A Girl Like Himself

Part 6

The Girl made her next appearance one week after the Charlie incident.

She had chosen to come at night, and Tom was sleeping. But sensing her presence, he at once awoke and looked straight at the silhouette of her standing just in front of the small window where, weeks ago, he had been trying to teleport himself to.

It was good that she had come while he was in such a sleepy, pacific state; Tom had not spent the last few days feeling wholly amicable towards her. Paranoia had decided that she was reneging on their deal and never coming back. In fact, in a few more days, he would have restarted his quest to achieve apparition in order to find her himself and teach her a lesson.

But she was here now: All was forgiven. All was forgotten.

The Girl saw him move. She took a step towards him. "Did I wake you up?" she asked in a whisper. She looked uncertainly around. "What time is it here? It's not that late where I live."

Tom threw off his blanket and sat up. "Where do you live?" he asked, voice hoarse with sleep.

"I live in England."

"You do? Where?"

"Merlingham," she replied. She came closer. "You?"

"London." He frowned at her as she went ooh-ing back to the window to look out of it. "Where is Merlingham? Is that where people like us live?" he asked.

"I've never been to London," she said excitedly. "It's very dangerous, isn't it? Muggles everywhere... Why is there a brick wall right outside the window? Is it for protection?"

"Muggles?" he repeated quizzically, swinging his legs over his bed.

The Girl, apparently bored with the brick wall, turned around. Tom noticed she was holding a paper shopping bag. "How come you're in bed so early?" she asked him. She scanned the four corners of the room. "Is this your bedroom? What's this place? I've never seen a bedroom like this before, except in pictures... It looks... muggle, doesn't it? Why are you living in London?"

"You should be polite and answer questions," said Tom severely. "Why are you afraid of muggles?"

"I'm not!"

He rolled his eyes. "You were just saying that London was dangerous because of the muggles everywhere."

"Yeah, but I'm not scared of them."

Tom, no closer to figuring out what a muggle was and disliking having to add one more item to the growing list of subjects on which he was suddenly and unpleasantly finding himself ignorant, nevertheless forced patience on himself and said: "Me neither. I've never been scared of muggles in my whole life." He paused. "It's funny that some people are, though."

"Yeah," she agreed. "It's funny."

"Have you seen any in Merlingham?"

"Muggles can't go to Merlingham," she replied in the scornful tone of one stating the painfully obvious.

Tom gave up, filing the topic of muggles away for future revisitation. It would have to be deciphered some other time. He gestured with his chin at her bag. "What have you got there?"

"Oh. This." She held up the bag. "I brought you some things. Some presents."

Tom, who had never received presents from anyone except Mrs. Cole, and then only on Christmases, had his suspicion and his curiosity equally excited. "Presents? Why? What for?"

"I wanted to apologise."

What? Tom loved receiving apologies and he loved receiving presents. Apologies, he had received in excess, presents, seldom, but to receive apologies and presents for which grounds of giving he had to puzzle over was a novelty. And he wasn't sure he liked it.