LITMIR.BIZ

1

      ‘Did you know,’ said Amber one day to her friend Sally, ‘that if you pick up the phone and ring Appleford 616 you can talk to God?’

      Sally stared. Amber was a gypsy child, she knew secrets. She knew the place on Furze Hill where rabbits came to graze in the afternoon. She knew where the kingfisher lived at Tolly Reach. She could ride her pony bareback across the fields. If anyone knew about talking to God it would be Amber.

      But there was something uncertain about her, something vanishing. She only came to school when the Fair was in town, at Christmas time, and in the summer. Sally would have liked Amber to be her very best friend but she was always going away.

      They were sitting by the stream at the end of the allotments. It was by this stream that they had their most important talks. Sally stared at the water. Then she said, ‘Have you tried it?’ She needed to talk to someone like God very much, or to an angel, or to some helpful human being who might know what to do. Something terrible had happened at home.

      ‘Oh no,’ said Amber. ‘It’s only for emergencies.’

      Sally was disappointed. She thought for a little while then she said, ‘You mean like 999? You mean like Police, Fire, Ambulance?’

      ‘Sort of. But it’s a lot more special.’

      ‘Will you write that number down for me?’ said Sally.

      But Amber scrunched her lips again. She looked as if she was going to say ‘no’ and the trouble was that Sally forgot things. ‘Scatterbrain Sally’ was what her mother called her.

      ‘Please,’ she whispered. As she waited, the terrible thing at home became ten times more terrible.

      ‘What will you give me if I do?’ said Amber.

      This was the one bit of Amber that Sally didn’t like, the bit that made bargains. She felt in her pockets while Amber watched very carefully, her glossy black head moving now this way, now that, like a bird.

      On to the bank Sally put two sweets, a piece of blue string and a rubber shaped like a frog. Then she found a stub of pencil and laid it beside the rest. Amber inspected everything.

      ‘Is that all?’ she demanded.

      ‘That’s all. . . today,’ Sally said slowly, as if, on normal days, her pockets were stuffed with treasures.

      Amber swept everything except the pencil into the brilliant patchwork bag she brought to school with her things in. Then she picked up the pencil

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