. When they arrived at the Tower, Nan could only stare; she’d been expecting a single building, not this fortress! Why, it was bigger than Buckingham Palace—or, at least, as big!
Their guide was waiting for them under an archway with not one, but two nasty-looking portcullises—and the tour began immediately, for this was no mere gate, but the Middle Tower. The Yeoman Warder who took the children under his capacious wing was an especial friend of Sahib’s, and as a consequence, took them on a more painstaking tour of the Tower than the sort given to most schoolchildren. He did his best—which was a very good “best,” because he was a natural storyteller—to make the figures of history come alive for his charges, and
