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get up.
    ‘We got five minutes,’ Polly
said, pushing him back. If you stand up now you’ll only go and fall down again
so you might as well stay where you are.’
    ‘Doctor Black will be angry when
we go home with no money,’ Annie said.
    ‘ Ol ’
Ernie?  He will at that,’ Polly agreed. 
    ‘Maybe we shouldn’t go back,’
Annie whispered, scanning the heath nervously, as though the ferns and bracken
were listening to them.
    ‘That would be very much worse,’
Polly said, her voice deadly serious now. ‘Wouldn’t it, Isaac?’ She looked down
at him but he didn’t reply.  His eyes were closed; his arms limp by his
sides once more. ‘Isaac?’ she nudged him.  ‘Heaven help us, he’s only gone
again.’
    ‘I’m here…’ he mumbled. ‘ Wassermarrer …’
    ‘You’re the matter, you great
lump.  Fancy getting yourself a crack on the head.  Talk about knight
in shining armour.  More like damsel in distress.’ It was then that Polly
noticed him trembling.  She sighed and began to unbutton her coat. 
    ‘You’ll freeze!’ Annie squeaked.
    ‘Not half as quick as him lying there,’
she grimaced as she wrapped the extra layer around Isaac. ‘Give it another half
an hour or so, and we’ll have to try an’ get him on the cart an’ drag him back
if he don’t look like he can walk it.’
    Annie hugged herself and
shivered.  ‘Last time I was here I heard wolves.’
    ‘Polly narrowed her eyes. ‘Was it
just here you left your sister?’
    ‘Not here, no…’
    ‘Why don’t you trust me?’ Polly
held her gaze until Annie pulled away and stared down at her hands.
    ‘It ain’t that,’ she said awkwardly, ‘it’s just that…’
    ‘I’ve lived with Ernesto since I
were a nipper and you don’t really know how thick we are together.  Is
that what you mean?’
    ‘I only got here a few months
ago, didn’t I?’
    ‘It’s alright,’ Polly said. ‘I’d
be thinkin ’ the same thing if it were me.’ 
    ‘You get away with things we
never could,’ Annie replied, glancing at Isaac who seemed to be out cold again.
‘You’re his favourite.’
    ‘I may be his favourite, but that
don’t mean I have to like him, does it?  I do what I have to do to
survive.  As soon as he meets his maker, I want that house of his. 
He ain’t got nobody of his own, so far as I can tell,
so I reckon I’ll be in line,’ she sniffed and wiped her nose across the back of
her hand, ‘so long as I play him right.’
    ‘But you say the naughtiest
things to him.’
    ‘But I know him, see.  I
know he likes me ‘cos I’m quick and clever and he can trust me to bring him
money in, so he puts up with it.’
    ‘He might not feel that way
tonight when we turn up empty handed.’
    Polly yawned. ‘You might have a
point there.  Perhaps we should run away and join the circus.’
    ‘I thought we were the
circus.’
    ‘Polly smiled.  ‘That we
are.  I’m telling you now, though,’ she continued, her tone subdued again,
‘he’s taken you in and given you grub and a bed, and he wants something in
return for that, don’t he?  You make him money and clean his house and
he’s happy, ain’t he?  You keep his possessions safe…’ she stressed the word, staring hard at Annie who swallowed back the
sudden knot of fear in her throat, ‘and you don’t cross Ernesto Black… not
ever.’  She leaned back and regarded Annie, looking for some indication
that her warning had sunk in.  ‘So if you know what’s good for you, you’ll
go and get that baby back and maybe he’ll say no more about it.’
    ‘I can’t,’ Annie replied. ‘I
don’t know who took her.’
    Polly shrugged and turned her
attention to Isaac.  ‘He looks awful sweet when he’s sleepin ’,
don’t he ?’ she said with obvious affection.
    Annie followed her gaze. ‘He ain’t sleeping, though, he’s been cracked over the head.’
    ‘It all looks the same to me.’
    ‘You like him really, even though
you pretend you