Unlocked

The MA Writing For Young People Anthology

Class of 2020-2021

First Published 2022

By the Bath Spa University Presses, Newton Park, Bath, BA2 9BN

cover design: John Ogden and Fabi Santiago

Copyright © 2022 retained by the contributors

All rights reserved

All characters in this anthology are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

typesetting: Jim Smith Design Ltd

Sponsored by Bath Spa University MA Writing for Young People

Foreword

By Dr Lucy Christopher

Every cohort of the Bath Spa MA in Writing for Young People is wonderous – it’s an astonishing and challenging programme, of course they are! – but the students of 2021 have extra stardust for me as they are the last I had the privilege of teaching and leading at Bath Spa. I’ve loved leading this MA in Writing for Young People these past few years, and this cohort epitomises exactly why. This bunch is exceptional – in talent, in resilience, in their sense of fun, and in their ideas about the world and writing. You too will see this by the time you have read this anthology – I defy you not to!

I watched this class move from hesitant hopefuls in the interview process to writers who know who they are and why they write. I admired them when they found their critical voices, as they analysed their own work and the writing of others. I cheered them on as they failed, and then failed again better. As they learnt. As they grew. This cohort worked through a pandemic, managing to write and complete 40,000 words or more of middle grade or YA novels. As well as this, they wrote critical essays about the process of writing and the publishing industry, they read and critiqued thousands of words from their peers each week, they wrote query letters and book reviews, and they attended lectures on craft and children’s publishing. It is the breadth of this course, and the ambitious demands it makes of its students, that creates excellence. There are many professional writers I know (myself included) who would struggle to do all this in just over eleven months! There is no doubt that this course produces exceptional writing, but it also produces exceptional writers.

The students you read here today build upon the success of previous MA in WFYP students, ones like Emma Carroll, Gill Lewis, Jasbinder Bilan, Chris Vick, Finbar Hawkins, Elen Caldecott, Nizrana Farook, Lesley Parr, Jess Butterworth, Susanna Bailey, Kirsty Applebaum, and Sally Nicholls (nearly 70 of the MA WFYP graduates are now professionally published, in fact!). I am utterly convinced that we have future prize winners and bestsellers in these pages, too. More importantly, we have writers who create stories of big ideas and deep emotions; stories that young readers will cling to in the difficult times we live in.

Let me give you the tiniest flavour of the magic in these pages! Here, you will find a dystopian desert road world, a magical fairground told through a neuro-divergent viewpoint, a whole world built on the back of a wing, and an eye-wateringly funny zombie apocalypse with exploding hedgehogs. We have a fresh and funny take on the gods of the underworld, a boy band struggling with identity, and a superhero story where the real hero is the love interest. We have verse novels too – a sensitive story about new motherhood, and a vivid tale about how the colour returns to a young boy’s life. The scope of work in these pages is so exciting – I’m smiling just thinking about it, and I’m already looking forward to when some of it will be keeping me company from my bookshelves.

So, read on . . . be amazed by these students who have worked harder than anyone I know on a course that is the best of its kind. This cohort is wondrous in the true meaning of the word – they inspire within me a deep feeling of delight. I know you will be truly delighted by this cohort, too.

Chapter Books (Ages 7 – 9)

“It has been my privilege once again to oversee some of the best undiscovered children’s writers in the country. I know for sure we will see their names on book spines in a multitude of bookstores one day and I can’t wait to follow their careers from afar. Any agent or publisher would be lucky to have them on their lists.”

c.j. skuse

Claire Aherne (She/Her)

Claire grew up in the countryside in Cork, Ireland. In school, she regularly received stories back covered in red pen and with comments about paying attention to spelling and grammar. Even though she loved English, she thought it didn’t love her back, and she concentrated on other subjects instead where she showed more ‘natural talent’.

But in her mid-20s, Claire found herself in a job she didn’t like, leading a stressful life and in a dark night of the soul. During this time, her two shining lights were books and a story idea that came to her in a dream. She followed that story right down the rabbit hole, and it landed her on the MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University. Claire lives in Oxfordshire with her partner, too many plants and a dark green feature wall.

claireaherne1@gmail.com / @Claireaherne

About Mildred The Mole and the Penguin Pirates

The Mildred the Mole series is a collection of stories for early readers. Mildred the mole and Barty the beetle work for the Mole Mail postal service. In each story, they deal with all sorts of trouble, including penguin pirates, a dangerous dinosaur egg mix up, and a Ferris wheel fiasco.

Mildred the Mole and the Penguin Pirates

Do you need to post a birthday present to your grandad? Or a letter to your pen pal in Timbuktu? Are you a weasel, an arctic fox, or a dodo? Do you have feathers, scales, or fur?

Well then, you’re in luck. Mole Mail is the animal post service that delivers letters and parcels all over the world. (Especially if it’s another pair of socks for your grandad. Nobody loves socks more than grandads).

The postmoles are the ones who deliver all the parcels, but keeping everything in tip-top shape back at the Central Mole Post Office, is the customer service department. In the office, past the loos and under the stairs, you will find Mildred and Barty.

Mildred the mole is the head of the customer service department and can always be found wearing her glittering red glasses and carrying her shiny black handbag.

Her right-hand beetle and deputy is Barty. He adores fashion and can sometimes even be spotted wearing a splendid cape, but only for important occasions. Like Wednesdays.

On one particular day, Mildred and Barty met down at the shipyard.

‘Ahoy, Mildred,’ said Barty, walking towards her. He was wearing a sailor’s hat (specially customised with holes for his antennae) and a dapper navy neckerchief.

‘Oh, Barty, don’t you look fantastic,’ said Mildred. She wasn’t wearing

a special sailor’s costume, but she did have on her bright yellow rain mac and her glittering red glasses (with added wipers for the sea spray).

‘All ready for the big sail?’ asked Barty.

‘Aye aye matey,’ said Mildred, laughing.

They arrived at the Mole Mail ship—Shippy McShipface—and Omar the otter gave them a big smile and a wave from the deck. Omar looked every bit the sailor with his wellington boots, his yellow wet gear and his salt-covered fur. The otters ran the sea section of the Mole Mail business, and Omar was the captain of Shippy McShipface.

‘Thank you for coming on such short notice,’ said Omar. ‘We have some crew members sick, and we wouldn’t be able to complete the voyage across the ocean without your help.’

‘No problem,’ said Mildred. ‘Barty and I are always here to put our customers first. And we’re delighted to be part of your otterly fantastic crew, Omar.’

‘It’s very cold,’ said Omar. ‘So wrap up warm and keep an eye out for icebergs.’

Omar introduced Mildred and Barty to the rest of the crew. They were a cheery bunch indeed.

Mildred’s favourite was Otto, a sensible old otter who had grey speckled fur around his eye. Otto loved nothing more than telling stories about his competitive knitting days when he won many competitions for his cosy cardigans. Although, he wasn’t a fan of the new jumping jumpers coming in from the moon.

‘Jumpers were just jumpers in my day,’ he said to Mildred. ‘None of this moving around nonsense.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Mildred. ‘I always keep a couple in my handbag just in case. They can be very useful for fetching things off high shelves.’

Barty’s favourite was Orla, a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed otter who was an explorer as well as a sailor. She thrilled Barty with her tales of finding cursed tombs in the middle of the jungle and befriending a yeti on a snowy mountain.

Over the next two days, Barty and Mildred were given all sorts of tasks. They scrubbed the decks, mended sails, and even kept a lookout from the crow’s nest for icebergs and pirates.

In between their work, they enjoyed the camaraderie on the ship with the otters. They ate meals of kippers on toast (sprinkles on top for Barty), and they drank steaming cups of hot chocolate (sprinkles on top for everyone!). Barty especially enjoyed singing the sea shanties every night in the cabin.

And on their voyage, they heard seagulls telling bad jokes and laughing too much.

They saw weight lifting manatees on the rocks, lifting other manatees clean over their heads.

And even a merman popped up and tried to sell them a seaweed shampoo subscription.

‘It gives you a lovely shine,’ he said, pushing some flyers into Barty’s hands.

Barty didn’t have the heart to say he didn’t have any hair, so he just took the flyers with a smile.

Shippy McShipface sailed smoothly through the night, but the next morning the crew came across a sign.

EYESBURGS UP AHED. GO TIS WAY #

Mildred had a mind to write to the local sea council. The sign had spelling mistakes, and the paint was very sloppy. But Omar turned the ship the way the sign directed.

‘The coastguard did warn us about icebergs,’ he said.

The new route took them between two small shadowy islands surrounded by fog.

Barty shivered. ‘Those islands give me the heebee jeebees,’ he said to Mildred.

They were going through the narrowest bit when suddenly nets dropped from overhead.

‘Ahhhh,’ said Barty, as a net landed on top of him.

‘What’s going on?’ cried Mildred, looking up at the islands.

Omar called out, ‘PIRATES!’

Suddenly, a pirate ship pulled ahead of them, and Omar had to turn Shippy McShipface sharply to avoid hitting it.

‘Mildred help!’ said Barty, trying to get out of the net. But then, a net landed on Mildred too.

Through the netting, she saw a black pirate flag flapping in the wind, with a skull and two squiggly coloured lines crossed in front of it. It was then that Mildred realised these weren’t just any old pirates. These were the most feared pirates across the seven seas.

The most ferocious type of pirates.

Penguin pirates.

Penguins started swinging down on ropes from the cliffs of the islands. Others swung across from the pirate ship. They brought the two ships side by side and lowered planks between the two. They were small, but they were vicious.

Mildred was still trapped under the net when one came up to her and opened his mouth to reveal a gummy smile.

‘Argh, me first catch,’ he said. His breath smelt like he had just eaten a sardine and egg sandwich that went off two years ago.

‘Who ja got there, Toothless Pete?’ asked a pirate with a hook instead of a right flipper.

‘An odd-looking otter, Seadog Sally,’ he replied.

‘Me otter’s weird looking too,’ said another penguin with a patch, looking into the net at Barty.

‘Rascal Riley yer as stupid as a plank of timber,’ said Seadog Sally. ‘That’s a bee, not an otter.’

‘Actually, I’m a mole,’ said Mildred, straightening her glasses. ‘And he’s a beetle.’

But the pirates weren’t listening anymore. They were busy removing the nets and tying Barty, Mildred and all the otters to the mast.

‘Any sign of booty?’ asked Toothless Pete, but the only thing that answered him was the sound of a conch blowing.

The penguin pirates quickly all lined up on the deck. They went silent as someone slowly walked across the plank from the pirate ship.

Rascal Riley sounded the conch again and said, ‘All hail Cap’n Scallywag.’

Captain Scallywag was a penguin that wore a pirate hat with a large white feather in it. She had a parrot on her shoulder (which was impressive because the parrot was almost the same size as her), a long swordfish at her waist and purple pirate boots on her feet.

She walked along the line of pirates, straightening their hats or flicking crabs off their shoulders.

She stopped in front of the tied up Shippy McShipface crew.

‘Argh, Omar the otter,’ she said with a drawl. ‘Me auld foe.’

‘Hello, Captain Scallywag,’ said Omar. ‘I can’t say it’s a pleasure.’

Captain Scallywag laughed a husky laugh. ‘Yo-ho-ho! You make me laugh, Omar.’ But the Captain’s expression turned serious. ‘Now, I’ll ask this once and only once. Where’s the bounty?’

‘You know we don’t carry any jellybeans, Scallywag. We don’t want to attract pirates like you.’

The line of penguin pirates let out a hiss of disappointment.

Captain Scallywag’s face grew red. ‘What’s a pirate ‘ave to do around ‘ere to get a jellybean?!’

‘‘ere ‘ere,’ said Seadog Sally.

Barty was shaking so much, Mildred had to whisper him words of encouragement. But the whispering caught Captain Scallywag’s attention. ‘Argh. And who do we ‘ave ‘ere?’ asked Scallywag, stopping in front of Mildred. ‘You ain’t no otter.’

Mildred squared her shoulders and held her head high. ‘My name is Mildred, and this is Barty, and we’re from the customer service department at Mole Mail. And we’re not scared of a bunch of penguin pirates.’

‘Yo-ho-ho,’ laughed Scallywag. She turned to her crew. ‘Ja ‘ear that mateys? She ain’t scared of us.’

All the crew cackled.

Scallywag held her swordfish under Mildred’s chin. ‘Perhaps you’ll be quaking in your boots, little moley, if I use you as a ‘ostage to get some treasure from Mole Mail.’

‘Arrrrgh,’ went the pirates.

‘We could demand a chest of jellybeans,’ said Rascal Riley.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Seadog Sally. ‘We could get ten chests of jellybeans.’

Captain Scallywag laughed. ‘Argh, me naive penguins. With these two, we could ask for one ‘undred chests filled with jellybeans!’

‘AHOY!’ cheered the pirates.

‘Shiver me timbers,’ said Toothless Pete, wiping away a tear from his eye. ‘I never thought I’d see so many jellybeans in me life.’

Captain Scallywag was looking thoughtful and stroking her parrot. ‘But they’ll need to know we’re serious.’

‘You,’ she said, pointing her swordfish under Barty’s chin. ‘What’s your job, laddy?’

Barty was shaking. ‘I….I… I’m....thhhee....ttthhee..’

‘Spit it out, dung beetle!’

Mildred said, ‘I’m the head of Customer Service, and he’s my deputy.’

‘So, they’ll miss you more than they’ll miss ‘im, eh?’ said Scallywag.

‘Well, they’ll miss us both—’

‘I ‘ave an idea, mateys,’ said Scallywag, turning back to her pirates.

‘What is it, Cap’n?’ asked Toothless Pete, holding out a notebook and a pen.

‘We’ll keep this one as a ‘ostage,’ said Scallywag, pointing her swordfish at Mildred. ‘And we’ll make this one,’ she pointed her swordfish at Barty, ‘WALK THE PLANK!’

‘AYYYYYYY!’ shouted the pirates, and they started dancing around.

‘NOOOO!’ screamed Barty.

‘Then they’ll know we’re serious about wanting our bounty.’

Mildred and the otters cried out as Barty was untied from the group and put on the plank.

‘And tie-up ‘is wings,’ said Scallywag. ‘We don’t want ‘im buzzing away.’

‘Please!’ said Mildred. ‘Please, let Barty be, and I promise we’ll get you 200 chests filled with jellybeans.’

All the penguin pirates stopped.

‘With extra cinnamon ones?’ asked Toothless Pete.

‘With only cinnamon ones if that’s what you want.’

Toothless Pete fell over from the shock.

‘Argh, I’ve never ‘eard of such a thing,’ said Seadog Sally.

‘Please,’ said Mildred. ‘Just let Barty and the otters go. You can keep me hostage until they come back with the jellybeans. There are loads of jellybeans on land. It won’t be a problem.’

‘Lots of jellybeans on land, you say?’ said Rascal Riley.

‘Millions,’ said Mildred. ‘You could give up your pirating ways and just buy jellybeans from the shop.’

All the pirates started muttering to themselves.

‘What you say Cap’n?’ asked Seadog Sally.

Scallywag stroked her parrot. ‘T’would be nice to have jellybeans anytime I want. Maybe even grow me own jellybeans in me own garden.’

‘That’s not how jellybeans wor—’ began Omar, but Mildred stamped on his foot.

‘Exactly,’ said Mildred. ‘You could have all that and more. Maybe even take a bath every now and then.’

‘I do love me a bath Cap’n,’ said Toothless Pete, taking a yellow rubber duck out of his pocket. ‘Especially one with the lavender bubbles. And it wouldn’t hurt to go to the dentist, neither.’

Scallywag looked at the otters all tied up, then back at her crew, and finally to Barty out on the plank.

‘Argh, I ‘ave to follow me, ‘eart,’ she said. ‘And in me ‘eart it’ll always be… THE PLANK!’

Middle Grade

‘Here’s to the all the thinkers, the coffee drinkers, the late-night scribblers and the early morning keyboard tappers, the staring out of window-ers, the head scratchers and moon-gazers, the weepers and the gigglers, the pen-pushers and pencil walkers, the back-of-the-envelope scrawlers and the Post-It note plotters, the thousand-worda-dayers and the god-help-me prayers: here’s what love looks like; they made it for you.’

steve voake

Mabli Bach

If you mushed Wednesday Addams and Jigglypuff together, Mabli is pretty much what you would get. She is a Welsh writer and illustrator of all things spooky who refuses to grow up (it’s a trap!)

Mabli has a BA in Animation and worked as a freelance animator and storyboarder before joining the Writing for Young People MA at Bath Spa.

When Mabli isn’t writing or drawing, she can be found dancing or hanging out with her dog, whom she suspects is a crocodile in disguise. She also loves to travel and has been on many European road trips, where she visited fairytale castles and one time, escaped an evil toilet. She also loves visiting Austria where she practices speaking German and skis (and falls) down snowy mountains.

In the future Mabli hopes to become very rich, take over the world and live in a haunted castle with many croco-dogs.

mablibach@gmail.com / @mablibach

About Draculand

Alex hunts monsters. Ivanna is a vampire. Dewi is . . . uh, dead. It’s up to them to save the world.

When a mysterious theme park appears out of nowhere and children start to go missing, teen monster hunter Alex Jäger suspects dark forces are at work. Together with disgraced vampire princess, Ivanna, and Dewi Dipford the scared ghost, they must traverse the weirdness of Draculand and find the missing children. But someone, or something, is watching… always watching.

In the small town of Sooton, County Merlin, Walia, down a dark alleyway on the corner of Yew Street, stood the Hunter. They leaned against a brick wall sucking on a lolly, the collar of their jacket high and wide-brimmed hat sitting low over their eyes, hiding their face.

Their name was Alex Jäger, 13 years old, and had one been able to see their face under the black night sky, one would have seen that they gazed intently at a poster on the wall opposite. It was a most curious thing, this single piece of paper, flapping in the wind. Because it wasn’t the first one Alex had seen.

It was, in fact, the fifth poster Alex had seen since arriving in County Merlin three days ago. And the more posters Alex found, the harder they were getting to ignore.

Alex took the last of the lolly out of their mouth, and twirled the lollipop stick around in their fingers, thinking. Finally, they pushed themselves off the wall and walked over to the poster, slamming the loose corner down with their hand.

It read as follows:

Have You Seen This Person?

Ydy chi wedi gweld y person yma?

Dewi Dipford

Age: 12 Height: 4ft

Last seen on Saturday 3rd October at approximately 21:20 at Drizzlington Bus Stop, heading towards Diflas Street.

Description: Short, mousy blond hair. Was last seen wearing a yellow jacket, white top and jeans. Looked oddly terrified, but we are told this is normal.

If you have any information, please contact Drizzlington Police Station on 101.

Yep, another one.

Alex sighed. This was not good. Definitely not good. Five missing children.

Five.

The sound of thunder broke Alex’s concentration and tiny droplets began to fall from the sky.

Pants. Did it ever stop raining in this country?

Don’t think there’ll be any more searching tonight, Alex thought. Back to HQ it was.

Alex looked around warily to make sure no-one was looking. The street was empty. Dead. Only the shining light of the moon, the thunder and the rain kept them company tonight. Or that’s what any normal person would think. Alex knew better. Things lurked, unseen, on nights such as these.

Alex tore the poster from the wall, stuffing it into their jacket pocket, and strode back down the alleyway and into the quiet streets of Sooton. The rain grew heavier and heavier as they walked. Anyone else would have run for shelter, but Alex was pretty used to being soaked by now. Anyone would be if they had travelled all the way from East Yoropa to Walia on foot, and their only umbrella now had a giant hole in it. Not that Alex would be able to find the umbrella in the cavernous pockets of their Hexenjacke, an enchanted jacket that Alex’s parents had acquired on their travels.

Alex knew what their parents would be doing if they were here now. They’d be off to find those missing children without a second thought. So would Alex, normally. But Bernhard and Sloane weren’t here. Not anymore.

Alex finally reached a field, and, trudging through squelching grass and mud, Alex got to a wooden gate that lead onto Gallows Hill. Winding their way through an overgrown cemetery, they eventually reached the abandoned church, otherwise known to Alex as HQ.

The church stood, dark and formidable on top of Gallows Hill. No-one knew how long it had been abandoned, but strange things kept happening there, so people kept their distance. Alex thought it must have been a nice

church at one time, but now the stained glass windows were boarded up, the roof leaked, and the once ornate objects inside were falling to bits and gathering dust. The cemetery had also seen better days. Long grass and ivy grew around the cracked tombstones, hiding the names that were engraved on them. Not that it mattered. It would seem that there was no living person around to remember or visit the poor souls who lived beneath.

Alex finally, thank the Magic Spirit in the Sky, reached the church door. By now they felt pretty gross; their wet jeans clung to their legs and their hat had gone all floppy.

Alex reached for the rusty door handle and was about to turn it – when they heard something. Alex stood still. The wind howled as the rain continued to pour. Something was there. Alex’s hairs stood on end, and an icy cold something crept up their face, numbing their skin. The hunter’s eyes narrowed as they finally heard the low moan they’d been waiting for.

Before the church was built, it had, true to the name of the hill it had been built on, been the site of a gallows. According to the old records

Alex had found in the church, trials had been held in the town of Sooton, and seven witches had met their bitter end on this hill. Which meant, not only was there an official graveyard, but there were seven unmarked graves somewhere near the church too. And graves, especially unmarked ones, tend to come with evil spirits. The church, however well chosen as a hideout for protecting oneself from creatures of darkness, couldn’t protect you from spirits. For that, you needed other precautions.

Alex spun, just in time to see the ghost looming over them, with that familiar blue aura pulsating wildly and white eyes aglow. It was a woman in a torn white dress, her dark hair bedraggled and wild, face covered in dirt. Alex glimpsed the necklace floating around her. A rope with a pendant dangling from it, a detailed insignia etched into the glinting metal. A witch.

Or more specifically, the vengeful ghost of one.

The ghost let out an ear-piercing scream and lunged. Stomach lurching,

Alex dodged her, ducking and rolling out of the way and scrambling to a tombstone just ahead. They dived behind it, and, trying to ignore their heart hammering in their chest, shoved their hands into their pockets, searching desperately for something to get rid of the ghost. Had she seen them? Alex snuck a quick look from behind the tombstone. The spirit stood still, rooted to the spot, looking directly at the tombstone Alex was hiding behind. A smirk played on the edge of her black lips.

Oh, Van Helsing’s pants.

“I see you, hunter,” the spirit rasped. She began to float, slowly creeping towards the grave.

Crêpes, she’s coming!

Alex whirled back behind the tombstone and continued to ransack their pockets. Where was it?!

Curse this stupid jacket! This was one of the many times Alex wished they had a normal jacket instead of a Hexenjacke. Being able to store all of your possessions in interdimensional pockets wasn’t much good when the stupid things were impossible to organise. Shrill laughter came from behind them, growing louder and louder.

Crêpes! Alex rummaged and rummaged through the ridiculously humongous pockets until…gotcha! They wrenched a lighter, a wand made of various crushed herbs and salt and a…cocktail umbrella (not quite what Alex had in mind but it would have to do) out of their pocket. Alex stood and turned to face the ghost, ramming the cocktail umbrella into the wand to shield it from the rain. The ghost crept ever closer, black teeth bared.

Alex readied the lighter, and…FLICK!

Nothing.

Flick! Flick!

Alex glanced up. The ghost was right there.

Flick!

Come on, you stupid son of a krampus! Come on!

Out stretched the spectre’s skeletal arms–

C’mon!

FLICK!

Just as the ghost was about to grab Alex, the wand lit up, and Alex jabbed the smoking stick into its horrible, wispy face.

The spirit writhed.

“GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”

With an ear piercing shriek, she shrunk into a ghostly blue orb and dived into the earth, back to rejoin her lifeless body.

Alex slumped back against the tombstone, breathing heavily, heart hammering still. That was close. Too close.

“You seriously need to learn how to exorcise and obliterate spirits. Before you end up possessed,” Alex whispered to themselves, shuddering at the thought.

Alex crept out from behind the tombstone, wand and lighter at the ready, just in case any of the other spirits got any ideas. Side-stepping around the ivy covered church wall until they arrived at the little arch over the door, they reached out behind them and fumbled for the handle. Taking it, they shoved the door open and slunk in backwards, still keeping both eyes on the graves. Thankfully, apart from the still pouring rain and the roar of thunder, the graveyard was silent. With one last wave of the herb wand around the outside of the door, they went inside, kicking the swollen door shut.

Alex had made their home in a small room inside the church. It was almost like a box, sitting in the corner and separated from the main church. Inside it, where there had once been pews for people to sit on, there was now an old desk, strewn with Alex’s papers, maps and various oddities; a goblin skull and a jar of cursed teeth to name a few. A pile of old, damp-smelling cushions were dumped on the floor, topped with a dirty star-patterned blanket. Behind the desk was an altar, adorned with dusty, gold objects, surrounding a crumbling statue of Saint Nonwen the Mediocre, who now had only one hand and various naughty things graffitied all over her skirt. (Alex had failed to sponge it off, so had fashioned Nonwen a new skirt out of old tea towels.) It was certainly nothing fancy, but it would do.

Alex walked through the church quickly, their every footstep echoing in the cold, dark void. They wished it wasn’t such a long walk to the little room. The church was just…too big. Through the gloom Alex could see the stony eyes of the cracked statues along the walls, staring down at them. Right now, they felt as if those eyes were real, staring into their very soul, judging.

Why aren’t you looking for them, Alex?

Why aren’t you looking for those children?

Why?

Why?

Why?

Because I’m supposed to be looking for my Clan.

Suddenly, out of the darkness, a sound. Creeeeeak!

Crêpes! Imagination now running wild, Alex broke into a run, not daring to stop until they reached the wooden doors that lead to the little room. They flung the doors open and dived inside, banging the doors shut and drawing a heavy pair of curtains across them.

Alex stood, still clinging to the curtains, keeping them shut tight and heaving for breath.

“There’s nothing there,” Alex told themselves, panting. “Nothing can get you here.”

Alex walked over to the desk, and taking a box of matches from the drawer, lit the candles that were on the desk and the altar of old votive candles by the wall. Alex placed their soggy hat on the rickety chair next to the desk, making sure to re-shape it first, and then grabbed a head torch from the desk. Ramming it on their head and turning it on, bright light streamed out ahead of them. Much better. After they changed out of their drenched clothing and put on their pajamas (an old Ze Slayerz band t-shirt and joggers that were far too small and showed enough ankle to

make a Victorian lady faint), they threw the star-patterned blanket over themselves like a cape and went to the hexenjacke once more. Alex rifled in the pockets, the usual odd spark of electricity running up their hands as they entered the pocket dimension, until they finally found the poster.

Grabbing a tack from the desk, Alex marched over to their investigation board and slammed the poster onto the board next to the others. Five faces stared back at Alex. Five children. Ages ranging from twelve to fifteen, all missing within the last three months.

Ash Bond

Ash has always loved myths, gods and monsters. So much so that she decided to study them, and graduated with a degree in Classics from Oxford University in 2009. After university, Ash’s adventures took her to Asia where she worked as a wilderness guide. It was on those long hikes that she learned that a good story well-told can keep you going through just about anything. Both myths and adventures infuse Ash’s work – whether a comedic Middle Grade quest, or a Young Adult verse novel inspired by Greek tragedy.

Having recently completed her Masters in Writing for Young People, she now works as a part-time yoga teacher and as a children’s bookseller in Wells. When not writing books, or talking about them, she can be found being walked by her polar bear of a dog.

ash@creativewild.co.uk

About Peregrine Quinn and the Cosmic Realm

The portal between Olympus and Earth has broken down, and its architect, the famous Daedalus Bloom, has gone missing! It is now up to twelveyear-old Peregrine Quinn to find him, fix the portals and save both realms from ultimate disaster. Luckily for Peregrine, she has some help – a CSI (Cosmic Sprite Investigations) Agent and a stress-eating faun.

The first pages of this piece won first place at the Winchester Writers’ Festival and a special mention in the United Agents Prize.

Peregrine Quinn and the Cosmic Realm

Location: Portal Tunnel Nine, Fifty-second Bookcase, Reading Room Three, The Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Date: 23rd August [Terran Calendar]

Time: 0450 hours

‘Are you very sure she’s asleep?’ Peregrine whispered. She was peering at the librarian whose forehead rested on the desk in front of her. The woman’s bowler hat had rolled off, and underneath her shower of black curls poked a pair of pointy green-tipped ears.

‘Quite, quite sure.’ Peregrine’s godfather, Daedalus Bloom, picked up the librarian’s limp wrist and checked her pulse against his pocket watch. ‘Apart from being currently unconscious, this young lady is in tippetytip-top health.’ He sighed at an open bag of jelly beans and tutted. ‘But sugar is terribly bad for a dryad’s digestion. She really should know better.’

Peregrine thought this was a little much as it was in fact Daedalus who had planted the bag of jelly beans in the first place; planted them and spiked them with enough herbal sedative to knock out a small kangaroo.

‘A dryad, wow.’ She leant forward and gently placed the librarian’s hat back on her head; it felt a very personal thing to see those vibrant, delicate ears.

Peregrine, though a mortal herself, was now quite the expert in mythological beings. When you find out your godfather is an immortal, you tend

1. tempus fugit

to do your homework and read around the subject. While she’d studied immortals, she had never actually met any apart from Daedalus, and he just looked like your average seventy-something-year-old human, albeit one who ate lots of organic broccoli and went to Pilates twice a week. But a dryad was a tree nymph and, well, that was really something.

As Peregrine readjusted the librarian’s hat, she noticed a golden pin in the shape of an apple attached to her collar. It glittered like a shiny penny in the low lamplight of the library.

‘What’s that?’ She pointed to the pin.

‘Ah. That, my dear, is the insignia of Olympus. Well, the new one. There was some re-branding when old Zeus retired a couple of millennia ago.’ Daedalus set the dryad’s wrist down gently. ‘It used to be a lightning bolt; very flash, very macho.’ He shuddered.

‘Oh.’ She looked at the other items on the librarian’s desk. It was empty except for a pot of pencils, a few odd books and a framed faded photograph of seven laughing girls in what looked like graduation gowns. Peregrine picked up the frame; she saw that the girls in the photograph were almost identical; same hair, same smiles but with slight differences – a mole here, an inch or two of height there. ‘Septuplets,’ she whispered. She looked closer. There was another girl, shorter and younger than the others who was standing a little apart.

‘Now, let’s get this show on the road, shall we?’ Daedalus spun balletically on his brogue heels and pulled back the midnight blue curtain behind the desk with a dramatic swoosh. Peregrine was always amazed at how spry he was for somebody who remembered carving the blue prints for Stonehenge.

‘Ooh.’ She felt the magic before she saw it: her arms prickled like a thousand spiders were tap-dancing across her skin. She shuddered. So, this is what magic felt like. She had always wondered.

Behind the curtain was an intricately patterned metal gate, the kind you might have over the door of a lift in a fancy hotel. The gate was made of silver and gold circles, spirals and lines that zig-zagged their way

across, backwards and forwards. Her head spun a little just watching it.

A rogue strand of hair the colour of a pale golden retriever had fallen from under Peregrine’s tight black beanie, and she tucked it back, eager to see what was behind the gate. She and Daedalus had discussed dress code the previous evening and, as discussed, Peregrine was dressed in a manner befitting a library break-in: black soft-soled shoes, black socks, black t-shirt, black dungarees. Daedalus on the other hand had interpreted ‘stealthy’ slightly differently; he was wearing a dapper three-piece navy-blue suit with seventies-style flared trousers and a bright turquoise waistcoat with a scattering of embroidered silver stars.

‘Hold these please, Peregrine.’ Daedalus passed her a book on woodland ferns, then one on mushrooms and finally a particularly dusty tome on the life cycle of polar bears. Then he turned back to the gate and traced his finger along the innermost circle until he found a tiny keyhole in the shape of a star, no bigger than the nail of a pinkie toe.

‘Aha!’ He tapped tentatively around the lock, then leaned forward to peer through. ‘Hmm.’ He stood up, plucked a pink satin handkerchief out of his breast pocket and mopped his brow. ‘As I thought. OPS have upped the security a little in the last century or so.’ He popped the hanky back into his pocket and cracked his knuckles. ‘Best to stay back, dear.’

‘What? Why?’ She scowled. She was a patient student, but she’d spent the last three years listening to stories of the portal, and the Cosmic Realm, and now she was so close. ‘Couldn’t I just look? I won’t touch it.’ She gazed up at her godfather with wide brown eyes. ‘I promise.’

Daedalus raised both his eyebrows. ‘I appreciate your enthusiasm, but this is just the door. If you got any closer to the portal itself, well, you might be lucky...’ He twirled his white moustache with a long delicate finger.

‘Lucky how?’ she asked, her eyes narrowed.

‘Tentacles will only sprout from your—’ He stopped mid-twirl, and stared at her ‘—nose!’

Peregrine snorted. Sometimes Daedalus just made this stuff up on the spot.

He chuckled. ‘I’m deadly serious! You Terrans lost your tolerance for the mystical centuries ago. Why, I remember the first time young Arthur tried to pull that sword out of that stubborn stone...’

‘What happened?’

‘Mucus.’ Daedalus sighed. ‘EVERYWHERE.’

The History of Carnivorous Fungi fell to the ground with such a loud thunk, that they both looked towards the dryad to check that she was still sleeping. They needn’t have worried, she’d obviously eaten quite a few jelly beans.

‘Ugh!’ Peregrine picked up the fallen book and placed it to the side with the others, before shuffling backwards. ‘Fine.’

She wasn’t squeamish exactly, but she was rather fond of her nose. It was small, slightly upturned and covered in freckles. Anyway, when there’s a choice of whether to get tentacles or not, she would choose not.

‘Thank you. Now if you wouldn’t mind,’ Daedalus rolled up his jacket sleeves and bent down to click open his leather doctor’s bag, ‘please take a further three steps back.’

He waited until she had done so, and then from the depths of the holdall he took out what looked like a shining golden stethoscope. Peregrine had seen lots of Daedalus’ odd instruments scattered around his greenhouse. This was in fact how she had discovered that Daedalus was not your average godfather. When she was nine, she found the lawn being mown by a clockwork lawnmower, while a mechanical crow read Daedalus the morning papers. After that, she’d noticed a lot more in the way of odd occurrences, but she had never seen an instrument like this.

As soon as Daedalus placed the earbuds into his ears, the golden tubes began moving of their own accord towards the gate. They sprouted tendrils as they grew smaller and smaller until finally they travelled straight through the tiny keyhole.

Peregrine sucked in a mouthful of air; golden sparks were swirling around the bookcase. This was real magic. ‘What are you—?’

Daedalus put a finger to his lips. A faint buzzing was emanating from the portal, like the wings of a hummingbird. He was nodding, and ‘hmming’ like he was listening very intently to something. ‘Interesting.’

‘What? WHAT is interesting?’ Peregrine hissed.

After about a minute, he took the earbuds out and put the stethoscope back into his bag.

‘Tempus fugit.’ His usually jolly tone was etched with worry. ‘But we still have time, I think, old girl…’ He paused, as if considering whether to say anything else. He shook his head and placed a hand tenderly on the bookcase; a few stray sparks licked his fingers. ‘I can’t do any more here.’ He closed the midnight blue curtain gently. ‘We should go.’

‘But what about her?’ Peregrine indicated the dryad, who was starting to drool.

‘Oh, she’ll be alright.’ He stood up and looked at his pocket watch again. ‘She’ll think it was merely a snooze, she won’t notice a thing.’

2. rowan strong

Location: Portal Tunnel Nine, Fifty-second Bookcase, Reading Room Three, The Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Date: 23rd August [Terran Calendar]

Time: 0520 hours

Twenty-three minutes later, Rowan Strong woke up and noticed something. In fact, she noticed a series of things. First, she noticed that drool was dribbling down her chin; second, that her hat was on at a jaunty angle that was completely against Olympus HQ’s Agent attire regulations, and third, that she had fallen asleep.

ASLEEP.

She snapped her head up, then slammed her hands down onto the table and pushed her chair back so it squealed like sharp nails on a blackboard.

She, Rowan Strong of the Seven Strong Sisters had fallen asleep on the job; she had snoozed on her sacred duty; she had dozed by the door to the Cosmic Realm. Shame washed over her like a bucket of icy Styx-water.

‘The three golden rules of being a Portal Librarian.’ Her Academy professor’s voice boomed in her head. ‘Vigilance, vigilance and vigilance!’

‘Flooharght!’ She swore.

She had always been the baby of her family, the youngest of her sisters. She always got the worst shifts, the hand-me-down hats, and now she would be the first Librarian ever to have been fired from the sacred guardianship of a portal. Her sisters would disown her; she would be sent back to Olympus in disgrace.

She gulped. She could see her future now: wearing the ill-fitting lilac uniform of a Mountain Mall security guard or carding teenage nymphs at neon-lit forest raves.

No, she was getting ahead of herself. She pulled back the portal curtain in panic; the door looked exactly as it always did. She checked her CosPad, scanning for any incoming transports that she had missed. None. Any messages? None. All portal readings were coming back within acceptable limits.

Everything looked absolutely, well, fine.

Breathing hard, she slumped back into her chair and readjusted her bowler hat. She had made a mistake. OK, a BIG mistake, but there seemed to be no harm done. She had gotten away with it, this time.

She still had most of her shift left, maybe she could wash away some of her guilt by cleaning the Librarian’s desk. She looked around her. It could definitely do with a tidy; there were sweet wrappers and old portal arrival tickets scattered across the floor. She sighed. As much as she loved her big sister, Hazel was kind of a slob.

She took her key chain out and flicked through the keys; CosPort, Portal Gate… Ah, there we go. Cleaning cupboard. As Olympus’s front-line operatives on Earth, only Librarians had access to these keys, and they were DNA-melded too. It had been a rush to imprint them, as Rowan

wasn’t even supposed to be here really. She’d interned with Hazel once or twice, but she was officially still in training. But then Hazel had called in sick and she was the only replacement available at the time. It had felt like such a huge opportunity.

‘Yeah, a huge opportunity to mess up,’ Rowan muttered as she opened the cleaning cupboard, and took out the mop. Something shiny caught her eye by the CosPort door.

Something that had been dropped.

Melissa Bowen

Professional daydreamer and superhero in training, Melissa Bowen is a Midlands based author with a thirst for adventure. A recent graduate of Bath Spa MA Writing for Young People, she is always on the hunt to learn something new.

With a background in Youth Community and Play Work and a refusal to grow up, Melissa has a strong passion for supporting libraries and reading for pleasure, she enjoys nothing more than sharing stories and meeting young readers both virtually and in person.

Melissa has attended events across the UK, including for Animal Planet, Bournville Book Festival, Brentwood Book Festival and even the National Pet Show, sharing stories and engaging with readers of all ages!

www.bbtaylor.co.uk / @bb_taylor_

About Chronicles of Allegra

When Orphan Allegra ends up at the house on the hill, she never thought she’d find herself living with a veggie werewolf or a witch with a flair for baking. This Middle Grade adventure, with hints of the Adams Family meets Miss Peregrine, follows Allegra as she discovers the true meaning of family and unlocks the dark secrets of her past

Chronicles of Allegra

chapter one

One day left.

Squeezing her toes into the battered pair of leather shoes, Allegra adjusted the patch of tape that hid the hole underneath, and folded her socks over to hide the splits. She patted down the knots in her hair as best she could, and pulled on the oversized dress, tying an old string round her waist as a makeshift belt to keep it in place.

Just one day.

One day to convince a family to take her.

‘You can do this,’ she told herself.

Are you sure? The voice in her head didn’t agree.

Giving herself one last pat down, Allegra headed to breakfast. If today didn’t go well, there might not be another.

‘Did you hear that howling last night?’ Freya, one of the eldest, asked sweetly.

‘You mean the dogs?’ the little girl replied sleepily, stirring her halfeaten slop.

‘Dogs?’ Freya laughed. ‘Dogs? Don’t you mean werewolves? It was a full moon last night, you know. The Witch was letting her werewolves out for dinner.’

There was a clatter as some of the younger girls dropped their spoons in fright.

‘Looks like they won’t be wanting the rest of their breakfast,’ Freya smirked, as the rest of the table giggled.

You could see the outline of the Witch’s house from the top floor of

the home. On a full moon, when you could hear howls from across the town, Ms Gertrude would growl at the girls and wave a finger.

‘Misbehave and I’ll send you to the Witch on the hill,’ she would threaten. ‘She’s always looking for little girls to cook in her cakes!’

It was enough to keep all of the girls in line… most of the time. They all knew that keeping Ms Gertrude happy was the easiest way to find a family. She always knew what each family wanted.

The families that came to Ms Gertrude’s were of a certain sort. Coats of fluffy fur and exotic smooth silk scarves, with cars that gleamed so brightly, you could see your reflection in them.

Allegra could cook, clean, didn’t take up much space, and was well practised at staying quiet, but still every family had overlooked her so far. Allegra knew that she could be a perfect daughter to the right home. But it never seemed to happen. Families came and went, but they never picked her. There was always something each family was looking for… but never a daughter. Now time was running out. Today was her last chance to impress.

chapter two

Waiting was always the hardest bit.

Ms Gertrude would meet the guests and take them round the nicer parts of the home, the parts the girls weren’t usually allowed in. Then, she would call the girls in to demonstrate their talents, and the visitors would decide if they wanted to take the girl home. Today’s first family was taking tea in the gardens with Ms Gertrude.

It was a glorious day; the birds were singing and Ms Gertrude had brought out the best china and table decorations. Allegra’s heart was hammering in her ears.

‘Allegra. Allegra, can you hear me child? Pour the tea!’

Allegra blinked. ‘Yes, sorry, Ms Gertrude.’ She had gently lifted the

teapot to begin pouring, when she noticed a spider crawling onto the edge of the table.

Ms Gertrude had noticed it too, blinking furiously for Allegra to continue pouring as she spoke. ‘Mr and Mrs Vanderspiel,’ she said, ‘I’m sure you would agree Allegra here would make a great addition to your household. Polite, well behaved and learns very quickly.’

‘Yes, well, Mr Vanderspiel and I were ideally looking for a younger child. This one seems a bit old to train.’ Mrs Vanderspiel eyed Allegra up and down over the brim of her glasses, which were encrusted with stones that sparkled like diamonds.

‘No training needed with this one, I assure you. Isn’t that right, Allegra?’

Allegra, who was still eyeing the spider, dragged her eyes to the Vanderspiels, both of whom were wrapped in their overly thick fur coats, and smiled. ‘Yes. I can cook, clean, sew and look after the little ones. No job is too big for me.’ Her smile wobbled as her jaw began to twitch. She forced it to be still, hoping they hadn’t noticed.

‘Mmm,’ Mrs Vanderspiel replied, lifting her cup towards her lips.

Before Allegra could speak, the scream erupted. The tiny spider was now eye level with Mrs Vanderspiel, and she threw her cup in the air, emptying the tea all over Mr Vanderspiel’s fur coat.

Before Ms Gertrude could even offer an apology, they had stormed out, muttering a list of complaints, all of which seemed to be somehow blaming Allegra, who despondently began clearing up the mess. It was only a spider and it wasn’t her fault. How could something as small as that have ruined her chances?

But it wasn’t over yet.

Isn’t it? came the voice. Maybe you should give up now; it’s obvious nobody wants you.

Scooping up the spider and relocating it somewhere safe, Allegra tried to ignore the voice.

Nobody wants you.

Nobody will take you.

Even your own family dumped you with nothing but a name.

Family number two arrived. This time it was a mother and her four children, all much younger than Allegra. Ms Gertrude welcomed them into the library.

When Allegra entered, Ms Gertrude was chatting away, while the two smallest children sat hitting each other.

‘Ah Allegra, come and meet Mrs Warnock and her delightful children. Mr Warnock works away a lot, so Mrs Warnock is looking for someone trustworthy to join their household and help with these angels.’

They definitely weren’t angels, but how bad could four little children be? Allegra nodded politely to Mrs Warnock and stood patiently as they talked.

It seemed to be going well.

Mrs Warnock smiled at Allegra. ‘Come here, please, and let me get a better look at you.’

Allegra smiled back, her stomach doing a little flip. This could be it!

A painful thud followed, as her elbows connected with the floor, and mischievous giggles escaped from the children.

‘Can’t you even walk without tripping over your own feet?’ gasped Mrs Warnock.

Allegra glanced round at the culprits. ‘I think one of the children tripped me up.’ Before she finished her sentence, she knew it had been a mistake.

‘How dare you accuse my children of such behaviour? To think, I almost welcomed you into my home! Come on, children, we’re leaving!’ Mrs Warnock stormed out, followed by the children, all of whom were sticking their tongues out behind their mother’s back.

Allegra waited for Ms Gertrude to start yelling at her, but instead she spoke softly and calmly. ‘One family left, Allegra, one family. You know what happens tomorrow if they don’t take you, child. It’s out of my hands then.’ Dusting herself off, she stood, leaving Allegra alone in the pristine fake library.

Told you so, the voice sniggered. Hope you like the great outdoors.

Allegra sat in the garden waiting for the next summons. She soaked in the fresh aromas of mint and sweet-smelling honeysuckle blooming around her. A nearby tree rustled as the birds hopped around the branches being nosy.

‘Allegra,’ Ms Gertrude called. ‘It’s time.’

Allegra followed the call up to the patio, where the china had been reset and the table laid perfectly once more. An elderly woman with a stern, crinkled face sat looking like she’d had a board shoved down her back. Allegra swallowed back the breakfast slop, which was threatening to make a reappearance and, reaching in her pocket, fiddled with a small piece of cloth.

Allegra always had a small piece of something in her pocket. She never knew when she would need to patch her dress, so it was always handy to collect scraps when they came along. If she ever had any that were too small to use, she would give them to the birds to pull apart for their nests. The current scrap she had found at the bottom of the laundry, looking like it definitely didn’t belong. Rubbing it between her fingertips once more she pushed it back down, then released her hand from her pocket.

‘Allegra, this is Madame Pendleton.’ Ms Gertrude said cautiously. ‘She has kindly offered to consider you for her household...’

The warning was clear.

Last chance.

Don’t mess up.

But you always do…

The voice would always be there, but a warm bed would not. Allegra nodded politely. ‘It’s an honour to meet you, Mrs Pendleton,’ she said, nodding meekly.

‘Madame! You rude child. Madame! Did you not listen?’ The disgust dripped off her.

Allegra opened her mouth to apologise, but Madame Pendleton went on.

‘Ms Gertrude has informed me of your… situation. As a good person I feel it is my duty to try and help. I have an… opening in my household. You will be expected to be up at five every day and you will be provided with a cupboard in the basement for your board. I run a tight house and I do not tolerate laziness. Do you understand?’

Allegra nodded. Okay, so it wasn’t the family she had hoped for. The wrinkled glare of Madame Pendleton was cold and cruel. But Ms Gertrude had been clear. This was her last chance.

Madame Pendleton stood, leaning heavily on a wooden stick, with gold patterns weaved into its design. Ms Gertrude nervously nodded, mentioning reductions in fees for her charitable offer.

It was going so smoothly, and Allegra finally allowed herself to feel some hope.

Until the rustling in the trees.

Madame Pendleton’s screams ripped through the garden as a flash of black feathers hurtled down towards her, cawing and clawing and pecking, before swooping round to launch another attack. The woman waved her stick, furiously cursing and swiping, as her hair came loose from its grips and Ms Gertrude tried to shoo the bird away. On the third swoop down though, Madame Pendleton was ready and landed a blow, sending the creature crashing to the floor. Then she raised her stick again, as high as her frail arms could manage.

‘NO!’ screamed Allegra, shielding the bird. The stick connected painfully with her head. ‘Please stop! He’s my friend.’ She bent to the ground and cradled the old raven in her arms.

The look of horror on Ms Gertrude’s face was matched only by the look of disgust still stamped on Madame Pendleton’s dishevelled one. The woman tutted. ‘Well, let’s see if your friend can feed you out on the street!’ Stamping her stick with each step, she exited the garden, followed by an apologetic Ms Gertrude.

Releasing the bundle of feathers from her arms, Allegra placed the bird down carefully. ‘I hope you’re okay, but you shouldn’t have done that.

That was my last chance…’ She slumped to the floor as the raven tilted its head. Clicking its beak, it made a weird gurgling noise and nudged her.

‘It’s not your fault, I didn’t like her much either. But she was my last chance before…’ Allegra couldn’t finish the sentence, the word ‘tomorrow’ stuck in her throat like a stone. She sighed instead. ‘I know you don’t speak my language, but it’s like you’re the only one that really understands me.’

Allegra tickled the end of the raven’s beak softly as it cawed, its inner eyelids opening and closing slowly in approval. The raven began preening its feathers, sliding each one between its powerful beak, straightening them out where Madame Pendleton had attacked. One feather, which was slightly loose, wiggled out in its beak, freeing itself from the others. It stood, head tilted once more, with the feather held in its beak, before placing it into Allegra’s hand as way of apology.

‘Accepted.’ She smiled, forgetting for just a moment the fear that lay ahead.

Tomorrow she was on her own.

Told you so.

Rosie Kit Brown

Rosie Kit Brown is an author of middle grade and adult fiction based in Clapham, London. Raised in mid-Wales, her writing often explores the culture of the contemporary British countryside and the impacts of rural deprivation, education and neurological differences on children and young people. She has recently completed an MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University, following a BA in Creative Writing. Rosie has worked as a bookseller and financial journalist, and now works for a literary agency.

rosiebrownwriting@gmail.com / @byrosiebrown

About The Edge of Autumn

The Edge of Autumn is a middle grade adventure verse novel that begins in South Dorset and ends in North Italy. When his mum dies, young carer Oliver is set the task of delivering her goodbye letters to her mysterious old friends around Europe. We follow him and his eccentric, newly returned Dad across six European countries on a mission to deliver the letters. Every person to whom they deliver a letter has a child whose character is in tension with their parents’ passion. A photographer with a camera-shy daughter, a trapeze artist with a son who is terrified of heights, a museum curator with a clumsy daughter and a punk singer with a child who is tone deaf. Oliver is the son of a mother who believed in everyone, but has never been able to believe in himself.

With the help of his Dad, a colour-blind painter, can he be brave, find his self-belief and fulfil his mother’s final wishes?

the edge of autumn

Dorset hay yellow

We’re led on our backs, our wellies resting against the bale in front of us.

Everything is yellow today.

The bright sunlight, Sasha’s hair, the straw bales surrounding us.

It feels wrong. Today, everything should be grey. Above us, swallows

y carrying small insects to chicks in a nest I found a few weeks ago.

I’ve sketched them, their long bills and fluffy bodies. Sasha named them.

There goes Count Flufferton, she says, pointing to the one that lands near us. Sasha sits up and picks up the letters again, murmuring as she reads and plotting little circles on

the map she stole from her Mum’s office.

There’s a lot of countries here Ollie, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Gothenburg, Oslo, Rome.

I pick up a letter and try to sound out the words. They jumble and scramble on the page and look like this.

LA Y I put it down and pick up another.

There’s a word I can read.

Sasha takes it and circles Devon on the map.

That’s the one for your Dad.

I scowl.

I’m sure he’ll be nice, she says. I turn onto my front, and start sketching Count Flufferton’s long beak.

Well, if you do go.

Sasha takes Mum’s notebook and, in one of the back pages, she writes something down.

Send me postcards so I know you’re okay.

I take the notebook back, Sasha, I can’t…

I know writing is hard, but maybe your Dad can help?

I look down at the swimming words, and nod. We better go, she says, looking down at her watch. I add one last line to my drawing, and try not to think about who is waiting for me back home.

Scout jumps up as we emerge from the barn, her tail just visible as she rolls in the grass.

I look down the hill towards the village where I can just make out my house.

I close my eyes and remember.

Darkness. Car headlights flashing past. The smell of hospitals on my hoodie. Mum’s purple notebook on my lap, the letters stuck inside. Falling asleep with Scout’s snout rested against my cheek.

I gulp. I don’t want to cry in front of Sasha again.

Then she turns to me again and smiles, Race you!

We take off pushing and shoving, Scout running alongside us, past the post office and the park, past the school and the church, until we stop, panting against Sasha’s garden gate.

I won, I say, smiling.

No, I won, she says, jumping on my back.

We’re both laughing so much, Scout jumps around barking.

Okay, okay, you win, I say, going over to Scout and putting her on her lead.

Scout pulls me towards home, on the other side of the estate.

My house looks the same, the same front door, the same garden gate, but there is a figure standing outside I can barely make out.

Sasha looks too and says, as if she could read my mind, I’m sure your Dad will be nice.

I don’t respond.

He looks tall, she whispers.

I can’t think of anything to say, so I just nod. Then there’s something new. Something that makes me feel less grey for a moment. She hugs me.

I’m going to miss her too, she mumbles into my shoulder.

Tight. Warm. Safe. I nod again.

Are you really going to deliver all those letters?

I shrug.

Want me to come with you?

I laugh, I don’t think your mum would let you.

She looks back towards her house and sighs, Probably not.

She gives Scout one last stroke, then walks back to her house, turning and waving every few steps.

I wave back, then turn to face home. My home. Mine and Mum’s home, except she’s not there anymore. She’s not there.

I take small steps, but Scout pulls me to walk faster.

I notice more yellow.

The figures t-shirt, the flowers in the garden.

I notice that he is looking for something, pulling things out of his bag.

I stop walking, Scout stops next to me. The man looks up and smiles.

saffron gold

A picture of my Dad: A tall, lanky man in a crumpled shirt and hair going in every direction.

Hello. I don’t respond. He pours out more words. Long flight.

Sorry. I came as quickly as I could.

Ollie I am so sorry.

I don’t want to hear that word ever again. First the ambulance driver when Mum wouldn’t wake up, then the doctors, a social worker, Sasha’s mum and now dad.

I don’t answer. He takes out a key, ah ha! and says with another smile. She sent me a copy. We head inside, Scout pulling me forward. Everything is just the same.

The paintings of animals I did that Mum put up.

The flower cushions on the seats. The smell of toast and lavender. Dad looks around. I watch his eyes rest on the dripping tap, the hole in the ceiling, the mould on the windows. He notices the things that Sasha’s mum notices, but unlike her, he doesn’t say anything. He sets his bag down on a kitchen chair. Her seat.

He knocks her cardigan onto the floor.

I rush to pick it up.

I hold the soft fabric in my hands.

I remember her wearing it when she was cold in the mornings. Oliver

Dad reaches for me.

I turn away.

It’s getting dark outside.

Dad turns on the kitchen lights.

It’s time for her medication.

It’s time to make dinner.

It’s time to put the washing on.

But she is not here. So

I have nothing to do. I storm away. Up The Stairs Into my room. Scout follows I

SLAM THE DOOR. Jumping onto my bed, I push my face into my pillow, and SCREAM. I stay there until all the yellow is gone and the sun has set. A soft indigo.

I must have fallen asleep because when I wake up Scout is laying across my shoulders Dad knocks on my door. Scout wags her tail. I scowl. Is pasta okay?

We sit in the living room. Eating around the coffee table. I don’t want to sit at the table without Mum. I look at Dad. He feels like a stranger. But he isn’t. The crooked smile, his American accent, the smell of aftershave.

I can remember it all. Even the shape of his ears, Though I haven’t seen them in years.

I stare at them. I remember tugging on them and finding it funny. Dad smiles. Is he noticing all the things he can remember about me?

I wonder if there is a word for a person you can remember in

but have nearly forgotten as a whole?

Dad, the almost stranger, clears his throat. Scout lays by my feet.

Hoping to catch any fallen pasta.

I wonder if I should give him the letter now. I think about Mum handing me her notebook. Telling me to give the first letter inside to Dad.

But thinking about her hurts. It hurts red hot in my throat. So I keep eating my pasta.

What if I can’t deliver all the letters?

Dad clears his throat again.

So, David Attenborough, huh?

He points at the signed photo of Uncle Attenborough on the mantel.

Me and Mum always used to call him that.

Because he was like part of the family.

When I grow up, I want to be just like him. I want to explore the world, finding new species of animals. But I don’t say any of this to Dad.

I just nod.

Are they your drawings?

He points at a painting of an owl. Mum had labelled the different parts of it. Beak, coverts, wings.

I shrug.

I paint too. Did your mum tell you that?

I nod. Mum always talked about Dad trying to make money by selling his paintings in America. He clears the plates away. For once, I don’t jump up to help. What’s the point when Mum’s gone? He returns with his bag. He takes out lots of little tubes, labels and a handful of pens. He smiles. He does that a lot. Like he has plenty of smiles to give away.

I was hoping you could help me, says Dad.

Laying out each of the tubes between us. He hands me a pack of sticky labels and pens.

I’m colour-blind. Did you know that?

I look up at him and shake my head.

I can feel what I want to paint, There is something in a cloud in the sky Or the smile on someone’s face. That I need to get down on my page. Do you understand what I mean?

I did understand.

I feel the same way when I’m writing, and the words become a

one else can understand.

It’s okay when the paints are new, but over time the labels get worn, he says, looking at me with one eyebrow raised. I’ve been needing some help for a while.

I stare back at him. Our hair is the same light shade of blond. I wonder if Dad knows what blond looks like.

I’m not very good at words.

That’s okay. The thing is, lots of these colours have complex spellings and silly names.

For example, who really knows what ochre is? I nod.

I remember Mum telling me how to mix colours.

How about you label them with words you do know how to spell or words that just sound right? He lays a piece of crisp white paper in front of us and takes a brush and paints a smudge on the page.

What would you say that colour is?

I look at the smudge. Yellow … I can’t spell that.

How about something simple? I think about all the yellow of today. I think of sunflowers and Sasha.

Then Sun, I say, in a quiet voice.

Dad smiles, peels off a label, and sticks it to the lid

My hands shake.

I lift the pen. Too hard, the ink bleeds, but you can just make out the word, S U N.

I didn’t think Dad could smile wider, but he does. Then he takes another tube and another clean brush, once again marking the white page.

What about that one?

The colour makes my stomach twist and ache. It is the colour of the good parts. It is the sea and the paint on my bedroom walls. It is also the colour of Mum’s eyes.

I know how to spell blue, but what had Dad said? A word for the colour that sounded right? I take a brush, paint a straight line on the paper next to Dad’s.

You’ve thought of one?

I take the pen, pressing too hard on the paper I write a word I knew I’d never forget.

Leigh-Ann Hewer

Leigh-Ann Hewer is a Welsh Children’s writer currently residing in Jane Austen Land, Bath. She discovered her love of writing middle-grade fiction while studying a BA Honours degree at Bath Spa University and went on to graduate from Bath Spa’s MA in Writing for Young People. A PR by day, she spends her free time curled up with her cat, Casper, and trying to learn complex yoga poses and falling on her bottom.

leighannhewer@gmail.com / @Leigh_AnnHewer

About Mighty

MIGHTY, is a MIDDLE GRADE FANTASY novel about the monster hunting Rothurst family’s youngest generation, twins Issy and Arthur, and their journey to discovering the truth about what and who the monsters really are.

Arthur doesn’t want to be a monster hunter like his ancestors, but as next in line to lead the clan he doesn’t have much choice. Issy really wants to be a monster hunter like her ancestors, but she’s a girl, and so they all say she can’t.

When the twins discover monsters aren’t quite what they seem, none of that matters anymore. Hunting has to stop and Issy and Arthur have a whole world to convince.

Mighty

(Title by Rosa & Dylan, Aged 9 & 6)

chapter one arthur

Arthur hid behind a stack of books so large that nothing but a stray strand of unruly blond hair could be seen of him. Well, that and his legs kicking beneath the table, never quite managing to touch the floor. Behind the stack, Arthur copied a picture from his history book.

It was a picture of a creature that resembled snot. A large pile of goo that held itself together in the shape of a stacked-up cowpat and had twigs sticking out of its head.

Arthur’s tongue hung out of his mouth as he added shading to the creature’s eyes. He twisted his face in concentration and tilted his head to examine his own handiwork. The belly wasn’t quite right. It was just a little too round for a snot-gobbler. He tore the page from his sketchbook, too eager to start anew to crumple his failed attempt. He simply placed it on the pile beside him, atop a rather wonky drawing of a waggle-tailed snarler. The eyes had been far too close together on that one.

Arthur drew quickly and with determination. He had examined the picture in the book so many times he barely needed to glance any more. He knew each curve of a snot-gobbler like the back of his hand. At least, in theory. In practice, was another thing entirely.

‘Alright, alright,’ bellowed a huge voice.

Arthur jumped in his seat as though a bolt of electricity had jolted through his chest. His father seemed to crash into every room, and he was always followed by a herd. A herd of hunters. Loud and obnoxious hunters.

Nicolas Rothurst was a sight to behold. He was tall and broad and stern, with a square jaw and solid chest. His hair was a coarse dark brown and his beard rugged. He was the clan leader, the legendary hunter, the strongest man in all of Mercy.

When Father spoke, all seven men that had entered sat down in a whirlwind of scraping chairs and grunts. Robert sat beside Arthur with such force that the table shook.

Robert was one of the hunters too, and he was the biggest man that Arthur had ever seen, with biceps the size of melons and a scar running from below his right eye, all the way down to his chin. Robert grunted at Arthur in greeting and turned his attention to the other hunters at the table. There was Frederick, Markus, John, Gideon, and Robert.

‘We’ve got a lot to cover,’ Father said. ‘And I don’t have time for your grumbling. First matter of business: my boy.’

Arthur’s cheeks flushed with colour as all six pairs of eyes landed upon him. His eyes dropped to the table and he attempted to duck further behind the stack of books. Looking down, he noticed a spider crawl its way across the table. It skittered up over Arthur’s pencil, then back down onto the parchment. Arthur placed his hand ahead of it, and let it crawl onto his fingers. He twisted his hand around so its tiny little legs tickled his palm and then placed it back on the table to continue on its merry way.

Father cleared his throat and gave Arthur a stern look before gesturing up at the wall behind him. It was covered in portraits. The history of the Rothurst family in all its bizarre and mighty glory. There were paintings of grandfather Edward the Brave, and great-grandfather Charles the Crude, and great-great-grandfather Milton the Brash. The Rothurst monster hunters looked down upon you, the head of the clan for centuries and the protectors of Mercy.

‘It’s about time,’ said Father, ‘you join the greats. Ey, boy?’

The hunters echoed their agreements with mighty arghs. Arthur winced as the ridiculous pirate chorus rang out through the library and Robert ruffled his hair so aggressively his scalp turned red.

Arthur looked at the paintings hanging above him and his stomach turned. The eyes of his ancestors bore into him and suddenly it was as though their ghosts stood all around him. Arthur swallowed hard. chapter two issy

Issy Rothurst was not supposed to be in the library on Wednesday afternoons. In fact, she wasn’t really supposed to be in the library at all. The library was reserved for important matters. Important matters and men.

Issy had made quite the den behind the bookcase. She had brought a blanket and a jar of Granny Em’s Canoodly-do cookies. She had made friends with the dust bunnies, and she had a brilliant view of all that was going on below.

Issy was quite comfortable in her spot behind the bookshelves on the mezzanine. Her thin legs were folded beneath her and her skirt, frayed at the edges from playing in the dirt, was fanned out around her. Her long dark hair was pulled loosely into pigtails and strands broke free of formation around her face, where they curled in ringlets near her temples.

The men that sat around the table below always spoke so loudly. Issy spoke loudly too, but often went unheard in a way that the large brash men did not. In this instance, however, going unheard was exactly what she needed.

Down below, the hunter’s meeting was in session. Robert sat beside Arthur; his elbows spread wide. Arthur ducked towards the table, scribbling away at a drawing of a snot-gobbler. The rather lean and fair Gideon took up little space with his arms but made a point of spreading his legs out so wide he earned himself a glare and a growl from Frederick beside him. Frederick had red hair and freckles and an eye patch. He claimed to have been caught out by a snow-gnasher, but the truth was, he’d really

had a few too many one night at the Hawkeye Inn and walked right into a coat rack. Granny Em had told everyone.

Issy watched as Arthur sunk back into his seat. The painting of Charles the Crude hanging right above him. Issy could name every Rothurst hunter on the wall. She could point to them with her eyes closed. She’d spent days staring up at her ancestors, hoping.

‘Now,’ Father continued, standing a little straighter, ‘We’ve all noticed that things are getting out of hand out there. The snarlers are getting closer to the village every day. There’s been a few...issues at the wall. We have a village council meeting soon—’

There was a mighty groan from the hunters and Issy shifted closer.

“I’m not sure I can go. I’m injured!” John whined. He stood at six foot three and had a voice like the growl of a crocodile. He pointed frantically to a small cut on his exposed knee and Issy let out a snort, clapping her hand over her mouth as soon as it escaped.

‘You whine like a little girl,’ muttered Robert, and Issy scowled behind the bookcase. ‘The thing barely scraped you.’ Robert lifted the sleeve of his shirt to reveal a bloodied gash and nodded smugly. ‘I took out six of ‘em.’

‘And they got a chunk of you.’ Markus mumbled, rolling his eyes.

‘That’s enough,’ said Father. ‘I want you to bring your best next week. No excuses. Understood?’

The men grunted their response. Robert sprung to his feet, thrusting his dagger right down into the wooden table and straight through Arthur’s snot-gobbler drawing.

‘They’re dead!’ he shouted.

Arthur flinched back into his chair, his eyes widening at his ruined drawing. Before she’d even thought of it, Issy had launched herself up into standing and leaned right over the mezzanine railing.

‘Hey!’ Her cheeks were red with anger and she held a shaking finger pointed at the drawing. ‘You destroyed it. Look what you’ve done!’

No one but Arthur took any notice of the drawing. All eyes were glued to the girl standing above them on the balcony.

‘Isabella Rothurst.’ Father’s voice was low and warning. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘You’re just going to let him do that?’ Issy pressed, eyes wide. ‘He ruined it!’

‘What’s she doing here?’ Robert spun on Father.

‘I assure you I have no idea.’ He growled, eyes locked on Issy. ‘Go to your room right now.’

‘But Arthur’s—’

‘We will discuss your punishment later, young lady. I don’t have time for this.’

Anger zipped through Issy’s body. Young lady was always used as a taunt, a way to dismiss. What was wrong with being a young lady anyway?

Father crossed the library in strides and hauled open the double doors.

‘But I—’

‘I will see you at the council meeting when we are finished here, Isabella.’ His glare was hard and unwavering.

Issy clenched her fists at her sides, nails digging into her palms.

She descended the staircase which led to the mezzanine and crossed the room, refusing to meet the eye of anyone but Arthur as she left. She barely had time to turn around and glare at her father when the door was shut firmly in her face, the loud clunk echoing through the house.

Issy glowered up at the door, jaw clenched. She resisted the urge to bang her fists against it, knowing it would only earn her double chores for a month.

Issy marched through the village and towards the village hall with her fists still clenched firmly at her sides. The bright Autumn sun beamed down but the air was brisk and Issy’s cheeks reddened in the cold. She grumbled to herself as she passed Robert’s house. It had a big wooden ‘beware the dog’ sign in front of it. He didn’t have a dog, but his vicious cat Cyrus was so honest-to-goodness awful that the sign still seemed

fitting. Issy distanced herself as she passed, noticing Cyrus stalking his way through the overgrown grass in the front garden.

Everyone in Mercy was heading towards the village hall. Everyone always came to the council meetings. It was one of the many reasons Issy detested them. The grocer shut up shop to attend and the butcher rounded up his six children, his wife, already flushed with the faff of it all, following behind him.

Issy was just passing Granny Em’s house when the old woman’s door swung open and she hobbled her way down the front step.

‘Morning, Granny,’ said Issy.

‘Morning,’ replied Granny Em. ‘Be a dear and walk me to the hall, will you?’ She wiggled a wicker basket that was hanging from her arm. ‘I brought canoodly-dos.’

Issy beamed. If one thing could save any rotten day, it was Granny Em’s canoodly-dos. She took the basket from Granny, allowing her to lean into her cane and come down to the path to join her. Granny Em was all wild grey curls, wrinkled face and thin piano fingers. She was warm and plump in the tummy and her whole face rosied when she smiled, and she only ever seemed to smile for Issy and Arthur. She wore her usual knitted brown cardigan and long black skirt with its frayed hem and she smelt like freshly baked canoodly-do cookies. She always did.

Granny Em wasn’t Issy or Arthur’s real grandmother, but as one of the oldest members of the village, the children had grown accustomed to referring to her as Granny when they were toddlers, and the name had certainly stuck.

‘Issy!’

Issy looked up to find Arthur jogging towards them. He was panting by the time he came to a stop beside them.

‘Wait for me,’ he said. He looked up at her with a guilty smile when he’d finished catching his breath. ‘Thanks for sticking up for me. I’m sorry you got in trouble.’

‘Trouble, ey?’ said Granny Em. Her eyes sparkled. ‘Tell me all about it.’

Vicky Isaac

Vicky is a Bath based primary school teacher turned author who is always seeking adventures.

When she was younger, she spent many a playtime writing ‘novels’ inspired by Jacqueline Wilson stories such as The Story of Tracy Beaker and The Lottie Project. Now she enjoys writing historical fiction for young people.

Vicky studied mathematics and teaching at the University of Chichester and taught for 4 years where she was history lead. But the writing bug was too strong and so she enrolled on the MA Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University.

When Vicky’s not writing, she’s either baking tasty treats or exploring distant lands. She spent most of her teen years bouncing between Bath and Alicante, Spain, where her mother lives. These experiences have influenced her writing.

vicky.isaac@hotmail.com / @MissIsLibrary / @miss_isaac_library

About The Architect

When Javi (Ha-vee) runs away after an argument with his Pa, he finds himself in the Sagrada Familia where a mysterious shadow appears. This shadow pulls Javi in and when he wakes up everything is different. Trees, buildings and electrics that were around are no longer there and the shadow is gone. That’s when he meets the rather grumpy Antoni Gaudi, the Architect of the Sagrada Familia who tells him it’s 1926. Javi must enlist Gaudi’s help to return back to his own time. However, this is not so simple especially when the plans for the Sagrada Familia are stolen. Javi must now help Gaudi retrieve them for the Sagrada Famialia to be completed, diverting him from finding the shadow and going home to make up with Pa. Will he ever make it back to his own time?

The Architect chapter 1

“Oi! Stop thief! Ladrón!”

Oops! Javi thought as he tore through the narrow, over-crowded streets of Barcelona. He dodged ambling shoppers, who were staring at the street performers throwing batons in the air and sidestepped tourists, who were deciphering their maps, trying to find the Gothic Quarter and not realising they were stood in it. Javi rolled his eyes. A thin layer of sweat built up, soaking his thick, brown hair and trickling down his face. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and kept running.

He should have been more careful, sneakier, smarter. He thought he had been, but the shopkeeper had clearly been watching. It was only a few bags of sweets. Well, it had been more like 3 bags of sweets, 2 chocolate bars and a packet of biscuits but Pa had forgotten to make him a packed lunch that morning, he’d been distracted again, and school was serving cold lentil soup. He knew he should have headed straight home from school, like his Pa had told him to, but he was starving and bored.

The shopkeeper was still chasing him. Javi grinned, he was secretly enjoying the thrill of it all. He thought the shopkeeper, an older man with a rather large belly, would have given up by now. It had only been some sweets; it wasn’t like the 18 karat gold watches that some of the older kids tried to steal.

Javi skidded into the park. He paused for a brief moment and leant against a tall tree, its many leaves bunched together, creating the perfect shady spot. His lungs burned as he gulped in the hot, afternoon air. His eyes paused for a second on a leaflet, strewn on the ground.

Sagrada Familiar Drawing Competition

“Ladrón!”

The shopkeeper was getting closer. Javi grabbed the paper and stuffed it into his satchel. Why had he not given up yet? Javi looked around, quickly planning his route. He decided to go left of the lake and out the other side. He had to keep going.

Javi sprinted forward, his thighs screamed as he pushed on. He followed the gravel path, dodged a mother pushing a pram and jumped over a tiny fluffy dog who had run into his path after its ball.

Javi kept running until something stopped him. La Basilica de la Sagrada Familia: the most glorious unfinished sight in all of Spain. Normally, Javi would have time to stop and gaze at its beauty and stature, but the shopkeeper was only a few paces behind him. Despite the urgency, Javi looked up. Something had caught his eye. Something was moving in one of the windows.

The shop keeper was almost within touching distance. Javi zigzagged his way through the mesmerised tourists who stood taking the same pictures that thousands had taken before them. When he reached the front of the Basilica, he realised that he didn’t have a ticket to get in. But then, neither did the shopkeeper. When the person checking tickets (a tall man with broad, muscly shoulders) wasn’t looking, Javi slipped under the rope and pretended to be with the large tourist group that had just walked into the church. He looked back to check he was safe. He could see the shopkeeper wrestling with the same muscly ticket person, trying to get in. He wasn’t as small as Javi or as quick. Finally, the shopkeeper gave up. His shoulders sagged and his head lowered. As he turned around to head back, Javi made eye contact with him. He winked, and continued walking, feigning interest in a statue.

Once he was far enough into the Basilica, he found a quiet nook behind an altar to sit and scoff the sweets he had stolen. He sat and watched as gaggles of visitors walked by, amazed by the high ceiling that seemed to go on for

ever; the stained-glass windows that were letting in a rainbow of colours; the spiral staircase that wound up like a gigantic crocodile’s tail and the layered balconies that jutted out from every corner and spare wall. He had walked past the building every day on the way to school, but he had never been in.

“It’s too busy,” his Pa would say. Pa hated art or anything to do with it, being busy was just an excuse he used. Javi loved art. He liked to draw animals and flowers and buildings, making sure his lines were precise to capture every miniscule detail. Pa disapproved of it though. The thought of his Pa made his stomach flip. If he knew what Javi had done, he would not be happy. Javi knew that he shouldn’t have done it, he didn’t need to. It wasn’t like he was poor; his Pa was just distracted at the moment and it was thrilling, being chased like that. It made life more interesting and exciting. Nothing was ever exciting anymore, not since Mama left for England and Pa’s attention was taken up with Sofia and her one hundred and twenty different moods.

Javi decided to wander around the basilica. Besides, he was already late. His Pa let him walk home from school on one condition: that he walk straight home. He was going to be so mad. This little detour wasn’t meant to happen but seeing as he was already so late, another twenty minutes wasn’t going to make the slightest difference. Pa was still going to be angry either way. That’s if he’d noticed.

The church was still busy, despite it being late in the afternoon. Tourists didn’t seem to care about time, they just walked around with their heads in guidebooks or looking up at the kaleidoscopic architecture. Javi walked past the groups of tourists and climbed one of the spiral staircases, trailing his hand along the crocodile tail shaped side as he ascended.

“And here is where the famous Antoni Gaudi lived whilst overseeing the building of his design,” Javi heard a tour guide say. The tourists nodded along enthusiastically, drinking in the knowledge. Javi had learnt about Gaudi at school during his art lessons. He couldn’t wait to move to high school so he could do it every week. Javi felt for his satchel. Inside was his sketchpad and pencil, he never left home without them.

Javi continued climbing upwards, one very slow step at a time, passing the diminishing crowds of tourists as the day began drawing closer to the end.

“Watch out!”

“Lo siento,” Javi replied. He hadn’t been concentrating and had bumped into a man. The man looked familiar. Something about the wiry grey hair on the top of his head that matched his long scraggly beard, his deep set eyes and the kind smile.

The corners of the man’s mouth turned up. “It’s okay,” he said. “You’d better run along now, or your parents will worry.” The man carried on walking down the spiral staircase.

Javi’s shoulders sunk. He knew he should go back home. He turned on his heels to head back down the stairs when something strange caught his eye. At first, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Something about the stone wall didn’t seem quite right. It was moving. No not moving he thought, the wall was rippling? Shimmering!

“That’s odd,” Javi thought out loud. “Walls don’t shimmer, they don’t even shine.”

He blinked hard just to make sure he was really seeing it. He turned away and then turned back. It was still there. Slowly, he walked towards it, hand outstretched, but something stopped him from touching it. On closer inspection, he could make out the shape of it. It looked like a stained-glass window. He looked behind him, searching for a window, one that could create that shadow. There was one. Facing the wall. He shook his head. This is loco, Javi thought. But, if it had been the afternoon light shining through the window, then surely the wall would have been lit with the same deep sapphire blues, dark emerald greens and glistening jaded yellows.

Javi did the only thing he knew what to do. He grabbed his sketchbook and pencil out of his satchel and drew the shadow. His tongue stuck out like it always did when he was concentrating. He sketched the outline, then shaded it in, trying to recreate the undulating waves of the image

that was projected in front of him. When he had finished, he looked up. The shadow had gone.

Feeling defeated, he decided to head home. chapter 2

Javi stepped through the front door and slowly placed his coat and satchel on the mottled brown tiles in the hallway. Gently, he pushed the door shut. He took a deep breath through his nose. Pa was cooking dinner. Well, he’d put a pizza and some chips in the oven. Javi sniffed. Pepperoni. Javi’s favourite.

“And where on EARTH have you been!” Pa said marching down the hallway, his face red hot and angry.

Ratas! Javi thought he had been quiet, but Pa had ears like a hawk.

“It’s been 3 hours! I’ve been going out of my mind with worry.” Pa squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. He breathed in deeply. Javi hated when he did this. He knew he had messed up.

“Lo Siento, Pa,” Javi said breaking the silence.

“You were meant to come straight home from school.”

“I know,” Javi replied, looking at his feet. He couldn’t bear to look at Pa. He hadn’t thought Pa would notice him being late, he was normally too busy with work or dealing with Sofia’s mood changes, but Javi was sorry now.

“I trusted you, I even sent Sofia to look for you” Pa said, his face now a much pinker shade of disappointment.

‘Oh, so you sent Sofia out but didn’t bother to look yourself,’ he wanted to shout but instead “I’m really sorry Pa. It won’t happen again,” came out. He never wanted to make Pa upset but since Mama left, he hadn’t actually seen his father smile.

“No, it won’t happen again. Sofia will be waiting outside the gates tomorrow and you will walk home with her.”

“Not Sofia,” Javi whined. “She’s so bossy.” He didn’t want to walk home with Sofia, his annoying older sister. He would have pictured her smug face but there was no need as she was right there, leering in the kitchen doorway. She was two years older than Javi and she had always been Pa’s favourite. Always doing well at school, always getting her own way and never getting into any trouble of any kind. At least, that’s what Pa believed.

“You’ve left me with no choice,” Pa said walking to the kitchen.

“She’ll love that she gets to lord it over me,” Javi said, following.

Sofia was always trying to tell him what to do as if she was Mama. Javi hated that. It didn’t matter how alike they looked; she would never be Mama. And he wasn’t a baby. He was almost 12.

“Can’t you get me from school?” Javi asked.

He knew the answer before he asked the question, but he asked it anyway just in case Pa changed his mind.

“I’m sorry júnior, I can’t. I have to-” Pa’s attention had shifted to the pizza in the oven. The burning smell stung Javi’s nose. Pa had a stack of papers on the counter and was attempting to read them whilst sticking his hand into the hot oven minus an oven glove or tea towel.

“Yeah, yeah you have to work. I get it,” Javi sighed.

“Ow,” Pa said sucking at his thumb. “Sorry mi’ijo.”

To begin with, dinner was silent. Only the sound of knives and forks clattering against plates could be heard. Sofia had joined for dinner. Pa liked it when we all ate together, even if it was in silence. They had always eaten together when Mama was around. Javi picked up his hard piece of pizza and dreamed of the delicious paellas that Mama used to make filled with the rich flavour of saffron, paprika, tangy lemon and stuffed full of soft peppers, and salty prawns. Pa cleared his throat, snapping Javi out of his food daydream.

“Your school reports came today,” he said.

Javi’s head shot up. This was not going to be good.

Ellen Long-Common (she/her)

Ellen grew up in North Wales, studied Creative Writing in Bath, lived in Lancashire for a while and has now settled near Glastonbury. She channels all the (totally real) ghosts, fairies, witches and vampires she’s met along the way into her writing.

As a bit of a nomad who has lived in a caravan, a yurt and a haunted seventeenth-century Welsh farmhouse, home is a theme that seeps into her stories. Her characters often come from difficult, deprived or disrupted homes, but she likes to balance the serious stuff with magic and humour.

By day Ellen is a website wrangler at Bath Spa University. She is powered by sustainable coffee beans and rain.

When she’s not dreaming up sarcastic teens and deadly female antagonists, Ellen can be found roaming the Somerset countryside with her fairy dog, Aine.

hi@nellcommon.com / @nellcommon / @nellcommonwrites

About Remember Me

14-year-old Violet Dale has always been on the good side of sensible. She has to be – Mum needs her. But when Violet releases a centuries-old creature into modern-day Whity, she discovers a hidden world of curses, ghosts and monsters that places her nice, ‘normal’ future in jeopardy. She and her new friends, Freddie ‘Baby Goth’ Fisk and his cousin Bea, not to mention Violet’s runaway bestie from back home, Milla, must defeat Eleanor before the end of Halloween night – or Violet will take her place in hell.

Remember Me prologue

It’s always night in the cave and the woman curled on the floor could be asleep. But when brightness flickers across the dark surface of the mirror, she darts up from her nest of rags and moves over to it, quick and silent as star-fall.

Light pulses across the smooth black oval again, warm, like candlelight in the gloom. The woman’s waxy fingers clutch at the crumbling stone wall around the mirror. She stares at its glassy surface for a long time and when the light doesn’t return, she growls.

It was so tantalising… that glimpse of change to come. She can feel it in the matted hanks of her long dark hair. Her bones ache for it.

She releases her grip on the stone and twirls away from the dark mirror, the tattered skirts of her gown suspended, her silk-robed arms outstretched. Spinning, with her eyes closed, she is overtaken by a faded memory – a fragment of an old life. In it, she dances among mortals at a grand ball. Warmed by the blush of their cheeks, she drinks in the animal smell of their breath. The swish of their clothing is like a thousand voices that whisper to her, needing her, adoring her…

A bitter wind gusts through her cave and distantly, something howls. She opens her eyes and sees that all is dark and cold as always. She is surrounded by black stone walls that sweat dank water. Jagged stalagmites reach up to an unfathomable ceiling.

She lifts the shard of flint from the cave floor and uses it to add another scratch to the wall. Once, she could count the marks and know how many days and years had passed. Now there are too many lines.

She glances at the mirror again. It reflects only her unchanging face, bleached as an empty shell, but she isn’t fooled. “I saw it,” she croaks, enjoying the feel of words in her mouth after all this time. “Change is coming and you can’t hide it from me.” She smiles wide at the dark mirror. “I’m getting out.”

Her name – one of them – is Eleanor Sheridan, and she is absolutely right.

Violet is starving but she doesn’t yet know when dinner is or where the snacks are kept. She has never been the kind of girl who can help herself to food in a stranger’s house, and that’s what her Great Aunt is: a stranger. She ignores the growl in her belly and starts to open doors and pull out drawers in the room, looking for somewhere to put her clothes. The wardrobe is stuffed with coats, and as Violet opens it, the smell of musky furs hits her. While she’s coughing, Bullet takes his chance and bites down hard on the hem of one of them.

“No,” she splutters, tugging the fur from his mouth. “That’s not your manky old coat. Not for you.”

He whines.

Violet tries to rub the tooth marks from the coat’s leather lining. Great, she thinks. Put the vegetarian and the Jack Russell in the room with all the dead wearable animals. Old fashioned stuff is so gross. She struggles to close the wardrobe door, fighting with folds of wool and with Bullet, who wants to climb inside to see what else he can eat. Once defeated, he leaps onto the bed, curls up in the very centre of the quilt and watches her, brown nose on his white paws.

Gertrude has emptied three drawers in a tall, narrow chest of drawers. That seems to be the only space she’s made in the attic bedroom for the contents of Violet’s suitcase. Violet folds her jumpers, leggings and socks as small as she can to fit them neatly inside. Then she unfolds two of the jumpers she’s just folded and puts them on over the one she’s already

wearing. It’s freezing in this old house. The small chandelier overhead rattles as she shoves the stuck drawers closed.

She flops onto the bed next to Bullet, who licks her forehead, and stares around at the walls. They’re covered in wonky pictures of sad women in floppy hats, enclosed in gilded frames. Violet can’t tell if the room is small or if it’s just that it’s crammed with stuff. Mum said that Gertrude ran her own antiques shop before she made her fortune selling a rare Dracula poster to an American auction house and retired. Then again, Mum also said that, when she was a girl, she used to love it here.

Violet doesn’t see how anyone could love the town with the famous graveyard and the vampire ball. Whitby is totally weird.

“Whitby is totally amazing,” Mum had said in the car.

Violet couldn’t speak for the whole journey. The painful knot in her stomach tightened the closer they got to Sherwood, where they were to meet Gertrude. Violet was dreading the moment her mum would turn the car around, wave, and head for London, all alone. So she nodded.

“The abbey is spooky and the graves in Saint Mary’s church look like they’ve been melted. It’s a slice of history.”

Nod.

Mum had checked the rearview and her blindspots twice before changing lanes. “I love all the boats bobbing in the marina. Some are like little pirate ships. Maybe you could take a tour with a new friend from school.”

Nod.

“And the beach is glorious.” Mum had smiled her sad smile. “Bullet will be in his element.”

Violet knew that her parents had met in Whitby. She knew they had started the band, had her, and lived there for a while before moving south. Violet had promised that she would try to like the place.

She doesn’t.

She doesn’t like the constant smell of fish and chips. She doesn’t like Great Aunt Gertrude’s porcelain dolls in their miniature dresses and straw hats. She doesn’t like the collection of clocks in the living room,

which tick and sound the hour slightly out of time with each other. She doesn’t like cramming herself into three drawers.

What is so important about the stuff in this room that Gertrude couldn’t move it somewhere else, just for a few weeks?

Violet stomps over to the dressing table in the corner. Predictably, the two narrow drawers under the mirror are full of Gertrude’s stuff. Strings of pearls jostle seashell brooches and lacquered boxes decorated with little fish.

Everything in the drawers, Violet notices, is broken. There are necklaces without clasps and the lacquered boxes are chipped. A silver hand mirror is missing a section of mother-of-pearl.

Great. Guess I’m just one more broken thing for Gertrude to stash, out of sight, at the top of the house.

The drawers are also full of jet. Mum had told Violet all about jet in the car – the fossil that, when polished, looks like a shiny black jewel. Jet comes from the Whitby coast and every year hundreds of beachcombers search the sands for their very own chunk. Violet can’t see what’s so special about it. Earlier she passed shops rammed with the stuff when she took Bullet into town to stretch his legs.

In Whitby, jet jewellery is everywhere, and it’s expensive. If the shopkeepers of Whitby could see the beads, lockets, earrings and hat pins that Gertrude has in these drawers, broken or otherwise, they’d probably storm the place.

Curious, Violet lifts out a moth-eaten velvet jewellery box. It’s surprisingly light. Inside is another piece of jet jewellery, packed in crusty white sea salt. It’s a locket carved with a woman’s face, hanging from a string of glossy black beads. Violet has no idea why it’s in salt – maybe it protects the jet in some way. The pendant is clunky, as big as a hen’s egg, and it’s probably very old. Violet doesn’t care for old things, but this is… interesting. The woman looks pretty and bold. She’s staring back over her shoulder, right at Violet. She has rigid swirls of jet hair, a slightly upturned jet nose, bare jet shoulders and a long jet neck.

There’s a delicate silver clasp on one side of the pendant. Violet slides it up, expecting the locket to fall open, but it’s stiff. She tries to prise each half apart with her fingernails. “Open,” she whispers. It won’t.

Instead she walks over to the tarnished mirror set into the wardrobe door. She holds the locket at the perfect length, so that it sits just below her collarbone, and stares at her reflection. It changes her, somehow, having the locket against her skin. She looks older. Her pumpkin-red hair looks darker. She can almost imagine what she’d look like as a grown woman. Grown-up Violet isn’t pasty and thin; she suits her pale skin and small frame. She isn’t wearing grey jogging bottoms and an oversized, bobbly pink jumper. She wears midnight, and that darkness fills her eyes.

“Pretty, isn’t it?”

Violet almost drops the locket.

Great Aunt Gertrude is standing in the doorway. “Door was open,” she says.

Violet feels her cheeks burn and rushes, heart hammering, to put the locket back in its box of salt.

“Pass it here,” Gertrude says, before she can. She holds out a hand. “It’s a long time since I’ve looked at it.”

This is how she talks, Violet realises: straight to the point but not unkind; the absolute opposite of her sister, Emmeline, who refuses to let Violet call her ‘Grandma’ because she is, in her words, an earth mother.

Violet places the locket in her Great Aunt’s warm palm and tries to shake off the vision in the mirror. Good girls, she knows, don’t let their eyes fill with shadows.

Gertrude sits on the bed, tilts her head back and peers at it through the bottom of her spectacles. Bullet licks her trousers experimentally. Gertrude ignores him. “It’s a strange one, this. I found it at a boot sale in Scarborough. The woman selling it knew it was valuable but I knocked her down a bit because of the clasp. It doesn’t open. I expect you figured that out?”

Nod.

“It’s a mourning locket.” Great Aunt Gertrude continues. She pulls a cloth from her trouser pocket and rubs it over the curves of the face, as someone else’s aunt might have rubbed a sticky patch on a real cheek with a damp hanky. “A fine one, too. Right before we shook on it the woman at the car boot told me that it had been cursed by a witch.”

Violet snorts.

“Exactly. People will say anything to try to get a few more bob out of you.”

Violet knows that polite girls are interested in things that other people like, so even though she thinks antiques are pointless, she sits on the bed next to her Great Aunt and asks: “Where did it come from? Originally, I mean?”

“Whitby, of course,” Gertrude says. “This is the best example of a cameo locket I’ve ever seen. Someone very clever carved this, about a hundred-and-fifty years ago, if I’m any judge. Couldn’t have been made anywhere but Whitby.”

Violet takes in the curves of the woman’s face. “Who was she, do you think?”

“She might not be anyone,” said Gertrude. “She might just be an idea of a woman that the jet worker dreamed up. One day I’ll get it fixed and we’ll know. If she’s real, there will be something about her inside, mark my words. Her name, maybe her photo, or some hair.”

Gross, Violet thinks. One-hundred-and-fifty year old hair.

“Jet is made from fossilised monkey puzzle trees, did you know that? That’s why it always feels warm to the touch – it’s wood, not stone.” Nod.

“Why don’t you have it, seeing as you’re so interested in jet?” Gertrude adds. “Don’t wear it, though. Leave it in the box and keep it safe. It’ll be worth a lot one day. You might be glad of it.”

Violet says: “Thank you very much,” because she knows it’s polite. She has no intention of wearing it. Ever.

“Now,” says Gertrude. “What do kids eat these days? Your mum tells me you’re a vegetarian. Beans on toast okay for tonight? It’s been a long day.” Violet nods. She’s ready to eat all the beans on toast in the world.

Louise Nettleton

Louise writes about inclusion and kindness, about our place in the natural world, about folklore and the stories that shape us, and other things that lend magic to this world.

Louise spent her childhood building dens in Epping Forest, squinting for secret tunnels on the Underground, and exploring Central London’s hidden alleys and massive museums. Her family regularly visited Greece, which meant ice-creams and beaches and climbing the odd hill fort. Her mum read to her and her sister every night, encouraging a lifelong love of stories.

She graduated from the Bath Spa Writing for Young People MA with distinction. Louise resides in Bath.

louiseanettleton@gmail.com / @lou_nettleton / https://bookmurmuration.com

About Nightdancer

Nightdancer is an Own Voices fantasy set in a world where paintings are portals into ‘artscapes’ – worlds in which the paintings can be explored. It follows a girl who inherits a painting of a carousel by her late mother that has been overpainted with a sinister, shadowy figure.

Ava is an autistic girl who has faced emotional abuse from her uncle. She has little self-confidence until she falls inside a painting world and rescues Nightdancer, a magical carousel horse.

Ava is determined to bond with Nightdancer and restore the carousel Artscape to its original glory – but in order to do that, she’s going to have to face some inner demons of her own.

My Mum died eight months ago and my good memories of her have vanished. Maybe, now her flat is sold and I’ve moved up North with Grandpa, her paintings will bring my memories back.

‘The carousel,’ I say, when Grandpa asks me which painting I want on my new bedroom wall. ‘The one she did when she was 13.’

‘Pffft.’ Grandpa looks me straight in the eyes. ‘Sure you don’t want a more grown-up one? One of the award winners? Your Mum …’ His voice becomes watery. ‘Your Mum was a respected artist.’

‘The carousel did win a prize,’ I say. ‘Mum told me. Second place in the Kirkmerriment country fair, and that was the adult section.’

Grandpa chuckles and patters off to the box room. Picking up a pencil from all the stationery that is still scattered over my desk, I try to draw something, but can’t make the right shapes and, as always, end up scribbling on the notepad in frustration. Tense – that’s the word to describe my feelings about it, all tangled and cross. I huff. The memory part of my brain is like video storage where all the good stuff has been deleted. It’s only rubbish like that left.

I toss the notepad aside just in time to help Grandpa carry the canvas through the door. It’s bigger that I expect, and more rectangular.

‘Here … we … are.’ Grandpa guides it through the door, and we lay it on the bed.

The painting is covered in a dust sheet and several layers of bubblewrap. My heart flutters like it’s housing butterflies. Mum told me stories about the fairground in this painting when I was really young.

Grandpa pulls back the dust sheet and peels away the first sheet of bubble-wrap. Normally, I’d pop it, but today I toss it aside, layer upon layer, until …

‘That’s not it.’ I try to mask the disappointment. It’s not how Mum described it. ‘This must be the wrong one.’

‘It’s the only one with a carousel, pet. Painted when Emmy was 13.’

‘It’s wrong.’ I sniff. ‘Maybe she was 14, or 15 or …’

Grandpa shakes his head. His silver hair looks wispier than usual, and since Mum died the light that normally twinkles in his grey eyes has become more of a dull shine. ‘I remember like it was yesterday. Emmy painted it when she was 13. She’d loved sketching fairground rides for years, but this was the only time she painted one on canvas.’ He smiles. I want to run my fingers over the creases in his face, and smooth them like clay back into a happy expression.

I glare at the famed canvas. It’s obviously the wrong painting. The colour is wrong for starters. Mum’s fairground was colourful and shiny in her stories, but this canvas is black. Thick layers of dark paint cast parts of the painting into shadow. What is left is all overcast by horrible greyish clouds.

The shadow begins in the centre of the painting. I’d say it’s in the background but it’s not only the background at all. It spreads from the middle of the painting over most of the background and into the murky grey sky. At first, I thought someone had chucked black paint all over the canvas, but it’s not as simple as that. The shadow is built up of coiling, twisty brushstrokes. Even though it’s not real, it’s as if the painting casts a shadow over the room and I certainly feel gloomier looking at it.

The carousel – which looks nothing like a carousel — is on the left-hand side. It’s the right shape but the vibes it gives me are all wrong. It isn’t red and gold and shiny like I expected. It is grey and gloomy and cold-looking. Not even the rise and fall of a carousel horse, a feeling that normally makes me the happiest person in the world, could cheer me up now.

My throat chokes up as I think of horses and I swallow. That’s the worst part of all about the painting.

There’s only one horse. That’s the reason I know for absolutely certain that this is a different painting. Mum didn’t only describe the horses when she told her stories, she told me their names. I can recite them –Meadowsweet and Gallant Knight, Seafoam and Lily-Lee, Nougat and Wild Child … there are 28 of them in total and I know exactly where they stand on the carousel.

The horse that is there isn’t ready to ride. It doesn’t look ready for anything. Its front legs are raised, hooves out, and its neck is twisted sideways. If it were a real horse, I’d say it was struggling.

Nothing is right about the horrible painting. I shiver. ‘It’s not the right one. It’s not right at all.’ Like lots of other autistic people, I struggle to keep my emotions from my voice. I’d rather accept that non-autistic people will always see my reactions as that bit more than their own.

Grandpa steps closer to me. ‘Not the most cheering of pictures, is it?

‘In Mum’s fairground stories, the sky was blue, and the carousel roof shone gold, and the horses … well, there was a horse with flowers in its mane, and one the pale turquoise of seafoam and …’ I try to hide the wobble but it’s pointless. ‘There’s another one. Another version. Mum told me stories about it.’

Grandpa shakes his head. ‘No. Your Mum painted this a long time ago, and your Uncle Luke … they had a little squabble and he painted his version over it. Perhaps,’ he says quietly, turning towards the window. ‘Perhaps Emmy told the stories the way she’d wanted the fairground to be.’

That’s not true. It can’t be true – can it? The bit about Uncle Luke sounds true. He always thinks he knows better than me, even if I’m talking about things that happened when he was miles away. One time, I told everybody how my teacher said I was a shining example in maths, and he cut in saying ‘Hmmmm, yes? Better than all the other children, hey?’ The adults in the room raised their eyebrows and nobody was happy or pleased.

Birds sing from the hedgerow outside. That’s one thing I like about my new home. The sky rings with birdsong. Back in London, the main birds I saw were chubby pigeons waddling around outside chip shops and supermarkets.

The birdsong here could almost come from Mum’s stories.

‘Why didn’t she tell me? She never said that Uncle Luke spoiled it.’ Grandpa rests a hand on my shoulder.

‘Sometimes grown-ups like to change things. Remember them differently.’ That makes no sense to me. Either something is or it isn’t. Why would Mum lie? It’s like a stab to the chest to realise that I’ll never be able to ask her. Since Mum died, I’ve lost so much. It’s not only Mum herself who’s gone. It’s all her stories and memories and jokes and gestures.

‘Tell you what,’ Grandpa says, ‘why don’t I take you to the gallery? We might have something you’d like more in stock.’ Grandpa owns a little gallery in a town called Cairnmouth. It’s been in the family since forever and Grandpa is really proud of it.

‘No thanks,’ I say. His face creases slightly but he smiles.

I’m not ready to lose the fairground, not the fairground that Mum told me about. I’ve got to pretend for now that I’ve given up on the idea of a second painting. That feels uncomfortable to me because I’m hopeless at pretending. Instead of agreeing that Grandpa must be right, I say something true.

‘It’s still special,’ I say, forcing a smile. ‘It’s still our painting. Mine and Mum’s.’

Grandpa lifts the canvas, and together we hold it against the wall. Grandpa knocks two or three silver picture hooks into place, and then we hang the painting.

‘There now.’ He stands back.

We stare for a long time, but I find it difficult to say anything as I lose myself in the horrible, dark brush marks.

Grandpa tucks me in at bedtime.

‘Hot chocolate!’ He sets two mugs down on the bedside table and I reach for mine. Its creamy smell and frothy layers of milk are impossible to resist. ‘Do you know?’ Grandpa says. ‘That painting of yours, it’s reminded me of something. There’s a story around here … did Emmy ever tell you about storm fairs?

I frown. It’s difficult to do when the hot chocolate warms me to the core. ‘A storm fair? What’s a storm fair?’

‘Well, storm fairs are a local myth, a saying really about the weather. It’s a thing people grow up with here in Kirkmerriment and maybe two or three other villages nearby.’

I slurp my drink, clinging on to his every word.

‘There’s a saying that when a storm casts the village into darkness, into total darkness mind, enough to conceal the church tower, well then a storm fair comes.’

‘Huh?’ This is confusing. ‘What’s the church got to do with funfairs?’

Grandpa scratches his silvery hair and sips from his mug.

‘It almost certainly comes from the past. Way back when, the church was at the centre of everyone’s lives. Well maybe it comes from the idea that devils appear when people are blind to the church. Like a metaphor.’

‘But a funfair?’ I sit up so fast that the remaining drink hits the sides of the mug and spills over. ‘Carousels have nothing to do with devils and hell and stuff. What’s all that churchy stuff got to do with funfairs?’ It makes no sense. Funfairs aren’t religious places at all. Funfairs are places where you can be exactly who you are.

Grandpa chuckles. ‘Right. But stories move on over time, pet. People add bits, and take them away, and eventually they look nothing like they did at the beginning. As for the fair, it’s likely that people thought them immoral when they first pitched up on the village green. Immoral means …’

‘Wrong. Sinful. Yeah.’ I say it too loud – at least, Uncle Luke would say it is too loud. ‘So what does a storm fair look like?’ I slurp the last bits of my hot chocolate, snuggle under the duvet and gaze at him.

‘Well … nobody exactly knows. But I like your Uncle Luke’s interpretation. He was a child, of course, but he imagined the fair to be gothic, didn’t he? A creepy fair. A dark … shadowy fair.’

I wait. Grandpa is trying hard, but Mum was better at stories.

‘As a little boy, though, I thought of storm fairs as a place where the rides were powered by thunder and lightning. Where everything was a bit faster, a bit more daring. All of it took place in the dark.’

‘Hmm … I like your story best.’

Grandpa smiles.

‘So, if these fairs are out there when storms turn the village dark, am I allowed to visit them?’

‘Now that I can answer: no.’ Grandpa tucks the duvet around me. ‘Lightning storms are very dangerous, and out here in the countryside, there are fewer targets for the lightning to hit. People can get into trouble very quickly. I’ll teach you what to do in a storm over the next few weeks, but you mustn’t worry about that tonight. It’s very rare that people are hit by lightning.’ He smiles. ‘Sweet dreams, Ava.’

‘Night, Grandpa.’

After Grandpa turns out the light and closes the door on his way out, I switch on my table lamp and twist it around until the beam shines on the painting. The carousel horse’s snarl is fiercer in the dark and the lamplight brings out the shadowy figure prowling in the gloom.

Nightmarish images invade my thoughts, and when I finally sleep, my dreams are of shadows and lightning-struck fairs and snarling, angry horses.

Cynthia J. Notti

Cynthia J. Notti’s family has lived in Alaska since the early 1700’s so it’s no wonder she uses her family history as the back-drop for her books.

The Winter of Courage is based on her grandmother who lived in Nome, Alaska during the influenza pandemic as a child. Living in Alaska you have a unique opportunity to be up close and personal with wildlife. And like her character Molly, Cynthia has come face to face with a muskox. She has also been stalked by a grizzly bear, who thankfully wasn’t hungry and just wanted to say hi.

She loves the outdoors and is an avid fisherwoman, pilot and ice hockey player. Much of her writing takes place with a large bag of M&Ms at her cabin along Cook Inlet in the Gulf of Alaska. There she is visited by the occasional bear, moose and porcupines.

cnotti@hotmail.com /

@CynthiaNotti

About The Winter of Courage

The winter of 1918 was supposed to be the happiest time for Twelveyear-old Molly. The steamship SS Victoria was the last boat to arrive in Nome, Alaska before the Bering Sea froze over. It was bringing Molly’s sister home after a four-year absence. What the town of Nome, Alaska didn’t know was the steamship would also deliver one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. When the influenza pandemic swept through Alaska, Molly’s world is turned upside down. With her mother & sister ill, her father away and presumed lost at sea, Molly must find the courage to survive on her own.

The Winter of Courage

By Cynthia J. Notti glossary

Aana [ on-ah ] – The Yup’ik word for mother. Molly lovingly addresses her mother by this traditional word.

Mukluk [ muhk-luhk ] – A soft boot worn by Yup’iks, often lined with fur and usually made of sealskin or reindeer skin.

Yup’ik [ yoo-pik ] – A group of indigenous people of Alaska with their own culture and language.

Lightering Boat – A flat bottom boat used to transfer passengers between a ship and shore. It is used because the larger ship cannot enter the port due to shallow waters.

Bering Sea – Lies between Asia and North America in the far northern part of the Pacific Ocean. It borders Russia and Alaska.

Molly had a bad feeling. The Bering Sea’s choppy waves heaved and rolled before they crashed against the shore. She turned to Flora, her eyes wide with fear.

It was early on a May morning as Molly, her older sister Flora, and their parents walked the short distance to the sandy beach. And even though the sun was already high in the sky the wind was blowing something fierce. Despite the sudden gusts that made Molly anchor her feet into the ground the songbirds started to sing. And not their usual joyous chirps. But something mournful as if they knew what today would bring. Molly listened and thought they had composed a unique sad score.

Flora’s smile warmed Molly.

‘Let me take one last look at you,’ Flora said and held Molly by both hands at arms-length. ‘By the time I return you’ll be practically a teenager. Don’t grow up too much while I’m away. How will I ever recognize you when I return?’

Molly cried. She couldn’t help it. Four years was a long time to say goodbye to someone. Especially someone you loved so much.

She hugged her sister so long that their mother had to pull them apart. ‘Dear, if you don’t let go, you’ll make your sister miss the steamship.’

A part of Molly’s soul felt like it left her body as she watched Flora say her rounds of goodbyes and gave her last hugs.

‘I’m going to miss you terribly Aana,’ Flora said. ‘What am I going to do without a mother for four years?’

‘I’m not going anywhere Dear. I will always be with you. Just write to me, and you’ll have a letter back in a jiffy.’ Molly could tell behind her mother’s smile was a flood of tears that wanted to escape. Flora turned her attention back to Molly.

She gasped at the doll Flora pulled from her coat pocket. ‘I can’t. It’s your favorite.’

She was confused. It seemed Flora always treated her like the annoying little sister that got underfoot. What changed to make her do such a thing?

‘And now it’s your favorite,’ Flora responded. ‘I know how much you love it.’

‘What will you do without it? I mean, won’t you be lonely?’

Flora tisked. ‘I’ll be lonely without you silly. But this way when you hug it – pretend you’re hugging me.’

Molly stroked the porcelain doll’s dark hair.

‘You keep it company until I return and when I do, we’ll gather all our dolls for a tea party.’ Molly saw Flora swallow a lump in her throat as if trying hard not to cry. To show how brave she was to leave home for so long.

‘We will see you again Flora,’ her mother said.

‘Safe travels and you write to us as soon as you get settled into college,’ Papa ordered.

Molly’s insides felt bitter, like she’d just drank a whole glass of sour milk. Her stomach heaved as she watched Flora climb into the lightering boat. Her heart lurched with every wave the boat battled on its way to the steamship. She feared the ferrying boat would swamp.

Then capsize.

And drown her sister.

She watched her parents to see if they shared the same fear as she did. If they did, they didn’t show it.

They stood there and waved as Flora’s boat tied off to the steamship. A sense of unease as thick as the swarms of summer mosquitoes settled in Molly’s belly and she knew that four long years could change everything.

Molly jolted awake. Three powerful blasts from a distant foghorn sent a joyous ripple through her.

The steamship

‘It’s here, it’s here, it’s here,’ she squealed. She leaped out of bed, snapped back the curtains, and looked beyond the deserted snow-covered streets to the billowing white columns of smoke rising from the S.S. Victoria. Still in her nightgown, she did a little happy dance in the middle of her room. Despite the dismal grey of the morning and the angry winter waves of the Bering Sea, Molly reveled in the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen. She had yearned for four years and twenty-three days for this moment.

The cold floorboards nipped at her bare feet as she bounced from foot to foot around the room. She hustled about to do her chores. Today of all days she wanted to get them done as fast as possible. She added a few pieces of driftwood to the wood stove, made her bed, and picked up her clothes that were scattered about. From the basin, she splashed water on her face which she instantly regretted. As if she wasn’t cold enough. She reached for the hand towel then paused – something caught her attention.

Tilting her head to one side she noticed Flora’s old dresses in the armoire they shared. She had been so intent on greeting her sister that she ignored the unsettled feeling that plagued her this whole week.

Would Flora recognize me?

She had undoubtedly grown in the years since her sister left home, but still her insides were all topsy turvey as she remembered the porcelain doll Flora gave her. And now she couldn’t find it.

Lost.

She couldn’t decide if the nerves in her belly were from meeting her sister today – or that she would have to tell Flora she lost her favorite doll?

She hoped Flora would be too excited about returning home to remember the doll.

Molly grabbed Flora’s old sky-blue satin dress with a cream-colored bow at the waist and thought it would be a wonderful idea to greet her wearing this.

‘If Flora doesn’t recognize me, she would at least recognize the dress . . . I hope.’

Molly slipped it on. To her disappointment, she felt small in it. The hem fell unfashionably far below her knees for a proper fit.

‘Still too large,’ she sighed.

She placed the dress back into the armoire in the one day very soon I’ll be grown up enough to wear pile and changed into her wool stockings and simple dress. Given the winter weather, she decided against her black school shoes for the warmer seal skin mukluks. The ones her mother had handsewn for her. She gave herself one last look-over in the mirror, nodded then spun on her heels and hurried downstairs.

Molly and her family lived above the Abbott Trading Post. Working at The Post, as they called it, was a family affair. One that Molly didn’t particularly enjoy. She always got what she referred to as the runt jobs, sweeping the floor and restocking the shelves. It tore at her belly not to be trusted. Ever since the day she’d gone and lost the bank deposit her mother didn’t allow her anywhere near what Molly considered the important jobs. Never mind that Mr. Casey found and returned the money. Aana said it was the principal of the matter. Not until you learn to pay attention, to finish what you started. This is all part of being responsible.

Molly hoped with Flora’s return her sister could convince their mother to promote her from floor sweeping to customer service and ringing up sales. She wanted to grow up right away, so she’d never sweep the floor again.

How much longer do I have to wait?

As Molly skipped down the hallway to the stairs, and through the double swinging doors that lead to The Post her moment of fret faded, and her grin grew. Nothing was going to spoil this day. . . not even if she had to sweep the floor.

The saloon doors swung back and forth on their hinges. The morning sun had not yet filled the room, so a few dark rays of light streaked across the wooden floor. Molly wrinkled her nose. The inside of the Trading Post began to fill with customers and a whiff of wet wool and firewood floated across the room.

Molly saw a tall, dark-haired man in a caribou skin parka looking through the store window.

‘Happy Jack,’ Molly yelled and waved for him to come inside.

‘Good morning Molly. You ready for the big day?’ he asked.

Molly’s eyes crinkled and beamed brightly. ‘Oh yes Happy Jack. I can hardly wait.’

‘When you see your sister, you tell her she better come visit ‘ol HJ. I want to hear all about her college days. But right now I’m looking for your Aana. I have another carving I want her to display in the store.’ Happy Jack held up an ivory carving of a musk ox. The intricate lines revealed every detail of the shaggy animal. And it was also why Happy Jack was the best artist in all of Nome, Alaska.

‘It’s amazing. I’m sure Aana would love it. When has she ever said no to you?’ Molly teased. ‘But now is probably not a good time. We were on our way to meet the steamship.’ Her eyes glanced above him to the wall clock. ‘And we are going to be late.’

‘I will come back later today,’ Happy Jack replied.

Molly smiled. ‘Now where is Aana?’

‘She’s with Mrs. LeNora Joe,’ he said and pointed towards the back of the store.

Molly found her mother at the fabric table. Bolts of calico and silk material piled next to her. Her mother’s usual smile was replaced with pressed lips and dark eyes. The tormented look on her face was the exact opposite of what Molly expected to see and it poked hard at her heart.

Molly again glanced at the wall clock then inched her way closer. She strained to the conversation.

‘No. That is not possible.’ Her mother’s eyes widened with worry. ‘We’re too far removed and . . . ’ Her voice trailed off in a way that worried Molly. She didn’t know what they were talking about, but she did know that whatever it was had unsettled her mother.

‘You’re probably right,’ Mrs. LeNora Joe replied. ‘The passengers on the steamship I’m . . . I’m sure they are all fine.’

Passengers?

Steamship?

Fine?

This steamship? The one that Flora is on?

A lump rose in her throat. Her mind muddled at what she’d just heard. Was her sister in danger? Before she could think of what to say her mother spotted her peering out from behind the flour sacs.

‘Molly?’ Her mother asked in her why are you listening to the adults’ conversation tone. Molly took an uneasy step forward.

‘Aana, Molly’s voice faltered. She wanted to know what they were talking about but at the same time her mother had a worried look on her face that told Molly not to ask questions. So instead, she urged her to hurry up.

‘It’s time to go.’

A rock settled in the pit of her stomach when her mother turned her attention back to Mrs. LeNora Joe. That furrowed eyebrow and pressed lips told Molly all she needed to know. They were going to be late.

Molly groaned. What could be more important to Aana than meeting Flora?

Molly pulled on the collar of her dress and turned. She stomped outside giving a glare at the wall clock before the door banged shut.

Of all days couldn’t Aana take a break? Just once. To greet her eldest daughter. Molly knew her mother worked hard. She had to. She carried the burden of running the Trading Post ever since Papa went on his business trip to San Francisco and was now more than a month overdue.

John Ogden (he/him)

John has always had a head that is maybe too full of fantasy worlds, odd characters and creatures to be a proper grown-up.

He has had a long career in animation and been a lifelong artist. His passion for writing has always been bubbling under it all, and so he was thrilled to enrol onto the MA Writing for Young People.

He loves to read and write fantasy, humour and lots of things with monsters, the surreal and the supernatural.

He wants to combine his visual skills with his writing in the future, hoping to illustrate, or maybe even animate, some of his work.

johnogscribbler@gmail.com

About Wing Walker

As one of the last Wing Walkers, cursed peasant girl Morug is forced to roam the vast wing plains of the giant, airborne creature her people call the Great Midd.

Her work is lonely and dangerous, tasked with hunting monstrous parasites and trying to survive each colossal wing flap far from the stable, populated region at the behemoth’s centre.

When Morug is burdened with a mysterious treasure, it sets her on a perilous journey to uncover its terrifying secrets that may risk more than her own destruction.

Wing Walker chapter 1

From under the jubbtree shadows at the edge of the fallowgrass field, Morug watches the children flying their kite. It is the largest one she has seen, bigger than the boy struggling with its strings. He is the tallest of the group—but he still looks a little younger than her—maybe twelve. His clothes, though finely made, look slightly too big for him. He slips and twists to keep his footing as his four friends jostle and stare up with cries of excitement. Like most other kites flown in the fields outside the city walls, it is of the wide-winged, crescent shape of the Great Midd herself.

The Great Midd upon whose back they all stand, who carries their city and fields through the skies forever.

The kite dips and twists, arcing its two trailing strips of fluttering black ribbon.

Morug is thankful that the real Great Midd flies forever level and steady. The giant cloud-eater must, or all of the people and buildings on her back would slide into the bottomless clouds below. Nobody knows what’s down there in the skies, only that there is no return. No return for her mother.

Morug pushes a strand of her grubby red hair back under her thick hood. She is sure her mother once said—though Morug cannot remember the sound of her voice anymore—that the wings stretched forever. Forever.

If only that were the case. Then nobody could ever fall from their edges. Even those who are cursed to be called to the clouds one day.

The boy brings the kite round in an arc, tilting it so Morug can see its back. At its centre is a small, upright fin of taught canvas, daubed with a red triangle of paint. She has heard that it is a symbol that means two things at once. It is the Great Midd’s eternal heart and also their lone city, Middwold, standing above it.

Morug peeks around the tree’s wide trunk to look at the city’s crumbling walls. They blaze white in the sun, holding back the untidy jumble of rooftops and chimneys clustered beyond. It has been a long time since she had been through its gates, slipping through the crowds, hiding her face in her hood from the Middwolders.

The boy grunts and shrugs off a girl who tries to grab the strings from him—after all, it looks to be a kite worth fighting over. Beautiful as it is, it cannot beat its wings like the real giant cloud-eater. That would be a wonder. But perhaps no Middwolder would even think to make a kite like that. Those living on the Great Midd’s inner lands never seem to even notice the distant rising and falling of her own giant wings. It means nothing to them.

With dirt-blackened fingers, Morug feels for her steady-rope wound about her waist and instinctively checks the sharpness of its end hooks.

These kite fliers will never know what it is like to be out on the wings. To secure themselves to the wing hide with a single steady-rope. Waiting crouched, as a wingbeat rolls, vast and unstoppable, across the plains towards them. They’ll never have to endure the crushing, suffocating rush of air as the vast expanse tilts into the sky.

When she was younger, Morug would try in vain to scream louder than the roar of the wind as she clung on to the rope, eyes streaming with the cold. She learned quickly that it was foolish to empty her lungs so soon.

But then.

To be up there, to watch the sister wing mirroring its ascent, so far, far away beyond the haze… That view can still take what is left of her breath. To hold above the distant city of Middwold, where it stands safe on the stable lands at the Great Midd’s centre and see the countless threads of chimney smoke swept behind her into the endless skies.

The kite’s black ribbons remind her of those smoke trails. A faint smile flickers to her lips.

A breeze rustles the leaves above. It swirls gently through the golden carpet of fallowgrass around the legs of the children.

Morug closes her eyes and breathes in the warm afternoon air. She knows she has lingered too long, marvelling at the kite. She sighs and takes a step back towards the path.

A harsh flutter pulls her attention back to the sky. The kite dives and twists in her direction. It crashes and clatters between low branches just above her head. She crouches in shock. Leaves flutter. The boy shouts angrily at his laughing friends before scowling at Morug.

‘Hey! Hey! You!’ he shouts across the field.

Morug straightens.

‘Can you reach the kite? It’s just above you!’ He is already wading through the fallowgrass towards her, friends in tow.

He jabs his finger up at the kite.

‘There! Can you get it?’

Morug looks up at it. If she’s quick, she can pull it out before they get much closer, before they can see what she is.

She stretches up and untangles string from the branches which spring back and thud on the canvas like a drum. It is almost clear.

The whooshing of legs through the fallowgrass gets closer.

She must hurry. Hurry and get away.

She tugs the kite free and places it gently on the ground.

‘You lot, be quiet,’ the boy grumbles back to his four giggling followers. ‘Thanks.’ He says hastily to Morug, his eyes fixed on the kite. He rolls up his finely stitched jacket sleeves and bends to pick it up.

‘She has a back basket!’ A dark-haired boy behind him says. Morug stiffens. There was no time to think of taking it off to hide behind the tree.

‘So what?’ the boy says, raising up, holding the kite by its wing tip.

‘She’s a wing walker, Nirren, you dolt.’

He looks at Morug.

‘She’s all dirty,’ says a girl in an embroidered, green dress.

‘Are you a wing walker?’ he asks. ‘I didn’t think there were any left— thought they’d all been flicked off the wings ages ago.’ His eyes dart from her oval back basket, which is almost as big as herself, to her ragged clothes and her arms bandaged up to her palms.

Morug doesn’t want to answer—best not to say—and backs away. Her heel catches on a tree root. She flails her arms for balance and falls back onto the basket. It creaks before a loud snap echoes out across the field.

It rolls Morug onto her side and the long grass smothers her face. The group’s laughter rings out.

Morug shuffles slowly up on to her hands and knees, her basket rocking on her back. The children line up and stare down at her.

‘My Pap says wing walkers live off dirt,’ says a girl with light braided hair. ‘Because there’s nothing else to eat out there on the wing.’

‘Well, I heard they eat those big crawly tick things that live on the far wings.’ A blonde boy grimaces, pulling up the collar of his untucked shirt over his nose. ‘But only when they’re big and juicy, full of the Great Midd’s blood.’

The group makes the noises of disgust which Morug has heard so often.

‘Do you?’ The boy asks, pulling the kite closer.

Morug looks down at the grass. She should have run when they called to her.

‘She’s a tick picker, isn’t she?’ The dark-haired boy gasps.

Morug scowls up at him.

‘My brother calls them that sometimes.’ He says. ‘That’s what her basket’s for, isn’t it? She catches them then stuffs them in it till it’s full.’

Most of the group recoil, apart from the tallest boy.

Morug feels back for the break in her basket. There is a sharp sliver of damage to one of the wood-stem bars.

Of course she doesn’t eat dirt or ticks.

She glowers up at all the wide eyes trained on her.

But they were right about collecting them.

‘Oh no!’ Morug cries as dramatically as she can, making them all flinch. ‘My basket’s broken. One of the giant ticks has got out! Run!’

The children start and scream as one. Even the biggest boy throws the kite to the ground and stumbles back.

They flee into the fallowgrass.

‘RUN! IT’S BEHIND YOU!’ Morug yells after them. ‘IT NEEDS TO FEED!’

Morug knows the basket is empty, of course. It will be full later, Midd willing. After the hunt.

She gets slowly to her feet and brushes herself down. Dust plumes from her ragged tunic. Some of the children are already at the far edge of the field, wildly looking back over their shoulders into the crops.

Morug’s small smile fades. She twists round, hooking her fingers around a cage bar of her back basket and pulls it to one side so she can see the damage. A rod is half snapped, but not fully broken. It had better hold or she’ll get bitten and drained.

Then it would be over for her.

Her eyes fall upon the kite, nestled in the grass. She frowns. There is a rip in the wing.

Morug turns to the path behind her, but pauses.

She has her bone needle and thread, doesn’t she?

Morug crouches next to the kite and traces along the rip with her finger. It is a fine tear; long but repairable. She scratches her cheek with blunt nails. It needs to fly again. It belongs in the sky like the Great Midd.

She looks across the field and nibbles her lip, listening to the fading screams from beyond the border hedges. The children shouldn’t be back for a little while—and she does work the wings, doesn’t she?

Morug rummages in her tunic pocket and pulls out a filthy rag, rolled tight and secured with hair-twine. She unwinds it and takes out her needle and a clump of thread.

It is quick to stitch the rip closed. She bites the end of the thread and ties its remaining strands.

Morug props the kite against the wide, gnarled jubbtree trunk and lets her hand linger on the canvas. Maybe she could try to fly it herself before the group return?

She looks up into the bright sky through the canopy of the tree, but there is movement at the other side of the field. The girl in the green dress has emerged from a hedge and is watching her.

Morug stands.

Time to go.

Her guardian, Ma Grismal, will expect her back at her farm after a full day’s hunting. By morning, Morug should have her scuttling crop emptied from the basket and ready in the tick pen for her inspection. If the ticks are smaller than her head, Ma Grismal will complain about their size. Even if not, she’ll find something to gripe about.

Morug doesn’t want to think about her anymore. She takes one last look at the kite.

‘Fly well’ she says under her breath and makes her way out onto the path. The suns are already too high in the sky and she will now have to hurry out onto the far wing plains. It’s never good to be hunting on them at night. That’s when the really big ticks crawl out of their feeding crevices. They are slower than the small ones, and with bigger bellies to drag, but if they get her scent, they can surround her—back her into a dark hole and…

Morug shakes the thought from her mind and shrugs her basket about until it is more comfortable against her back. She squints at the desolate wing plains, vast and grey beyond the furthest fields.

Middwolders wouldn’t last a day out there. But it is as good as home to a wing walker.

Shelbi Pate

Born in Bristol, Shelbi loves nothing more than a good book, a good view and a deliciously good slab of chocolate. She is a huge advocate of literature for young people and believes there is a book out there for every child to fall in love with.

In September 2020, Shelbi left primary teaching to complete the Bath Spa MA Writing for Young People. Now, she continues to work on her first novel while selling books in an independent bookshop in the beautiful city of Bath, all while making sure she eats – at least – one piece of chocolate every single day.

Shelbi.pate@me.com / @Shelbi_Pate

About The Missing Believers

For twelve year old Teddy, finding the answers to some of the universe’s most pressing questions is a daily task. His parents are famous scientists and he’s following in their footsteps, asking questions and coming up with theories about how the world works. He’s about to face his biggest question yet when his parents mysteriously disappear. It seems they’ve been keeping things from him, and it’s up to Teddy to find out what.

Isobel is twelve years old too. The difference is she’s been twelve years old for almost one hundred years. Ever since she woke up at Small Steps Home for ghosts, she’s been working on perfecting her abilities. Ghosts come and go at Small Steps and Isobel is desperate to stop being the one left behind.

Fate brings these two characters together. One hoping to find those he’s lost. The other hoping to finally keep a hold on those she loves.

The Missing Believers

chapter 1 – the disturbance

8 : 14 PM

Mum and Dad still aren’t home. Not that I’m worried or anything; I’m twelve, not a baby. It’s just that they’ve never been two hours late before.

It’s already dark out so I close the curtains. Not because I’m scared or anything, just ‘coz that’s what Mum always does. It’s what most people do actually.

It’s not like closing them keeps the dark out. The only thing that does that, is turning on the light. I have three lights on now; the lamp next to the front door so Mum and Dad don’t trip over the step on their way in, the light in the hallway, and the light in the kitchen. Like I said, I’m not afraid of the dark but I don’t exactly want to sit around in it.

People used to think all crazy things about light, you know? For example, the Ancient Egyptians believed that night and day – light and dark – was the correlation of their God, Ra, opening and closing his eye a.k.a. the sun. Then there was Plato, who told people that light was made of rays produced by eyes themselves. Of course, they were actually close with the whole rays-thing, but if they thought our eyes really did emit light rays, how did they explain people not being able to see in the dark? Some scientist Plato must have been, huh?

I guess it’s easy to criticise someone when you have the advantage of 2000 years of scientific discoveries on your side though.

There is a problem with being on this side of all those discoveries though. I’m constantly questioning how things work. That’s why I’m so lucky to have Mum and Dad.

They’re both scientists. Physicists actually, and they’re a pretty big deal in the science world. They’re names are always in fancy science journals, thanking them for their contributions towards some discovery or other. I try to keep up but I guess I’m just like Plato in that respect, I don’t know enough about science as Mum and Dad. It’s no wonder my head is such a jumbled jigsaw of questions and thoughts.

It’s late now and I know there’s no hope of having Mum’s Monday meatballs tonight, so I grab a tin of beans from the cupboard and slip two slices of bread in the toaster instead.

My stomach rumbles as the smell of warm bread and tomato juice begins to fill the kitchen. I hunt around in my backpack to distract myself, taking out the letter Mum and Dad left for me this morning.

Teddy,

We’re sorry we’re not here for breakfast.

There’s been a disturbance at the lab and we’ve gone straight in to investigate. We promise we’ll be home early to make it up to you.

Your lunch is in the fridge and don’t forget your coat, it’s getting cold out. Have a lovely day at school.

We love you, Mum and Dad x

So much for that promise.

When I was younger, they used to talk about how a Brown’s promise was unbreakable. I don’t know when it happened but at some point, I guess they stopped taking that so seriously. Maybe it’s because I’m older now

and they think I don’t need them as much. Which I guess is kind of true. It would just be nice if they wouldn’t completely forget about me though.

I’ve felt like this a few times now, over the past few weeks. Since the end of the summer, just before I started year eight, they started working on some new project in the lab. They even had the new Lyra microscope; a machine being tested for its ability to reveal the structure of atoms and electrons.

I had asked them about it, but I guess, the confusion must have been written all over my face once they started talking about things like fluorescent microscopy and structured illumination microscopy because they stopped almost as quickly as they started. I asked again a couple of times but they just said that even they still had so much to learn about how things in the universe worked, it was okay if I wasn’t ready to understand it yet.

It’s one of the most frustrating things they’ve said because how am I, or they, supposed to know when I’m ready if they won’t talk to me about it.

A few days later, during the final weekend of the summer holidays, I’d gone with them to the lab like usual. They showed me the Lyra microscope, which looked more like an x-ray machine than a microscope. While they were distracted by one of their assistants, I happened to spot some paperwork lying around. In a drawer.

It was the same stuff they had spoken to me about, the atoms and stuff. Seeing all the scientific language written down was even more confusing than hearing it out loud.

I did kind of understand one part though.

Through the lens of the Lyra Microscope, it can be presumed Vibrations play a fundamental role in the makeup of both life and life-beyond-life.

When I say I kind of understood it, I mean at least I could read the words. I still have no idea what it actually means.

Dad caught me looking only to laugh at my ‘knowledge-hungry-mind’. I put the papers back and mostly forgot about it.

When I was little, the lab used to be one of my favourite places. I wasn’t just Teddy Brown when I was there. I was Dr Brown 3.0, Mum and Dad’s

most valued assistant. I had my own white coat, name badge and clipboard.

I don’t know if I would have been so into science and questioning everything if it weren’t for all that.

Ping! 8 : 27 PM

Something angry claws at the inside of my stomach at the sound of the microwave’s announcement for food. I focus on constructing my gourmet beans on toast, even going so far as to grate two handfuls of cheese over the top, while I try to forget how much it sucks to be forgotten by my own parents.

It doesn’t take me long to finish my soggy bread and the pile of lukewarm beans. At least I still have the bag of chocolates from the snack cupboard. I may as well enjoy myself while I wait around for them to come home.

Looking for something to do, I root around in my bag and take out my notebook. Teddy’s Mysteries.

The title on the front is written in my scribbly, just-started-secondary school handwriting and the pages are all tattered from the constant flicking through and folding down corners.

Mum came up with the name when I got my first notebook back when I was eight. I thought it sounded really cool at the time, like I was some genius scientist trying to answer all the big questions.

In reality, I was a little kid who was too smart for his own good with a big imagination that made it difficult to sort out fact from fiction. It came from always trying to cram too much information into my brain. The notebook became a way to give me some head space and stop the headaches I was having.

The name’s stuck for the two notebooks that’ve followed, including this one. Using them does help. Even now, being older, I still can’t help the questions and ideas that cram the inside of my head.

This notebook is nearly full now. I flick it open and look over one of the first pages that I wrote almost a whole year ago now. The handwriting is better than the scribbles on the front cover but not by much.

Mon 8th Sept States of matter

The particles of a liquid move freely from each other. Does this mean when you have a glass of water, you actually have a glass of waters?

Solids are the only states of matter that need to be broken to change their shape. But I’m solid and I can change shape just by throwing my arms up in the air or bending my knees.

Am I broken?

If a gas can change shape and expand to fit any container, does that mean it’s alive? What if it doesn’t want to expand, what if it wants to stay small?

A solid and a gas can turn into a liquid (by heating and cooling) and a liquid can turn into a solid and a gas. But, could a gas turn into a solid without first turning into a liquid? What would a frozen gas look like? And if we could freeze gasses, would it be all gasses or just some of them? What about farts because they’re made of gas?

I laugh remembering how funny I’d found that last bit. Mum and Dad’s note is still lying on the table, pulling my eye towards it. Leaking questions into my brain.

What was so important that it couldn’t wait until I at least woke up? What alerted them to the disturbance at the lab? Has something happened to them? Some accident at the lab? They haven’t even called. What’s stopping them? 8 : 46 PM

I jump up from my seat, forcing myself to walk – not run – to the phone. I’m being silly. It’s nothing. Mum and Dad are just caught up in some exciting new find, that’s all. So why then is my heart pounding against my chest like a desperate fist trying to break through a wall?

I count each ring that buzzes down my ear.

The eighth buzz is cut off with a sharp click as the phone stops ringing. They didn’t answer. They always answer. The phone is suddenly as heavy as a brick. I keep it to my ear, unable to move it away as I will Mum or Dad’s voice to sound down the line.

A disturbance. That’s what their letter said. That’s the same word the police use when they talk about robberies and break ins. Is that what Mum and Dad meant? What if the burglar was still there when they rushed in this morning? I should call the police. I should tell them…

What should I tell them?

That I’m twelve years old and I’m scared to be home alone. Or that my parents are kind of famous scientists and I think their lab has been broken into just because they didn’t keep their promise to come home early.

No. It’s all in my head. My imagination is mixing fact and fiction again. They’re fine and they haven’t forgotten me. They’re just busy. I sit back at the table, my leg bouncing as though it’s pressing down on a spring that keeps pressing back.

I can look after myself for one night. I should be happy that Mum and Dad trust me enough to do so.

A dull ache against the side of my head intrudes the concern growing inside me. I have to get all the questions out before I come up with even more nonsense ideas to answer them.

I grab a pen from my bag and I do the same thing I always do when things make no sense, I write.

Mon 26th Oct

THE DISTURBANCE

There was a disturbance at the lab.

What kind of disturbance?

A machine malfunction kind of disturbance or a break-in kind of disturbance?

Why is it keeping them so late?

Did they know before they left?

What, or who, alerted them to it?

Why didn’t they wake me first?

They wrote a note that said they promised to be back. That means they weren’t planning to stay late. Something is keeping them there. But why didn’t they answer the phone? And why haven’t they phoned me?

My hand is shaking as I write the last question. I try to come up with the answers but I keep coming back to the idea that something is wrong. That something bad has happened.

I place a hand over my stomach where it feels as though a cold, sharpclawed monster has crawled inside and is churning up my beans and toast. I push it away as one last question bangs against the inside of my head, shouting to be let out. I write it at the bottom of the page.

What’s happened to Mum and Dad?

Sue Walker

Before writing books, Sue did many things: from painting pet portraits, organising show jumpers’ travel and devising chicken recipes for supermarkets to translating Italian financial news for Reuters.

Her first book for children, Grim Rhymes – a look at the flip side of some classic fairy tales told in rhyme – was published by Penryn Press in 2015. In 2019, Maverick Arts Publishing released Sue’s first picture book, Don’t Eat Pete!, inspired by her beloved pug, Pete. Maverick will also be publishing her first chapter book, The Bassetville Burglar, in February 2022.

Sue lives near Castle Cary, in Somerset, with her husband and Pug, Pete.

suerosserwalker@aol.com / @SueRosserWalker

About Rise of the Zompires

Dressed as a vampire at his parents’ Halloween party, twelve-year-old Colin is bitten by a real vampire and turned into one himself. But he hates blood, misses his family and longs to play in daylight again.

When new friend, Fizzy, tells Colin about the power of zombies and a local island where they live, Colin knows they have to go there.

After a journey fraught with peril to get to where Colin sees as his last chance of returning to a ‘normal’ life, he ends up sacrificing his desire to save a friend’s life. He learns to accept change and to be happy with his new existence.

But what might happen now that there’s a new breed of undead creature, the zompire?… This isn’t the end of the story.

RISE OF THE ZOMPIRES

Sometimes, especially in the summer when the days are long and we have to stay in our coffins for hours, I wake up. Even through my tightly-sealed casket and the walls of the cellar, I think I can hear kids playing outside. I imagine them running around on the grass, kicking balls, squealing and squinting against the brightness of the sun. There’s the sound of splashing too, I’m sure of it, and I see boys and girls in my head: a group of them, paddling down at the wharf. They’re on the ramp where the boats go in, throwing water at one another to cool off, or just to make each other laugh. It’s at times like that I want to throw open the lid of my coffin and run outside. It would almost be worth it: two, maybe three seconds of the sun on my skin again before I explode. It’d be quick, at least; not hurt that much. Would it?

chapter 1

I used to be claustrophobic, when I was alive.

But now, looking down at the coffin that has become my home, I can hardly remember that feeling of panic that would have made me properly freak just at the thought of spending all day stuck inside it.

The room it’s in is big enough: a damp cellar below one of those tall Georgian houses in Redcliffe Parade that looks over the wharf. The cellar has a little broken window at street level, covered with dusty cobwebs, and it smells of mushrooms and mould, but would once have been quite

posh. It’s abandoned now, apart from some invading ivy, a pile of old carpet and three coffins: Vlad’s, Agnes Lovelace’s and mine. My coffin’s secondhand. Weird, right? The coffin at my funeral was one of those cardboard, eco-friendly numbers; great for the environment but not entirely practical for long-term use. The one I have now isn’t my style – I’m not big on fancy-shmancy carved scrolls and red velvet linings – but it’s excellent quality. Who used it before me? I’ve no idea; all I need to know is that it’s sun-tight, and I’m sure of that. But I do miss it so much – the sun, I mean; I’d really love to see daylight again.

My memory of what happened was hazy at first, like waking up in the middle of a dream that suddenly fades. But to put it simply, one minute I was at my parents’ Halloween party, dressed as a vampire, and the next I was a real one. I woke up lying in a coffin with my mentor, Vlad, smiling down at me. All new vampires get a mentor. I thought then that I was still at the party, seeing as he was dressed like a vampire too, but he explained how I’d been dead for about a week – a week! – I’d had a funeral and everything (burial, not cremation, obvs.)

I started remembering things then. On the night of the party I’d sneaked out to the garden shed with some other kids who were going to smoke fags. I’d just turned twelve and didn’t want to be left out, but it turns out the slogan “smoking is bad for your health” is completely right, in more ways than one. I hadn’t even had the chance to take a puff (if I had then I wouldn’t have died with stupid plastic fangs still in my mouth) when someone rammed into me and I felt a sudden jab in my neck. Next thing I know I’m being told that my parents thought I was accidentally impaled by a garden fork and that I have to swap pizzas, chips and ice cream for blood, blood and blood. Vlad gave me a scroll listing the Seven Undeadly Sins:

1. Thou shalt not enter a property uninvited.

2. Thou shalt not bite any of the following: Transylvanian Scent Hounds; Carpathian Squirrels; Humans of no fixed abode; Assistants to other vampires (‘Familiars’).

3. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s coffin.

4. Thou shalt not tease Werewolves. This includes: Throwing sticks; Faking full moons; Howling.

5. Thou shalt not associate with real bats.

6. Thou shalt not cross salt water, except at high or low tide.

7. Thou shalt not roam in the light of day.

Number seven’s the worst, the hardest to accept. I mean, who wants to hang out with bats or bite squirrels anyway? I used to want to stay up late, when I was alive. But when you can only go out at night, it’s boring. Dark, cold and boring. I hate it.

When I told Vlad I was fed up of never going out in the day he said, ‘You really shouldn’t think like that. You must embrace what you’ve become.’ But I don’t want to; I don’t even want to give it a gentle pat, let alone embrace it. ‘There’s bound to be a period of adjustment,’ he went on. ‘But let us consider all the positives: you’re immortal now, dear boy, and just look at your exquisite attire…’ He paused then to wave a hand dramatically, pointing out the cheap nylon cape that’s tied around my shoulders and the plastic glow-in-the-dark fangs that just about fit over my real ones. ‘… What better costume to die in? You were clearly destined to be a vampire; just like me.’

Vlad – real name Cecil Bunning – died in a vampire costume too. He was bitten at a party after a day of filming “Dracula’s Revenge” in 1929. He’s a proper drama queen. But the difference is that he wants to be a vampire,

and I don’t. And at least his outfit’s decent quality, not pound shop tat. Why didn’t I just dress in black for the Halloween party? At least then I’d look cool for the evermore, not like Count Dracula’s mini-me. I’m always ditching the cape – and the fangs – but every evening, when I wake up, the cape’s wrapped neatly back around my chest and my gums are sore. Those poxy plastic fangs are a terrible fit. And I get static shocks from wearing nylon all the time. No gliding across carpets looking sinister for me; I’d just end up sparking.

The thought of having the cape and plastic fangs for all time isn’t a good one; but now I’m immortal – bar a stake through the heart or going out in the sun – I guess I’ll have to get used to them. Just like I have to get used to never seeing my family or sunlight again. I don’t know if I can do that though. It’s been nearly a year already and I’m finding it hard; really hard. Being friends with Fizzy Patel helps. He’s twelve, like me – although he became a vampire in 1972, so really he’s – well – much older. I never was much good at maths. I met him near the corner shop that his dad used to own, after he’d raided the store room for a fresh supply of strawberry bootlaces. He was concentrating hard, tying them in bundles around the handlebars of his bike, when I bumped into him – literally. He flashed his fangs, looking pretty grumpy, which at least let me know straight away that he was a vampire too.

My reason for being there was simple: I was hanging round the street where I used to live, wondering if I should go and knock on the door of my parents’ house. I did that quite a lot to start with, cos I missed them. I still do. I even miss my sister, Mia, who’d finally stopped treating me as just her annoying little brother and seemed to not mind me hanging out with her so much – sometimes. And I miss Fudge, our dog; he never minded hanging out with me. I just didn’t know what to do for the best.

‘Don’t do it,’ Fizzy said when I explained. ‘They’ll freak out, then you’ll freak out; you might even end up biting them. It’ll get messy.’

‘I wouldn’t bite them,’ I said. ‘I don’t actually like biting anyone.’ I looked away, embarrassed.

‘Here, have one of these,’ Fizzy said, holding out a strawberry lace.

‘I can eat those?’

‘Yeah; ’course. This brand’s coloured with cochineal.’ Fizzy smiled smugly.

I frowned at him. ‘What?’

‘Cochineal – beetles’ blood. You don’t have to drink human blood – you know, if you really don’t want to. Anything with some sort of blood in it’s OK.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve been living on mice and voles actually. I’m always hungry. It’s rubbish.’ I didn’t dare tell Vlad that, but it was different with someone my own age – or sort of my own age.

He laughed. ‘Seriously? How d’you catch them?’

‘I don’t. I wait around in the churchyard, hoping an owl’ll drop something it’s caught. Or I frighten a cat when it’s playing with a mouse – as they do.’

Fizzy shrugged, still grinning. ‘Well, whatever does it for you.’

‘These are much nicer though,’ I said, holding out my half-chewed lace. The sugar tasted so good.

‘Yeah,’ Fizzy replied. ‘Fizzy cola bottles used to be my favourite, when I lived here.’ He looked up at the darkened windows above the pebble-dashed shop front and sighed. ‘That’s how I got my nickname: Fizzy.’ He looked back at me and smiled again. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said, holding out his hand for me to shake as he threw one leg over his bike.

I remember gawping at his massive denim flares, though he did look kind of retro cool. His bike though, a Raleigh Chopper, MK2, looked fit for the scrapheap. There were splits and rips in the saddle where bits of foam poked out all over the place. Fifty years of anyone’s bum will have that effect on a seat, I guess.

‘You ride in the dark then,’ I said as Fizzy sat on his bike, hands wrapped around the sugar-coated, strawberry lace handlebars.

‘Yeah, ’course,’ he said. ‘Haven’t got much choice, have I?’

‘No, but – you don’t mind?’

‘I mind, but I can’t do anything about it.’ Fizzy shrugged and pushed off unsteadily with a metallic clunk. ‘See ya round – er…’

‘Colin,’ I shouted after him.

‘Colin?’ He turned back, grinning under the streetlights, and almost lost his balance.

‘Yeah. After my uncle.’

‘OK,’ he said, turning back to where he was heading and lifting a hand to wave. ‘Well, see ya later Col!’

I see him quite a lot now; we’ve become good friends. He gets around a lot more than me, of course, having a bike. Fizzy really loves that bike and spends most nights scooting round the city on it; even if that does mean him falling off all the time. The bike has gears, but it’s mostly stuck in third, which means he sometimes comes to a dead stop on the hills.

Like Mia, I used to like running – cross country, mainly; I was no good at sprinting like her, but was fast enough long distance. I tried jogging round the city a few times, but even with streetlights there are dark corners and trip hazards – the tree roots pushing up through the pavement along the Bedminster side of the river, for one.

Fizzy suggested I try turning into a bat; it’s meant to be a perk of being a vampire, after all. I thought that would be great and got really excited about the idea of flying everywhere. Sadly, my first experience wasn’t a good one, and now it’s put me right off. The actual flying was OK, though I did feel a bit dizzy to start with and made the mistake of eating a moth, which was disgusting: like an old, dusty leaf with a gooey middle. Gross. It was when I changed back into the real me that the problem started: fwingers. Fizzy hadn’t told me about fwingers.

‘Ah, yeah,’ he said, screwing up his nose and then looking away when I complained that my arms had gone numb and my fingers felt like spongy sausages. ‘That does happen for a while when you’re new to the bat thing.’

Young Adult

‘These future authors have shown such courage, tenacity and dedication in the face of less than ideal circumstances, and have produced some of the finest, and most hope-filled work I’ve had the honour to nurture throughout my time on the MA in Writing for Young People.’

dr joanna nadin

Jack Banfield (He/Him)

Jack Banfield is a cat-taming, dog-training, niece-sitting extraordinaire who writes when no other distraction presents itself or if Arsenal are losing.

A lapsed outdoorsman, Jack worked in the breathtaking mountains of Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland teaching anyone who would let him how to ski until his body rebelled and he returned to the UK to begin his education. After redoing his A-levels he was accepted onto Bath Spa’s Creative Writing course, which he graduated from with a First Class degree.

He then applied and was accepted onto Bath Spa’s Master’s course in Writing For Young People, where he continued to find new and interesting ways to procrastinate until deadlines loomed above him like the Cliffs of Insanity.

He lives in Somerset where he is grudgingly being forced to learn the ‘laws’ of rugby and shares his home with his fiance, Border Collie, and cantankerous black cat, Albus Dumblepaws.

jackbanfield380@gmail.com / @Jack_writes

About Confessions of a Geezer’s Apprentice

When 17-year-old Hadley Wilson picks up the wrong bag after a car accident, he thinks all his money troubles long gone. But the money belongs to someone, and he wants it back. Soon Hadley is dragged into the murky world of organised crime, diamond geezers and dodgy coppers. When the stakes become dangerously high, Hadley must decide who to trust, and how much. Once he’s in, can he ever really be out?

Confessions of a Geezer’s Apprentice

So I’ve been given a solicitor. Some balding fella with breath like a drain and yellowing teeth. I ain’t seen much of him. Probably best, I don’t think he’s up to the job. He can’t even tie his tie so it’s the right length. The one time I did see him he gave me this notebook and said to write down everything that happened.

He reckons if I can show the judge that I was just a kid who got caught up with bad people and it weren’t my fault then he might go easy on me. I doubt it. If there’s one thing it taught me it’s that you can’t trust an adult. Especially not one who’s wound up with the law.

This room they’ve left me in stinks of stale sweat and piss and some pigeons keep making that irritating little cooing sound as they crap off the windowsill.

But I got nothing else to do so I might as well tell you how it went down, even though you’ll probably end up thinking I’m a prick. Just remember all of this happened.

More or less.

wednesday

a pretty bad start

I knew it was gonna be a crappy day as soon as I got to school. Grossman was standing on the top steps with his fat arms folded across his soft chest. I couldn’t see the look on his wonky face but I knew it’d have a

smug smile plastered across it. Any excuse to make my life more difficult than it already was.

I trudged across the rain soaked playground, empty apart from two seagulls fighting over an empty crisp packet, slowing as I reached the Upper School steps. The air smelt like 2-stroke and burnt rubber. Clouds scudded across the sky like they had somewhere better to be. I didn’t blame them. Anywhere would be better than this hole.

I weren’t in the mood for Grossman. I weren’t in the mood to be at school. I weren’t in the mood to be awake. I hadn’t had the perkiest of starts to the day. The boiler had crapped out in the night so I had to have a cold shower, then the milk in the fridge had turned and I didn’t find out until I had spooned the first munch of Lidl’s own Coco-Pops into my mouth. And then there was Grossman, standing like the world’s ugliest statue, peering down at me through two small, shrimpy eyes.

‘Sir,’ I said, nodding at him once as I took the steps two at a time. He made dick all attempt to move. I sighed. ‘You wanna shuffle out the way?’

‘You’re late,’ he said, actually stepping to block off the entrance completely.

I weren’t late. You couldn’t be late until the first bell. If the silly arsehole got out my way then we could both start our day. But that weren’t Grossman’s way. He must’ve been brushed off by his wife in the night, because he was on one. I pulled my mobile out my pocket and double checked the time. 8:56. I knew I weren’t late.

‘I ain’t heard no bell, sir. So I figure I’ve still got time.’

‘Don’t be rude,’ Grossman said.

I thought I was being extremely bloody polite considering he was doing his best to land me in the brown stuff. ‘Ain’t being rude. Just wanna get past and seize the day. Y’know, become an important and valued member of society and all that crap.’

‘Watch your language. You’re rude and you’re late.’

‘I wouldn’t be late, which meant I wouldn’t be rude, if you just let me past.’

‘What I don’t understand, Hadley, is where this attitude comes from. I’ve met your father. He seems nice. A little meek, but nice.’

Prick. My fists clenched and I did the breathing exercises that useless NHS therapist taught me after Mum went. Slowly the hot red flash broke apart, leaving just a torn hole where feelings should be. It was better that way. Instead of bottling things up, just push them down. Down so far the only way they could get hurt was if you cut your toenails too short. It was easier to just stop caring. Completely.

‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘All I’m trying to do is get to class. Right now the only thing stopping me is you. And you’re meant to be aiding my educational development. Ain’t doing a great job, I must say.’

Something smacked into my shoulder and my phone hopped out my hand and cracked against the floor. I bent down to pick it up and a leg nudged my arse, sending me sprawling against Grossman’s musty smelling Marks and Spencer’s trousers.

‘Alright, Hadley. What you doing down there?’

Of course. It had to be Richie Pigmass. The only cockwomble brave enough to try and pull that sort of crap in front of Grossman. Because he knew Grossman wouldn’t do nothing. And surprise surprise, he didn’t.

‘Ah, Richie. Good morning. Good weekend I trust?’

I looked at Grossman whilst water seeped into my trousers. He was fawning over Richie, sounding like a Victorian gent. What a nonce.

‘Was great, sir. Dad had tickets for the derby. The atmosphere was electric.’

‘That sounds fantastic,’ Grossman said. ‘I’ve been meaning to give your father a call.’

Has he bollocks. As if one of the most successful men in town would have dick all to do with a worm like Grossman. The worst thing was he knew he was making a twat of himself. And I knew that I’d be the one to pay for it.

‘Of course, sir. He’d love to catch up.’

Grossman beamed. ‘Well, off you go. You’ll be late if you don’t hurry.’

‘Thanks, sir,’ Richie said. ‘See you later, Hadley.’

Grossman moved aside to let Richie past and squeezed his shoulder

as he went. There was my opportunity. I grabbed my phone and dashed past, only to have the air slapped from my chest as one of Grossman’s ham-fisted arms pinned me in place.

He turned to me, his face like a punched lasagne. ‘No phones in school.’ He plucked it from my hand before I had the chance to close my fingers.

‘Leave it out. I need that.’

But before the words were even out, Grossman was lumbering off down the hallway. I saluted him with my middle finger and made my way slowly into class.

I sit at the back. Let’s me do whatever I want, which is genuinely whatever homework is due for the next lesson. It’s not that I don’t do it at home on purpose, I honestly plan to do it, then I get home and all my motivation just drains away. But it ain’t a big problem. Mr Adnams, my Geography teacher, don’t really bother me and I’m left alone a lot of the time. The other reason I like to sit at the back is you can’t get wet tissue spat at your neck, or a ruler sliced across your shoulders, or your chair kicked out from beneath you. And the girls, of course. From my viewpoint I can spend the whole time just peering around. Looking at the girls that don’t much look at me. There’s Natasha, who wears her shirts a little tight so from the right angle you can see her bra. Or Emmie, who started the trend of wearing knee high socks. I like knee high socks. A lot.

That morning I was scribbling the answers to some Sociology questions, trying to put in as many buzzwords as I could when the atmosphere in the room, normally pretty similar to a chimpanzee with a machine gun, changed. I finished writing whatever crap I’d just made up and glanced at the whiteboard.

I’ve got the worst luck. Grossman was stood at the front, his tarnished briefcase open on the desk and his fly undone, staring around the room like a boar with heartburn.

‘Settle down, everyone.’ There was a scraping of chair legs as twenty kids had their hopes of an easy lesson smashed. ‘Mr Adnams is off today,

and as such you’ll have the pleasure of my company.’

I groaned. As if the world hated me this much. I must have been really bad in another life. Like Hitler or Pol Pot or whoever first spotted Coldplay.

‘Did you have something to share with the class, Mr Wilson?’

‘Nah, just stomach cramps,’ I said, cradling my belly and letting out what I thought was a pretty good act of man with terrible stomach pains. ‘I think I should just go and see the first aider.’ I grabbed my bag and started stuffing my books in.

‘Or maybe not,’ Grossman said, showing off stubby white teeth. They never used to be that white. He’s had them done, for sure. ‘I’d hate to have students just wandering around the school during lessons. And didn’t you tell me yourself just this morning how much you were looking forward to bettering yourself? No, Hadley, I think it’s best you stay where you are.’ He clapped his hands. ‘So, Geography. Let’s start with avalanches.’

It’ll be fine, I told myself. Just don’t let him get to you. It’s only an hour. I could deal with Grossman for an hour. Probably. Just play it cool.

‘Hadley.’

I looked up. Everyone had spun round in their seats and was staring at me. That’s the problem with sitting at the back. It ain’t hard to become the centre of attention.

‘Yeah?’

‘I asked you a question. It’s not yeah, it’s yes, Sir.’

‘That’s the question? That don’t make any sense.’

Grossman’s face was turning a touch red. I knew it wouldn’t take much to push him over the edge. He was a prick when he was by himself, but he hated to be made to look stupid in front of people. I knew I shouldn’t be playing silly buggers, as the Reverend calls it, but like I said, it had been a crappy morning.

‘The question,’ Grossman said, quietly, ‘is what steps can a village take to lessen potential avalanche risks?’

‘Small ones,’ I said and leant back in my chair. Job done. There were a few titters of laughter, which weren’t gonna make the old boar happy.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Don’t be, ain’t your fault.’

He took a deep breath. Wouldn’t be long till the boar charged. ‘What, Hadley, do you mean by small ones?’

‘Surely you remember the question? You asked what steps could be taken, right? Small ones. Little iddy biddy ones. Don’t wake the mountain,’ I said, making my voice all loud and echoey.

His face had gone from red to white, leaving two little spots of colour just above his cheeks. In the wild, the boar would be scraping the ground with its tusks by now.

‘Do you think you’re smart, Hadley?’

I shrugged. ‘Smarter than some.’

‘But not, I think, smart enough. Detention. This evening.’

My chair clattered against the floor. ‘What for? I ain’t done nothing.’

‘I doesn’t matter,’ Grossman said, spittle flying from his lips. ‘I don’t need a reason to keep you behind. But if you want one, then why not wasting my time? You want to take valuable learning time from this class, then I’ll take your valuable personal time after school. Now shut up, sit down and say nothing. Do you understand me?’

I glared at him, but said nothing.

‘Well?’ he said.

‘You said say nothing. I can’t say nothing and something at the same time. Physical impossibility.’ Another ripple of laughter from the class. Emmie smiled at me, her lips half open, inviting and secretive. I got a burst of adrenaline. ‘You gotta make up your mind, Sir. One or the other.’

‘Two hours tonight then. How about that?’

‘Not exactly what I had in mind.’

‘Shut up.’ He looked away and opened a text book at some random page. I looked at Emmie but she was whispering and giggling with another of her girlfriends and my bubble burst. I leant back in my chair and stared at the ceiling, letting the class wash over me.

Olivia Collard (She/They)

Olivia recently found their first primary school report, which was essentially a list of things they Could Not Do in September 1998. They included throwing a beanbag into a hula-hoop from a one metre distance, walking down stairs without help, and resisting the urge to eat chalk. Fortunately, since then they have become slightly more competent. They graduated from Bath Spa with a first-class degree in Creative Writing, receiving the Best Fiction Writer Prize in their final year. But they weren’t done with Spa yet. They knew they had a comedy apocalypto just buzzing beneath the surface (they didn’t), so they decided to Write a Book. They accepted their place on the MA where, fittingly, the world ended, and everything was interrupted by Covid. Somehow, however, they graduated with a distinction and won the United Agents New Writing Prize, despite long periods of lockdown-induced despair and fading hygiene.

orscollard@gmail.com / @OliviaRSC

About Not with a Bang

Not with a Bang is an upper-YA apocalyptic comedy set in deep, dark Wiltshire. With a nod to Shaun of the Dead, Mel, a horny teenaged lesbian, must take on blood-thirsty mutant badgers and explosive hedgehogs, to find her family and the stubbornly heterosexual love of her life.

Not with a Bang

part one – before

chapter one

My brain is just a bag of soup and potato waffles at the best of times.

I’m tragically awful at comebacks. Until, of course, I get home and replay everything in the shower. Then I come up with something absolutely brilliant that would crumble empires, subvert black holes, and tear Janis a new bum hole. But never at the time. At the time, I always just melt into gormlessness, as a steady stream of sweat soaks my top.

A squelchy silence.

The current river of sweat pouring off this heinous plastic classroom chair was obviously brought on by Janis Bitchface and another of her public mockings. That and the fact that it’s thirty degrees out, which is exactly seven degrees warmer than my Viking body can handle. Unfortunately, the fan in our classroom made a cartoon cough and spluttered out a few days ago.

It’s January, by the way.

In Wiltshire.

Which is fine.

Knowing England, it’s probably just storing up all the crappy weather for a sun-free thirty-five years or something. I’m more bothered by the Janis Problem than the fact that it hasn’t rained in over a year.

I’ve been the only out lesbian in our school, and quite possibly the surrounding thousand miles, since Year Eight. Janis has been sure to make it a problem ever since, even though it’s 2025 and no one else gives the faintest whisper of a shit. She watches me like a hawk, and as soon

as anything that could be deemed remotely homosexual dribbles out of my being, she digs her talons in and feeds me to her wrinkly spawn. Makes me think she’s probably gay.

Or you know, an owl.

I make the mistake of inhaling and gag. It smells of Wotsits, ham and toenail fungus in here. I dread to think what it’s like in the lower school, with the addition of explosively horny fourteen-year-olds and Lynx Africa. I look at the clock. Just five more sweaty, toxic minutes and we can get out of here for lunch and breathe real oxygen.

To Sasha. My best friend. The future mother of my children. Probably. Hopefully.

Nev thinks this is ‘pretty unlikely’, on account of her being ‘straight’ or whatever. But Nev doesn’t believe in the power of devotion.

Janis catches my eye again and makes a crude gesture that I assume is supposed to represent how she thinks lesbians have sex. I’m not sure how many legs she thinks lesbians have. At least four, apparently. Her number one brown-noser, Ella, erupts into more giggles that the teacher ignores. I flip them the bird and stare down at my notebook.

Nev nudges their shoulder into me, and I look up at them. They’re wearing a full silk, heavily jewelled, sky-blue salwar kameez today, just to come to triple Psychology. Which could be seen as a little extra, but then Nev isn’t exactly known for flying under the radar. ‘Just another year, Mel,’ they murmur. ‘Then we can move to Bristol or something.’

Nev and I sort of fell together as the only obvious queers in our school, and have been plotting our escape from the Capital of Clean-Shirt Heteronormativity ever since.

I smile. ‘Anywhere but here.’

‘Anywhere but here. As long as you’re not the only lesbian. I can’t bear to watch you pine after straight girls anymore.’ Nev’s cheek dimples and I give them a small shove.

‘It’s just the one straight girl, actually.’

The bell goes and we’re out of our seats in less than three seconds. We meet Sasha at the school gates. She’s wearing a crop top and a pair of highwaisted denim shorts that hug her full figure and make my heart twitch. She sees us and bounds over, pulling me into a hug. I feel her recoil a little as she touches my sweaty back and I want to throw myself under a bus.

Being in love with the person I spend most of my time with is an exhausting cliché.

‘Mel, how are you so sweaty?’ Sasha rubs her palms on her shorts and laughs and I feel like my stomach might fall out.

‘The fan broke, and Janis was, you know, herself,’ says Nev.

‘Janis seems nice! You guys are always so quick to judge.’

Sasha went to The Florence Nightingale Academy for Girls and Young Women before joining our Sixth Form, and does English Lit, Drama and Fine Art, so has managed to avoid the pleasure of Janis at school. She always sees the bloody best in people, too, and thinks Nev and I exaggerate when we talk about what a Grade A bitch Janis is.

‘Honestly, Sash, she’s like if Miss Trunchbull had a baby with Regina George and capitalism,’ I say.

Sasha rolls her eyes at Nev.

They shrug. ‘She is a bitch, to be fair.’

We head down to Sasha’s house because she lives about five minutes from school and her mum is the Queen of Snacks. Sasha links her arm through mine, and I try to keep my brain from slipping into fantasies. I fail, of course.

I think about her inviting me and Nev over for a sleepover, but of course Nev can’t make it, so she starts running her fingers through my hair and leaning in to kiss me and realising that it should feel so wrong but it feels so right and she loves me and we’ll talk at length about our future dog and our sweet little flat in the city and we’ll get matching tattoos and Mum will walk me down the aisle and Sasha will be wearing the most beautiful white dress and she’ll be glowing the way she always does and maybe we’re even going to have a baby and the whole time she’ll let me touch her boobs and…

‘Mel? Did you see the news?’ Sasha has that ‘you haven’t been listening to me, have you?’ face.

I look at Nev for clues and they just grin and raise their perfect eyebrows at me. I glare my best ‘you’re an asshole’ glare. ‘Um. No. What news?’

‘Apparently it’s snowing in Australia. In January. It’s like the planet has turned upside-down.’ Sasha’s eyebrows are scrunched so closely together that she looks like an adorable angry little Stalin.

‘I wonder if anyone’s knitting jumpers for the kangaroos.’

‘Mel, this is serious!’ Sasha gives my arm a little thump.

‘Sorry, I know. It’s just too much to think about.’

‘We haven’t discussed war in a while. Any takers?’ Nev does that halfmouth smile that makes it obvious why they’re so popular with boys.

‘Why do you never listen to me?’ Sasha unlinks my arm and storms a couple of paces ahead of us. Which would have more of an impact if she wasn’t five-two and took three steps for every one of ours. My arm still tingles where she held it and my eyes drop to her bum. When she tries to walk fast, she does this funny little march where she tilts her head forward and sticks her bum out and her elbows fly everywhere.

She’s so adorable it makes me want to scream.

Sasha doesn’t hold a grudge for more than thirty-six seconds. In her immaculate granite-top kitchen, made of course from freshly erupted vegan lava or something, it always takes my eyes a minute to adjust to the shininess of her wealth. She scrambles up onto the countertops and opens all the cupboards, bringing down a load of biscuits from the top shelves.

‘How have they already eaten all the crisps? Mum literally sent us a food order yesterday!’ Sasha wriggles down off the counter with her meagre biscuit mountain.

She’s referring to her seven-year-old twin brothers, who are absolute terrorists. Sam and Paddy. Paddy is short for Paddington, and his middle name is genuinely Bear, because apparently when people get rich, they get stupid. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sam was short for Samsung.

Their mum orders a tonne of food in that doesn’t require cooking all the time, because she’s always working. I’m not sure exactly what she does, but she’s always wearing a blazer and a frown and going for business trips in Italy, taking the twins’ young and chiselled father with her. She makes enough money for this house to do lots of random sexy things automatically, like turn off taps and hobs and dim the lights.

The greatest feat of technology in my house is a wooden spoon.

Because their mother is always busy, Sasha is basically Sam and Paddy’s mum. Which definitely doesn’t make me think about what a wonderful mother she would be to our perfect adopted children, Tegan, Sara and La Roux, who we will raise genderless and encourage to engage in extra-curricular activities.

That would be crazy.

‘To be fair, you need to find a better hiding spot than the top shelf of the cupboard.’ Nev pulls out the Greek salad that they’ve arranged into lettuce, tomatoes, feta, cucumber, olives, and dressing in different sections in a Tupperware box. They catch my pointed look. ‘Hey, it goes soggy otherwise.’

I take a bite out of my cheese-on-cheese-on-white-bread sandwich and chew with my mouth open at them.

Sasha drops the snack pile onto the breakfast bar and sits down with her knees tucked under herself. She bites her lip and knits her eyebrows together as she scrolls through her phone. Honestly, she spends enough time worrying for seven war-time women waiting for their husbands’ return.

If I don’t intervene now, she’ll start spewing facts from iloveinsectsandothershite.org, about the number of bees that have died in the last twenty-four hours or something. ‘Sash, how do you make your toilet do that rainbow fountain thing again?’

She doesn’t answer my question. She doesn’t even look up from her phone, just keeps frowning to near the point of implosion. ‘Another species of bee has just been declared extinct! That’s four this month alone!’

Nev smirks at me. ‘That toilet is amazing. I like it when the bog plays techno and the lights strobe. Really relaxing environment for a poo.’

‘I especially enjoy the lady that waits outside at all times to give me a mint and a spritz of eau de you just went to the toilette.’ I glance at Sasha and she’s unyielding. Probably pretending not to hear us. She does not find our jokes about her money nearly as funny as they are.

I sigh pointedly, picking up the extra fork Nev put on the table and stabbing at a bit of their feta. They started putting out extra cutlery a few years ago, because they do not appreciate it when I shove my ‘flaky eczema hands’ in their lunch. It’s purely a hygiene thing, though. For an only child so anal about Tupperware box compartments, Nev is surprisingly generous when it comes to food.

Still nothing from Sasha.

My chest tightens a little. ‘Seriously, Sash, I do actually need a piss and I want the toilet to perform a ballet for me afterwards.’

Her head finally pings up. ‘That feature is a massive waste of energy and water. Just pull the flush, Mel.’

Oh, Jesus wept. ‘Isn’t using bog roll bad for the environment or whatever? Forest clearance and all that. That must be terrible for your little bee friends.’

‘Our toilet roll is one hundred percent recycled and the company makes a donation to Greenpeace with every purchase, actually.’ Sasha crosses her arms and nods like a toddler.

‘Check mate, mate.’ Nev cackles. ‘Looks like you’ll have to wipe your own bits, after all.’

Half a smile creeps across Sasha’s face, before she picks up her phone and her features morph back into constipation.

If I wasn’t so hopelessly devoted to those little worry lines, I would get really fucking sick of all the World is Ending speak.

Life is basically normal.

It’s just a really hot January.

It’s fine.

Helen Comerford (She/her)

Helen hung up her quiet black shoes and left life as a theatre Stage Manager to do the MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University. She now lives in Cardiff and writes action packed tales for young adults and ages 7-9, whilst chain-eating chocolate raisins.

When she’s not writing, you can find Helen producing courses for Wise Children Theatre Company or hiking around Wales.

She is represented by Christabel McKinley at David Higham Associates.

Helenc189@hotmail.com / @helenjoc

About The Love Interest

Jenna Ray is busy.

Busy cramming her afro into her cap to go wild-swimming. Busy selling sticks of rock and postcards at her holiday job. Busy worrying about the prophesied disaster that is about to hit her town.

She doesn’t have time for a boyfriend and she definitely doesn’t have time to be the Love Interest of a brand new Superhero, Blaze. But when she’s the first person that Blaze rescues, the rest of the world has other ideas.

As Jenna deals with supervillains, the media and the crushing legacy of the superheroes, she discovers that Blaze is more than just a posterboy, with lovely eyes, and that nothing in the world of the superheroes is as simple as it seems.

The Love Interest

This content has been redacted at the publisher's request.

The Love Interest

This content has been redacted at the publisher's request.

The Love Interest

This content has been redacted at the publisher's request.

The Love Interest

This content has been redacted at the publisher's request.

The Love Interest

This content has been redacted at the publisher's request.

The Love Interest

This content has been redacted at the publisher's request.

Elliot R. Dallow

Elliot R. Dallow is a writer of Sci-Fi, Dystopia, and other speculative fiction for YA and MG audiences.

He grew up in Gloucestershire, climbing hills and running away from cows, goats, and even most large dogs he came across. He learnt his love of writing in primary school, where he wrote a short story about aliens invading his home town which got rave reviews from his teacher. He has dreamed of being an author ever since.

He graduated from Bath Spa’s MA Writing For Young People with a distinction and holds a First-Class BA in Creative Writing from the University of Gloucestershire.

He resides in Tewkesbury and works in tech publishing.

elliotrdallow@gmail.com

About The Last Petrol Head

The Last Petrol Head is a dark and gritty, YA dystopia about what becomes of a boy when the whole world is trying to kill him.

Dylan thought growing up was hard. Now he’s the sole-survivor of a vicious attack by slavers on his convoy-town he’s about to find out what hard really is.

Alone, with no skills and no supplies, he’s determined to survive long enough to have his revenge. But if he’s going to do it he’s going to need to get tough, get a car, and get moving.

The Last Petrol Head

When I was born, the doctor took me out the sunroof. The same scalpel what set me on the road stopped me ma’s engine runnin for good.

Twards the end of her term, when I was nearly grown nuff for comin out, she got sick. Real sick. They says the doctor did everythin what he could, even givin her more than her ration’s worth of water, but it didn’t help. In the end all he could do was pray to the Gods what ride on the roads bove. But that didn’t help neither.

Never knew nothin bout me pa. Some stranger me ma met at a engine market, least that’s the story most people says is true.

And trust me, people says a lot. I reckon I’s heard that story from jus bout everybody in town. They all says they was there, says they knew me ma. I guess that’s jus what it’s like growin up in a small town. And Route Seventeen is jus bout as small as they come; only thirty-seven vehicles all counted.

And so there I was, born without a ma or pa. Already further down the peckin order than anyone else. And that woulda been true even if I weren’t Born in October of all months. I know right? I reckon you’s thinkin, October, jeez, can’t a kid catch a break? Let me tell ya, I been thinkin the same thing me whole life.

We’s been on the road for twenty days straight, and tomorrow’ll be more of the same. The water tanks is all but empty see, so we’s chasin down the next geyser. I dunno if we’s anywhere close mind. It ain’t me place to know. Murph drives the big-rig and she’s the one with the map. The rest of us jus follow her and hope she ain’t wrong.

Tonight, the fire’s burnin bright and I’s sittin close to keep me hands warm. People always talk bout how hot the desert is. Well I’ll tell

ya it gets damn cold when the sun goes down. There’s a plate of two-week-old Gecko next to me but I can’t stomach no more of that, so I jus sit there.

Most night’s I’s alone. Not every night mind. Some nights Burt sits with me. He ain’t nothin to me or anythin, not by blood like. But he don’t mind hanging out with me, least not as much as the others do.

Now, I dunno if everyone in the whole desert is superstitious like, but everyone what lives on Route Seventeen is. Sometimes we stop at tradin spots, not often, but every now and then like. We stop to trade car parts and stories of what we’s seen on the road. Them is the only times I ever seen other people. So I don’t know much bout other folks, but I know Route Seventeen’s folks. And to them I’s jus a liability, nother accident waitin to appen. I was born under a bad sign see, and they ain’t never gonna let me off for that.

‘Fire’s gettin low. Bring us some of that Candlewood will ya?’

Tonight’s a Burt night and I don’t mind tellin ya I’s glad. What with the water so low, I need the distraction of a good convosation. Not that Burt talks much mind.

‘On it,’ I says.

I move to the car’s boot, pop the lid and grab a armful of the thin, woody sticks. Candlewood is what folks afore The Burn used to call Ocotillo. Not much still grows see, but Candlewood does. This stuff’ll grow anywhere. When it’s fresh it tastes worse than suckin sweat outta a old boot, but least it’s safe to eat. When it’s old and dry like this stuff is, it burns for hours.

‘Got anythin better to eat?’ I asks.

Burt shakes his head.

I wanna ask for a bit more water too, but I already know what his answer’ll be.

‘Maybe,’ I says. ‘Maybe tomorrow, afore we set off.’ I pause and clear me throat. ‘You could let me drive?’

‘No.’

He always says that.

‘But I gotta learn.’

He clenches his fists up and glares at me.

‘When was you born?’

‘You know when I was born.’

‘When was you born, boy, cause you don’t seem to member.’

I hate bein called boy.

‘October,’ I says.

‘That’s right.’ He sits up tall jus so he can look down on me. ‘You was born under the sign of the Wanderer. You’s a passenger at best and that’s jus the way it is. Be glad you ain’t hoofin it.’

‘Yeah, but I weren’t sposed to be born then was I? That’s not when I was due.’

‘You was born when you was born. Sposed don’t come inta it.’

He crosses his arms like that’s the end of it.

I lean back and look around. The convosation is done and I know the next words out of his mouth is gonna be tellin me to go to sleep, but I ain’t tired yet. Over me shoulder, Blaike is drawin a crowd. He’s talkin and makin all these big gestures with his hands, really gettin inta his story. All the other kids is listenin to him. Laughin and noddin. They’s jus as inta it as he is. I bet he’s talkin bout drivin today. It ain’t no big deal, not really, everyone our age has driven once or twice, well, everyone cept me. Blaike’s the first one to get his own car though. First one to become a man.

I take one last look at Burt and when I’s sure he ain’t keepin a eye on me no more, I slip off. I jog cross the sand til I get close, then start walkin cause I don’t wanna stand out or look like some over eager loser, ya know?

‘Yeah,’ Blaike says. ‘Yeah, I’s serious, I did it, I’s tellin ya I did.’ He stops when he sees me. That ever appen to you? Folks stop talkin when you get close? Yeah, well it don’t make you feel very welcome do it.

‘Alright?’ I says.

He snorts. Prick. Kelya, Tanner and Sawyr jus stare at me. Lyle’s already sniggerin.

I know what you’s thinkin, and yeah, I know. It ain’t like I’s a idiot, I know they don’t like me. That’s clear as a cactus on a mesa ain’t it. But thing is, it ain’t like I can go somewhere else and find new friends. Route Seventeen people is the only people I got, so like em or not, I’s got no choice cept keep tryin to change they minds bout me.

‘Whada you want?’ Blaike says.

‘Were you talkin bout yous car?’ I says, tryin to ignore the nasty ways they’s lookin at me.

‘Why?’ he says with a smile. ‘Know a lot bout cars, do ya?’

Told you he was a prick.

‘Well, uhh.’ Course I dunno what to says.

‘Yeah, so,’ he says, like he can’t wait to hear his own voice gain. ‘I was jus askin these guys what they reckoned bout the third pedal, ya know?’

I look round wonderin if anyone’s gonna speak, but they don’t. They’s jus waitin for me, grins on all they faces. And so I gotta speak ain’t I? But I dunno what to say. I ain’t never seen three pedals in a car, and it feels like a obvious stitch up. But I ain’t never seen many cars, nobody lets me get close on count of me bein bad luck. I seen Burt’s and he’s only got two pedals for sure, the ccelerator and the brake, but all cars is different and grease-monkeys is always comin up with summat new.

‘Ohh,’ I says when I feel like I can’t stall no more. ‘Well, uh, I’s for it,’ I says. ‘Ya know?’ I stumble for summat smart soundin to say. ‘Gives ya extra control, don’t it.’

Blaike slaps me on the shoulder and breaks down laughin.

‘Oh yeah,’ he says. ‘You really know yous cars don’t ya?’ He shakes his head. ‘Lectric cars only got two pedals. Everyone knows that.’

So, I said the wrong thing then, like usual. I’s blushin now and lookin at the ground cause they’s all crackin up and laughin at me.

‘Oh yeah,’ I says. ‘Good one.’

‘Yeah,’ Blaike says. ‘It was, weren’t it?’ He stops laughin and his face turns hard. ‘Now piss off, pedestrian, the grownups is talkin.’

Me stomach goes tight when he says it. I hate bein called that.

He wants me to leave, and I probly should, but I don’t. And why not? What am I gonna do? Smack him one? Yeah right, he’s twice the size of me, and he’s got his cronies to boot.

He steps right up close.

‘Why’s you still here?’

I stare at him, and I know I shouldn’t. I should be turnin and walkin away, but it’s like me body ain’t sure it wants to do what me head is tellin it to. Obviously me body don’t realise I never been in a fight afore.

‘Well?’ he says, lurchin twards me.

I flinch back and he and all of his gang starts laughin gain.

‘OK,’ I says. ‘I’s goin.’

I try not to hear em laughin and teasin while I’s walkin away, but I hear it all the same.

‘Why ain’t they dumped him already.’

‘Yeah, they should leave him in the desert. He ain’t doin us no good stickin round.’

‘Or leave him with nother town next time we meet one.’

‘Yeah, and then hope the slavers take that town afore he can ruin they lives.’

‘Yeah, I hear the slaver king likes little weaklins, likes to torture em afore he kills em.’

They is mean and nasty and I don’t like it. But I also know it ain’t they fault, not really. I don’t drive, can’t drive, I’m a freak. Why would they wanna talk to me?

When I get back, Burt’s still facin the fire.

‘Burt,’ I says, tryin me luck. ‘How many pedals does—’

‘Get some rest.’

He says it like it’s a suggestion, but I know it’s a order.

I wanna scream at him. Tell him that birthsigns don’t mean nothin. Tell him that I’s jus as capable at drivin as anyone else on the Route. Tell him that I deserve a chance and it ain’t fair, but I don’t. Cause this is me life, and it ain’t never gonna change.

It’s mornin, and the town’s on the move gain. I’s ridin shotgun in Burt’s low-rider sedan. The windows is up and the air-vents is closed to keep the dust out while we’s rumblin along. Hot rubber on hotter sand. Inside it’s like a dutch-oven on a campfire. The lizard-leather seats are thick with stinkin, stale, sweat. Least It’s only mine and Burt’s.

I’s starin out the window jus watchin the endless desert rollin past, one dune at a time. Me mouth is dry, so even though we ain’t got none, all I can think bout is water.

‘Cheer up kid.’

Burt keeps one hand on the wheel and thumps me in the shoulder with the other.

‘Eh,’ he says. ‘Might never appen.’

I jus keep starin. I ain’t in no mood for convosation.

‘Ahh, you’s duff company today ain’t ya.’

‘How much further?’ I says.

Me arse has gone so numb from all this sittin still that I’s startin to shimmy round like some sorta belly dancer.

‘No more than a day.’

He hocks up a big gob of phlegm, winds his window down, and spits it out. I should probly think it’s digustin, but I jus think it’s a waste of water.

‘What’s that?’ he says.

‘What?’

I spin round in me seat and look where he’s pointin. A plume of dust is billowin up over the crest of a nearby dune.

‘Looks like trouble,’ he says.

Xander de Vine

Xander de Vine is a procrastinating lesbian who plays far too many video games and does not read enough books. They’re trying on that last part though, really. They have been seen going down internet rabbit holes, wondering if they can fit down real rabbit holes and staring off into the middle distance completely still, being mistaken for a mannequin on no less than five separate occasions.

They are a student of the Bath Spa MA Writing for Young People, an enjoyer of gender and a ponderer of things. Currently living in Bath and working as a barista for Caffe Nero, Xander has come to realise that people who write about quaint little coffee shops have never actually worked in one. If you ask them to make your drink extra hot, they may serve it with ice cubes as an expression of rage about how many times they’ve been asked that question. They use They/Them, She/Her and He/Him pronouns.

devinexander@gmail.com

About Tempest

Striga, a member of the slave caste indentured to the Nyctos family of Deimos finds herself at the centre of a riot in the town she grew up in. She and her adoptive brother Kostas are taken in by Mare, a Nyctos who Striga has a derisive relationship with.

Striga and Kostas are chosen to join the noble caste after Striga shows powers that she should not have. They accept a contract with Mare that will pay them for the three years Mare has at the Academy.

The three make close allies in fellow students Aquila, Ulysses, Sejanus and Calix, and with their help are able to complete many of the Academy’s trials. After a conflict with Erebus, granddaughter of the Emperor and Thaddeus, Mare’s cousin, Striga uses the full extent of her storm powers and exposes herself as a former member of the slave caste.

Striga, helped by Kostas and Mare helps some escaped slaves leave the planet but does not join them. Mare reveals the parts of Striga’s past that she knows and they find that their last trial has been assigned to them. It takes them to an abandoned laboratory containing a desiccated corpse.

The corpse reanimates and the group defeat it and the army it had begun to resurrect. In recognition of their efforts the seven are awarded the highest honour the Academy can bestow and are taken to Elysium. Jupiter, the leader of the Olympiad, greets Striga by name and notes they have a lot of work to do.

Tempest chapter one: the house of glorious dead

The House of Nyctos, home of the original Lord Nyctos who served as Bone Warden to the first Emperor, stuck like a growth of black crystal out of the surface of Deimos. It was a sprawling gothic manor with a heavy emphasis on dark corners, the Glorious Dead and skulls. The family were traditionally necromancers, so this was no great surprise. They were also the unopposed spymasters of the empire, up to their elbows in the political secrets of the solar system.

To any of the other grand families, they were mysterious and untrustworthy and dark and sexy. But when you’d been working in the house as long as I had, you stopped seeing the smoke and mirrors. They were as catty as any other noble house, far too interested in gossip, far too quick to get involved in servant drama if they were bored enough, and far too vain.

In the portraits gallery, it was clear to see the genetic through line, dark haired, angular cheek bones, dark eyes and a creepy little smile. After a few years working in the house, I was pretty sure I could pick out a Nyctos at three hundred paces. It was the sneer I think, when you’d stretched too far to wipe down a gilt frame and your back started to twinge, you’d end up making eye contact with one of the painted dead and their knowing little smirk.

Of course, the paintings were preferable to the living members of the family. Stepping out of the portrait gallery took you nearly directly onto the main living quarters of half the family. Not the Lord and Lady and Heir themselves, they were sequestered deeper into the mausoleum-like

house. No, this was the realm of the shitty cousins and snooty extended family. I didn’t understand how anyone needed a family this big, I just had Kostas, and it seemed far easier than the balancing game they all played with each other.

I say game, I mean more of a war. The Nyctos family was often at war with itself, the apparent downside of being entirely populated by sneaks and spies. Alliances came and fell, once in a while a servant would be recruited and then promptly murdered. Luckily, I was kept out of it, but not by any well meaning benefactor. I was kept out of it because legally speaking, I wasn’t even a person.

I am Imus, the non-caste. The untouchable, undesirable. Slave caste. Not even a rung on a very long ladder. There were no Imus families, we were delivered by shuttle a few weeks after birth and raised by other Imus at the compound. We were expected to fulfil our tasks and be back at the compound before the curfew bell, and to stay there until the morning bell. Our jobs were mainly manual labour, though some of us managed to get assigned to the house. My assignment here came after a very long sentencing at the factory, which definitely had a name, but we’d always just called it the factory.

There were thin scars on the back of my hand, disappearing up into the dark blue-grey sleeve of my house uniform. If you’d followed them, you could have seen the scars all the way up my arm, across my shoulders and down my spine, where the neural connectors had been. There were machines in the factory that needed that nervous system connection to work, and I was lucky I still had all my sensations.

Lost in reverie, half-way into a hidden fuse box, I didn’t notice the thin figure ghosting towards me until they had stopped beside me. Now, normally, a servant would have to follow the protocol of turning and bowing before greeting the member of the family by name or title.

I turned, kept my head down and dropped to one knee, making no sound. Silent and obedient, exactly how we were expected to be. When I first came to the house I found it humiliating, but now I just wanted

whoever it was to move on, so I could get back to cleaning or fixing or whatever it was I was told to do.

“Good morning, Sticks. You may stand,” said a voice with practiced levels of amusement and benign authority.

So I stood, still keeping my eyes downcast, but I didn’t have to look at him to know who he was. Thaddeus Nyctos, cousin of the Heir Apparent to the seat of Secret and Bone. He was one of those people who could put you on edge just by standing there, with a thin little smile on his mouth. A year or two older than me, but still a good three inches shorter than me.

I waited for him to speak again, but as moments ticked by, I realised he wasn’t going to. Was he waiting for me to speak? I couldn’t speak to him without permission – was this another Nyctos game? A trap that meant another beating or dock in scrip?

Without thinking, I glanced at him, looked directly into dark purple eyes before staring intently at polished wooden floorboards.

“Don’t be so coy, dear, it doesn’t suit you,” he drawled and I could just picture his thin, disgusting, white little smile that let you know he thought he was the most charming person you’d ever met. “I just wanted to speak with you before my wonderful cousin has a chance to drag you off to the training hall again.”

Dread ached through my body, another endless session of training for nothing with Mare Georgina Palatine Nyctos. I must’ve grimaced, as Thaddeus clucked at me.

“Oh don’t look so sad darling, it’s not the only thing I’ve come to warn you about. They’re moving the Capturio to tomorrow after all.”

At this I did look up into his skinny, sharp face, matching his little grin with confusion. The Capturio had never applied to me, never applied to any Imus. It was a chance for those better than us.

“Yes, I believe there may be some news tonight that won’t go over very well. But of course, it doesn’t apply to you. Not anymore.”

His words were stilted and awkward, then he stood there, smiling his stupid smile, before winking and walking off. This was how most

interactions with staff were in the house, especially when the family were playing a game. I only wondered briefly where I was supposed to take this piece of information, before realising it was probably meant to be delivered to Mare. No idea why, but I’d probably get in trouble if I didn’t. Still, if I could avoid training for as long as possible, I would. So I went back to fiddling with the fuses and wires inside of the walls, one of the aunts had been complaining that the flickering light was giving her a headache. So, here I was to fix it in a wonderful waste of time, there was nothing wrong with the light. Instead, I fixed in the best way I could: by making a grand show of fixing it with a great number of tools that weren’t necessary, taking out, cleaning and putting the fuses back in with great gusto and then cleaning everything my filthy below-caste hands had touched.

It’d never failed me yet, and the decorative fuse box lid clicked satisfyingly back into place. I’d finished packing up my tools and was about to head to the nearest servant’s corridor, my hand resting on the hidden handle of the faux stucco pillar, when yet another voice called out to me.

“Sticks.” Sharp as iron, colder than the grave, more the voice you would ascribe to some ancient evil come from the soil to render it barren and murder kittens.

I considered keeping moving, the voice had frozen me in place, sure, but I was right outside the servant corridors. They were a warren of tight passages no Nyctos would be seen dead entering (they had their own, nicer secret passages after all). I turned the handle and opened the door and was promptly yoked back at the neck.

Struggling, I craned my head around to see that a skeleton’s arm had grown from one of the many osseous features of the house and grabbed the collar of my jacket. The false pillar swung out of my hand and clicked shut, very dissatisfying.

The skeleton hand gripped the back of my neck and forced me to look at the Heir Apparent, who was pursing her lips and striding towards me. Mare Nyctos was five foot five and full of a seething hatred she could’ve

used to grow another few inches and be just as tall as her fellow high castes. Instead, she tended to direct that boiling rage at me, as it had always been ever since we were kids. She was thin faced, with short black hair clipped at her jaw, though a thick streak of white reached all the way from the crown of her head and over her eyebrow. Almost like someone had taken a brush of whitewash to her as a baby.

Mare strode right up to me and fixed me with a frozen glare of sea-glass green eyes, which in any other face would have been beautiful. I, in turn, checked that no one else was in the corridor, that I could hear no other footsteps approaching, before reaching behind my head and crushing that skeleton arm in my fist.

“Don’t fucking do that again,” I said, keeping my voice low. She watched the crumbling pieces of bone fall out of my fist and then rolled her eyes.

“Dramatics don’t suit you. Come, we have work to do.”

This further cemented my position that no one in this house could talk like a normal human person.

With very little choice, I followed Mare.

Two hours later, I was still standing in their ‘Grand Hall of Combat Engagement and Duelling,’ which was a fancy way of saying: “This is where the nobility beat each other up.” It was certainly ornate, with tastes taken straight from the family crypt. The grinning craniums of the vitally challenged looked grimly down on me, whether true bone or carved or warped out of a Ferrarius’ metal weaving hands. Weapons of all make and calibre lined the walls, but I was only trained in two. The partial flamberge zweihander and two blood-iron sickles for more personal attacks.

I didn’t like the sickles very much, hard to like them when you knew how they been made. There was a reason it was called blood-iron, after all. Might’ve even had mine in it.

You’d get ninetwelve to twelvenine of your healthiest workers to gather around a cauldron and bleed, any way you could make them. Then,

when they were nearly dead, you sent them off to a medical drone, before bringing in the next batch. The necromancers would take the blood away and weave it into weapons, stronger than regular iron, sharper than obsidian, and perfect for death wizards.

Today, they were the weapons I would be practicing with, as apparently I couldn’t hide my distaste for the things well enough. So, obviously, Mare had to force me to use them.

“Hands higher,” the last daughter in Nyctos’ venerable line barked at me.

“Piss off,” I hissed back, leaping out of the way of one of her honestly disturbing metal-and-bone constructions.

Despite my ire, I raised my hands. The sweat on my palms was making the grip slide, which wasn’t good when you were wielding two curved blades sharp enough to cut a finger clean off without noticing.

Erin Hosegood

Erin Hosegood (they/them) is a queer writer writing queer characters with (mostly) happy endings.

They grew up in the Middle-of-Nowhere, North Devon with only cows and books for company, so it is no surprise that they ended up studying a BA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Whilst there, they fell in love with writing for children and the bustle of the city. Once they graduated with a first-class degree, they refused to leave and enrolled on the MA in Writing for Young People.

When they’re not writing, they spend my time taking photos of books in unusual places, making Spotify playlists, and desperately attempting to learn the ukulele.

erin.hosegood@outlook.com / @erin_writesgood

About For The Record

Struggling musician, Alex Blake aka. alex in wonderland, is offered a fasttrack to fame as the support act for breakout band of the year, AntiSocial. The catch? Quinn Thorn – AntiSocial’s bassist, the music scene’s darling, and Alex’s ex-boyfriend.

Is this opportunity of a lifetime worth reopening the wounds he’s been trying his best to ignore?

Alex will have to decide how far he’s willing to go to achieve his dreams. And exactly what he is prepared to lose.

For the Record is a coming-of-age story about achieving dreams, falling in love with yourself, and doing what’s right for you even if it hurts.

FOR THE RECORD

one

ANTISOCIAL’S SUMMER UK TOUR!

All the hottest gossip and latest reveals!!

The words flash up on my screen and I swipe the alert away. As if I need to be reminded how much better other people are doing than I am. How much better AntiSocial are doing than I am. And least of all how much better Quinn Thorn is doing than I am.

I squeeze my eyes shut to block out the obnoxiously pink headline ingrained in my mind. Everyone says time heals all wounds, but it’s been over a year and the band’s name still makes me cringe. His name still makes me cringe.

Guess that’s what I get for scrolling through Twitter when I’m meant to be working. I should be writing a song for my first, real, full-length studio album. Instead, I am wasting my time reading headlines about a band way beyond anything I will ever achieve. Especially if I don’t get anywhere with the writing. I currently have about three songs, and a full album needs eight. At least.

Actually, judging by the mess splattered across my notebook, it might be safer to say that I’ve got more like two and a half songs.

Can we just leave and drive away, smoke cigarettes and drink black coffee?

I say that, but I still don’t smoke, and coffee makes me shaky now.

It’s not fair. I flip the notebook closed so I don’t have to see my awful attempts and shove it towards the end of my bed. My first EP came so easily. The songs sort of spiltled out of me; the lyrics and melodies appeared all at once, like they were fuelled entirely by spite and the coffee I can’t drink anymore. I think I drank too much writing that EP, I barely slept until it was finished. Maybe the first one was so easy because I actually had something to write about back then. Not something good, but something. Now, I struggle to start conversations with people, let alone attempt a relationship of any kind.

Laughter starts up on the other side of the wall, alongside the music I could already hear. Goddamn London flats and their paper-thin walls. Cris is an awful flatmate in general – she always leaves the lights on, never cleans her hair out the shower drain, and she hoards all the good mugs – but her wack sleep schedule means she puts up with my 3am ukulele practice. Well, more than anyone else. Which means we’re sort of stuck with each other. Not like I could afford London rent on my own. Even with Mum and Dad’s help.

So, Cris, already a shitty flatmate, except now she’s gone and nicked my best mate, and she subjects me to the horror of listening to them through the wall. Basically. Every. Night.

I smack my palm against the wall next to my bed a couple of times in a desperate attempt to remind them that I’m there. It doesn’t work. If anything, they get louder. The high-pitched giggle Cris lets out makes me want to scream. I’m almost certain she has the world’s most annoying laugh.

Fine. I grab my notebook from the end of my bed, rip out the half-finished song from before and start scribbling. Nate thinks I write best when I write from the heart? Well then, he’s gonna get a song about what it’s like to hear my best mates fuck through a wall when I am embarrassingly, tragically single.

The walls in this flat are about as thin as my fucking patience. I am so sick of all of this shit. Can someone put me out of my misery?

OK, no. It’s so fucking bad. I rip that attempt out too then throw it at the wall for good measure. It falls short, landing disappointingly past the end of my bed. Typical. I press my hands into my eyes until black spots dance in my vision. I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t think here anymore. Can’t stay here anymore.

I swing my legs off the bed and shove my feet into a pair of trainers I’ve had since I was 15. I don’t know where I think I’m going, but I need to get out of here. I grab my phone and a hoodie then leave the flat. I know it’s childish, but I make sure to slam the door behind me. There’s no response. Obviously.

Once I’m out of the building, I just walk. I’ve got no clue where I’m going, but my feet are dragging me forwards like they have a plan my brain doesn’t know about. The sound of London thrums through my head like I’m at a gig. The heavy beat of my footsteps mixes with the hum of buses and the buzz of excited chatter as people spill out the pubs and bars that line this street. I guess I was fighting with my notebook for longer than I thought – most of the pubs are calling for last orders and the streetlights flicker above my head.

A group of lads from one of the bars shoves past me and I stumble. Someone catches me, a hand wrapping around my upper arm easily.

“Y’alright, mate?” he asks once I’m steady.

Course I’m not OK, wank-

Oh. My silent response cuts off when I look up. He’s got green eyes. Really green eyes. And a nice smile. One of those smiles where one side pulls up more than the other. Sort of like Quinn used to smile before he got his braces off. Not thinking about Quinn right now.

Green eyes, shy smiles on side streets, meet cutes and ‘nice to meet you’s

Bad, slightly better than my last attempt but far from good. The annoyance drains out of me and, instead of rolling my eyes at him, I nod.

“Yeah, I’m fine now, thanks.”

It’s probably the closest I’ve gotten to flirting with someone in over a year and it’s not exactly bold. Or mind-blowing. But it’s a start. Maybe?

He nods back then pats my shoulder a couple of times. “You have a good night, then, hey? Try to stay upright.”

I find myself smiling as I reply, “You too.”

I want to say more, but I can’t think of any way to keep the conversation going so I don’t. I fall silent and watch him nod a few more times. It almost looks like he wants to say something else.

“Wh–” he starts.

Holy shit, it’s happening.

“Wait! Shit!” A loud voice bursts from behind me as another group stumbles out of the next pub over. “You’re that singer bloke, ain’t you? The one with the little pink guitar? Alex something or other.”

“It’s a uku-” I try to correct him, but my voice is instantly drowned out.

“Wonderland,” someone else cuts in. This one is tall and built like a rugby player. He even has the crooked nose to match. “It’s Alex in Wonderland. I only know ‘cause Meg loves all that sappy shit.”

Wow, what a stand-up guy. I’m assuming Meg is a girlfriend. And I’m assuming that by ‘sappy shit’, he probably means any attempt at romance at all. Poor girl.

“Sick,” the first guy says over my head. His voice is so loud it makes me wince. I really hope he doesn’t catch me doing it, the last thing I need is for them to know I’m freaked out. Where did the pretty man with the green eyes and the nice smile go? I glance between the lads crowding me, but I can’t see him. Shit. He must have slipped away. The loud guy adds, “Mental that you’re here though, ain’t it?”

“Well.” I shrug. “Probably not, considering I live around here.”

It’s not the smartest thing I could have done – told this random bunch of lads where I live – but I’ve done it now. Hopefully, they’ll be too drunk to remember it by the end of the night. Some of them look like they’re already there.

“Yeah, yeah, course,” the loud guy continues. The man with the smile is gone for good now. Damn. Not that it would have gone anywhere, but the option would have been nice. No, the ego boost would have been nice. Shit. I shake my head. The guy in front of me is still talking. “Weird, ain’t it? Don’t think about celebs living in Whitechapel.”

Despite my racing heart, it takes almost everything in me not to laugh at that. A celeb? Me? Pretty sure being a celebrity is when paparazzi camped outside every hotel room and my face splashed across trashy gossip magazines, not sleepless nights, failed writing sessions, and a flatmate I can barely stand.

“Mate, can I get your signature?” the other guy asks – the one with the girlfriend. “For my bird, I mean.”

Lovely. They crowd around me until I can hardly breathe. The stale stench of sweat and beer seeps into my skin and makes my head hurt. God, my heart is racing, and my palms are all sweaty. I try to wipe my hands on my jeans without the lads noticing. Deep breath. I can do this.

“Sure.” My voice cracks and my face burns. Keep going. “You got – you got a pen?”

They look blankly at one another over my head. There’s probably one brain cell shared between the lot of them. If that. The rugby player with the girlfriend looks down at me and narrows his eyes.

“You don’t like, carry ’em around?” he says slowly. “In case people ask.” Does he mean autographs or pens? This time, I can’t help laughing. “No-one’s asking for my signature, mate.”

“We are,” the loud-voiced one says.

Shit, I just – what do I say? There’s far too many of them and they’re all far too big to piss off.

“I meant, not normally,” I force out, “that’s all.”

It seems to appease him. His shoulders slump and his chest relaxes. Thank God. Even so, my fists stay clenched at my sides, like that would be any help at all if this went sour.

“Can we get a pic instead, then?” the one with the girlfriend asks. “Least prove we saw you and all?”

I nod and force a smile as they crowd around me even more and shove a brand-new iPhone in my face. The flash is nearly blinding, and I am 90 percent sure my eyes are closed, but they seem happy enough. After a couple of attempts, they shout a couple of thanks and head off.

It’s only once they’re out of sight that I finally let myself relax. I let out a long breath then slump against the wall behind me. The brick catches on my hoodie as I shift slightly. I hope it hasn’t ripped. I drag my hand through my hair then tug slightly on the longer strands that fall over my face. God, that was exhausting. Shit like that always is. Not meeting fans at gigs, that’s chill and sort of nice, like when they’ve got an actual connection to my music. But I fucking hate strangers who have this weird vague idea of who I am and think they’re entitled to something because of it. I don’t know. It’s stupid maybe.

That’s what fame is, I guess. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

OK, enough feeling sorry for myself. I peel myself off the wall, check the back of my hoodie (not ripped), and keep walking. No idea where I’m going, but the streets are familiar, so I’m not that bothered. Not sure if I have it in me to be bothered about much right now. My eyes fall on an all too familiar sign swinging gently above my head.

Wait, no. I take it back, I definitely have it in me to be bothered about this.

Courtney Kerrigan-Bates

Courtney moves about a bit, but she currently lives like a little old lady in the Cotswolds, where she has swapped nights out for knitting. She writes YA Contemporary stories that are, at times, a bit sad (oh, life), but are sprinkled with lots of humour and romance. When she’s not writing, she works in mental health. You may also find her buying berets or walking a little dog called Lola. She earned a Distinction for her MA in Writing for Young People, where she wrote a million drafts of Effie Burbank Will Survive.

ckerriganbates@gmail.com / @courtneykbates

About Effie Burbank Will Survive

Effie Burbank lives in a cramped cottage alongside her overprotective parents, her lively little brother and her wild grandpa Presley. She loves to crochet, bake and dance around her room to disco. But Effie dreams of more; of leaving behind her little life and going on endless adventures with her infamous aunt Annie. Annie is everything Effie strives to be; glamourous, charismatic, outrageous. But when Annie is taken away from her, Effie is forced to try and make it on her own.

Effie Burbank Will Survive

I think about lots of things as I walk down the aisle. I think about the faces staring at my blushing cheeks. I think about kicking my dress up with every step to stop myself from tripping on the hem. I think about Mum’s grip on my arm getting tighter. I think about anything, really. Anything except my aunt, my best friend, Annie, who. Who is stiff, flat and cold in the coffin at the end of the church.

We’re approaching her body and I’m close to freaking out. I feel Mum’s pace slowing, and I wonder how frowned upon it would be if I was to turn around and bolt. Annie would love that –, the drama, the excitement.

I can hear her telling me, ‘For God’s sake Ef, just piss off! You don’t need to put yourself through all this. Not for me, not for anybody.’

But I push forward, folding and unfolding my final offering. Last night I made everyone find something to rest on the coffin. Mum has an ABBA vinyl, Dad has a mini bottle of tequila, and my grandpa Presley has a pink cowgirl hat. It took me hours to decide what my last gift to my favourite person would be. Her beat up copy of The Feminine Mystique? Her favourite pink heels with the fluffy feather strap? Eventually, I chose the only thing that could actually burn with Annie. Dark, I know.

I unfold the picture and look down at her face. She’s on the rooftop of her apartment, all wrapped up in a chunky blanket, wine glass in one hand and cigarette in the other, laughing into the sky. Right before I took the photo, I’d told her I’d been accepted into the Pperforming Aarts school of our dreams. That was when the rooftop was a happy place. The place we’d laugh and dance and plan our futures.

‘Smells flamin’ horrible in here!’ says Presley. ‘Come on, let’s get going. I’ve never liked all this God nonsense.’

Mum and I turn to see Dad and Presley, who are supposed to be quietly and sadly following along behind us, at a standstill halfway down the aisle.

Dad touches Presley’s arm. ‘We’ve got to –’

‘Come on, girls! We’re leaving. Bloody stinks.’ Presley’s call echoes through the church, which is silent apart from a soft orchestral rendition of ABBA’s, Dancing Queen.

Dad’s cheeks are turning bright pink, he drops his gaze to his cherry red Dr. Marten’s to avoid the crowd of faces in the pews on either side, silently staring at us all.

‘Dad,’ says Mum, approaching Presley as though he’s a delicate little bird. ‘Dad, come on. We’ve got to do this, okay? For Annie.’

I watch Presley’s heart break once again as he’s reminded, for the fourth time today, that his youngest daughter isn’t here anymore. The entire congregation is watching with me, hanging on to every second as though we’re treating them to a sickly sad theatre performance. A lot of them have started crying. The dress code for the day is ‘Bursts of Colour’, and I catch the eye of a tall man who has a dainty rainbow painted on each cheek, letting teardrops drip right through the middle of them.

Dad moves towards me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.

‘Come on, Pickle,’ he whispers.

As we reach the coffin, I become genuinely afraid I might pass out. Dad pulls me closer to him, and gives me a reassuring nod. I rest my hand on the top of the woven willow coffin. There are only centimetres between the tips of my fingers and Annie.

‘Do you think she’s okay in there?’ I ask Dad. ‘Do you think she’s claustrophobic?’

He considers this for a moment, studying the coffin. Mum found it on an eco-friendly website. Presley had made a joke about Annie falling through the bottom, and I’d said I was scared I’d be able to see her in between the weaves, and Mum stormed out of the kitchen. Now that it’s here in front of us, it’s beautiful.

‘I think she’s absolutely fine,’ says Dad. He smiles, tears in his eyes.

‘You know your Annie; she’ll be loving all this attention.’

‘I wanted this to go in with her.’ I unfold the polaroid to show him.

‘I think you should keep it,’ he says, ‘she’d want you to have it.’

I trace my fingers over her healthy, happy face, before addressing the coffin. ‘Annie, I’m going to keep the picture. And realistically, everyone else is going to have to keep their gifts, too. It was a stupid idea, but just know that these are our favourite memories of you. The things we love the most.’

Dad looks down at his bottle and, though we’re both crying now, we can’t help but laugh.

‘Annie, you are much more than a bottle of tequila to me.’ He clears his throat and fiddles with the buttons of his suit jacket. ‘You were a sister.’

Dad turns away to compose himself, and I wipe my face with the back of my hand.

There are a million things I’d like to tell Annie, and there will be new little things each day. Tiny details like when I woke up this morning it was still dark, and it made me excited for our annual Christmas Market trip. Big things like when I’m sad and scared and nothing makes sense anymore without her. And one day I’ll have real, important things to tell her; the job I’ve landed, the person I’ve fallen in love with, the baby I’m having. And even if she does ever hear them, I’ll never hear her reply. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to live each day knowing that.

There’s a physical pain in my chest now, like my heart is on the brink of explosion. I turn to Dad and practically fall into him. Neither of us say anything, we just hold each other and take our seats on the front row.

When Mum and Presley get to the coffin, Dad leaves me to be with them. I watch them mumbling goodbyes, Dad and Presley on either side of Mum, her skin ghostly white. After a few moments, they take their seats with me, reaching out so that our hands are piled on top of each other on my right knee.

Reverend Michael Reading comes forward and stands in front of us, a sorry look on his face. I can’t help but think it means nothing, he must have to do this all the time.

‘Lovely Annie,’ he sighs, ‘What a wonderful woman.’

I consider kicking his bony knee for acting as though he knew her. Mum drags us all to this church once a year, Christmas Eve, to sing carols. That’s the full extent of his and Annie’s relationship, a polite smile once a year. When he addresses the room, I refuse to listen. If he’s so sad, why isn’t he crying? His words sound recycled and empty, dropping on the floor and landing with an echoey thud. We then sing a hymn at Mum’s request, which is ruined by the sound of strained voices and snotty noses, and I spend the majority of the time silently apologising to Annie for how fucking boring this all is. It’s not at all what she would’ve wanted. If she’d have planned it, we’d all be on the beach somewhere sunny, dancing around on the sand, disco music blaring, as her body floats off into the ocean.

Mum stands to speak, and my stomach tightens. She’s nervously twiddling her fingers, and I realise I’m doing the same. I scoot closer to Presley and link my arm through his. Dad wraps his arm around my shoulders. Now that we’re bundled together, I want to take all of our warmth and put it back into Annie.

Mum clears her throat. ‘Thank you all for being here. I wish Annie could have seen the effort you have made. Sorry, I, um, I didn’t prepare much of a speech. Usually she’d be the one talking. Most of the time, I struggled to get her to stop.’ Mum laughs nervously, and a peal of scattered soft laughter follows from behind us. Everyone has been waiting for something remotely un-sad.

‘I’ve always felt like I had the most special little sister. The one that everyone thought was the best. The one they wished they had themselves. The fun one, the big bundle of energy. And, at times I have to admit, that was quite difficult. Sometimes, you see someone with so much magic in them, and it makes you wonder why you never got to have a little more for yourself. But that’s the most important thing that Annie has taught me; we need to enjoy the magic we did get, because we never know when it’s going to end.’

Everyone rises to clap and cheer Mum. She stands frozen for a minute and I exchange a nervous glance with Dad. The clapping slows to a stop, people take their seats, and the silence becomes uncomfortable. I can feel the entire room willing for Mum to sit down. For the Reverend to say something pointless again to fill the space.

Then, from a dusty speaker attached to the wall behind her, music begins to play. Mum clears her throat and shifts on her feet, before slowly starting to nod to the tune. Her right foot begins to tap, just slightly out of time. The sound is the Bee Gees, Stayin’ Alive, one of Annie’s all-time favourites. Mum starts an uncomfortable looking shoulder bop, and her face looks as though it’s causing her genuine pain.

‘Well you can tell by the way I use my walk!’ Her voice is coming out squeaky, she’s made the horribly poor decision to try and hit the right notes, but it just sounds like someone’s strangling a nearby Chihuahua.

I look at Dad, who’se eyes are wide with shock.

Beside me, Presley bursts to life. He brushes me off, stands up and does a weird little jig. Mum relaxes at his encouragement and Presley’s voice chimes in without fear. He wiggles his way over to her and she steps out of the pulpit, attempting to mirror his shaky moves.

‘What the hell is happening? This is horrible,’ I whisper to Dad.

‘Horribly ironic,’ he says. ‘I know you’re going to hate me for this Muffin, but I think we better join them.’

He grabs my hand, pulls me up and we dance awkwardly over to Mum and Presley, who throw themselves at us in delight. Then, as if this is all perfectly normal, we’re singing our God-awful version of Annie’s favourite song. We grab each other’s hands and suddenly we’re laughing as we sing, limbs flailing and dignity rapidly fading, but we don’t care. I watch Mum closely. Tears dribble down her face, but she’s wearing a bigger smile than I’ve seen on her for some time, and it means more to me than she’ll ever know, that she’s done this especially for Annie. There’s some comfort in knowing that somewhere, deep in her glitzy, disco after-life, she’s dancing along with us.

Kate Philbin

What if…? Two words that open the door to infinite possibilities and my favourites in the English language.

A couple of years ago, I wondered ‘what if I’ve got what it takes to get an MA in Writing for Young People from Bath Spa University?’ Today I have my answer.

I’ve spent the last 30 years working as a journalist and copywriter. I love what I do and have written for the Department of Education, Scottish Government, NHS and more. I’m Wellbeing Editor for a magazine and, in 2017, was invited to give a TEDx talk – What Toddlers Teach Us About Style. While at Bath Spa I won The Porthleven Prize, open to students across all disciplines.

The Wolf-Slayer’s Daughter is my debut novel.

I’ve a teenage daughter and – weird fact alert – I spent a day staring into the eyes of dissected human heads at Kings College, London.

Kate@katephilbin.com

About The Wolf-Slayer’s Daughter

She’s Red Riding Hood’s daughter. She’s put her mother’s life in danger. Now she’s about to discover the truth behind the fairytale…

It’s Lana’s fault Mum’s been captured. It’s her fault, too, her little sister vanished. She must put things right.

As grandmother’s cottage burns, Mum hands Lana a strange key, saying Allinora will explain. But when Lana finds Allinora, she’s left with more questions.

Why’s Mum searching for her lost red cape?

What does the key unlock?

And how can she rescue Mum from the murderous Wolvari? In seeking answers Lana discovers a shocking secret about who she, Lana, really is.

Is this enough to save Mum?

The Wolf-Slayer’s Daughter

‘Wait for me.’

Shruti’s voice – shrill and petulant – grated on Lana’s nerves as she strode along the muddy path, determined not to be any later. Her little sister trailed along behind her. Why did Mum have to get called out today of all days? It wasn’t fair.

Lana had spent weeks planning this. All the whispered conversations with Alyss at the back of Stealth Training, all the ‘accidental’ encounters they’d engineered with Dru beside the bathing pool, all the furtive glances and barely-suppressed giggles.

Finally, Dru – the most gorgeous guy in the whole of The Canopus – had deigned to notice her. Finally, he’d actually spoken to her. And finally –

Lamia Be Praised – two days ago he’d said yes to meeting Lana for a walk. She’d had to fight hard to stay earthbound that day – she didn’t want to put him off by accidentally floating off into the sky and flapping around like a clumsy fledgling.

But now all Lana’s plans were ruined because she had to look after her little sister. All so Mum could lead the hunt.

Lana kicked out at the bracken fringing the path, cursing her bad luck that the Messenger Raven had arrived before she’d had chance to leave the cottage. If she hadn’t stopped to redo her hair, she’d already have set out to meet Dru and Mum would’ve had to get Linr to look after Shruti. Or hold off from hunting until tomorrow.

Lana was still smarting from Mum’s angry words – Is meeting some boy really more important than the lives of innocent people, Lana?

No, of course not, but Lana was tired of always coming second to The Veidr. Maybe, just once, Mum might like to stop to consider that Lana had plans of her own. Maybe Lana didn’t always want to babysit her little sister.

‘C’mon Shruti,’ Lana called, irritably.

‘You’re going too fast, I’m telling Mum.’

‘Tell her.’

It was the perfect day for a walk with Dru, too. The sky a clear ForgetMe-Not blue, with just a hint of Autumn chill. The smell of earth and woodsmoke crisp in her nostrils. The leaves of the great oaks – just starting to turn yellow and brown – drifting silently down towards the forest floor.

Everything in the forest was still and quiet. Everything, that was except Shruti, who complained that she had a stone in her shoe, complained that she was tired and needed a drink, complained that she’d forgotten her cuddly rabbit and needed to go home and get it. Any other day, Lana would’ve stopped to show her sister the entrance to the badgers’ set, told her the names of the different trees reaching high into the forest canopy, sung her favourite songs.

Any day except today.

‘Hurry up,’ snapped Lana, noticing the shadows starting to lengthen. Would he still be waiting for her? That was if he’d come at all. Maybe he’d just said he’d meet her for a dare.

Lana knew she was walking too fast for her sister’s short legs, but she didn’t care. It was Shruti’s fault they were so late and she wouldn’t let her make them any later. Even after Lana had finally agreed to bring her along, Shruti had insisted on changing twice before they left, excited about going to meet one of Lana’s friends and determined to wear her best bearskin boots.

Glancing behind her as she strode along, Lana could see that Shruti’s boots were now covered in mud and wet where her sister had fallen into a puddle. Something else Mum would be furious about. Lana sighed.

The path broadened out as they approached the crossroads. Lana’s heart beat fast. Around the next corner, where the path joined The Wolven Way,

Dru would either be standing waiting for her.

Or he’d be gone.

She stopped, momentarily afraid to turn the corner. Breathing deeply, she pretended to be waiting for Shruti, taking her pudgy hand in hers as the little girl finally caught up. It felt sweaty and sticky as Lana threaded her fingers through Shruti’s, the way they always did.

‘That was mean Lala,’ said Shruti. She sounded close to tears.

‘Sorry, Shru, I just didn’t want to be late.’ Would he still be there? Please let him still be there. ‘I promise we’ll walk home slowly. And we’ll sing The Lazy River. And I’ll make you drop scones before bed.’

Placated a little, Shruti began chatting about the way her toe had poked its way through a hole in her sock as they walked, hand in hand, up to the crossroads.

He was there.

Lana caught her breath. A shaft of sunlight illuminated streaks of light chestnut brown in his hair. His skin was tanned and, as he turned his warm brown eyes to her, he smiled. Her knees felt suddenly weaker than before.

‘Hey,’ called Dru.

‘Hey,’ Lana replied, her voice sounding much higher than normal.

‘Thought you’d stood me up.’

Lana laughed, a little hysterically. Get a grip on yourself.

‘Sorry, unexpected hold up. I had to bring my little sister. Sorry.’ Lana’s insides squirmed. I bet Ellora has never had to take her baby sister on a date.

‘S’OK,’ said Dru.

‘Shruti, this is Dru. Dru, Shruti,’ said Lana, feeling immediately foolish at how formal this sounded.

‘Hi,’ said Dru, smiling at Shruti who smiled shyly back and hid behind Lana. ‘I heard about what happened at Bloodbeck. How many’ve died now?’

‘Four.’

‘Guess your Mum’s got her work cut out tracking this one down. It sounds vicious.’

‘Yeah, guess so.’

‘She’s amazing, your Mum.’

‘Yeah.’ Noooo. Not another one who just wants to talk about Mum.

‘Did your Mum really—?’ Dru began, but Lana interrupted.

‘Should we walk down to the river?’

‘We could do, but it’s a bit steep. It might be difficult for your sister.’ He sounded doubtful, eyeing Shruti and her bearskin boots.

‘She could wait here for us. You wouldn’t mind would you Shru, we wouldn’t be long.’ Just five minutes. I just want him to myself for five minutes.

‘But I want to come,’ wailed Shruti. ‘I want to see the river and search for water sprites.’

‘It’s just a game we play,’ said Lana, hastily, noticing Dru raising a curious eyebrow. ‘Shru,’ she said, kneeling down and speaking quietly into her sister’s ear, ‘how would you like to draw a picture of a water sprite and I’ll see if I can read your mind and bring you back that very one from the river?’

Shruti broke off wailing for a moment, pondering Lana’s offer.

‘And,’ said Lana, with a rush of inspiration, ‘You can draw it in my notebook.’

‘Your best notebook?’ Shruti’s eyes widened with wonder.

Lana nodded.

‘The one that I absolutely must not ever never touch?’

‘That one.’

Shruti beamed. ‘OK.’

Lana reached into her backpack, pulling out her precious doeskin-covered notebook and the coloured pencils Mum had given her for her last birthday.

Shruti’s eyes opened even further.

‘OK, so you’re going to draw a water sprite and I’m going to try and guess which one you’re drawing and search for it in the river. If I find it, I’ll bring it back and we’ll persuade Mum to let you keep it as a pet.’

Shruti beamed. ‘Thanks Lala. I love you.’

‘I love you too.’ Guilt burned inside her throat, but Lana swallowed it down. She’d only be five minutes. Shruti would be fine.

She settled her little sister down beside a rock, using it as a table, a clean page of Lana’s notebook open in front of her and coloured pencils laid out carefully on the mossy ground. Lana glanced back at Shruti as, with Dru, she slid down the steep, muddy bank towards the river. The little girl was lying on her stomach, knees bent, tongue sticking out, concentrating so hard she was frowning. Holding onto tree trunks to stop themselves slipping all the way down the bank, laughing at their ungainly progress, Lana and Dru headed down towards the river.

Sunlight shimmered on the slow-flowing water. Sideways glances, secret smiles. The heart-stopping brush of his hand against hers.

Time slid silently by.

Lana was still smiling as she pulled herself back onto the path using an overhanging tree branch. He’d taken her hand. As they clambered back up the slippery bank away from the river, Dru had actually taken her hand. His grip was strong and he’d smiled at her with his deep brown eyes. Eyes the colour of oak bark.

Her smile faded the moment she stepped back onto the path. The forest was much darker than she remembered and a cold breeze blew between the trees.

Shruti wasn’t there.

Lana’s notebook lay open on the rock where she’d left it. The coloured pencils neatly laid out on the mossy ground. All except for one which lay on the path by itself, almost as though it had been dropped.

‘Shruti?’ Lana called. Maybe her sister was hiding behind a tree. Hide and Seek was her favourite game. ‘Where are you, you little otter cub?’

No answer.

‘Shruti?’ Lana called, a little louder, the flutter of anxiety inside her chest starting to beat its wings a little harder. ‘Shruuuti.’

Dru stared at her.

‘Don’t just gawp at me, help me call for her,’ snapped Lana.

‘Shruti. Shruti. Shruuuuti,’ called Dru.

But the little girl did not appear.

Panic rose up Lana’s throat like bile. ‘Shruti,’ she shouted in a voice that didn’t sound like her own.

She glanced down at the notebook. Shruti had drawn a beautiful water sprite on one page. The drawing was complete except for one green wing tip. It was the green pencil that lay in the middle of the path. Lana bent to pick the notebook up, pressing the picture against her chest. It felt like a chasm had opened inside her and she half expected the notebook to fall right through it.

What had she done?

Where was Shruti?

How was she ever going to be able to tell Mum?

chapter 1: the end

Prayer slips fluttered in the breeze like trembling birds. There were more of them than the last time she’d been here. Lots more. White slips laid on top of curling yellow slips, some scattering across the broken hearth in front of the Inglenook fireplace, others blowing across the cracked flagstone floor in the draught from the open door.

Lana stepped into the room, the sweet smell of damp and decay filling her nostrils. One hinge had worked its way loose and as she tried to push the front door closed it scraped along the floor, leaving deep, dirty gouges on the worn grey slate. She used her shoulder to shove it, bending down to pick up rock that had fallen from the walls and using it to wedge the door shut.

Standing up, she gazed around the room. Her heart sank. What had happened to this place?

The bed stood in the corner where it had always been, except now it leaned at a crazy angle as one of its legs had collapsed. The threadbare covers had grown a soft grey fur of mould and one of the pillows had burst open, spilling its contents of dirty grey feathers onto the floor like vomit.

As a child Lana had been certain she could still see the bloodstains on the sheets. But, whether she really had seen them or they were just the figment of an overactive imagination she couldn’t be sure. Either way there was no sign of them now.

The smashed-up furniture was still there though, or what was left of it. Splintered wood lay scattered across the room, barely discernible from the fallen roof timbers that littered the floor. Filthy curtains hung in sorrowful tatters at the grime-streaked windows, the desiccated bodies of flies heaped in dusty piles on the stone sills.

Since the last time she’d been here the rot had set in in earnest. There were now gaping holes in the roof, timber beams silhouetted like rib bones against the darkening sky. Rocks had fallen from the crumbling walls and the flagstone floor was slippery with green slime.

Heart beating painfully, Lana stepped further into the room, walking towards the kitchen and backdoor. As she passed the Inglenook and turned to her right, she gasped.

Melanie Woods

Melanie has worked as a photographer and graphic designer for many years. Lockdown gave her the opportunity to pour her energies into writing, and to complete the MA in Writing for Young People at Bath, for which she was awarded a Distinction. Whilst studying, she worked on a variety of genres, experimenting with everything from picture books to thought-provoking YA fiction, but ultimately led her to discover the joy and discipline of writing in verse. Her verse novel Hope, has recently been long-listed for the Bath Children’s Novel Award 2021. Having lived and worked around the world, she has settled in Somerset with her family, on a gentle, quietly undulating hill just beyond Glastonbury Tor.

@HebeintheWoods / melanie.woods20@bathspa.ac.uk

About Hope

Hope is a novel in verse which follows the story of fifteen-year old Bambi, as she finds herself pregnant following a date rape and her subsequent battles to keep her baby and find hope for their future.

Hope

“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”

maya angelou

bristol 1994

Using my compass, I pick at the paint on my bedroom wall, unmasking the paper treasured by my younger self. The wallpaper that still breathes beneath this thick layer of blue.

Millimetre by millimetre I scrape, until an entire circus is revealed.

The same spectacle I had once loved, and touched, and brought to life.

chat sh*t

The four of us –the Famous Four –chat the usual sh*t.

We ask who’s got with who, and who’s dyed their hair pink, and who’s smoking weed and who’s not, and who’s skinny and who’s not, and who’s a virgin and who’s not.

ladders and legs

This small, almost-square shaped bedroom is mine, and has been for the last fifteen years. It holds all my secrets.

Take That wave at us from my Christmas calendar; a messy mass of legs, laddered tights and teen bras, getting ready to party.

Gem yearns to be Princess Diana; fair hair cut short, generous blue eyes hiding behind a feathered fringe.

Beth works a Madonna look; left ear pierced three times, four on the right (using a safety pin).

Emmy and I smoulder somewhere in between, with many-layered skirts and ten-holed black DMs.

We giggle as we pinch each other’s make-up, swigging on a bottle of warm white wine snuck from the kitchen.

Standing in a circle, we link our little fingers, lifting our hands over our heads, shouting Together Forever for anyone, and everyone to hear.

Friends like these; friends since we were five –are like my favourite freckles –there for life.

I pray it stays this way.

cider snogs

It’s Jim’s party tonight: his parents have gone out for a curry, and won’t be back ‘til eleven. It’s seven.

Four hours to get the cider and beer and tequila and snogs in.

Music surrounds us like a warm wind, playing from a double-tape deck propped up by the toaster.

People filter in and out of the kitchen, most we recognise from school, some we don’t.

Monster Munch tumble out of two patterned china bowls alongside fag ends floating in a couple of mugs, (one says Mum’s The Boss, the other Bristol City FC, with a robin underneath).

Gem’s surrounded by a group of guys, swarming round her like furious flies.

I suspect these low budget T-Birds are never going to rev her engine. She doesn’t give her game away though –she’s biding her time, waiting for the right girl to stray her way.

Emmy and Beth dance with a couple of lanky girls from the netball team, perfecting their Wannabe routine.

Standing by the back door, picking at the crisps whilst pretending to wait to join the queue for the loo, I want to step away from this. This chaos of people and smoke and drink and tongues and tunes and dream about him.

In my head, he would be asking if I wanted to go outside to get some fresh air, quoting sweet tender lines by Bowie and Maya Angelou, whilst nibbling my ear and gently stroking the underside of my open palm.

quirky quiff

He is the quiet type –a bit of a loner with a quirky quiff (which I like to think is accidental).

A sexy sixth-former with a dangerous air and gorgeous hair –as cute as a lion cub,

claws not yet fully exposed.

soft touch

I’ve noticed him for a while of course, (who hasn’t?), but didn’t think he’d noticed me.

For weeks now, we’ve been exchanging looks, passing nonchalantly in the corridors and the canteen.

It’s a little game we’ve been playing –him and I –only just touching each other, watching each other, staring at each other, surreptitiously.

It’s so subtle and so secret, this, our coy toy toying in plain sight.

At night, I think about him. I obsess about him.

We’ve never spoken, yet my head is crowded with only him. Alone, I imagine his fingers reaching out to mine, entwined.

With strawberry gloss glistening on my bitten lips, he strolls towards me.

Looking ahead, working that just-got-out-of-bed look he does so well, he slips me a note.

Noone sees him do it, which I think is dead romantic.

I’ve got tickets for Massive Attack on Friday night –meet you at The Triangle at seven?

I’m in heaven.

I tell no one. It’s my secret.

None of us have been out with a sixth-former before, and I don’t want the girls to burst my bubble. I’ve heard the rumours about him; I’m sure they’re probably true, but

I want to believe he’s singled me out because I’m the one he thinks of as he scrubs and rinses his hair, slowly in the shower. Naked.

I drop a note in front of him when I pass him next;

Sounds great, thanks. See you Friday. Bambi

I’m tempted to leave an X but think again, wanting to play it cool.

In school, thoughts swirl around my head like soft raspberry ripple ice-cream.

Acute angles, cloud formation, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and avoir verbs wave at me as if they are toddlers, stamping their feet to get my attention.

I choose to sit at the back, staring out of the window until Mr Morgwan taps me on the shoulder asking me if I’m still awake.

Dreaming about my secret evening ahead, I’m sure the butterflies that are fluttering, chuntering, somersaulting in my tummy, are giving my private thoughts away.

Running home at the end of school, I throw my uniform on the floor, showering the dull day out of me.

Using Mum’s best Vidal Sassoon shampoo and conditioner, I rinse my hair three times, (putting the bottles back in exactly the same place I found them).

The red silk dress I bought in the sales (with my Christmas money), is hanging in my cupboard; a slim shadow patiently waiting to come to life.

I’ve been looking for an occasion special enough to wear it, when I want to stand out like Julia Roberts at the Oscars –all eyes on me.

The dress is short, but it’s a date after all, and I don’t want to look fifteen (even if I am).

I check myself in the mirror, carefully applying blue-tipped mascara, a dash of sky eyeshadow, almost-black eyeliner, pale luminous pink lipstick, a spray of Anais Anais perfume, and a smudge of blush blusher on each cheek.

Grabbing a loose jumper and joggers

I pull them on over my dress, ready to cover up as I pass Mum on the sofa, (engrossed by George Clooney amputating a leg on TV).

Have a good evening love, she calls as I close the door behind me, shut.

I’ve told her I’m going to see Pulp Fiction with Emmy, (the lie slipping off my tongue as easily as warm milk).

It takes two buses to get to the Triangle.

Chilly for a summer’s evening, I reluctantly nip into a side street to shed my extra layers stuffing them into my baggy bag, pulling my dress down, as far as it will go.

I feel flustered and

vulnerable

standing on the corner waiting for him.

Alright? he says.

Turning to answer, I wonder how long he’s been there.

He’s gorgeous and dangerous looking, dressed all in black –like a burglar.

I stare for a moment.

Hi, I reply, trying to sound in control, hoping my blushing cheeks aren’t giving my game away.

How ya doing?

You really called Bambi, or is that a nickname? he continues, his narrow green eyes looking directly at me as if they want to eat me

WHOLE.

Yup, Bambi, that’s me! My parents had a thing for orphaned deer.

He laughs, his eyes soften; his hair

begging to be touched.

Taking my bag, he swings it over his shoulder; the burglar’s loot swaying into the night.

The rest of the queue is getting impatient, but we’re in our own world, his arms encircling me like a long, soft scarf.

He slowly whispers in my ear as we stand in line with the other fans; ants on shift work, shuffling forward, asking to be let in.

You’re sexy, he says, I wanna kiss you. The tip of his tongue lingers as his warm minty breath brushes my impatient cheek.

Have a taste of this, he says winking, passing me a bottle of water.

I take a couple of gulps trying not to choke and splutter.

It’s not water. It’s vodka: sharp and shocking. Drinking more, I swallow it quickly, like medicine. Mary Poppins would be proud.

He lights a cigarette, holding it to my mouth. The butt is damp; I concentrate hard on inhaling without coughing, wanting to promote an air of sophistication.

The room is dark and smoky and hot and crowded.

I hold his hand tight as he leads me through clammy bodies –ants now fighting over biscuit crumbs –to a quiet, dark, secretive corner. Our corner.

The music is loud and insane, as the band bewitch and intoxicate us.

Grabbing the bottle, I swig more medicine down.

I’ll get us some drinks from the bar, he says, leaving me in my own heady moment of melody.

I feel good.

I feel happy. I feel alive.

He returns with two overflowing pint glasses, weaving through the mass of heaving bodies, jumping and swaying in their private deliriums.

I hate warm cider, but drink it anyway.

We down the pints and dance and sing and dance and sing and dance and sing and kiss. And dance and sing and kiss.

His tongue enters my mouth –like a thief deftly unpicking a lock. I receive it –

glittering, like the crown jewels, waiting to be worn. I want the world to stop, just here, just now.