The Crooked Sixpence by Jennifer Bell Page A

closed.’ The bells hanging above the main window swung to the side, releasing a venetian blind that was fixed beneath them. It fell to the floor with a dusty thud. Ethel jabbed a finger towards the large silver bell on the desk. ‘You!’ she barked. ‘Let me know if anyone so much as thinks about coming in.’ She returned the silver coin to Ivy, looking at her anxiously. ‘You’d better take that out back,’ she said, pursing her lips. ‘We’ll talk there.’
    The door at the rear of the shop opened into a dark storeroom. When Ethel switched on a lamp, Ivy saw that on one side were racks of bells padded with foam or cotton wool, while on the other were shelves of other objects – a trombone, an old-fashioned skipping rope, a set of skittles and a moth-eaten teddy bear. The place smelled like the inside of a rabbit hutch, and as Ivy crunched over the floor, she realized why: it was covered with a layer of pale golden straw.
    Ethel shut the door behind her. ‘You should sit,’ she said, pulling up a velvet-cushioned piano stool.
    Ivy took the seat gladly, her legs like jelly. Ethel drew up a wooden dining chair and plonked herself down. She nodded to the photo in Ivy’s hand. ‘Let me see it again.’
    Ivy handed it over. She couldn’t stop staring at Ethel’s face. The lines around her eyes were sadder than Granma Sylvie’s, but they were probably about the same age, Ivy thought. Ethel had slightly hunched shoulders, a wicked slash of a mouth and callouses on all her fingers. Her eyes were the colour of flint.
    â€˜How do you know my granma?’ Ivy managed at last. She couldn’t believe it. Granma Sylvie’s mysterious past was sitting directly in front of her. This woman actually knew Granma Sylvie. Ivy wondered what her mum and dad would say.
    Ethel’s eyes were shining. ‘Is she alive?’
    The question felt like a punch in the chest. Ivy nodded.
    Ethel sighed and smiled. ‘That’s good to know. We was friends a long time ago.’ She reached across and picked up a steaming bowl of something from one of the shelves. ‘The best of friends.’ She slurped up a spoonful of whatever it was. The noise echoed in the small room.
    Ivy looked around at all the strange objects stored away in the semi-darkness. ‘Wait . . . Did she know about Lundinor?’
    â€˜
Know
about it? Sylvie grew up in Lundinor, like me. Her family – the Wrenches – come from a long line of powerful uncommoners.’
    Ivy sat up straight. ‘But Granma Sylvie doesn’t have any family other than us. She’s never mentioned the Wrenches . . . She doesn’t know about uncommoners.’
    Ethel put down her spoon. ‘Look, your gran is an uncommoner and so are you. Ain’t she explained all this?’
    Ivy’s entire body went rigid. ‘I’m—’ She couldn’t finish the sentence aloud.
I’m an uncommoner?
After what Valian had said, it did make sense – the right to be an uncommoner ran in a family. But Ivy wasn’t . . . She couldn’t possibly be . . .
    She tried to clear her mind. This was too much to take in all at once. She looked back at the photo. Ethel had said that she and Granma Sylvie were friends once, but that was so long ago. ‘What happened?’
    Ethel stirred whatever was in her bowl, but she appeared to have lost her appetite. ‘Nobody knows.’ Her voice was cold. ‘Twelfth Night 1969, Sylvie disappeared, along with the rest of the Wrenches. The entire family – Sylvie, her three brothers and her mother – vanished in one night. The underguard searched for them all for years afterwards but never found any trace. It became one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in uncommon history.’
    â€˜Twelfth Night 1969?’ Ivy repeated. She had never forgotten that date . . .
the night of Granma’s