‘I’m not a Georgie, you know?’
‘No. And you never will be. And pray to God that Jazir manages to get through.’
But Joe’s mind was only filled with Benny and Dopejack and Max, and what the bones had done to them all. That was his mission now.
Sometime after lunch, Daisy took Celia into the damaged library. The kid had never seen so many books, seen so many pages tattered and torn and strewn all over the floor. Most of them were mathematical texts, rich and heavy with a foreign language of squiggles and shapes. Celia pulled a rare book, not destroyed, down from a shelf and flicked through it.
‘Is this your world?’ she asked.
Daisy was caught off guard. ‘Yes… I suppose it is.’
‘What country is it?’
‘Erm… Numberland.’
‘Wow!’ Celia slammed the book shut, raising a cloud of dust. ‘Maybe I’ll go there one day.’
‘You should.’
‘Will you teach me? How do you start?’
Daisy thought for a moment. ‘Have you ever played dominoes?’
‘I play every Friday, silly.’
‘No, I mean the real dominoes.’
‘There’s more than one kind?’
‘Wait right there.’
Daisy left the room. Celia wandered around a bit more, pausing here and there to study some incomprehensible title. So many books! Perhaps all the books in the world were here. But why, oh why did they all seem to be in another language? Perhaps it was a secret code, and all you had to do was find the key. Perhaps the key opened a door. Perhaps the door led to another world, a better world? She found another book then, undamaged, and one that she understood perfectly.
Daisy came back carrying her father’s set of dominoes. ‘Are you ready to play, Celia?’
‘Yes, please.’
Daisy started to set up the game. ‘What’s that you’re looking at?’
‘We used to have this book at home.’
‘Really, was it your father’s?’
‘No. My sister’s. It was her favourite.’
‘I didn’t know you had a sister.’
‘You don’t know everything, do you?’
‘What’s the book?’
Celia showed her. ‘It’s great, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, it’s a kid’s book. I’ve never read it.’
‘You’ve never read it! What kind of childhood did you have?’
‘Oh… you know… I was more interested in numbers than words.’
‘There are numbers in here.’
‘There are?’
‘Of course. It was my sister’s favourite because she thought it was about her. Silly sausage. She’d have these fantasies where we’d both be posh girls and end up in the book, and have strange adventures together.’
‘Your sister was called Alice?’
Celia nodded. ‘Maybe I should write my own version. Celia in Numberland. What do you think?’
Daisy laughed. ‘Sounds great. Let’s play.’
‘OK.’ Celia put the book back on the shelf and came over to the table. ‘What do I do?’
‘Choose your bones.’
So they played. Daisy won the first two games easily, even though she was giving Celia chances. ‘Stop giving me chances,’ said the girl. So they played, and Daisy gently, gently, started to bring the numbers alive for the child.
During the fourth game, Daisy asked, ‘Where did you live, before you left home I mean?’
‘Dukinfield. Do you know it?’
‘A little. I was born in Droylsden.’
‘And here’s me thinking Duckie was bad.’
‘Why did you run away?’
Celia replied, ‘Why did you?’
‘You can tell?’
‘I can see it in your eyes.’
‘My father was cruel to me.’
‘Jimmy? He’s OK.’
‘Now, maybe. But he was very strict when I was young. He forced me to be brilliant.’
‘Is that wrong?’
Daisy nodded, playing a piece. ‘He wanted me to be better than he was, at the dominoes, for instance.’
‘Were you?’
‘Never. He always won. It made me mad. I knew if I stayed with him, I’d never be myself. But I was older than you when I ran away; fifteen, I was.’
‘What about your mum?’
‘Your turn.’
‘Is she… is she dead?’
Daisy looked at the girl. ‘Yes. Car crash. I was five.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Keep playing.’
Celia played, and they played and played as the shadows lengthened and the dying sun burnished the spines of a thousand books.
‘It was my sister that made me run away,’ said Celia, after losing her umpteenth game. ‘We were twins, but she was older, just a minute or so, but it counted. There wasn’t enough money for one kid, never mind two. And Alice always got the bigger share of everything.’