Free The Runaway Summer by Nina Bawden Page A

‘Finished, dear? Do you want anything else?’
    Mary said nothing. She wished there was a lock on her door. Then Aunt Alice couldn’t come in …
    â€˜No answer came the stern reply,’ Aunt Alice said brightly. ‘Not an apple, dear? An apple a day keeps the doctor away.’
    Mary’s scowl grew fiercer. Sneaking in after I’m asleep, she was thinking. Like a thief, poking and prying.
    She said, ‘Aunt Alice, I wish you wouldn’t come into my room, after I’ve gone to bed.’
    Aunt Alice looked so hurt, that even Mary felt sorry.
    She said, ‘I only meant—it’s sort of scarey, lying there and knowing you’re going to come, creeping in and looking at me when I’m asleep.’
    In the silence, Aunt Alice’s stomach made a bubbling sound. Then she said, ‘I never meant to frighten you. Only to see you’re all right …’ She looked at Mary quite sharply. ‘I didn’t think you were a nervous little girl.’
    â€˜I’m not’ Mary tried to think how she would feel if shewere. ‘It’s just that things look different in the dark. Clothes on a chair and on the peg on the door. And if you’re half asleep, and the door opens slowly, you’re scared of what might come in …’
    Aunt Alice smiled at Mary. “Well, I won’t, again. I used to be frightened of the dark, too. When I was a little girl, I had a nurse who used to lock me in the cupboard under the stairs when I was naughty. It was black as pitch.’
    â€˜Why did you let her? I’d have screamed .’ Mary said.
    Aunt Alice sighed. ‘She said there was a crocodile there who would eat me up at one bite, if I made any noise.’
    Mary thought it was typical of Aunt Alice to be so stupid. Perhaps what she was thinking showed on her face, because Aunt Alice said, ‘Of course I knew there wasn’t a crocodile. But only in the way you know the clothes on the back of the door are just clothes. That’s why I always leave the light on the landing for you.’
    Leaving the light on the landing seemed an odd jump from crocodiles in the cupboard, but it gave Mary something to think about. When she went to say goodnight a bit later on she kissed Aunt Alice as well as her grandfather. This was something she had avoided up to now, hating the idea of Aunt Alice’s glasses and the stiff hairs on her chin. The cold rim of the glasses bumped her nose and the whiskers pricked her, but she minded less than she had expected and Aunt Alice seemed pleased: she gave one of her high-pitched laughs and said, ‘Well, what an honour!’
    Mary said, ‘I think that was beastly, about the crocodile,’ and backed away before Aunt Alice could kiss her again.
    â€˜Crocodile? What crocodile?’ Grandfather said, but Aunt Alice only laughed again and said that was a secret, between her and Mary, and just look at the time! Didn’t Grandfatherwant to watch that old war film on television? It was called The Sinking of The Bismarck , and he had definitely said, this morning, that he wanted to see it!
    She sounded flustered. Of course, Mary thought, as she went upstairs, Aunt Alice would never have told Grandfather about the nurse and the crocodile, and she would be embarrassed if he found out now. She would be afraid he would blame himself for employing such a horrible woman to look after his daughter. At least, that was half of it. The other half was shame: she would hate him to know that something that had happened so long ago was still important to her.
    Mary was surprised how sure she was about this. She didn’t just understand how Aunt Alice felt, she knew. It was rather as if she had suddenly acquired a magic eye that could look into Aunt Alice’s mind.
    In much the same way—knowing, not guessing—she was sure that Aunt Alice would not look into her room again, not tonight nor any other night. Not because