Alchemy. Margaret Mahy

asked between one reader and another, seemed to disconcert her.

      “That’s my business,” she said. “Look, Fairfield! I like being on my own, and having to talk to anyone ruins it all. You’re stalking me, but your talk spoils – and your stalk toils!”

      Roland had to disentangle this. “What does it spoil?” he asked, almost wanting to know.

      “It!” she answered, smiling, once again, her outward-inward smile. “Don’t you know what it means?”

      Roland knew she was quoting something though couldn’t quite remember what, which was annoying for someone who was good at quoting himself. But at least they were talking once more, and he was once more looking into her eyes – eyes of a strong blue colour with, now he came to look at them closely, long, sweeping, black lashes and wide black pupils.

      And then a peculiar thing happened. The irises and pupils of Jess Ferret’s eyes changed. Irises and pupils seemed to collapse into each other – to contract into long, intense slits of darkness. But before he could be sure of what he was seeing in them, they separated once more into perfectly normal irises and pupils.

      Roland opened his mouth, fully expecting words to spring obediently out of it, but for once the tip of his tongue (that springboard from which they usually leaped so eagerly) was empty. He and Jess stared at one another for a full second longer. Then she laughed and turned, heading towards the main road. She walked so firmly that her footsteps seemed to echo, and Roland had a momentary illusion that there was something invisible following at her heels.

      There was no point, he thought, in pursuing her and trying to force any more conversation out of someone so unwilling to talk, and yet he couldn’t give up. He just had to feel he’d gained some territory. Stalk toils, he quoted to himself, and turning, he began to jog once more, patting his pocket to make sure the keys of his mother’s car were still safely in place. It was one thing for Chris Glennie to drive off, waving light-heartedly out of the back window. It was quite a different thing for Weaselly-Ferret to turn her back on him and to stump away without casting a single glance over her shoulder. “Air and fluff, eh?” he muttered as he ran. “We’ll see!” (“Careful,” advised his inner voice, probably already aware that, this time at least, he was going to ignore it.)

      Roland reached the car, unlocked it and scrambled into the driver’s seat, tossing his pack behind him. Glancing quickly into the rear view mirror, he swung into the road. But, when he looked in front of him once more, Jess had vanished. His impression was that she must have turned to the right. After all she had been on the right-hand footpath when he had last seen her. Gunning the engine like a driver in a television car-chase, he reached the end of the street and swung dramatically into the busy main road only to find that his life as a tracker had become much more complicated. He was now part of a stream of traffic. Scanning the pavements for any sign of Jess Ferret wasn’t easy.

       5. A COMPLICATED PURSUIT

      Roland was now driving through a familiar shopping centre with cars moving slowly in front of him and closing in from behind. On his left he saw a favourite café and, directly beside it, the flamboyant arched opening to a mall crowded with shoppers. The entrance, illuminated even in daylight, often reminded Roland of the entrance to a church, somehow suggesting that shopping in the supermarket at the end of the mall would be a mystical experience.

      A cluster of five Crichton girls stood peering at the windows of a trendy dress shop, talking and passing a bag around. Strictly speaking, it was Roland’s job as a prefect to remind them that they were not supposed to eat in the street while wearing school uniform, but right then it was impossible to be an efficient stalker and a prefect as well as a responsible driver. It came as a relief when the traffic lights turned red and he was able to come to a legitimate standstill. As people streamed across the road in front of him he hastily scanned the pavements to right and left, knowing as he did so that Jess could be looking at him from any of the shops and laughing at him. Tilting the rear-view mirror, he tried to check the five girls behind him in more detail. But then the light changed and he was obliged to shoot off again, jolting in a way that did not match his image of himself as a competent and cool driver.

      Then he saw her. Once he had her in his sights he wondered how he could have ever imagined that any one of the girls peering into the dress shop could possibly have been Jess Ferret. She suddenly seemed unique. Anxious to keep her under surveillance, he tried to slow down, but the car behind him tooted sharply, forcing him to accelerate, to drive briefly alongside his quarry, then on past her. Desperate to keep her in view, he drew in illegally at a bus stop. Two boys with skateboards were also making use of this space, bumping over the edge of the gutter, then bouncing back on to the pavement once more. One of them gave Roland the finger as he moved in on their territory, but Roland was too preoccupied to take any notice. He was simultaneously tilting the driver’s mirror and shrinking down in his seat as Jess came striding towards him. Then she walked past, looking neither to right nor left, and moved ahead of him once more.

      A useful space appeared in the traffic flow. Roland hastily drew out into it, anxious to take advantage of any good luck the capricious city might be offering him. But as he took possession of the lucky space, grinning with relief, Jess disappeared. He could hardly believe it. One moment she had been there caught in the mirror. Then she was gone. It was as if she had never existed.

      As he struggled with surprise, Roland saw, some distance ahead of him, a silver car pulling out and leaving an empty parking space. He parked, and now he saw a sign he did not remember noticing before, though he had been up and down this road so many times. Perhaps it was only there if you knew where to look for it. An enamelled arrow, made almost invisible by layers of dirt and dust, pointed into a narrow slot between two buildings, and below the arrow were the words RIVERLAW RESERVE ACCESS. Up until now he had always walked past the paved alley the arrow was indicating, vaguely thinking it must be a private entrance of some kind. Now he peered hesitantly between largely featureless concrete walls. Rubbish bags jostled one another around a few closed doors, apart from which the lane was quite empty. All the same, Jess Ferret must have turned in here. There was no other possibility. Snaking between the rubbish bags, Roland set off in pursuit.

      He came out into a space that took him by surprise. Directly in front of him was a wide road, and beyond the road ran a stream, its neat, green banks planted with intermittent willows. The road on this side of the stream was obviously used for the most part by trucks and vans coming and going between the loading bays that extended from the backs of various shops. But, looking across to the other side of the stream, Roland saw a parallel road and a row of houses… old houses, but well-cared for, their hedges and gardens neat and tidy, their walls cleanly painted. At that particular moment there seemed to be nothing moving. It was like stepping on to a deserted stage set. Riverlaw, he said to himself, and began to remember.

      Here it was, a small suburb tucked away behind the mall. Years ago, the residents had passionately resisted the re-zoning that had allowed the supermarket development. There had been petitions and letters to the paper declaring that the riverbank should be sacrosanct. Property values had dropped. Many people had moved away. For, no matter how pleasantly maintained the river banks, no matter how beautiful the willows might be in early spring, the pleasure of walking under them must have been reduced by the intrusive proximity of shop yards, parked vans, cartons and, almost certainly, a lot of anonymous refuse.

      Roland looked around wildly. There! There! Movement! A single moving figure – a Crighton School uniform crossing a narrow footbridge which arched over the stream a little to his right. “Yes!” he hissed triumphantly. “Jess Ferret!” She hadn’t managed to shed him. He was on her trail.

      This time he had her in clear sight. He did not have to worry about any cars ahead of him or those closing in impatiently from behind. There were no doorways or crowds in which she might lose herself. If she had turned she might have seen him and would no doubt have recognised him just as easily as he was able to recognise her. But she did not turn. She simply crossed the bridge, the footpath that