Other Alice (8 page)

I continued reading, discovering more. There were lots of notes about Gypsy’s favourite music and books. She had a tattoo of a scorpion on her neck, just below her ear. She had been
betrayed by a boy she once loved. She had lived with her curse, which was Silence, for six years.

‘That’s why she didn’t speak to me,’ I murmured aloud. ‘She
couldn’t
.’ I reread the profile, lingering over the scorpion tattoo. It seemed such
an odd choice for a young girl. Had Alice secretly got a tattoo? She couldn’t have – it would be too difficult to hide from Mum – and besides I was sure she would have told me if
she had. The more I looked, the more convinced I became that Gypsy was a mixture of who Alice really was and who she
wanted
to be. Even the curse tied in with it all. She had never told me
what her own curse was, but I knew it must be something to do with her father. It made sense that part of the story would be about Alice’s character finding a way to undo her own curse.

I scanned the rest of the notes, and then I saw something that made my heart hammer:
Lives on a narrowboat called
Elsewhere. I snapped the notebook shut and put it back into the bag,
squeezing out of the Den. If I hurried, perhaps I could still find Gypsy.

The canal ran just on the edge of the town, behind the shops and alongside the train station. I left the churchyard and went along Buckle Lane. From there, it was a five-minute walk down a
couple of side streets, then the canal was in front of me. Green, sludgy water glugged at its sides, moved only by a flock of swans. There were a couple of narrowboats moored further up. I headed
for them, the air damp on my face.

The two boats were on the other side of the canal just past a bridge. Was one of them Gypsy’s? I wasn’t close enough to see the names yet. I crossed the bridge, but hesitated as I
drew nearer. What would I say to Gypsy if she were there? I had no idea how much Gypsy was aware of.
I
knew that she was a character from Alice’s story, but did
she
know
that? I doubted it.

Gypsy probably thought she was a real person. If she discovered she wasn’t, what would she be capable of? She’d be afraid, confused, unstable even. A shudder rippled over me. All
those things could make her dangerous. One wrong word from me might blow it . . . and if there was a chance Gypsy could lead me to Alice then I couldn’t afford for that to
happen.

I took out the notebook again. Perhaps if I could skim some of the story and get more information it would help me know what to say to her. I looked past the notes on Gypsy and the cat. There
were several other characters: a boy named Piper who was some sort of street performer, two other girls listed on the same page – Dorothy Grimes and Dolly Weaver – and another character
called Sheridan Ramblebrook: the curator of the Museum of Unfinished Stories. I flicked past these. I could come back to them later. For now, I needed to get to the actual story
itself . . .

I never got the chance, though. I looked up as a moorhen started to squawk and saw that, on the bridge behind me, a familiar figure was crossing the water. I squinted, unsure for just a fraction
of a second. Was it my sister?

No. It was
her
. The other Alice. My heart raced again. She was coming towards me, heading for the boats. I watched as she came closer, seeing things I hadn’t noticed this morning.
Unlike Alice, she walked tall, carrying herself with confidence. She was dressed differently to Alice, too. My sister lived in jeans and shapeless T-shirts, but this girl’s clothes were
daring and colourful. Under her black leather jacket she wore a long, sea-green dress with a crimson sash tied at her waist. On her feet were scuffed boots that went right up to the knee. The sort
of boots that looked as though they had walked many roads and had many adventures.

I was aware I was staring, but couldn’t seem to stop. The girl appeared not to notice, barely glancing my way. She looked half in a daydream as she approached, passing the first boat and
taking out a chain from around her neck. A silver key dangled from it. She lifted the key, then paused, noticing me. A flicker of recognition crossed her face. I moved closer to her. Sure enough,
there it was, painted on the side of the boat:
Elsewhere
. Gypsy opened the notebook she was carrying and wrote something in it, then held it out to me.

Did you find Alice?

I looked into her eyes.

‘No,’ I mumbled, noticing a leaflet poking out of the pocket of her jacket. I recognised the library emblem. It was a list of opening times.

‘I’ve just been to the library, too,’ I said. ‘Looking for Alice. But I didn’t make it in time; it was closed.’

I didn’t find what I was looking for anyway
, she wrote.

I saw an opportunity to get her to stick with me a little longer.

‘There’s a bookshop not far from here. I could show you where if you like?’ I offered.

She stared at me just long enough to make me squirm.
Why are you so keen to do a favour for a stranger?
she wrote.

For a moment, I faltered, taken aback, but a plan was forming in my mind.

‘Well, I’m going there now anyway, to look for Alice. She loves books, you see.’ I tried to read Gypsy’s expression, but it gave nothing away. ‘Plus, if I help you,
perhaps you could help me in return.’

How?

‘By pretending to be Alice.’

The girl rolled her eyes.

‘I’m serious,’ I said. ‘This isn’t the first time Alice has . . . disappeared. If our mum finds out, she’ll be in big trouble. I need to find
her, but our mum can’t know that she’s gone.’

At this Gypsy laughed.
Lookalike or not, there’s no way you’d be able to fool your own mother
.

‘You think?’ I reached into my rucksack and took out the photograph of Alice from her purse. ‘You don’t realise just how much you look like her.’

Gypsy snatched the photo, blinking. The smirk slid right off her face. Her fingers shook as she wrote two wobbly words.

That’s impossible
.

‘Now you can see why I thought you were her this morning.’

But she looks just like me. She practically
is
me
.

I went to take the photograph from her, but her grip was too tight. I had the horrible feeling I’d blown it by scaring her, but as she looked harder at the picture some of the stiffness
dropped out of her shoulders and she released it into my hand.

She’s thinner in the face than me, and her eyes are blue
, she wrote
. Mine are green.

‘Well, yes. You don’t look
exactly
like her. That’d be impossible. But you look enough like her to fool Mum for a few minutes,’ I said. ‘That’s all
it would need to be.’

I suppose there’s no harm in that
. She studied me again, watchful as a bird.
My name is Gypsy Spindle
.

I nodded, pretending the name was new to me. ‘I’m Michael Pierce, but everyone calls me Midge.’

Gypsy tucked the silver key around her neck out of sight.
Come on then, Midge
, she wrote.
Lead the way
.

We set off, away from the towpath, and headed towards the town centre. As we walked, I heard Gypsy’s footsteps next to mine, heard her breathing, saw her shadow falling across the path,
just as solid as mine. I remembered Alice speaking about characters from books and how real they were to her.

I wondered if this was what she had meant.

W
E WALKED A SHORT WAY
in silence. Partly, I supposed, as it would have been awkward for Gypsy to keep stopping to write in
her notebook. I wondered how she had lost her voice. Somewhere in the notebook in my rucksack, it was likely the answer was written . . . but I wanted to hear about Gypsy from her. I
wanted to find out how much she knew, without giving too much away.

‘Is it new, the book you’re looking for?’ I asked eventually. ‘Chapters has nearly all the latest releases.’

Gypsy shrugged. I wasn’t sure if it meant that she didn’t know, or couldn’t be bothered to make small talk.

‘Well, if it’s old, there’s a good chance they’ll have it, too,’ I continued. ‘There’s a huge section of second-hand books on the top floor. Alice
spends hours in there.’ I sneaked a sideways look at Gypsy, to see if the mention of Alice sparked any interest in her, but it was difficult to tell. I continued talking anyway. It made me
feel closer to Alice, somehow, speaking about our life together.

‘One Christmas Eve, we were shopping and we lost Alice. Mum was frantic, running back to all the shops we’d been into and showing them the picture of Alice in her purse. Alice was
about eight then. I was so little I can’t remember it, but Mum tells us about it every Christmas. In the end, she found her in Chapters in the children’s book section. She’d
wandered back there when she couldn’t find us and had fallen asleep in the reading tent.’

Gypsy gave a slight nod, but her face was still blank. She didn’t seem interested in hearing about Alice. Did she really have no idea about their connection, or was she just hiding it
well? We walked in silence until we reached the next corner, then turned into Cutpurse Way. ‘It’s just up here,’ I said. We wove round people in a stop-start dance to reach the
doorway of the old bookshop. I hung back behind Gypsy as she went in, past the new releases on the tables at the front, past maps and the cookery section. The whole place smelled deliciously of new
books. Gypsy went straight to the counter, waiting in line until a fair-headed woman called her over.

I followed, hovering behind her awkwardly. The woman behind the counter had a friendly face, and the name on her badge said
SARAH
. Gypsy opened her notebook, then laid it on the counter
and tapped the page. I couldn’t see what it said from where I stood, but I didn’t want to look nosy by moving closer.

Sarah peered at the notebook. ‘I’m pretty sure I don’t have that,’ she said. ‘And I don’t recognise the title, but let me check.’ She typed some words
into a computer. ‘No, nothing. Do you have any other information? The name of the author perhaps?’

Gypsy shook her head.

‘Are you sure the title’s correct?’

At this, Gypsy nodded, but the bookseller looked unsure.

‘It could be tricky to track down with only the title, especially if it’s not quite right. Just a minute.’ She slipped out from behind the counter and vanished into the warren
of bookshelves, returning a couple of minutes later. ‘It couldn’t be either of these, could it?’

Gypsy took one of the books from her. It was called
The Museum’s Secret
and it had a nice cover, with illustrations of gleaming, blue-black beetles crawling over it. Gypsy shook
her head and handed it back.

‘What about this?’ Sarah asked. The second one was called
The Museum of Spells and Sorcery
. It occurred to me that this sounded just the kind of book I’d like to read
when the familiarity of it struck me, and my breath caught in my throat. At the same moment, I realised that Gypsy’s notebook was still open on the counter, and she had moved aside a little
to look at the books.

I stepped closer to the counter and looked at what was written. There it was, in Gypsy’s perfect script:

My head spun. Gypsy was searching for the story Alice had written. The story to which she belonged and which had somehow brought her to life.

Questions crashed into my head, rolling over each other like waves.

Did Gypsy know she was a made-up character in someone else’s story? What did she want with it – a glimpse of what was in store for her? If so, how could she know her future if it was
only half-written? And what would happen if she discovered that the very thing she was looking for was right under her nose, stashed in my rucksack?

‘There’s nothing else coming up that’s similar,’ Sarah said apologetically. ‘But we have lots of old books on the top floor, and not all of them are catalogued on
our system. There’s a chance it could be there.’