A Bump on the Head - Caroline Tailby (latest ebook reader .txt) 📗

letting him catch you red-handed, will ya?!” said the man in the chair, apparently annoyed. “Anyway, I’ve worked out a plan, gang. We’ll catch him, then force out of him the way we can take over Fat Sam’s business.” Fat Sam?!
“Then kill him?” one of the gang said. I silently gasped. Who were these men planning to kill Bugsy…if they were planning to kill him?
“That’s what I was thinking,” said the man in the chair again. I guessed now he must be their leader.
“Yeah…but boss…” said a second member of the gang. The leader frowned.
“What?”
“He might be a little hard to get the information out of. Shouldn’t we go for someone else, someone…well…”
“Someone what?”
“Younger?”
I think the leader was just as puzzled as I was. He was the one that spoke though, not me.
“Who in the world would we go for? All the kids in this city are totally clueless on how our business works. Plus they don’t even know who Fat Sam is.”
I did.
“We-ell…” said a third member of the gang. “…there’s this broad we saw while we were out…”
“We thought she was a boy at first. She was wearing trousers,” said the fourth.
Uh-oh. The only broad wearing trousers here was…ME.
“A broad?” said the leader again. “Wearing trousers?”
“Yeah,” The first member of the gang spoke again. “We tried to nab some dough, but then HE saw us.”
I supposed “HE” was Bugsy.
“She was claiming to him that she was from the future,” said the last member. “And boss…she knows Fat Sam, and Bugsy, and…you.”
What? I’d only mentioned Bugsy and Fat Sam when the gang attacked me, and…oh, wait a minute.
“Me?” said the leader again.
“Yep,” said the second member. “And us.”
Oh, cripes.
“And you’re saying she’s a kid?”
The gang were nodding. Oh, double cripes!
“What was her name?”
My ears suddenly blanked out, which was weird.
“I see. OK boys, I want you to keep a close watch on this…” My ears blanked out again. “If you find she might prove useful, keep me posted. I think we’re getting somewhere.”
Then the dream ended.


Entry 6

The notebook

I woke up feeling a little strange. The dream was fresh in my mind, but I didn’t feel like I was in my normal, comfortable bed. Instead I was under scratchy sheets and sweating all over. I reached under the sheets for Twilight…and then realised she wasn’t there. I was suddenly awake and alert …and then remembered where I was. I relaxed.
I heard somebody knock on the door of the room. “Liana? Wake up! It’s morning!” It was Bugsy. I climbed out of bed and stretched my arms and legs as he opened the door.
“Sleep OK?” he asked.
“Well, a weird dream. But apart from that it was fine, thanks,” I said. I dismissed the dream as just a silly fantasy at that point. I do that. Sometimes at the wrong times.
“You want somethin’ to eat before we go out on the town?”
“I’m all right. I never have breakfast anyway.” Much to the disgust of my mum. She seemingly thinks I’ll die without breakfast. Why worry? I haven’t so far.
“Let’s go then,” said Bugsy. “There’s so much for you to see today, and…”
“So little time?” I completed. Talk about cliché!
“Yeah.”
As we left Bugsy’s house he talked a little about what the town was like, how everything worked, and that sort of thing. I got a little bored, until he started talking about cinemas, although he called them theatres. I LOVE watching films. And for me, the older they are the better. Forget New Moon, or Avatar in glorious 3D. Just the tense plots of old films are enough to keep me glued to the screen for hours. Oh, apart from the romances. BOR-ING.
The street was pretty cool once we got there. I had seen it before, but not in daylight. There was everything on one street, from a hairdresser’s (well, hair parlour) to a bookstore (I think that was Fat Sam’s!) to an Italian restaurant, Mamma Lugini’s. I wasn’t sure where to go first. “Liana?” Bugsy poked me, making me jump. Again. He laughed. “Enjoyin’ the view?”
“I…I don’t know what to say. This place is amazing. You have everything on one street.”
“Isn’t it like that in London?”
“Erm…” In truth, no, it isn’t. There’s so much other stuff in London, apart from shops. Have you been up the Monument in Pudding Lane? Three-hundred and eleven steps. That’s how many they say there are. And last time I went up, I found it was no joke. I counted them. And there’s all the shopping centres, like Lakeland’s, and there’s the London Dungeons as well, and Madame Tussaud’s…but I couldn’t tell Bugsy all that, could I? He wouldn’t have believed me. So I just said “We tend to have one shop for a group of houses.”
“Oh, I see,” he said. He didn’t look very convinced. I’m a really bad liar. “Anyway,” he said, smiling again. “Go have a look around. Get yourself somethin’ nice.”
“Something nice?!” I cried. “I haven’t got any money, let alone enough to buy something nice!”
Bugsy fished in his trouser pocket and pulled out a coin. He tossed it to me and I caught it. “There you go. Spend that on whatever you want. I’ve got some arrangements to make. You see that clock up there?” He pointed above the buildings. I looked and saw a huge church clock tower. “Meet me back here at, say…ten-thirty?” It was ten-o’clock now. I had half an hour.
“Done,” I smiled. So he smiled back and sauntered off in the opposite direction.
I looked at the coin in my hand. I wasn’t too familiar with American money, but it was pretty obvious this was one dollar. Wow! I thought. A whole dollar for me! Nowadays one dollar wouldn’t seem much, but in the twenties it was a LOT. Even just a tenth of it (ten cents) was a small fortune. Trouble was I wasn’t sure what to spend it on. I looked up and scanned the line of shops. A café, a hair salon, a small sweet shop…none of these were really what I wanted to spend my money on. But there was one shop that caught my eye. It was only small, just on the corner of the street, but it looked appealing. I looked at the clock. It was already five past. So I set off in the direction of the shop.
As I came closer what this shop was became a little clearer. Like most of the shops on the street, its name was printed on the window: “Robinson’s Art Supplies”. Art supplies didn’t really catch my eye, but I thought of my old biro back at Bugsy’s house. It would be nice to get something to write in. I entered the shop and a small bell sounded, and I finally got to see what the inside was like. It was about twice the size of the spare bedroom back at Bugsy’s, and the shelves on the walls were stacked with paintbrushes, sketchbooks, the works. There was a dark-haired woman at the counter. She smiled at me and said “Can I help you?”
“Yes please,” I said. I noticed her jump the way Bugsy made me jump. I guess she was surprised about my accent! “I have this old pen and I’m trying to find something to write in with it.” The woman regained her composure. “I think I’ve got just the thing. Follow me,” She left the counter and I followed her to one of the lower shelves, scouring the others as I went. I swear, an artist could go broke in this shop! I hadn’t realised how many different types of brushes you could get, or how many colours of paint. But I drew my attention back to the woman. She was stooping towards the lowest shelf on the wall and fishing around for something. I watched for a while until she lifted a small notebook from the back of the shelf. “Here,” she said, handing it to me.
I stared at the notebook. It was about the size and thickness of a paperback book you might find in the library today, and it had an interesting pattern on the cover. I can’t really describe it. Swirls, some of them parallel, and all sparkling purple on a beige background. No idea how it was made. I lifted my sight back to the woman. “How much?”
“One buck. It’s the last one of those journals.” Perfect. I took the coin out of my pocket and handed it to her. She took it back to the counter and printed a receipt for me. Then, with a smile, she said “Thank you.”
I thanked her back and walked out of the shop, then checked the clock tower. Ten-twenty-five. Had I really taken twenty minutes in there? Man, time flies! I shifted my eyes to the place Bugsy and I had arranged to meet. He was already standing there.
“You’re early,” I said, approaching him.
“So are you,” he remarked. “What did you buy?”
I showed him the notebook.
“Hey, you got one of them!” he said, smiling. I told him it was the last one in the shop. “You’re lucky. Those books are rare, trust me.”
I sensed someone looking at me. Turning, I noticed the eyes of a rather short man fixed on me. He must have been staring for a while, because it’s been proven by science that if you stare at someone long enough they’ll notice you (don’t ask me how). And when people stare at me (here’s something that has NOT been proven by science) I nearly faint. So you can imagine that I was beginning to feel dizzy. My head started spinning and my vision blurred as more people stared and stared. I suddenly veered over clumsily. Bugsy caught me and supported me. “Are you all right?” he said, looking a bit worried. “Nothing,” I said. “Just the…staring.” Bugsy looked up and smiled at the large crowd that had gathered. “Hey, guys. Don’t worry about the kid. She’s just a little confused.” The crowd dispersed, looking convinced. Bugsy was a much better liar than I was (but then, he technically wasn’t lying, because it was what he thought, but he technically was, because it wasn’t true…oh, never mind). I pulled away from him and supported myself on the wall next to us. “Thanks, Bugsy,” I said, breathing heavily. “I feel like I’m about to faint.”
“You certainly look it,” he replied. I used the nearby window as a mirror. My face was pale.
“Do you want a cup of tea?” he asked. “There’s a quiet café down the road. It’s perfect to hide from onlookers.”
“Just what I need,” I said.
We started to walk down the street. Neither of us said anything, me mainly because I was feeling awful, and Bugsy probably because he couldn’t think of anything to say. My guess anyway. I can’t read his mind!
The coffee shop was only about thirty seconds’ walk away. It was quite small, wooden window frames painted green and “Cath’s Coffee” printed in the window. Bugsy steered me in the direction of the door and we walked in. A girl with dirty-blonde hair smiled at Bugsy. “Good morning, sir. How can I help you?”
“Table for two, please,” Bugsy said, smiling back.
“You and the boy?” said the girl, nodding at me. Oi!
“I’m not a boy!” I objected indignantly. “I’m a girl!”
“Huh?” The girl looked perplexed. “Girls don’t wear trousers!”
Bugsy leaned forward and whispered into the girl’s ear. I think he meant to be quiet but he wasn’t quiet enough to stop me hearing him. “Ignore the trousers, honey. I can tell you now that Liana’s