part 7

When she woke up, Mary did not feel tired anymore. Ever since she had had to stay at Jake’s house, it had taken ages to go to sleep. Night time was the only time she had to herself. Lying on the bunk above Jake, with Jake’s bedroom ceiling bouncing back at her you don’t belong here, Mary had cried. After that first night, when Jake had gone into Karen and Dale’s room and told them Mary was keeping him awake, she had tried to cry without making any sound. She’d put her face against her pillow, turning it over when it got too wet, till all the feelings she had had that day ran out, and she could sleep, like a clockwork toy unwinding. One of the worst things was learning not to hope the next day everything would be normal again.

The brown leaves scrunched like cornflakes. This wasn’t home, but Mary
wasn’t scared. Then she saw there was no cat next to her and her heart beat hard in her chest. She sat up. There he was! The cardboard boxes that had been tangled high up in the tree, had fallen down while Mary was asleep, and Wong was standing in the biggest one.

“Hiya!” said Wong, waggling a flap of cardboard box lid, “Look at this! Good, huh?”
“What is it?” Mary asked, after wondering about it till Wong started to look cross.
“My flying machine!” He pulled the flaps over his head. Mary heard him bashing about inside, then his head poked out, one furry orange ear inside-out and a soggy piece of string in his mouth, which he spat out, and said “I don’t know why it crashed, there was lots of string!” He patted the string with his paw a bit, then looked at it fiercely.
Mary tried not to laugh, “Is string important for flying?”
“Duh! Haven’t you heard of tying things up? Tying means string and flying means up, they go together. Like peanut butter and ...um...more peanut butter!” He sat there for a bit with his eyes half closed, and Mary thought he had gone to sleep, but suddenly his eyes opened “Do you know how peanut butter goes? I am thinking, Oh, good! there’s some peanut butter, then suddenly, it’s gone? That always happens, it’s very strange. I’ll show you!” He went down into the box again, and Mary had to dodge when big curly tangles of red, yellow, blue or white string flew towards her,like scribbles in the air. She was starting to think it was safe when a paper parcel came out, fast! Mary held up her hands so it wouldn’t hit her, and caught it!

Wong climbed out of the box. Mary saw he had lots of leaves short bits of string stuck in his fur. She gave him the parcel and told him “One of your ears is inside out!”
Wong's eyes seemed to say that he was sad to have found she was so stupid, “It’s my new look!” He turned his back on Mary, put the parcel on the ground, went away a few steps, ran back and jumped on it. Then, holding the parcel in all four paws he rolled over and over, growling.

After a bit, when she was sure she could do better, Mary asked “Would you like me to help?”
Wong looked up, panting, “Can you?”
Mary unhooked the parcel carefully from one of his claws and opened the paper. “Easy!”
Wong said, “Ah! I always wondered what hands were for!”
From inside the paper came a lovely smell of bread and peanut butter.
There were a few whole sandwiches and lots of crumbs and crusts and a big lump of squashed bread and peanut butter.
Mary put the parcel on the ground and Wong came and looked inside. “I’m hungry!” he said. Mary found she was too. “We will only have one each,” he said, “I choose this one!” and with his paw he patted the big peanut buttery lump out of the paper parcel. Mary found a good sandwich and bit through the flat springy bread into the smooth, thick, warm, salty-sweet peanut butter. She shut her eyes, to taste it better. It was made with thick, brown bread and she felt full when it was all gone. She opened her eyes and saw that Wong had peanut butter all over his silky fur and there was nothing left in the parcel. He burped, then looked at Mary as if it had been her.
Mary’s fingers were sticky and there was nowhere to wash them, so licking seemed the best thing to do. Wong watched for a bit, then said, “You have a rubbish tongue! Cats are much better” He checked she was watching then poked out his own tongue, which was bright pink, and reached right over his nose, then round his furry cheeks. Mary liked watching his tongue coming out. When he was done, he came up so close to Mary she could feel his whiskers tickling her cheek, then his raspy tongue as he licked her face clean “Mmm, seconds!” “Hey!” said Mary, wiping her face with a sleeve.
Wong did his curly smile, then saw the empty parcel and patted it with one big soft white paw “All gone. I bet you don’t know any mysteries
bigger than that!”

Mary felt terrible. Yes, I do!” How could she forget Jake and Karen and Dale? “Please, I need someone to come and help! There was fog and now no one will wake up!”
Wong’s ears went back, his eyes were wide, and he hissed. Mary could see his pointy white teeth. He made her scared, “What is it?”
Wong started walking up and down, his back up like a bridge and his tail straight and even more fluffy than normal. “Gello!” he meowed low and long. “What’s Gello?” Mary asked, in a little voice, looking round incase whatever it was could hear.
Wong stopped walking and looked at Mary, “Where are your mum and dad?”
He had changed so fast. Mary tried not to cry. “They are far away. I’m
not allowed to be with them, I don’t know why!”
Then Wong came to her and wrapped his thick furry orange tail round her neck, and rubbed his cheek against her shoulder. He licked the tears off her cheeks and this time she didn’t mind. After a bit Mary sighed and Wong jumped away. “Don’t do that often, OK?” he licked a paw and began rubbing his head dry. Then suddenly he had one leg sticking out left, his tail sticking out right, there was a leg sticking up while his head went under his tummy, another leg went out sideways, then he grabbed his tail in both paws and gave it two licks, then jumped up and Mary was amazed – his ear was the right way out again, and all the leaves and string had gone, his orange bits were bright and his white bits like new snow, “So," he panted, "Who was in the car? Start at the beginning. No, wait! What’s a car?”
This was going to take a long time, and Mary was thirsty after the peanut butter. “I will tell you, but do you have something to drink?”
Wong's long pink tongue licked his lips, "Oh, you've made me thirsty now! Luckily I’m clever and have an idea, let’s go where there’s a drink, and you tell me on the way!.”
So Mary did, as they walked through the woods, with Wong every now and then going to look behind a tree stump or clump of ferns. By the time he said “Ah, I knew it was here!” from high up in the roots of a fallen tree, Mary thought this was the most thirsty it was possible to be.
She climbed up after him and found an old saucepan had been put there.
It was full of clear water. Wong sat on a clump of grass growing between two thick roots in the air, looking very pleased, with sparkly drops of water on the ends of the long white whiskers sticking out each side of his pink triangle nose. “There you are! Have as much as you like!” Mary picked up the saucepan carefully. It looked clean. She sipped the water, it was cold and sweet, and tasted so good, not like sweets,
but like it was wet light. Mary felt much better.

Wong's tail flickering, he explored the up-in-the-air roots, making everything shake and small stones fall out pattering on the ground far below, so knew she had climbed high. If she climbed up to the top
of the roots maybe she would see the road? The roots went up and round, thick and far, like being in a game of snakes and ladders, easy
to climb, or you could slide down smooth mud between. Wong was much quicker, leaping past, his tail thick and soft against Mary’s neck.

Then he stopped, just where Mary was about to pull herself up to,
so she almost lost her balance, and had to grab a thick root to hold
onto. His tail tickled her nose, and she sneezed. “Shhhh!” Mary saw he was watching something. She couldn’t get up beside him, but there was a bit of a hole in the roots beside her, so she poked it bigger with one hand, while still holding on with the other.
That was the road! And a big grey lump moving slowly. ...The car, with
Dale and Karen and Jake inside! Had they woken up? Then Mary saw it was being pulled on a rope. But between the trees, where a truck should be pulling on the other end of the rope was a GIANT spider, bigger than a truck! The rope, and the soft grey stuff that was round the car were made of spiderweb!

“Stop!” Mary called, too shocked to think.
The rope went loose as the spider turned its front towards them. Even though it was far away Mary was sure she could feel its eyes looking at her. For a few heartbeats Mary was so scared she couldn’t breath, then the rope went straight and the car jerked further away. Wong pulled her back so they couldn’t be seen from the road, then looked through the hole she had made. His fluffy side was next to Mary’s face, soft and warm.

After a bit Wong sighed, “Safe, now!” and climbed head first back down the roots.
Mary looked through the hole at the road, “Oh no! The car has gone! Quick!” and slid down, stones and roots scraping her hands.
Wong looked up grumpily as bits and pieces of tree landed on him. He
started to say something, then had to spit out a small twig, “Why?”
Mary landed next to him and sat down because her shoes were all bumpy inside. “So you can help them escape, then I can go Home with them, on the ferry!”
Wong walked up and down, his tail twitching, and his eyes big. “No one gets away from the Gello. Best thing is - forget about them.”

“No!” Right now Mary really wanted what Mum called a group hug, when Mum used to pick her up, so she and Mary and Dad could all put their arms round each other for a family cuddle, where Mary breathed in their special smells and felt them all warm. Standing together the three of them were wide as a strong old tree no storm could ever blow down.

At home, Mary never put on her own shoes or got herself dressed.
When Mum showed her how to do things for herself, Mary wouldn’t look or listen. Mum doing everything made Mary feel safe. Everyone else already knew how to do things right, first Mum and Dad, then other
children she met. If Mary tried to do things it was like when her
towers of wooden bricks fell down. Mum could build really tall towers with windows. Mum said it was practice, but Mum was sometimes tired and crying, and Mary didn’t want to be like that! So if Mum said she wouldn’t get Mary dressed when they needed to go out, Mary knew if she stuck at it, Mum would give in.
But at Jake’s house Karen wouldn’t do things for her, and Mary was more afraid of Karen being cross than she was of making mistakes. So Mary had watched Jake to see what he did. And now Mum and Jake were gone and her feet hurt! What was she going to do? Mary thought,“If I don’t fix things they’ll stay wrong. And I won’t be stupid, because there is no one here to be clever, there’s just me. I am going to start with my shoes!”