Free Sabrina Fludde by Pauline Fisk Page A

river; pale clouds of mist and swans floating between foamy waters like dancers in a silent ballet. But mostly the days were cold and dull. Clouds blew in from Plynlimon Mountain in mid-Wales, where Phaze II said that the river began. Rain fell remorselessly and the river water, which had been so golden on Millennium Night, became a silty brown sludge. No sun offered brightness to its journey and the sky was as grey as the landscape it presided over.
    On these days Abren would curl up tight, hibernating on the camp bed which Phaze II had found for her on a rubbish tip. Trains would rumble by, shaking everything, but she had become so used to them that she didn’t notice. Rats would scamper by, and pigeons coo in their roosts. But Abren didn’t notice anything. She had left Dogpole Alley on a brave adventure, but now she didn’t feel so brave.
    It was as if the darkness had got her in its grip. When Phaze II went to town, she wouldn’t go with him. When he asked her to keep Old Sabrina company, she wouldn’t even do that any more, but hid out on the girders. The old woman frightened her withher blank, unseeing eyes. The girders were far less scary, for all their dizzying height.
    Abren would sit out on them, watching people going by. They’d come into the tunnel, their heads down.
Scuds
, Phaze II called them. Stupid Cruddy Ugly Dumb people, living in Stupid Cruddy Ugly Dumb houses and working at Stupid Cruddy Ugly Dumb jobs, never looking up, always looking down, always in a hurry somewhere, busy and important. Abren watched them bustling on their way, people from another world who couldn’t see her sitting up above them. It was as if the railway bridge wrapped itself around her like an invisible cloak.
    The days continued to pass in a dream, and winter turned to spring without Abren noticing. One Friday night she sat up late listening to an outdoor concert in the Quarry Park. A throng of music fans roared themselves hoarse, and Abren watched them noisily dispersing across the English Bridge. Finally the park’s floodlights went out and everything fell quiet.
    For the first time Abren realised that it was a lovely night. She looked upriver to the English Bridge where a little mist lingered and stars hung over the rim of the mist. The air wasn’t clammy, as it had been for weeks. It didn’t soak into her bones, but was light and fragrant.
    Spring was on the way and Abren noticed at last. As if to prove the point, a blackbird started singing. The middle of the night, yet it trilled and crooned as if it were day!
    Abren thrilled to the sound of sunshine in the blackbird’s song. It was singing for her alone, with nobody else to enjoy it.
    Or so Abren thought – until the saxophone joined in! It was Bentley’s saxophone, of course. She didn’t need to see him to recognise his unmistakable style. Abren listened as his notes rose among the girders, catching their own echo and playing back with it. No one but Bentley could do that, picking up the sounds around him, whether blackbirds or the river, and making something of them.
    Abren crept along the girders until she could see him standing in the cobbled tunnel under her. His face looked up, but his eyes were closed. Abren hadn’t thought about him for weeks, and now here he was. She waited for him to move on to ‘her’ tune. The one that sang to her with its strange enchantment. And he surely would. He’d play ‘her’ tune, and she would wake up from her winter dreaming. It would make her strong again, and brave enough to shake off this dark limbo-land and move on.
    Abren held her breath and waited. Beneath her Bentley played until his lungs and lips and fingers had been blown to pieces. And she listened until the last note faded. But he didn’t play ‘her’ tune. She watched him pack away the saxophone, toss its case over his shoulder, then start off along the tunnel, never knowing the