Where The Wild Words Are

Copyright Š 2014 retained by contributors.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the contributor.

Published by the Bath Spa University Presses, Newton Park, Bath BA2 9BN, United Kingdom, in April 2014.

All characters in this anthology, except where an

living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Emily Hunter Illustrations by BA Hons Graphic Communications students, Bath Spa University Project managed by Caroline Harris for Harris + Wilson Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire Sponsored by the Bath Spa University Research Centre for Creative Writing.

EDITED BY VAL MOTE AND PAT ROBSON

foreword by David Almond Professor David Almond’s novels for children include Skellig, Kit’s Wilderness, My Name is Mina and The Boy Who Swam With Piranhas. His major awards include the Carnegie Medal, two Whitbreads and the Eleanor Farjeon Award. In 2010, he received the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the world’s most prestigious prize for children’s authors.

I

’m writing this just as we’ve discovered that four graduates of our MA Writing for Young People programme have been longlisted for this year’s Branford Boase Award. This is marvellous for those writers, for the university, for all of our staff and students, and for good Creative Writing courses everywhere. Of course, their success is not unusual in this place.

They are part of a stream of writers who have studied and written at Bath Spa and who have gone on to be successfully published, to win major prizes, to have international success. How wonderful it is that Bath Spa University celebrates, encourages and teaches writers for the young.

Children’s literature can appear to be marginal, but it is at the beating heart of our culture. It is where stories have their start, and where our literary culture is constantly renewed. It understands the closeness of all literature to the spoken word, to the bedtime story, to children’s games, song and dance. In that sense, it is deeply traditional, but it must also, like children themselves, be in a condition of continual growth. So it must be forwardlooking, experimental, multi-faceted. And it is.

All writers, no matter who their audience might be, should be encouraged to explore the children’s book department, to discover the variety of form that will be encountered there. In the children’s book world, there is a genuine belief that books change people’s lives, and help create a better world. Books help children grow into active and creative citizens. They draw together the generations. They celebrate and are influenced by children’s own creativity. They help children and young people to express themselves, and to understand themselves and their place in the world. Without fine children’s books and fine children’s writers, there would be few adult readers. There

6

would be fewer properly mature adults. Our world would be diminished.

I love working on the Writing for Young People MA at Bath Spa. I have met so many committed and talented writers. It is a privilege to work here, and to help introduce this fine selection of new work.

7

introduction by Julia Green Julia Green is the Course Director, MA Writing for Young People. Her most recent novels are This Northern Sky (Bloomsbury, 2013) and Sylvie and Star (Oxford University Press, 2013).

T

he MA Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University has come a long way since we started the specialist course in 2004. Our graduates have made a significant mark on the landscape of children’s fiction, poetry and picture books, and we have made good friends in the children’s publishing industry which have helped us to keep up-to-date, innovative and evolving as a course, to match this rapidly-changing industry. Our strong team of lecturer/tutors, who are all published writers themselves, was joined last year by award-winning author Dr Lucy Christopher and Professor David Almond, winner of the Eleanor Farjeon Award in 2013 for his outstanding contribution to the world of children’s books. David Almond is currently the Artistic Director for the Bath Festival of Children’s Literature. We continue to support and work closely with the festival as creative partners.

Every year, new graduates of the Bath Spa University MA Writing for Young People achieve publication, and many have gone on to be shortlisted for and winners of prizes. Gill Lewis, Sally Nichols, Elen Caldecott, Fleur Hitchcock, Sam Gayton, Sheila Rance, Che Golden, Alex Diaz, Liz Brownlee, Sarah Hammond, Marie-Louise Jensen, Jim Carrington, Karen Saunders, CJ Skuse, Alison Rattle, Maudie Smith, Dawn McNiff, Rachel Carter and CJ Harper are joined in 2014 by Giancarlo Gemin (Cowgirl, Nosy Crow) and Clare Furniss (The Year of the Rat, Simon & Schuster); David Hofmeyer’s Stone Rider will be published in 2015 by Penguin.

This anthology gives a snapshot of the writing from the class of 201213: each student is represented by a short extract from their manuscript.

The variety and scope of these stories demonstrates one of the strengths of the course: our commitment to helping each person to make their story the best they can, and to enable them to find their own unique writing voice.

Week by week, in the crucible of the writing workshops, these stories are

8

forged and polished. Our students know the importance of re-writing and re-visioning their work, of listening to constructive feedback and making language sing. The context modules help them to learn from the writers who come before them, and to see where their own work might fit in the current landscape. They learn about the children’s publishing industry and understand the important part they must themselves play with publicity, including author events and social media. Over one year (full-time, or two years, part-time) our students experiment and play, discover the power and the limits of imagination, and make friendships which we hope will sustain them over the coming years. They know the hard work will continue, and that they are only at the start of a long journey.

The publication of the anthology is the beginning of the next stage.

I hope you enjoy what you find here: the variety and reach of the writing.

I invite you to take a walk on the wild side: glimpse life on a south London estate; travel back through deep woods in England 1066, or forward in time, into different versions of the future. Imagine life from the perspective of an energetic puppy, and go on emotional journeys to heal deep hurts; experience Dublin city centre in winter with a homeless girl; have adventures in fantasy worlds both like and unlike our own. Take a deep breath, open the pages, let the wild rumpus begin!

9

from the tutors ‘The stories in this collection are just a few short examples of what happens when you take a group of talented writers and bring them together for a while. The stories – like the writers themselves – are creative, wonderful and extraordinary, but you don’t have to take my word for it; simply turn the pages and you’ll see what I mean …’

Steve Voake ‘This year’s MA students are some of the very best I have ever taught. You must read this anthology – it contains the brightest and best new stars in young people’s fiction.’

Lucy Christopher ‘The Bath Spa MA in Writing for Young People has proved itself, over the years, to be a fertile ground for coaching new talent, and this cohort is no exception. From them, I’ve read junior capers, dark mysteries, older stories of love and loss and been swept along with the force of the writing. The anthology is a perfect showcase of the students’ skills. Dive in! Enjoy!’

Elen Caldecott ‘This year’s MA graduates have produced another crop of distinctive, quirky, individual and entertaining voices.’

Marie-Louise Jensen ‘One of the by-products of tutoring the students is the realisation of where faults lie in my own writing. In short, they make me feel inadequate. The standard of their work, year-on-year, is always so high, the attention to detail so focussed, and the originality in both voice and idea never ceases to amaze me.

They’re also incredibly easy to work with and always manage to take criticism on the chin, despite copious punches delivered routinely by myself and the other tutors. Any agent or publisher would be lucky to have these students in their corner. They put me to shame. Damn them. Damn them all.’

CJ Skuse 10

contents 11 19 27 35 43 53 61 71 79 89 97 105 115 123 131 139 147 155 161 171 181 189 197

Harriet Balfour Evans Alison Brown Sasha Busbridge Mercedes Clark Ann Corrigan Clare Furniss Mary Green Jemma Hathaway Eugene Lambert Kim Lloyd Nicola Lush Christine Macfarlane Josh Martin Val Mote Lucinda Murray Ekwy Chukwuji Nnene Pat Robson Helenka Stachera Cerianne Teague Yael Tischler Sharon Tregenza Bec Treveil Sarah Waterstone

206 207

Acknowledgements Illustrators

The Weight of Living In a Different Light How to Get a Life by TJ Jackson I to I The Neighbours The Year of the Rat Orlando’s Ghosts My Not-So-Perfect Life The Sign of One The Last Time I Cried Rolo’s Tales: Ella the Yella A Girl Called Harry Ariadnis Trev Otherworld Circle of Fear The Saxon Shield Mute Pad Brats Shards of Glass Secret of The Spike Encoded The Light in Our Hands

11

harriet balfour evans

H

arriet was born in London, reaching the zenith of her primary school fame starring as the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. She went to the University of Bristol with dreams of becoming a legendary psychologist, but quickly realised she preferred fiction to fact. She happily waved farewell to the stuffy science labs and ascended the great glass elevator into the world of writing for young people. Her recent adventures include cycling 300km across New Zealand and working in the Penguin office in Melbourne.

About The Weight of Living A vicious fire sweeps through the council house where seventeen-year-old Indie lives with her sister and cruel alcoholic parents. Whilst wandering numbly through the burned remains, Indie discovers a staircase and descends it into the grounds of a majestic palace known as High Kingdom.

But the palace is in turmoil and Indie suddenly finds herself accused of a kidnapping that she didn’t commit. If she doesn’t find and return the three lost children to the palace leaders in time, she’ll be sentenced to death. Indie frantically launches her search, armed with only a few loyal friends and a book of maps. But each new discovery propels her further into darker, more disturbing questions. If she didn’t hide the children, who did? And why?

After a series of mysterious and terrifying challenges, Indie is finally led to the chilling truth. A truth that threatens to unravel everything she knew … hbalfourevans@gmail.com

13

HARRIET BALFOUR EVANS

the weight of living 14, Beech Hill Estate, Saturday, 3.02am

‘H

ELP!’ I could barely hear my own shouts over the crackle and hiss of the fire. It waved like a furious monster, wild orange tongues devouring everything and spewing red-hot debris onto the floor. Sweat poured down my face and the smoke stung my skin, my nostrils, my lungs.

I clawed desperately at the window latch but it was jammed.

‘HELP!’ The fire surged forwards, reaching up to the ceiling and licking the walls either side of me. I scanned the room for another escape route. The only one left was the gap between the desk and cupboard.

But it was closing fast.

I dropped onto all fours and crawled across the room, my pyjamas sticking to my back, the ash scalding my knees. Inch by painful inch, the door came closer. Finally, I stood up and grabbed the handle, yelping in pain as the metal seared my skin. With fumbling, sweaty hands, I wrenched it open and fell out into the darkened landing.

The black cloud spread like cancer into the air, and I chased the light beyond, praying I’d reach the stairs before it was too late.

I didn’t see the beam fall.

The black cloud gathered me up and carried me into oblivion. I don’t know how much time passed – maybe a second, maybe a few minutes – but when my eyes opened again, I was looking up at the stairs from a weird angle.

Something was fizzing loudly in my head, and it took me a moment to 14

work out where I was. Pinned face down at the foot of the stairs, unable to breathe. Panic swelled in my lungs and I started coughing again, harder and harder until my whole body, sweaty and dust-covered, writhed in agony.

My forearms grated against the smouldering embers and pain seared through my entire body as I made one last attempt to wrestle myself free. But I couldn’t, and as much as I gasped and coughed for more air, it wasn’t enough.

‘Please …’ My words petered out into the dust. The room started swirling around me like a kaleidoscope and I clamped my eyes shut.

This is it, I thought. It’s over. This breath, spilling from my lungs right now, is the last one I will ever have.

One

A

single seagull flew overhead, silent and pale against the bleak white sky. I’d visited this place a thousand times in my nightmares, and if anything, the reality was more dull, more sobering.

Our house was mostly gone. What was left of it was hanging out, like entrails. Half of the living room had disappeared, and both of the sofas were lost in the rubble, so there was only the TV left in there. A blackened 16-inch Toshiba sat facing nothing, as if it were watching you, not the other way around. My parents were watching too, smiling cheerfully out from behind a cracked glass frame. I imagined passers-by seeing that photo and saying a silent prayer for the happy family that used to live here. It was almost laughable. Our family was devastated long before the fire. If you looked close enough, you could see the real, cruel truth, hidden between those millions of pixels.

An icy wind bit at my hands. I shoved them further into my pockets and fought the shiver that wound down my back. Winter wasn’t over yet, but the snow had nearly all melted, leaving a trail of greyish-brown grass in its wake. As I walked towards the familiar old tree, painful memories gathered like chewing gum on the sole of my shoes. Of my sister’s boyfriend Dan standing there, poised with one foot flat against the trunk, smoke in hand, waiting for Nat to come out. The two of them sitting against the fence, chatting late into the night as their outlines slowly merged with the 15

HARRIET BALFOUR EVANS

darkness. Sometimes I’d just sit on the loo seat upstairs and listen to them through the bathroom window. The sound of Nat’s soft laughter and Dan’s low, rumbling voice was just enough to block out the sound of shouting from downstairs.

Long time ago now, I thought, pressing my hand against the trunk. They’d both grown up. And so had I. I was left to fend for myself years ago. If it weren’t for the Nat Dan graffiti still etched on the bark and the tiny remnants of Marlboro Lights strewn around the grassless patch at my feet, you’d never have guessed it was the meeting place for two sixteen-year-old lovers.

Just to the left of the tree was the greenhouse. My place of refuge.

Except now it was just a pathetic metal skeleton, bent along the frames, fringed with shards of jagged glass and graffiti tags. Inside, plants lay dead and crisp in their pots, choked by brown, overgrown vines, and soil was scattered everywhere. The tools, mottled and grey, littered the ground. As I looked around, all I could think was, it’s a graveyard.

Except for one thing.

A flash of pure white against the dirt at my feet. A snowdrop. I’d planted it last year. How had it survived the frost? I couldn’t just leave it there, swimming in debris. My boots crunched on the carpet of broken glass as I grabbed a trowel from the ledge and stepped back out into the garden.

Digging a hole turned out to be harder than I thought. I’d chosen a sheltered corner between two bushes, where the ground was pretty much frozen solid. The metal rocked around in the broken handle of the trowel, but after a few minutes, I’d made a small hole. Just as I was chipping away at the last bit, the trowel suddenly struck something solid, sending a jolt through my hand. I tapped again, detecting the deep, hollow reply of wood, and scraped away more dirt. It wasn’t just a plank. It was bigger, like a chest.

I abandoned the trowel and turned my fingers into claws, feverishly scratching away at the frozen dirt until I wasn’t even aware of the pain in my hands and the wet soil catching under my fingernails. The next thing I knew, I was sitting back on my heels, staring down in astonishment at the four-foot, stained wood panel. A metal hinge ran along its right edge and in the centre was a round, cast iron handle.

A trapdoor? What the hell was that doing there? How could it have been in my back garden all this time without my realising? I quickly planted 16

the snowdrop in the mound of dirt I’d made and then returned to the door, stationing myself over the middle and grabbing the black iron ring with both hands. It was heavier than I expected, and the icy metal bore into my fingers, but I pulled and pulled until it finally lifted. I had just enough time to get out of the way before it landed on the grass with a dull thud.

No way.

A long passage of steps led down into the darkness.

I walked around and peered inside the square hole, feeling clusters of goose bumps rise on my skin. ‘Hello?’

My voice disappeared into the hollow.

I know I should have backed off then, walked away. There could have been anything hidden down there. Stolen money. Dead bodies. Captives.

Fugitives. Nothing good.

But then another part of me thought, I’ve come this far.

I couldn’t bear not knowing. After picking my satchel up off the ground and slinging it over my shoulder, I placed one foot tentatively onto the first platform. And then the other. Step by step, I descended into the dank, gloomy shadow, the white light of the greenhouse quickly fading behind me.

‘Hello?’

Still no reply. I fumbled my way down the rough, concrete walls, until about ten steps in, I couldn’t see a thing. There was no sign of the bottom yet. Just how long was this staircase? Another hideous thought struck me.

What if someone came and closed the trapdoor? What if, with the snowdrop and everything, they thought it was a grave?

I swivelled round to look at the top of the staircase and my stomach flipped.

There were no more steps behind me.

I turned forwards again. There were none ahead of me either. The wall and ceiling of the staircase had completely receded.

What the—?

Step by step, from the bottom upwards, the staircase was slowly vanishing. I put my foot onto where the bottom step had been, but it just landed back down on the grass with a soft thud. My fingers clawed pathetically at the air.

17

HARRIET BALFOUR EVANS

It was gone. The whole staircase was gone.

‘Oh God.’ I inhaled sharply and looked around. Blood thrummed in my veins.

I couldn’t see far in any direction, but it all looked exactly the same. Kneehigh grass, freckled with thousands of light blue specks. Flowers. Just a cloudless, moonless sky and flowers, levitating in the grass.

‘Hello?’ My voice had changed to a pathetic plea. I realised the cold wind had completely died off; it felt milder, warmer somehow. But it’s winter, for God’s sake. And literally minutes ago, it had been … not exactly sunny, but bright. Daytime. Now the only light was this weird dark blue tinge, covering everything. What’s going on? Angry tears filled my eyes, but I forced them back.

Get a grip, I thought, waiting for my eyes to adjust so I could see properly.

Not that there was much to see. No buildings, or landmarks. Just a rectangular meadow, enclosed on all sides by forest. I picked the nearest line of trees and strode towards them. There must be a footpath leading out of here.

Wherever ‘here’ was. I couldn’t hear any traffic, or see anyone to ask.

I halted mid-thought, suddenly aware of a swishing noise behind me.

I stopped, and a millisecond later, the swishing stopped too.

A new kind of horror spread through my veins.

I wasn’t alone.

The hairs on the back of my neck bristled, my muscles tightened, and my ears sharpened in anticipation. Then out of nowhere, the silence was replaced with a low, guttural, growling noise. I turned and scanned the middle distance, frantically searching between the blades of dark grass, but I couldn’t see where it was coming from. There was just grass, and more grass, and …

Oh my God. Two, gleaming yellow eyes.

By the time my brain caught up with my body, I was sprinting as fast as I could towards the forest. My satchel swayed violently from side to side, and the grass got caught up in my legs, making me trip and stumble forward. But the two yellow discs imprinted onto the inky darkness in front of me were enough to sustain my sprint until every muscle in my body felt like it was on 18

fire. My lungs screamed at me to stop, but I couldn’t until whatever it was – that animal, that beast – was gone. I stole glances over my shoulder as I ran and kept forcing myself to accelerate.

A narrow path, barely trodden, carved its way into the dark forest. I dived inside and kept running again, shielding my face against the brambles and low branches, glimpsing behind me every hundred yards or so. The splintered light from above was barely enough to see anything, but I must have been getting somewhere because the trees started to thin out and the path widened, and suddenly a wall came into view ahead of me.

I sprang forward and pressed my palm against the bricks, glancing left and right, and upwards to see whether I could climb over. But there was no chance. The wall stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction.

There were glimmering jewels pressed into its face and the huge darkened panes of glass alongside them.

A tingle of awe crept up my back.

This isn’t just a wall. It’s some kind of mansion, or castle.

I had to get inside. I took off again, and after scampering along the perimeter for two hundred yards, an entrance finally appeared. A huge black door, about eight feet high, with a crack of light coming from underneath.

Light meant people. Safety.

I lifted my fists and pounded them hard against the wood.

19

alison brown

A

lison Brown grew up in Dublin. Her bedroom overlooked the Irish Sea and was crammed with books. She spent her childhood reading everything she could get her hands on and writing stories as soon as she could read.

She studied for a BA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, followed by the MA Writing for Young People, and now works as a children’s bookseller at Blackwell’s in Oxford. In a Different Light is her first novel.

Her second is about a girl who can tell when people are lying.

About In a Different Light Fifteen-year-old Karen is struggling. Her dad moved to San Francisco a month ago, her paediatrician mum is always working and Karen feels as if the family is falling apart. No one will tell her why her dad went or even if he’s coming back.

After an argument with her mum at her work, Karen storms away into an abandoned room in the hospital. Here, she meets a homeless girl called Jade.

They soon form a strong friendship, despite their vastly different backgrounds.

Jade shows Karen a side to life that is more exciting, fast and dangerous than she could ever have imagined. For the first time in years, Karen feels free.

But Jade has more problems than she lets on and Karen soon finds herself getting more and more involved. Can they make their friendship work or are their differences too great? writersprojectbath@gmail.com

21

ALISON BROWN

in a different light 2nd January

‘W

e are now approaching Pearse Street Station, stáisiún sraid na Pearsach.’ I rested my forehead against the cool glass of the window, feeling the tremors of the train as it rattled along the tracks. The greyish daylight disappeared as we made our way under the enclosed roof of the station, the closest stop to St Mark’s Children’s Hospital, where Mum worked. I took my phone out of my jeans pocket, glancing at the text Mum had sent last night.

Karen, meet me in the hospital atrium tomorrow 2pm.

Short, informative. No wasted words. Typical Mum. The DART screeched to a halt and the doors opened. I hurried down the platform and followed the queue of people through the ticket barriers.

The streets were packed with people on their way to the January sales.

I weaved my way through the shoppers. Somewhere, a busker played the guitar; fast, energetic notes swooped over the crowd. I felt as if I was being carried along in a river, unable to stop if I wanted to. I didn’t care. In this crowd, I could be anyone.

The hospital loomed ahead of me, a drab concrete monstrosity. Dad always called it a ‘criminal act against society’, which was a typical-Dad over-the-top way of saying he didn’t like it. Which always annoyed Mum. A lot of the things Dad did annoyed Mum. At least they did, before he left for San Francisco. That had been a month ago and Mum had been promising to tell me what was going on ever since. This was the first time she was free to chat since it happened.

22

Finally, I’d be getting some answers.

An ambulance roared past, overtaking the stream of cars which snaked down to the multi-storey car park. Outside the main entrance, a woman in a pink dressing-gown and slippers sucked a cigarette. She smiled at me and coughed into a closed fist.

I approached the entrance and the automatic doors whirred open. The atrium was alive with chatter. Patients and visitors walked in all directions.

Nurses pushed trolleys across the shiny floor and a group of medical students in white coats stood near the lift, scribbling on red clipboards.

Oversized pot plants decorated the corners of the room and I could hear the coffee grinder in Café Rose. There was one big problem though. Mum wasn’t there. I wandered through the atrium, checking the café to see if she was already at a table. I walked around the perimeter, scanning the room for her until I got back to the entrance.

The familiar pang of disappointment hit my stomach. She had forgotten. Again. She’d be up on the third floor, working on Alder Ward, oblivious. Too busy to remember a lunch date she had arranged.

I marched over to the lift, queuing behind two nurses with big trolleys full of white towels. Eventually the lift arrived and I shuffled on, leaning against the cold glass wall. When I was really young, I used to pretend that the lift was Willy Wonka’s Glass Elevator. As the lift got higher, I would look down at the little people and imagine that they were Oompa Loompas, busy inventing the best chocolate bar in the world, just for me. Now all I saw were ill people, and people coming to visit the ill people and people trying to fix the ill people.

The lift doors beeped open at Level Three and I squeezed past the trolleys into the corridor. The stench of antiseptic was overpowering. I walked down the corridor to Alder Ward. Even though Mum had been working there for nearly fifteen years, I had only been to the hospital a few times. All I knew was that the children were recovering from different surgeries.

I continued down the corridor, wiping my sweaty palms on my jeans.

Now I was here, I wasn’t sure I was ready to find out the truth. What if Dad wasn’t coming back? What if something had happened to him?

I peered into the first room on the right but there was no sign of Mum. 23

ALISON BROWN

Four children lay in the beds. Two of them watched Tom and Jerry that played on the flat screen TV on the wall. One sat up in bed, surrounded by his family. The last child was asleep. He was ghostly pale and his hair was tousled from being in bed for so long. His left arm rested on the duvet, attached to an IV drip.

I turned around just in time to see Mum march around the corner, a blue clipboard in her hand. Her cheeks were red and she didn’t see me until I was right in front of her.

‘Mum?’ Mum looked up, her hand flying to her mouth. ‘Karen. I’m sorry. It’s been manic this morning. I completely forgot.’

‘Are you free now?’ I glanced at her name badge: Ann Hamilton – Consultant in Paediatric Medicine.

Sometimes it felt as if that was all she ever did.

‘No, we’ll have to rearrange,’ Mum gabbled. ‘I can’t take a break at the moment. Sorry.’

‘But I’ve barely seen you since Dad left. I thought you were finally going to explain what’s going on.’

‘No, I can’t drop my work for you right now. You know how busy I am.’ Mum coughed nervously, looking over my head.

I opened my mouth to speak but Mum held her hand up. ‘This isn’t the place to discuss this.’

A nurse in a light blue uniform appeared around the corner. I stepped aside to let her past. ‘But I need to know what’s going on.’

Mum checked her watch. ‘I can’t, I need to get back on the ward now.

I’m working late tonight so I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Fine.’ I stomped away, staring at the grey lino floor as I went. I didn’t know where I was going but I couldn’t face sitting in an empty house which was full of the things Dad had decided not to take with him. Tears filled my eyes but I blinked them away. I knew I shouldn’t be so upset about a stupid lunch date, but maybe it was because I knew that it would turn out like this.

Mum letting me down. Not bothering to tell me what was going on. As always.

I turned a corner, marching down the next corridor, and the next. If Mum wasn’t going to tell me what was going on, then I was going to figure it out for myself.

24

I walked around another corner and down a corridor I had never been down before. It was much darker, quieter. Peace at last. There was a wooden door at the end. The door handle was tarnished. It looked old, forgotten.

The sign outside the door said ‘No Entry’. Fine by me. Maybe it would just be an empty room and I would be able to think about what to do next.

I checked around again to make sure I was alone and pushed the door open. It creaked as it moved.

I walked into the room, the smell of must making my nose tickle.

An old ceiling light flickered above me. A yellow toddler slide stood in the middle of the room. A teddy, raggy and abandoned, lay face down on the discoloured red carpet. It looked like an old play area that hadn’t been used in a long time.

I wandered over to the window, staring down at the traffic. Someone coughed. I whipped round, my heart beating fast. A skinny girl, about my age, watched me from the corner of the room. She had straight dark hair and piercing eyes and the way she looked at me caused panic to fly through my stomach. I stared back at her, dust motes floating in the sunlight between us.

She frowned. ‘What are you doing in here?’

The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. ‘Sorry, I didn’t think there’d be anyone down here.’ I hurried back across the room, grabbing the door handle.

The girl sighed, loudly. ‘Yep, just go, pretend I don’t exist.’

‘Excuse me?’ I stared at her.

‘You know,’ the girl continued, ‘you should really knock before you go into rooms around here.’

‘Sorry.’ I pulled the door open.

‘Wait.’

I turned around. ‘Yeah?’

‘I’m sorry I snapped. I’m not used to people coming in here. You don’t have to leave.’

‘No, it’s OK—’ I trailed off.

‘Look.’ The girl walked forward. ‘Come back in. You obviously need somewhere to escape as well.’

As well? Who was she hiding from? I glanced down at my watch, weighing up my options.

25

ALISON BROWN

‘So why did you come down here?’ the girl asked. ‘Were you trying to find something? You looked really dazed when you walked in.’

‘Long story.’ I stared at my Converse, hoping she wouldn’t ask more questions.

‘Oh, right. OK.’ I looked up at her. There was something strange about her, something that made me feel uneasy. She looked sick. Really sick. I wondered what ward she was from. Her face was ghostly pale and sunken, and her dark hair hung limply around her face.

‘I’m Jade,’ she said.

‘I’m Karen.’ I waited for her to say something but she didn’t. There was an awkward pause. ‘You in here for long, then?’

Jade pursed her mouth. ‘Been coming here nearly every day for six months.’

‘God,’ I stuttered. ‘Sorry. That must be hard. My mum’s a doctor here but you probably don’t know her – she works on Alder Ward with the younger kids. We look quite similar, except she has darker hair.’

‘Nah, I barely know any of the doctors. I stay away from them as much as I can.’

‘How can you avoid seeing them when you’re here nearly every day?’

‘Oh, well, this is a fairly good place for a start. No one ever bothers to come down here. Well, except you, you’re the first.’

‘But don’t you have to be in your ward for most of the day?’

Jade laughed. ‘Ah Jaysus, I’m not a patient. I know I look a bit of a wreck but that’s just general wear and tear, you know? I shouldn’t be in here at all but one of the nurses lets me stay in this room at night so I can get out of the cold.’

I looked at Jade, really looked at her. Her faded khaki coat was many sizes too big. Her jeans hung off her skinny frame and her boots were scuffed and dirty.

And I realised why Jade was hiding in the hospital.

She wasn’t a patient at all. She was homeless.

26

27

sasha busbridge

O

ne of Sasha’s favourite things about writing is that you get to do great stuff and can say you’re working. For How to Get a Life Sasha learnt how to drive a tank and test drove a mobility scooter to see if she could crash it. This is called doing research.

Sasha trained as a journalist and a primary school teacher. She now lives on Bodmin Moor with the beast. A soppy German Shepherd who lives next door.

About How to Get a Life by TJ Jackson To save himself from becoming the most boring kid on the planet, TJ needs to get a life. And so is born … OPERATION: Secret Agent Training Scheme (aka doing his SATS).

Grandad goes into a nursing home and TJ faces his most important mission yet. Will he succeed or end up in the biggest trouble of his life?

A modern Just William for the Wimpy Kid and Middle School generation, How to Get a Life by TJ Jackson is about the importance of family, friends and learning to accept yourself, regardless of what other people think of you. sasha.writer@hotmail.co.uk

29

SASHA BUSBRIDGE

how to get a life by tj jackson Chapter one

F

ifteen minutes until home time. Fifteen minutes and I’m free. Mrs Creeber nods at Melissa to begin.

Everyone is watching. Everyone except Darren Bell, who is busy picking his nose.

‘What I did in my summer holidays by Melissa Albright, Year Six.’ Now she’s started, I can breathe out.

Slowly.

I can’t get too relaxed. There’s only me and Sarah Morgan left.

All afternoon I’ve been hearing about summer holidays. Fun, exciting and adventurous summer holidays. Georgina Newman went camping in America. Hari Sharma visited his uncle in Rajasthan. And Darren Bell went to Alton Towers.

Melissa Albright is smiling. She knows she’ll get top marks, she does every year. This summer she went on safari to South Africa.

‘Every day we rose at dawn and headed out in our vehicles. I saw buffalo, leopards and rhinoceroses. One day we followed a herd of elephants making for a nearby waterhole …’

I sneak a look at Mrs Creeber. She has her eyes closed and looks like she’s in heaven.

I wish she was.

I wish I was a Secret Agent on an undercover mission.

Then I would NOT be here.

I glance at my watch. Grandad gave it to me for my birthday. It’s waterproof, shatterproof and big sister proof. I wish it had a big red button 30

that launched missile attacks.

Activate missiles.

Countdown begins.

5…4…3…2…1…

WHOOOOSH! KABOOOOM! Mrs Creeber and Melissa Albright explode into a zillion little pieces in front of the white board, which, as you can imagine, is now no longer white.

‘The baby elephant was missing so I told our guide we had to go back …’

Slow down Melissa, slow down. There’s still ten minutes to go.

My fingers feel sticky and my shirt is too tight. I look at what I’ve written. There’s no way I’m reading it out.

‘I was the one to find the baby elephant and I reunited her with her mother. Everyone thought I was so clever for noticing …’

Oh no, Melissa’s nearly finished.

‘Themba said I would make a great guide when I’m older. To celebrate, Daddy took us all out for a meal. It was the best summer holiday ever.’

Silence.

‘The end.’

The class erupts in applause.

‘Excellent, Melissa,’ says Mrs Creeber. ‘You structured your story well with a good beginning, middle and end. You must have planned it and …’

I’m not listening.

Too busy trying to prepare. I can’t appear to be too keen but at the same time I must NOT avoid Mrs Creeber’s eyes. If I look away, I’m sure to be picked. I glance over at Sarah Morgan. She’s very relaxed, probably thinking about footy practice after school today.

‘Thank you, Melissa,’ says Mrs Creeber. ‘Time for one more. Let’s see …’

Sarah Morgan, Sarah Morgan, Sarah Morgan. Please let it be Sarah Morgan.

‘Timothy Jackson, let’s hear about your summer.’

My heart plummets.

I scrape my chair against the floor, grab my book and drag myself to 31

SASHA BUSBRIDGE

my feet. Callum gives me the thumbs up.

Six minutes to go.

If I walk extra slowly, perhaps it will take five minutes to get there.

‘Hurry it along, Timothy, it’s nearly home time.’

Exactly, I want to say. But I don’t.

I stand at the front of the class, unable to look at anyone. I’m hoping for a fire alarm or a swarm of angry bees or maybe even a small EARTHQUAKE. Mrs Creeber is staring at me.

I’m sweating so much I could win a prize in this year’s fountain of the year competition.

‘Uh hum,’ coughs Mrs Creeber.

I could pretend I’ve lost my voice …

‘UH HUM.’ Or perhaps my tongue has swollen up …

‘UH HUM!’ If I had a brace like Georgina Newman, I could wire my teeth together and Mrs Creeber would have to call out the Fire Emergency Service to get them pulled apart again.

‘TIMOTHY?’ Mrs Creeber swivels her snake-like head towards me.

Her dark eyes narrow into slits.

I have to do this.

I take a deep breath.

‘What I did in my summer holidays by TJ Jackson, Year Six.’ ‘I don’t go on exciting and adventurous holidays or do fun and interesting things during the summer. I get to stay home all day, watch TV and play computer games in my pyjamas. This summer I went to Ikea. We looked at shelves. The end.’

Silence.

But it’s not a good silence. Not the sort of silence Melissa had at the end of hers.

I raise my head. Melissa is smirking. Everyone else is staring open-mouthed.

Everyone except Darren Bell, who is busy looking at a great green bogey on the end of his finger.

32

The silence lasts forever.

And then the giggling starts.

Soon the whole class is in uproar.

My face burns and my eyes turn watery. I quickly look down at the floor.

‘THANK YOU, TIMOTHY,’ shouts Mrs Creeber over the laughter.

‘I think that’s enough for today, class. Go and get your coats.’

And that’s when I realise.

Something has got to change.

Chapter two

I

need a plan and fast. Next year I go to secondary school. Where the bullies eat you for breakfast.

And where a small, skinny nobody like me who gets to do ZILCH during the summer, will be laughed at and chased through the corridors with BORING LOSER written in massive letters on a giant post-it note stuck to my back.

I have exactly one year to do something fun and exciting, to make me a VIIP – a Very Interesting and Important Person – before I walk through those gates into Secondary School Hell.

What can I do to become an interesting person?

And with very little pocket money too.

I’m sitting in my bedroom at home. It’s half a room really. Dad put in a dividing wall when we moved onto the council estate because Dave didn’t want to share with me any more. Dave, being the oldest, got the biggest end.

I’m the only kid I know who lives inside a cupboard.

I rest my head against my Spiderman headboard. I bet Alex Rider never has to think about finding exciting things to do. His uncle trained him to be a secret agent. Alex learnt karate from the age of six. He went skiing and mountain climbing and scuba diving.

These sorts of things don’t happen much in Dulwich on Ditchwater.

And then this brilliant idea hits me.

ZING! I may not have Ian Rider as my uncle but who’s to stop me planning 33

SASHA BUSBRIDGE

my very own Secret Agent Training? I dig out a notebook and rummage around in my school bag for a pen. It’s time to write a Mission Plan. All good agents have Mission Plans.

HOW TO GET A LIFE BY TJ JACKSON MISSION AIM: Do something exciting with my life so I am NOT a loser.

TIME LIMIT: One year.

THE PLAN: Do my SATS (Secret Agent Training Scheme).

STEP 1: Make a list of Exciting and Adventurous things Secret Agents do.

STEP 2: Choose one thing on the list.

STEP 3: DO IT! STEP 4: Choose another thing on the list.

STEP 5: DO IT! STEP 6: Keep going until I have done EVERYTHING on the list. By the time I have finished, I will NOT be a loser. Instead I will be a VIIP and have excellent spying skills to enable me to SSS (Survive Secondary School).

And you never know, a spy may spot my spectacular secret agent abilities and whisk me off on an undercover mission to the Caribbean, so I won’t have to go to secondary school anyway.

I decide to write my list straight away.

Death-defying stunts on a BMX. Rocket-propelled skateboarding.

Jump out of an aeroplane. (With a parachute.)

Go deep sea scuba diving.

Race a quad bike down a HUGE mountain.

Kayak over a GIGANTIC waterfall.

Abseil off a HUMONGOUS building.

Become the fiercest martial arts expert in the world.

Paintball combat while driving a tank.

A Secret Operation no one finds out about.

Hold on.

34

How am I going to do any of this? It’s not like I have loads of money to pay for it.

It’s not like I’m Melissa Albright.

Agent Jackson, do you want to be a LOSER all your life?

NO, I DON’T. Then don’t give up before you’ve begun.

OK. I’ll do it.

I spin my jotter on top of the duvet, close my eyes and stab the paper with my thumb.

What have I chosen?

The page I haven’t written on.

Take Two. I close my eyes, spin and jab. This time it’s (trumpet fanfare) …

4. Go deep sea scuba diving.

Could be a problem that.

I don’t live anywhere near the sea.

But I have to practise somehow … Deep sea scuba diving here I come.

35

mercedes clark

O

riginally an actress, Mercedes realised that masquerading as characters isn’t nearly as much fun as creating them. She loves anything that’s a bit weird and wishes she could type as fast as she thinks. Anyone who knows her says she dreams big and reads too much.

The phrase that sparked her young adult novel I to I into existence was ‘sometimes bad things just happen’.

About I to I In the ruins of Divided City, the streets are rife with gangs. Almost everybody lives underground and resources are running out. Surviving on the edge of society, trouble follows Luana when she saves Liss’s life. Liss is identical to Luana and an alien from another planet. Her arrival commences war between the rival factions of Divided City.

When the gangs place a hit on Luana’s head, it’s kill or be killed. She must act alone to protect those she loves.

Forced into hiding, Liss ends up in a sewer city where foes and friends tread side by side.

Separated by civil war, the two girls realise that they each have something the other needs. But when the battle for resources begins, there’s no guarantee they’ll be fighting for the same side. mercedes.clark09@bathspa.ac.uk

35

MERCEDES CLARK

i to i Chapter one Luana

T

he Candra girl can’t be older than sixteen. Her black eyes flicker. She’s deciding if I’ll fight back. Her silver hair shines as she takes another step towards me.

I hold up my hands. ‘That’s close enough.’

Her smile widens, showing the tips of her pointed teeth. A silver disk at her throat catches the afternoon sun. Every inch a predator, she’s perfectly controlled as she waits for the kill.

I squint and move back into the shadow of the ruined freeway. Long wires brush the top of my head, dangling from the broken edge of the sky road. Rubble scatters the floor around us. No part of Divided City is whole since the big wave nineteen years ago. Not the food or the houses or the humans.

Prickles work up my spine. I should have waited longer to lure the mutant out of hiding. The first rule in this kind of hunt is to make sure my back is covered. Candra moon-babies are super-human, with no humanity and unmatched hunting instincts. They mutated after the moon was knocked from orbit and have always been outcasts. Their unpredictability, super-strength, and creepy looks frighten people.

The girl lifts her sensitive nose to the wind. Her nostrils flare as she picks up the scent of my fear. She’s cornered me alone and her victory seems guaranteed.

‘What do you want?’ I ask. My voice is steady despite my tight muscles 36

and pounding heart. Will should be here by now. We were meant to take the mutant out together but he’s nowhere in sight.

The Candra backs me towards one of the concrete pillars that keep the road above the rooftops. Her dark eyes dip to my twitching fingers. She slips a narrow tube out of her sleeve and waves it around. ‘This will only hurt you if you don’t let me put you to sleep.’

I’m going to kill Will when he decides to appear.

I focus on the tube in the Candra’s hand. Sedatives ran out years ago, but recently a horde of moon-babies have been snatching people all over the city with them. Will and me have spent months looking for information about their sudden numbers and what they’re doing with their victims. Too many of our friends have gone missing.

My stalker-turned-attacker pokes a small round dart down the wooden tube. She raises it to her lips. Her black gums make her teeth seem extra white as she takes a deep breath and aims at me.

I’m out of time. Fight or run? It’s suicide to take her on alone but she’s got me cornered. The street is deserted. The houses are boarded up and empty.

Will’s not coming.

I don’t know which to worry about more. That Will might be hurt, or that this Candra is trying to kill me.

In slow motion I watch the girl’s chest deflate. I take another step back and a loose stone almost trips me.

There’s a whine and a popping noise as the dart leaves the tube.

I throw myself to the ground and land hard. Snatching up the palmsized stone, I roll up to my knees, draw my arm back and throw. It smacks the mutant girl in the shoulder.

She doesn’t fall.

‘Uh oh.’ I scramble into a defensive crouch. When Candra move, they move fast.

A tall, tanned figure leaps from between two houses. Will grabs the Candra girl’s neck and pins her hands behind her back. She screams, trying to use her strength against him, but he pulls up and secures her against the ground in a headlock. His weight keeps her down. His arm muscles bulge with the strain.

37

MERCEDES CLARK

Relief floods me. Will’s safe and he’s here. It gives me the strength I need to bring my fear back under control. The Candra don’t scare me, I have nothing but hatred for them. But Will in danger? That makes me weak.

Kneeling beside the mutant, I grab a fistful of silver hair and force her head back. A red flush works up her neck as she struggles. Little bits of concrete pepper her cheek.

Will’s mouth narrows and he scans the houses lining either side of the street. His dark hair is tousled like he’s just got out of bed and he’s scowling like he ran into trouble. Unfortunately, ever since a piece of the moon smashed into Divided City and the government was overthrown, trouble’s normal. The streets are wild. Only the bravest people live above ground.

‘Nice of you to show up,’ I say to him.

He tenses his jaw. His grey eyes are almost reflective in the bright daylight. ‘I crossed paths with Edmund and his Rats. Now, don’t you have somebody else to be mean to?’

My skin flashes hot as Will says my life-long rival’s name. ‘Of course I do.’ I tug the Candra’s hair harder. Moon-made mutants are thick-skinned and I want her to know I mean business. ‘Why have you been following me?’

‘Easy hit,’ she chokes.

‘The real reason,’ I insist.

‘You were alone.’ She grits her teeth. ‘At least, I thought you were.’

I snatch Will’s knife from his boot and place it against the Candra’s throat. ‘We both know, alone or otherwise, I’m not an easy hit. You recognised me. Tell the truth or I’ll stab you and leave you to bleed out.’ I sniff the air. ‘Lots of animals out hunting today.’

On cue, a howl carries to us on the wind. The mutant bucks but Will holds on tight.

I grip the knife a little tighter. Danger is normal. It’s always just a step away. I score a shallow cut below the Candra’s ear, deliberately avoiding her jugular. She can’t tell me anything if she’s dead.

‘Stop!’ She twists her head away from the blade. ‘I want to get into the tunnels.’

That makes sense. I’m one of the few Topsiders who know an entrance into the underground tunnels known as Rat Runs. They’re used for trading.

Perfect to kidnap in.

38

‘We’re done, Luana,’ Will says suddenly. ‘Finish up.’

‘What?’ The hair on the back of my neck rises. I hold still. The only sound comes from our heavy breathing and the scrape of the Candra’s necklace against the floor.

‘We’re being watched.’ Will tightens his hold around the girl’s throat.

Great. One wrong move and someone is going to end up dead. I stand up slowly. ‘We finally get a mutant who’s willing to talk and the Rats turn up,’ I mutter. ‘If Edmund does anything, I’ll kill him.’

‘All talk, Topsider.’ Edmund’s voice floats overhead.

I tilt my chin up and look at the broken edge of the freeway. ‘Thought you were a Rat, not a monkey,’ I say. Nobody risks the sky road anymore.

Bits of it are always falling in.

My rival grins at me. ‘I’m a bit of both.’ His long limbs appear over the ragged concrete and he lowers himself arm over arm down the thick tangle of dangling wires. He moves easily and his muscles hold his weight with perfect control.

‘Leave us alone,’ Will grumbles. He jerks the Candra girl hard as she struggles. ‘We cleared this up earlier. You aren’t invited to join our hunt.’

Edmund jumps the last few feet to the ground. His whip is coiled in black bands around his left arm. ‘That was before I found out my tunnels might be invaded.’

I lift the knife and roll its hilt over my fingers. My eyes never leave the Rat leader’s face. The underground human is paler than me and Will, and his light hair is cut close to his head. He’s an absolute pain and as arrogant as they come. ‘Don’t you trust me not to tell?’ I ask him.

‘I’ll trust you when the moon is back in orbit,’ Edmund replies. He starts to unwind his whip from around his arm.

I aim my knife at his chest. ‘Don’t you dare.’

Black snaps out. The Candra lets out a high screech.

Will leaps back, swearing as blood soaks his T-shirt. The mutant’s head tips off her shoulders and falls to the floor with a thud.

‘You could have taken my arm off!’ Will snarls. He comes out of his crouch, his teeth bared in fury. The Candra necklace dangles from his fingers. He marches over to Edmund, not bothered by the trail of blood as the Rat winds his whip back.

39

MERCEDES CLARK

‘Will.’ My warning’s lost as the two boys come face to face.

Edmund stays calm in the face of Will’s anger. Though the Rat is slightly taller, Will is just as strong, and we all know they’re equally matched in a fight. This isn’t the first time they’ve come to blows.

‘Will, it’s not worth the effort,’ I try again.

The Rat looks amused. ‘When did you decide I’m not worth a good beating?’

‘Since I realised you’re probably bored down in your nasty Rat City, which is why you have to come up here and bother us all the time.’ I move over to them, deliberately avoiding the Candra’s body. Its blood makes me feel funny. ‘Go find someone else to annoy, Rat.’ ‘You two are always so angry.’ Edmund’s amber eyes flash. He takes a step towards Will, baiting him.

Will snorts. ‘Better angry than an ass.’ He reaches for me and takes my hand.

I squeeze it once, and then before either of them can react, smack Edmund hard over the temple with the knife handle.

His knees collapse and he hits the floor with a thud.

‘Luana!’ Will lets go of my hand.

‘What?’ I shrug. ‘He deserved it. He killed our only lead. I’d kill him if it didn’t mean we’d have all of Rat City after us.’ I pop the knife back in Will’s boot and stare at our mess.

‘You don’t mean that.’ Will grabs Edmund under the armpits and drags him to one of the abandoned houses. He grunts as he hauls the Rat up the pavement, looking pointedly at a boarded-up doorway. ‘Open the door then. We can’t leave him out here for the animals.’

‘In your opinion,’ I say, but go over anyway. I kick the door until it gives.

Will dumps the Rat leader inside and picks the door up. He props it back in its frame and catches my hand again. ‘Quickly, before his team come looking for him.’

We run back out into the sunny street, sticking to the underbelly of the freeway. The stone is chipped and marked with old graffiti as Will leads us uphill, towards home. He slows his pace so that I can keep up with him but my breath still comes in hard, sharp gasps.

40

When the sky road curves away from us, we break off next to a cluster of old-fashioned flats. On ground level, the streets go left and right, lined with yellow stone buildings. All of them are falling to ruin. Everything looks deserted.

I hold Will’s hand a little tighter.

Deserted doesn’t mean much around here.

41

ann corrigan

A

ccording to WY Evans Wentz in The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, corrigans can foretell the future, assume any animal form and are able to travel from one end of the world to another in the twinkling of an eye.

They love feasting and music and dance in a circle holding hands. Their favourite haunts are near fountains and dolmens. They are little beings not more than two feet high and are given to stealing the children of mortals.

However, only some of this is true for Ann Corrigan.

She loves to travel and once ran away to Outer Mongolia, where her birthday is a national holiday. Her favourite pastime is telling tales.

About The Neighbours Twelve-year-old Grace hopes her birthday wish will come true. But who will turn out to be her best friend, the paper-boy or one of the strange new neighbours? How far should she go to help a friend who is accused of something they didn’t do? And where exactly do the neighbours come from? ann.corrigan12@gmail.com

43

ANN CORRIGAN

the neighbours Wishing well …

G

race was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for her birthday wish.

Hector, her father, was complaining that he couldn’t find the matches and did it really matter? Grace kept quiet. Of course it mattered. These were special candles. Twelve of them. The box they came in said they had different coloured flames and surely candles like that were perfect for wishing. This time it would come true. This time she would get a best friend.

‘Couldn’t you just pretend to blow them out?’ Her mother, Hetty, poured herself another cup of tea.

Grace considered it. She twisted one of her tiny plaits and stared at the un-iced fruit loaf on the kitchen table. Would cutting the cake first ruin the magic? Or could she sneak a piece of it up to her bedroom later with the candles? Would her wish come true as long as she blew them out on her birthday? She didn’t know.

‘It’s just a lot of nonsense.’ Hector’s face was red and Grace wasn’t sure if it was the hot August weather or if he was cross. He was often cross. He started to ransack another kitchen drawer. ‘I’ve more important things to be doing.’

Grace realised that her wish depended on finding the matches. What if there weren’t any in the house? ‘I could run to the shop and get some.’ If she was quick, she could get there before it shut at six.

Hector ignored her. ‘I can’t understand why there’s no enthusiasm in the village for a Neighbourhood Watch.’

‘Do you think we really need one, Hector?’ asked Hetty.

No, thought Grace. There’s nothing to watch. Nothing ever happens in the village, apart from disappearing matches.

44

‘People should be vigilant, Hetty.’ Hector stopped rummaging and wagged his finger. ‘We don’t want all that graffiti and litter that they get in the town, especially with my bowls tournament coming up.’

‘Perhaps new people will be interested.’ Hetty stirred her tea. ‘I wonder when someone will move in next door.’

Grace wondered why anyone would move in. Who would choose to live in the middle of nowhere? The house attached to theirs had been empty for almost a year and the For Sale sign was faded. Two old ladies had lived there, Evelyn and Violet. They used to give Grace sweets, told her stories and taught her to knit and each year they made her a proper birthday cake with pink icing. They had been surprised that Grace didn’t have a proper birthday party but who would she invite? She was the only child in the village and her parents said the town children weren’t suitable playmates.

‘Here they are.’ Hector held up a small box and shook it like a magician finishing a trick. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

The first match didn’t light. The second match went out straightaway.

Grace held her breath and wondered how many were left. The third match snapped. Hector put the box down on the table. He mopped his brow. Grace crossed her fingers. The fourth match made a scraping noise and produced a feeble flame but it was enough to light a candle. Grace watched her father pick the candle up and light the other eleven with it. They flickered: pink, blue, purple and green. They were so pretty.

‘What sort of people do you think will move in next door?’ said Hetty.

‘So long as they’re not …’ Hector stopped suddenly.

Grace looked up. His eyes were squeezed shut, his head tilted back and his mouth partly open as if he was about to sing. That would be a first. He never sang.

‘Not what, Hector?’ Hetty smoothed a crease in the tablecloth.

Hector half opened his eyes. ‘The neighbours from Hell.’ He sneezed violently and all the candles went out.

Grace stared at the wisps of smoke. Did it matter if someone else blew the candles out first? No. It was a birthday wish. It wasn’t his birthday so it wouldn’t matter. ‘Are there more matches?’ she asked.

‘Just have your wish.’ Hetty picked up the cake knife.

‘But I didn’t blow the candles out.’ Grace felt her eyes watering.

45

ANN CORRIGAN

Hector picked up the matchbox. ‘For goodness sake.’ He struck a match. ‘It’s a load of superstitious nonsense.’

Grace whizzed through the words of ‘Happy Birthday’ in her mind, just in case the song had to be added for the magic to work. Hector lit the last candle. She took a deep breath, wished for a friend and blew.

Tink

G

race wondered how long it would take for her wish to come true. Not a year, obviously, as next birthday she would have a new wish. Perhaps she should have been more specific and wished not just for a best friend but for one to appear this week.

The cake was dry and stuck in her teeth. Grace could still taste it as she washed up the plates and cups and put them away. She glanced at the clock by the open kitchen door. Now she was twelve, she was allowed to go to bed half an hour later. But it was so hot today she’d like to go now. She’d like to flop on her bed. You didn’t flop in the living room. You sat properly.

Grace wandered into the stuffy living room and picked up her knitting bag from beside the ornament cabinet. The china dogs stared blankly at her, their tails frozen in place. She perched on the sofa opposite and untangled the chunky wool. Another bobble hat would soon join the world ready for winter. It was difficult to imagine winter in this heat.

Hector came in and prowled round the room. His face was still red.

Something seemed to be annoying him. Grace hoped it wasn’t the clicking of her needles and she tried her hardest to knit quietly. He paused at the window. ‘This weather isn’t good for the bowling green.’

Hetty crept into the room. She frowned. ‘Do you have to knit?’

Grace watched her mother watch her father. ‘I didn’t want to sit and do nothing.’

‘She’s right, Hetty.’ Hector turned round from the window. ‘The Devil makes work for idle hands.’

Her father had some odd sayings. Grace wondered what work the Devil would give her if she did have idle hands. She’d probably never find out. Her father could always invent something for her to do if she 46

didn’t look busy. Before tea she had lugged the heavy watering can up and down the back garden in the hot sun to soak all the wilting plants. It had taken ages.

The Devil might get her to knit something for him. Grace smiled. A bobble hat with holes for his horns perhaps.

‘I said that peony by the front gate could do with more water.’ Hector was looming over her.

‘Oh.’ Grace dropped her knitting in her lap. She’d been daydreaming.

‘The poor plant is drooping.’ Hetty was by the window peering out.

‘It’d be a shame for it to die.’

Grace pushed the long needles into the ball of wool and tucked her knitting into its bag. ‘I’ll go and fill the small watering can.’

It was quiet outside. The two houses were stuck together on their own at the edge of the village and the crumbling pavement petered out just past them. Grace watered the floppy peony, checked that her parents weren’t looking and climbed onto the low garden wall at the front. Standing on it, she could see the main part of the village in the distance. She leaned against the tall gatepost, a grey stone pillar as high and wide as she was. Warm from the sun and scratchy.

From the other direction, she heard a bicycle bell. Someone was pedalling furiously. Could this be her wish on wheels? She leaned forward. ‘Hello there.’

The boy on the bike swerved, wobbled and clattered to the ground.

‘Are you OK?’ Grace jumped off the wall.

The boy narrowed his blue eyes and scowled at her. ‘What did you do that for?’ He got to his feet and inspected his bike. Grace recognised him as the boy who had just started bringing her father’s newspaper in the mornings.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

He ignored her and carried on checking for damage.

‘My name’s Grace. Grace Goodmint.’

‘So what?’ He wiped his hands on his jeans.

She wasn’t sure what to say next. Perhaps she should have started by saying sorry for making him crash? He was about to go. She had to say something else. ‘It’s my birthday today.’

‘And you thought you’d celebrate by knocking someone off their bike.’

47

ANN CORRIGAN

‘I didn’t mean to.’ Grace stepped back. ‘You’re not hurt, are you? You were going quite fast.’

‘How old are you then?’ He tilted his head to one side, reminding her of a bird.

‘Twelve.’

‘No way. You sure you can count? You don’t look twelve.’

Grace wondered what twelve was supposed to look like.

‘What presents did you get?’

‘I got these sandals.’ Grace slid her right foot forward. ‘I wanted a red pair but we already had brown shoe polish.’

The boy stared at Grace’s foot. ‘Interesting choice.’

‘You like them?’ She wished he could have seen the red pair.

‘You’re weird.’ The boy shook his head. ‘I didn’t even know they sold old granny shoes like that.’

He was wearing trainers with purple laces. There were holes in his T-shirt. Grace stared at them. ‘Are those rips from just now?’

The boy laughed and shook his head.

‘I can mend them if you like. I’m good at sewing and knitting.’

‘What school do you go to?’ he asked.

Grace frowned. ‘I don’t go to school.’

‘Yeah, I know it’s the holidays.’ He grinned and then spoke slowly, as if he was talking to a small child. ‘What school will you go to in September?’

‘I don’t go to school,’ Grace repeated.

‘Not at all?’ He seemed shocked.

Grace shook her head.

‘Why?’ ‘I stay at home to look after my mother.’ Grace glanced over her shoulder to see if Hetty was at the window. She wasn’t.

‘What’s wrong with her?’

Grace shrugged. ‘I don’t really know. I have to go with her when she goes out in case she has a funny turn.’

The boy tilted his head again and looked deep in thought.

‘I’ve never seen her have a funny turn,’ said Grace. ‘I’ve no idea what I have to do if it happens.’

The boy swung his leg over the bike. ‘Can you read and write?’

48

‘Of course.’

‘You can’t do maths though.’ He winked and pushed off.

‘I can too.’

‘Twelve?’ He pedalled away, laughing.

‘What’s your name?’ Grace called after him.

‘Tink,’ he yelled back.

Grace sighed. She’d wished for a best friend but she wasn’t sure it would be Tink. What sort of name was that anyway? She climbed back over the wall and picked up the watering can. Something caught her eye.

It glinted in the evening sun. A yellow Sold sticker on the For Sale sign next door.

Things go howl in the night …

T

he howling started at midnight. Grace jumped out of bed in a panic, convinced she was about to be eaten. She ran out of her bedroom door and crashed into her mother on the landing. ‘What’s that noise?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Hetty. ‘I thought it was you having a nightmare.’

The howling got louder and it was joined by banging and thumping.

‘What on earth is that?’ Hector shouted from the bedroom. ‘Is that din from next door?’

Grace rubbed her eyes and listened carefully to the noises. ‘Does that sound like someone moving in next door?’

Hector stumbled out onto the landing, pulling his dressing gown on despite the heat. ‘What the hell is going on?’

‘Surely people can’t be moving in at this hour,’ said Hetty. ‘What sort of people move house in the middle of the night?’

‘Inconsiderate people.’ Hector stomped past them into Grace’s bedroom to look out of her window. ‘I can’t see a van or a lorry in the street.’

Grace followed him into her room, more awake now and no longer worried about being eaten.

Hetty clutched her floral nightdress. ‘Do you think it could be squatters, dear?’

‘It had better not be. We won’t tolerate squatters in this village.’ He opened the window wider and leaned out so far that Grace thought he might fall.

49

ANN CORRIGAN

‘Is that a dog making that noise, Hector? You do see those homeless people in town with those awful little dogs.’

It sounds more like they’ve got an awful big dog, thought Grace.

The howling got louder, almost drowning out the banging. Grace climbed back onto her bed. There was a solid brick wall between her and whatever it was. Perhaps it was a wolf. Did wolves howl at night? She’d like to see a real wolf.

‘If that racket doesn’t stop immediately I shall ring the police.’ Hector slammed the window shut.

50

51

clare furniss

C

lare worked for several years in political media relations before plucking up the courage to do what she’d always dreamt of and try to write a novel. The Year of The Rat, written as her MA manuscript, was bought at auction by Simon & Schuster in 2013 and publishes in April 2014.

She lives in a very untidy house in Bath with her husband and three young children.

About The Year of the Rat When her mum dies in childbirth, sixteen-year-old Pearl’s world falls apart.

She hates her baby sister Rose, who she nicknames The Rat, blaming her for her mum’s death. She resents her dad, unable to understand how he can love the baby who killed her mum and worrying that he loves the baby more than Pearl, his adopted daughter. She feels abandoned and alone. All she wants is for her mum to come back.

And then she does.

This is no ethereal, ghostly presence; she’s the same eccentric, sharptongued, chain-smoking Mum she always was. At first Pearl is overjoyed – but things get complicated. She can’t let her mum know how she really feels about the baby – but can she bring herself to forgive her sister? clare.furniss@gmail.com

53

CLARE FURNISS

the year of the rat March

T

he traffic light glows red through the rainy windscreen, blurred, clear, blurred again as the wipers swish to and fro. Below it, in front of us, is the hearse. I try not to look at it.

My hands fidget as though they don’t belong to me, picking at a loose thread on my sleeve, stretching my skirt down so that it covers more of my legs. Why did I wear it? It’s way too short for a funeral. The silence is making me panicky but I can’t think of anything to say.

I sneak a sideways look at Dad, his face blank and still as a mask.

What’s he thinking? About Mum? Maybe he’s just trying to find something to say, like me.

‘You should do your seat belt up,’ I say at last, too loud.

He starts and looks at me in surprise, as though he’d forgotten I was there.

‘What?’

I feel stupid, as though I’ve interrupted something important.

‘Your seat belt,’ I mutter, cheeks burning.

‘Oh. Yes.’ Then, ‘Thanks.’

But I know he’s not really listening. It’s as though he’s listening to another conversation, one that I can’t hear. He doesn’t do his seat belt up.

We’re like two statues, side by side in the back of the car, grey and cold.

We’re nearly there, just pulling up outside the church, when he puts a hand on my arm, looks me in the eye. His face is lined and pale.

‘Are you OK, Pearl?’

I stare back at him. Is that really the best he can do?

54

‘Yes,’ I say eventually.

Then I get out of the car and walk into the church without him.

I always thought you’d know, somehow, if something terrible was going to happen. I thought you’d sense it, like when the air goes damp and heavy before a storm and you know you’d better hide yourself away somewhere safe until it all blows over.

But it turns out it’s not like that at all. There’s no scary music playing in the background like in films. No warning signs. Not even a lonely magpie.

One for sorrow, Mum used to say. Quick, look for another.

The last time I saw her was in the kitchen, an apron tight over her enormous bump, surrounded by cake tins and mixing bowls, bags of sugar and flour. She would have looked quite the domestic goddess if it hadn’t been for the obscenities she was bellowing at the ancient stove, which belched smoke back at her.

‘Mum?’ I said cautiously. ‘What are you doing?’

She turned on me, pink-faced, her red hair wilder than ever and streaked with flour.

‘The tango, Pearl,’ she shouted, waving a spatula at me. ‘Synchronised swimming. Bellringing. What does it look like I’m doing?’

‘I only asked,’ I said. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist.’

Which wasn’t a wise move. Mum looked like she might actually explode.

‘I’m baking a frigging cake.’

Except she didn’t say frigging.

‘But you can’t cook,’ I pointed out, reasonably.

She gave me a glare that would have peeled the paint off the walls, if it hadn’t already flaked away a hundred years ago. ‘That oven is possessed by the devil.’

‘Well it’s not my fault is it? You were the one who insisted on moving into a falling down wreck of a house where nothing works. We had a perfectly good oven in our old house. And a roof that didn’t leak. And heating that actually heated instead of just clanking’ ‘All right, all right. You’ve made your point.’ She examined an angry red stripe down the side of her hand.

55

CLARE FURNISS

‘Perhaps you should run that under the tap.’

‘Yes, thank you, Pearl,’ she snapped. ‘For the benefit of your medical expertise.’

But she hoisted herself over to the sink anyway, still swearing under her breath.

‘Aren’t pregnant women supposed to be all serene?’ I said. ‘Glowing with inner joy and all that?’

‘No.’ She winced as she held her hand under the cold water. ‘They’re supposed to be fat and prone to unpredictable mood swings.’

‘Oh.’ I suppressed a smile, partly because I felt sorry for her, and partly because I wasn’t quite sure where the spatula might end up if I didn’t.

There was a muffled snort of laughter from the hallway.

‘I don’t know what you think you’re laughing at,’ Mum shouted at the kitchen door. Dad’s head appeared from behind it.

‘Laughing?’ he said, eyes wide and innocent. ‘No, not me. I was just coming to congratulate you on mastering the mood swings so magnificently.’

Mum glared at him.

‘Although from memory,’ he said, keeping well out of reach, ‘You were pretty good at them before you were pregnant.’

For a moment I thought she was going to throw a saucepan at him.

But she didn’t. She just stood in the middle of the dilapidated, egg-shell strewn, cocoa-smeared kitchen and laughed and laughed until there were tears streaming down her face and none of us were really sure whether she was laughing or crying. Dad went over and held her hands.

‘Sit down, will you?’ he said, leading her over to a chair. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea. You’re supposed to be taking it easy.’

‘Bloody hormones.’ She wiped her eyes.

‘Are you sure that’s all it is?’ Dad sat down next to her, looking anxious.

‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ ‘Don’t fuss,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’m fine. Really. It’s just – well, look at me. I’m already so huge I practically need my own postcode. God only knows what I’ll be like in another two months. And my ankles look like they belong to an old lady. It’s most disconcerting.’

‘It’ll all be worth it,’ Dad said.

‘I know,’ she said, her hands on her bump. ‘Little Rose. She’ll be worth it.’

56

Then they sat smiling at each other nauseatingly.

‘Oh, yes,’ I said, grinning. ‘All those sleepless nights and smelly nappies.

It’ll be well worth it.’

I pulled my jacket from where it was hanging on the back of a chair and turned to go.

‘Are you off out?’ Mum said.

‘Yes. I’m meeting Molly.’

‘Pearl, wait,’ Mum said. ‘Come here.’

She held her arms out and smiled, and it was just like it always was with Mum. However unreasonable she’d been, and however much you tried not to forgive her, she’d sort of dazzle you into it.

‘Sorry, love. I shouldn’t have shouted at you before. I’ve got a splitting headache but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I’m a miserable old crone.’

I smiled. ‘Yes, you are.’

‘Do you forgive me?’

I dipped my finger into the bowl of chocolate cake mix on the table and tasted it. It was surprisingly good. ‘Definitely not.’ I leaned over her bump and gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘Put your old lady feet up. Watch some crap telly, will you? Give the poor baby a bit of peace and quiet for once.’

She laughed and took my hand. ‘Stay and have a cup of tea with me before you go.’

‘I really can’t. We’re going to the cinema. Molls has booked the tickets.’

I gave her hand a squeeze. ‘I’ll see you later.’

But I was wrong.

It’s cold in the church. I hide my hands inside my sleeves to keep warm but as the service goes on the chill starts to feel as though it is inside me. I imagine ice crystals forming in my veins. All around me there are people crying, but I can’t feel anything, except cold.

It’s all wrong. Mum would have hated it: the solemn music, the droning voice of the priest. I don’t listen. I’m still trying to work out how I got here: how the world tipped and I slipped out of my comfortable, predictable life and landed here, in this cold, unfamiliar place.

At last it’s nearly over. Everyone’s singing the final, dreary hymn but I can’t join in. I just stand, jaw clenched, wondering why I’m still not crying, 57

CLARE FURNISS

panic rising inside me. Why can’t I cry? Will people notice and think I don’t care? I untuck my hair from behind my ears and let it fall like a long dark curtain around my face. The coffin goes past, all shiny brass and lilies, the smell of them sweet and overpowering. Why lilies? They look so stiff and formal.

Mum loved flowers that grew wherever they pleased. Honeysuckle tangled pink and yellow in hedges. The neon flash of poppies on motorway verges.

And suddenly I know that she’s here. I know that if I look round I’ll see her all alone in the middle of the furthest pew, and she’ll wave and give me a big grin and blow me a kiss, like I’m five and in the infant school Nativity play. My heart pounds till I’m light-headed. My hands are shaking.

I turn round.

I see rows and rows of sombre, dark-clothed people. I stand on tiptoes to see beyond them. Molly’s there with her mum, red-eyed. She sees me looking and gives me a sad smile. I don’t smile back.

The furthest pew is empty.

Outside, the rain has stopped. I stand, breathing in the damp, fresh air, trying not to be noticed while Dad is surrounded by a gaggle of dark-clothed people. A tall woman wearing a hat like a dead crow is telling him how sorry she is. He’s not listening though. I can see his hand edging to his pocket for his phone. He wants to call the hospital to find out how the baby is, I know he does. When he’s not actually with her, which is hardly ever, he phones practically every hour. I can tell he’s panicking about what might happen if he doesn’t. Even now when all he should be thinking about is Mum. I hang back as the group makes its way down the hill, keeping away from all the hat ladies and their sympathy, putting off the silent journey to the cemetery. By the time I get to the shiny black funeral parlour car, Dad’s already inside waiting for me. I look in through the window but I can’t see him properly through the darkened glass, just the shape of him through my own reflection. My face is distorted, long and thin. My eyes, close to the glass, are huge. They’re the one bit of me that looks like Mum. I always wanted her hair. Do you know how much stick I got at school for being a red-head? she’d say. But I did get her eyes: green, dark-lashed. For a moment it’s as if she’s staring back at me through the window.

‘I’ve got to go back,’ I say. ‘I’ve left my umbrella.’ Dad can’t hear 58

me but instead of opening the window he says something back to me; I can make out his lips moving silently on the other side of the glass. For a moment we stare at each other helplessly. He might as well be on the other side of the world.

We’ve always been so close, me and Dad. I hated it when people called him my stepdad. Right from my earliest memories he’s always been my dad.

I didn’t think anything could change that.

I can pinpoint the moment it happened. We were standing next to the baby’s incubator. It was two hours after Mum died.

‘Just look at her,’ he whispered. I didn’t know if he was talking to himself or to me but even though I didn’t want to and my hands were shaking and I felt sick I made myself look.

In my mind I could still see the dimpled, blonde nappy-advert baby I’d imagined when Mum first told me she was pregnant, the baby me and Molly had picked out tiny shoes, dresses and furry sleepsuits with teddy bear ears for.

Then I saw her. And for a split second all I could think of was how when I was five, our cat Soot had kittens. I’d been excited for weeks. I’d told everyone at school and Mum had given me a special book explaining how to look after them. Each night before I went to sleep I’d look at the pictures of those kittens, fluffy, wide-eyed. Then one day Mum took me into the back room and pointed to an open drawer at the bottom of the dresser. And there were these pink, wrinkly little rats squirming blindly and I looked at Mum in horror because I thought there’d been some terrible mistake; but she just stood there smiling and not understanding and I ran out of the room crying because I hated them.

And as I looked down at the mass of tubes, the paper-thin purpleveined skin, the skeletal, alien creature inside the incubator I realised it wasn’t shock making me shake. It wasn’t grief. It was hate.

59

mary green

M

ary grew up in London and Wales, often travelling by train between the two. Train journeys were adventures and ideal for writing stories and poems. Now Mary earns her living by writing, mainly educational books, but also stories and poems. Her picture book in verse, Tiger Tom, is published by Orchard Books and one of her poems, ‘Ms Fleur’, was included in Jacqueline Wilson’s recent anthology, Green Glass Beads.

About Orlando’s Ghosts London 1840. Orlando, a shrewd boy of mixed heritage, and his white friend, Kip, fend for themselves as acrobats on the bleak Victorian streets.

Helped by Mrs Penny, a widow, and Mercury, a black acrobat, the boys constantly outwit the Cudgel who wants them sent to the grubber – the terrifying workhouse.

When an eccentric artist paints and exhibits the boys’ portraits, the Cudgel’s threats escalate, particularly in the presence of a ghostly, cloaked figure. So Orlando and Kip flee, taking with them Mrs Penny’s extraordinary cat, Evangelina.

But who or what is the uncanny figure pursuing them?

What does Orlando’s recurring dream mean?

And will both boys survive?

This picaresque tale of lost children and hidden identities is also the tale of a diverse, multicultural world. allblueingreen@gmail.com / www.authorhotline.com

61

MARY GREEN

orlando’s ghosts A Strange Meeting and Some Old Bones

‘W

e ain’t never going to the grubber, are we, Orlando?’ says Kip. ‘No, we’re never going there.’

‘But what if the Cudgel gets us?’

‘He won’t.’

‘But he might.’

‘He won’t.’

‘But what if he does, though?’

‘If he sends us to the grubber, you know what we’ll do.’

‘We’ll scarper!’ we shout together, and then chant, ‘We won’t go to the grubber! We won’t go to the grubber! We won’t go to the grubber! No! No! We won’t!’

The grubber is always on our minds. It’s the workhouse. They send you there if you don’t have a penny to your name. Not that we’ve ever been in the grubber. But we’ve heard the stories. The grubber is like the fiery furnace of hell. You get swallowed up and burnt. That’s what people round St Giles say. When you go through the great clanging door, they stick you in a sulphur bath. If you don’t peg out, you’re given bread and water and that’s your lot. Everyone round St Giles is afraid of the grubber. So we’ve been very careful to keep away from it.

But we have one big problem – the Cudgel.

He works for the parish officers in St Giles and has a finger in every pie, one pie being the grubber. He’s like a great bull. Kip hardly comes up to his middle. And they say he drinks blood, sells babies and chops people up.

Once, Hetty at The Angel beer shop said to Kip, ‘D’you know why the 62

Cudgel wears a scarlet coat? To hide the blood when he drags your carcass off to the meat market.’ That made Kip’s yellow hair stick up even more than usual.

Kip and me can spot the Cudgel a mile away in his big three-cornered hat. He carries a stick that he doesn’t mind using, and we’re two buzzing flies he wants to swat. The parish officers call him the beadle. We call him the Cudgel, and what he seems to forget is that St Giles is our patch, as much as his.

I was found when I was three or four years old in St Giles church, curled up by the stone angel. I suppose I had a name but it flew out the church and never came back. I was wrapped in a good linen petticoat and on the petticoat was a label. I know the words off by heart: Orlando and Son Ltd. Purveyor of cotton petticoats, knickerbockers and fine linens.

So they called me Orlando.

And how do I know all this? Mrs Penny told me. And I believe her, because she’s a good friend to me and my friend Kip. He was found in the church too, a few years later. Lots of foundlings are. Kip was laid in the font like Jesus in his manger, wrapped in a fur neckerchief and an old newspaper that smelled of kippers. So he got the name Kip. ‘I could eat stew, potatoes and dumplings and a bread pudding all rolled into one,’ Kip says.

‘That’d be nice, but we’re skint, aren’t we?’

Kip usually knows how much we have to the farthing.

‘We’ve got tuppence to be exact,’ he says.

We’re just off the main thoroughfare in a narrow street and though we can hear the hawkers calling out in Drury Lane, there’s no sign of a hot potato seller or a cheap pie man round here. But there’s a chophouse nearby.

If we go by the side door we might get some leftover cutlets for a coin or two, so we turn into the alley. Outside, leaning against the wall chewing tobacco, is a pot man and I know as soon as I clap eyes on him that he’s bad news. But Kip, he’s off before you can say Jack Robinson.

‘Mister,’ he calls.

The man scowls.

‘Mister! Mister!’

‘Clear off!’

63

MARY GREEN

‘Just wondering, Mister, if …’

The man gets up. He’s small but stocky and he’s glaring at us.

‘Move it, ragtag! We don’t like scum round here!’

‘We ain’t scum,’ yells Kip, annoyed. ‘You watch it, Mister, or I’ll give you what for!’ Kip thrusts his tongue out and darts about, egging the bloke on, yelling, ‘C’mon then, c’mon!’

He never learns, Kip. He’ll take a swipe at the bloke without a second’s thought if he gets a chance. But me, I try to keep us out of trouble. So I grab Kip’s collar and pull him back.

‘Leave off Kip! Keep out of his way or he’ll have us.’

‘I was only asking,’ says Kip, wriggling. ‘He got his temper up over nothing.’

But the man moves closer and closer, jabbing a vicious finger in our direction. Then out of the blue he spits at us, a great, nasty glob full of chewed tobacco. It lands with a splat on my boot.

I’m fuming now. I hate spitting. Hate it. Nobody spits at us. I’ll show him. I pick up a stone to throw at his smarmy grin, and I’m about to send it whizzing through the air, when I stop. I know his sort. It’s what he wants.

He’ll call on others to help him. I know if I throw that stone there’ll be a full-scale battle.

But I throw it anyway.

It misses. The bloke snorts. But sure enough, more grisly faces appear in the chophouse doorway. So I bite my lip, hold my temper and take a step back.

‘Excuse me, my good man!’ A woman’s posh voice rings out loud and sharp. We turn round to see a lady waving a frilly parasol. She’s got a pair of large round specs on that make her eyes look like fried eggs, and the feather in her bonnet is flapping about as though it’s about to sail off. Next to her is a gigantic gent with big feet. He’s carrying a large wooden case. He looks like a strong-arm man from the circus.

‘What a spectacle!’ she says, marching towards the pot man, her pink dress and petticoats flouncing about.

She means business.

‘What d’you want?’ says the bloke. He screws up his eyes and stares at her suspiciously.

64

‘I really must protest! Your behaviour, my good man …’

‘My good man,’ he says, mimicking her accent. He looks her up and down and shouts, ‘You can pro-test all you want, do-gooder. I couldn’t give a dosser’s scab!’

All the same, he shifts himself. When he sees his cronies have gone, he goes back to the chophouse and bangs the door shut. But the woman isn’t finished. She raps on the door with her parasol. Her fancy cape is flying and she’s banging fit to burst. Voices shout from inside the chophouse but the door stays firmly shut.

A few people have gathered round to watch and an old beggar doffs his battered hat at the posh lady, but she isn’t interested in him. It’s me and Kip she’s got her eye on. Before we know it, she’s marching over to us with the gigantic fella hurrying after.

‘Would you oblige me, boys?’ she calls.

What’s she after, I think to myself. I glance at Kip and we go to run, but she calls out again.

‘No harm meant! When I saw you, it came to me like a bolt from the blue. You’re just right for the work I have in mind.’

We pause. I know Kip’s thinking like me that we don’t know what she’s on about, but we know the meaning of ‘work’, so there might be a penny or two for us.

She comes over and says, ‘I would very much like you to sit for me.

What do you say?’

We don’t say a word.

‘The two of you – one dark, one light – would make such a charming painting,’ she says slowly and loudly as if we were deaf. ‘Might I draw you?’

Then she turns to the gigantic gent and asks, ‘What do you think, Rickets?’

The gent gives a little wave of his hand and clears his throat. ‘Excellent subjects. May I suggest charcoal, Ma’am?’

‘What do you say, boys?’

‘How much?’ I ask.

‘It depends on how well you sit,’ she says rubbing her hands. ‘Very still: sixpence, still: threepence, fidgety: a penny.’

‘A shilling,’ Kip says touching his forehead politely.

‘A shilling!’ she declares.

65

MARY GREEN

‘We never sit for less than a shilling,’ I fib, backing up Kip. ‘Lots and lots of people want to draw us, Ma’am, you know.’

‘Indeed!’ she says laughing. She pauses for a moment. ‘An extra sixpence it is, but only if you stay as still as that angel.’

She points to a stone angel on top of a pillar. Then she gives a little curtsey and announces, ‘Miss Amelia Jane Tweet at your service. Portrait painter. Speciality: the characters of London. And this is my assistant, Rickets.’

He lifts his hat to us. ‘Now come with me boys. I know just the spot.’

We follow her along the street and turn into a courtyard next to a large building with a swanky entrance. ‘I use this courtyard whenever I want,’ she says. ‘It’s nice and quiet. Wait here boys, while I go to the porter’s lodge.

Rickets, will you assemble the easel and put out the materials please?’

Off she goes to the porter’s lodge and out comes the porter, yawning and rubbing his eyes. I can see her giving him some coins, while Rickets does as he’s told and we wait. Then back she comes. She takes a piece of chalk from a small box and draws a little circle on the ground next to a statue of a man in a long cloak with his head in his hands. She beckons to me. She adjusts my cap and my red neckerchief and then she makes me stand on the circle. I have to lift up my head, put one arm on my waist, stretch out the other one in front of me and look into the distance. Then she makes Kip sit in front of me cross-legged with his head up and his arm out in the same direction. And we aren’t allowed to move a muscle.

In the corner of the yard is Rickets. I fix my eyes on his huge feet to help me keep still, but in truth I can’t take my eyes off them. He keeps tapping them, first the left foot, then the right. His shoes are long, narrow and shiny with leather stitching on the uppers in the shape of a grin, so that I expect a pair of mouths to snap open at any moment and start chattering.

By the time she’s finished, I feel like one of Mrs Penny’s starched shirts.

Me and Kip, we stretch ourselves and groan and stretch and groan some more and my arms are aching so much I have to shake them to get a bit of life back. When we’ve had a good run round, we try and take a peek at the drawing, but she won’t let us.

‘Rickets, what do you think?’ she says.

He looks at the picture from the left, from the right and then he walks around it and looks at it again. Finally he tweaks his chin and clears his throat.

66

‘Miss Amelia,’ he begins, ‘you can make a plain face pretty, a wrinkled face young and a pocked-marked face clear.’ Then he points to me and Kip and says, ‘And you can make angels out of urchins.’

‘Angels?’ I say.

But she claps her hands and calls us over. I stare at the drawing. It’s us all right, but we’ve got enormous wings.

‘What’s them things round our heads?’ says Kip. ‘Halos. The divine light, my dear.’

Kip nods but I can tell he doesn’t understand. Neither do I much.

‘And what’s them in the corner?’

‘Cherubs.’

Kip looks puzzled.

‘Babies with wings,’ she says.

She takes out a shilling from a velvet purse tucked under her cape and puts it in my hand. This seems to be a signal for Rickets to pack up and before we know it they’re leaving. But after a few steps, she stops and turns round.

‘Gallery Gambolini, Red Lion Square, that’s where your portraits will be hung. Mr Gambolini’s Gallery. Remember the name, boys!’

‘What?’ calls Kip. She takes out a pencil and some paper, tears off a bit, writes something on it and gives it to Rickets. Over he comes and with a bow hands me the paper. Since we can’t read, we don’t know what it says and he doesn’t tell us.

Miss Tweet just waves goodbye with her parasol.

For the next five minutes we chase each other round and round the courtyard, whooping in delight and turning cartwheels.

‘Watch this!’ shouts Kip, and he does a perfect somersault. He wakes the porter who swears at us and shakes his fist, but we don’t care. Kip shouts to him. ‘We got a shilling, a shilling! We’re in the money!’

We leave the courtyard and turn down an alley, then down a passageway to get to the main thoroughfare where we’ll find a stall selling food. People rush past and the magpies and crows swirl and squawk.

‘Cor! What a stink!’ says Kip as we reach the top of the passage and the gate by the burial ground.

Kip’s right. Workmen are pulling up the bodies from the graves and 67

MARY GREEN

chucking bones into handcarts to make room for new bodies. It’s the stink of rotting flesh we can smell. There’s a little fire with billows of smoke swirling.

A workman comes out with his load. He twitches and shudders and puts his cart down in front of us.

‘Bones, bones, beautiful bones,’ he mutters. He’d look like a bulldog baring his teeth, if he had any teeth. He crooks his finger at us. ‘Come and have a see, lads. I got all sorts here. Rich and poor, young and old, short and tall.’ He points at the bones. ‘Skulls. Jawbones. Thighbones. Elbows. Hips.

Wrists. Ribs. Take yer pick, lads, take yer pick,’ he cackles.

We back away, and he comes trundling behind with his barrow, mad as a hatter. So we belt up the lane as fast as we can, turn the corner into the street and whack! I can’t believe it – I can’t. We crunch straight into the Cudgel.

68

69

jemma hathaway

A

s a quality assurance assessor, Jemma spends her working days checking for mistakes, whilst secretly wishing she was off creating characters that make them instead. She wrote her first story at infant school about a lonely brown cow and hasn’t stopped writing since – though her protagonists have fewer legs and more dialogue nowadays. Before embarking upon the MA at Bath Spa, Jemma graduated from The Open University with a First-Class Honours degree in English Literature. She has lived and worked all over the UK, from a Cornish fishing village, to the banks of the river Clyde. She now lives in Plymouth, but is moving to central Bristol with her partner in the near future.

About My Not-So-Perfect Life Eleanor Adams isn’t perfect, she’s never even had a boyfriend, though she’s not too worried – because when the right guy comes along, she’ll just know.

Until the shock-horror realisation that maybe she’s not into boys after all.

But El doesn’t want to be different and sets out to make herself utterly the normalest of normal, bag the perfect boyfriend and become Miss Totes Fabulous in the space of one term. And she might pull it off, that is, if she can just stop thinking about school new girl, Rose ... jemmahathaway@hotmail.co.uk

71

JEMMA HATHAWAY

my not-so-perfect life One

T

o say I was horrified wouldn’t be just an understatement. It would have taken a dedicated team of miners and an amphetamine-fuelled mole to determine how utterly far under a statement my horror went.

It happened at my best mate Sassy’s Saturday-Sleepoverama.

This is who was there: Me (obviously), Sassy (more obviously because it was in her bedroom), Brilliant Bex, Other Bex, Fringe, and Sassy’s new next-door neighbour, Irish Rose, who I’d only met that night.

Oh, and, of course, Scruff, the Mexican Red Knee tarantula, who started everything. But he was hardly invited.

Sass made out the sleepover was for us to ‘commiserate the end of the summer holidays together and celebrate starting Year Ten,’ or some other such complete load of rubbish. She just wanted to unveil her bi-annual bedroom transformation.

Ugh. The latest version was totally grown-up, with scatter rugs, whirly artwork and flaky-painted furniture her mum had sourced specifically for her.

‘It’s shabby-chic,’ Sass declared, with flappy-hand flourishes.

It was the absolute opposite of my attic-room/dungeon-in-the-roof which was plain, original shabby, because my bordering-on-mental mother refused to ever redecorate.

We were all in our PJs, lying on our crinkly sleeping bags, on the charcoal-coloured carpet, munching Maltesers and jabbering about going back to purgatory/prison/school.

72

‘If I get double maths on Mondays this year, I may have to kill myself, or whichever sadistical person dreams up the timetables,’ I said, with my most I-am-being-entirely-serious face on.

Sass rolled her eyes. ‘Pringle probably does the timetables. I’d like to see you try and kill our delightful headmistress, El.’ ‘Ha, the Perfects would swarm over you like a scene from the zombie apocalypse,’ said Brilliant Bex, going crunch crunch crunch on a Malteser and showing us all the mushy contents of her giant mouth, then sticking her arms out in front of her, and doing her best I-am-a-zombie impression.

‘The Perfects are the opposite of zombies, though, aren’t they,’ said Other Bex. ‘They’re all gorgeous and none of them are dead.’

She really wasn’t the brightest thing in a box of bright things.

‘Who do you think will get picked this year?’ I asked.

‘Who cares?’ said Fringe. ‘They’re all up-themselves. They act like A-list celebrities, instead of school prefects.’

‘Yeah, right,’ I said, my face all screwed up, as though being one of the Perfects would be a fate worse than, well, the already crap fate I had of living my actual life.

‘Hey, maybe one of us will get chosen,’ said Other Bex, her blue eyes shining. She truly believed it in her slightly empty brain.

‘Yeah, maybe me,’ I said, totally not being serious. But there was an ickle-small part of me that couldn’t help thinking it would be kind of amazing to be someone special.

‘El, the only way you’d get chosen is if there was a virus outbreak and two-thirds of the school population died,’ said Brilliant Bex, with a wink.

It was harsh, but true. The chances of me being picked for the most popular group in the school were slim – minus-infinity.

I blamed my hideous name. Eleanor. My Dad chose it. He named me after a Beatles song about an old dead woman whose funeral nobody could be arsed to attend. It was not the greatest omen.

My (alleged) friends were laughing at me like demented clowns, when the door flew open and Sassy’s rotten gap-toothed kid brother, Ralph, and his two horrible henchmonsters charged in, all hyped-up on Haribo and pure evil.

‘Get out of my boudoir!’ screamed Sass.

73

JEMMA HATHAWAY

‘Make us, make us,’ they squealed, tearing around on their hairless little legs like a trio of mad barrels.

Brilliant Bex leapt up and joined in because she is basically brilliant.

Fringe and Other Bex scrabbled about covering the bare bits of their legs from the rotten boys. I didn’t bother as a) I was in a full-length onesie and b) I was too busy nearly suiciding myself with laughter at Sass saying ‘boudoir’, à la Parisian prostitute.

Rose got up and chucked a sleeping bag over Ralph, wrestled him to the floor, rolled him up in it and plonked down on top of him. I thought it was pretty uber-coolio of her, since she didn’t know any of us, apart from Sass. Ralph looked like one of those squirming witchetty-grub monstrosities they eat on ‘I used to be a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here’, only mutant sized and with an uglier face.

He was saying something but all we could hear was muffly ‘Scrnmn inmn mnnmnn,’ because his gappy little gob was stuffed with sleeping bag.

That’s when we heard the scream.

We studied this painting in Art last year of a wiggly man on a bridge using his face as an accordion. Instead of a regular mouth, he had a gaping ‘O’ that seemed to say, ‘I am bricking it at this precise moment’. If Mr Munch who painted it could have added an explanatory sound effect, it would’ve sounded a lot like the banshee racket coming from Sassy’s Mum. ‘I think your mum’s broken a nail, Sass. Maybe even two,’ I said.

‘Ralph! Why the hell is the tank empty?’ Sass’s mum yelled up their spiral stairs.

Squirm, squirm, squiiirrmmm, went Ralph.

The other two oiks stood huddled near the wall. One of them giggled and pointed, the other one looked and giggled.

We all looked for what they were pointing and looking and giggling about.

I was right beside Rose-atop-Ralph so had a proper good view. I looked in the nickiest of time to see two brown extra-furry pipe-cleaners curl over Rose’s shoulder, followed by a hairy Chocolate Orange with eyes. And six other legs. It crawled over the collar of her PJ shirt and dropped down inside out of sight.

74

‘THERE’S SOMETHING ON ME, THERE’S SOMETHING ON ME!’ Rose shot up like a spluttering geyser.

‘It’s a spider,’ I yelled.

‘It’s Ralph’s tarantula,’ one of the oiks squeaked. ‘He had it in his pocket.’

Other Bex screamed. She slid across her sleeping bag and banged into Fringe, trying to escape. Brilliant Bex chucked her Coke can and it whizzed across the room, slammed into the wall, and fizzed up all over Sass’s plush new carpet.

‘Watch my new stuff!’ she screamed, pulling at her hair and running out.

Rose yanked off the PJ top, sending lethal button-bullets pinging about the place. I swear Fringe would have copped one in the eye if her gargantuan fringe wasn’t hanging in the way.

Ralph was trying to un-sleeping bag himself and rolled right into Rose’s skipping feet. She careered over the top of the brat-filled fajita and landed on top of me.

‘Sorry,’ she said, jiggling and wriggling about. ‘Is it gone, is it gone?’

This was The Moment, the unexpected event that sent me totally ten types of terrified.

Right in front of my actual eyes, I could see, well, everything you can see when someone’s pyjama-top totally isn’t there anymore. I became like one of those Daffy Duck-type cartoon characters from the old aged times, that would get a devil and an angel perched on each shoulder directing their decisions. Look … Don’t Look … Go on look ... Absolutely do not under any circumstances take a look ... Look ... Oh my God. Do. Not. Look! Argh at you, my very own brain.

I figured there must be something full-on wrong with me if I was too busy sort of secretly perving at a girl’s half-naked bod to be the teensiest bit bothered about the mahoosive hairy tarantula prowling up my left leg.

Argh and grrr and eeek and a million other not very good things, I thought.

After a bit, Ralph captured the evil creature in an empty Nutella jar and everyone went back to normal like utterly nothing had happened. Only something had happened. It was possible I had turned into a real-life actual lesbo. But there was no way I was telling anyone. Ever.

75

JEMMA HATHAWAY

Two

I

nstead of spending the Teacher-Training-Monday in the natural way (i.e. sitting on my arse pledging faithful allegiance to King Jeremy-of-Kyle) – I decided I would go to the doctor’s.

I wanted to nab some of the healthcare info for ‘troubled teens’ – the stuff that was supposed to fix all our problems if we had a quick flickthrough during a five-minute wait for an acne prescription.

I snuck down to my local surgery, dressed as though I was about to rob them for medication – head down, hoodie up and my bug-eye sunnies on, even though the sun had done a runner three days before and it was drizzle raining. I didn’t want anyone to recognise me.

I skulked through the doorway into the waiting room, where the decor and furnishings covered every degree of the poo spectrum and my nose was treated to the heady scent of antibac and elderly pre-death. Result! – there was nobody I knew, only a few ancients with walnut-shell faces and the jowly receptionist-type lady, too busy tweezing/torturing her eyebrows to even act interested in me. So I took a seat beside the table with all the leaflets and pamphletty things and had a full-on rummage through the booklets.

‘Shift over’, came this voice, gravelly as our front garden path. I looked up and my stomach sank into my stripy socks. Ugh, argh and meh in equal measure, I thought. It was crotchety Mr Crangle from the Old Folks Home near my house. The oldest man in the history of the known universe who hated anyone who wasn’t as old and crotchety and cow-crap crazy as he was.

‘Why should I?’ I mumbled. There were a thousand free seats in the place. And anyway, I had way more right to be there since I had my whole (possibly doomed) life ahead of me and he was teetering on the cusp of corpse-itude.

‘I always sit there,’ he growled, and whacked me in the leg with his walking stick.

‘Crazy old coot,’ I said, under my breath, whilst his went rattle rattle rattle.

‘I heard that.’ (Erm, weren’t the elderly supposed to be deaf as well as all-round horrible?) ‘You young’uns should be seen and not heard,’ he wittered on. ‘Actually neither seen nor heard would be better. Move it.’

‘Ugh, fine. I was going anyway.’

76

I grabbed a leaflet and vacated his oh-so-precious seat. I’m guessing cataracts prevented him seeing the behaviour of my rogue middle finger as I headed out. Mahahaha in your pinchy face, mental old fart.

When I got home, I tore straight up to my attic hovel and shut the door. I prepared myself for words of wisdom and comfort, courtesy of our lovely helpful National Health Service. I looked at the leaflet.

‘What’s up!?’ – The complete gr8 guide 2 probs 4 teens!

Complete guide. Really? It was six pages. Of A5. I mean bless them for trying and everything, but WTF?! Six small pages in large print for the entire spectrum of all teenage hell? Is it any wonder we supposedly self-harm and bulimically hoard Mars bars under our beds?

Here are the immortal words from page four: Hey! Perhaps you are concerned about your sexuality/sexual orientation? If you are feeling curious, it is nothing to worry about! This is a perfectly natural and normal part of the journey towards becoming an adult!

Erm, firstly, why the smiley?! What was there to smile about? Secondly, what use was that to anyone in the entire world ever?

I stuffed the pointless pamphlet under my mattress and flopped back on my bed, wondering how I had become a possible freak of all nature in the space of one night.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Why in the name of Lucifer’s three-pronged-fork did I not consider it before!? I was almost fifteen full years old – surely I should have had an inkle of an inkling that I could be afflicted with the pox of lesbonia!? In a word ... erm, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! It had never occurred to me that I would be a fancier of the female species. I was waiting for my just right boy. Mr Totes Perfect who at first maybe isn’t, but then a whole heap of craziness happens and it turns out he is The One after all – like in the films. There was no possibility of out-of-giant-nowhere becoming a raging lezza. Bleurgh! It was not part of the plan.

77

eugene lambert

E

ugene grew up in Wolverhampton, a fate worse than cliché. Escaping the clutches of postgraduate academia, he fled to America, only to come scuttling back six years later, disillusioned with how few adjectives they use over there. A bookworm by nature, he always aspired to write, but became trapped in the body (and check shirt) of an engineer. This extended chrysalis phase kept the wolf from the door prior to his metamorphosis as a writer for young adults. When not scribbling away in a cabin at the bottom of his garden in the Cotswolds, he is a keen glider pilot and walker.

Rumours of his being an identical twin are true.

About The Sign of One One is good, two is evil.

A plague of twin births: one human, the other a superhuman clone.

On Wrath, a dump-world for human outcasts, ‘idents’ are feared. Twins only to look at, one child is human, the other a monster with ‘twisted’ blood.

Tested at the brutal Cutting and Unwrapping ceremonies, the penalty for being a Twist is death!

When sixteen-year-old loner Kyle heals impossibly quickly after being blasted by Reapers, he realises he is a Twist. Betrayed, he flees for his life, helped by a girl called Sky, a daring windjammer pilot. To survive, he must confront what he is and who he is. eugenelambert@hotmail.com

79

EUGENE LAMBERT

the sign of one One

T

he Cutting was yesterday. We missed it. Soon as we hit the trail out of our valley, I knew we would. I’ve seen dirtworms slither faster than some of our lot walk. Three bogging days it’s taken us, to get to Deep Six. On my own, I could hike it in one, but that was never going to happen. Out here in the Barrenlands, you go mob-handed and in dayshine, or you don’t go at all. Our wildlife’s too nasty, and there’s always the chance of running into Reapers. It’s a curse, missing the Cutting, but at least we’ve made it to the Peace Fair in time for tomorrow’s Unwrapping ceremony. And, let’s face it, the Unwrapping is what these Fairs are all about.

‘C’mon, Kyle,’ says Nash. ‘Are you done yet?’

The men from our village have cleared off for some catch-up drinking.

The women and the girls have gone to check out the merchants’ stalls. Nash and me, we’ve been stuck with setting up camp and finding fodder for our four-horns. Now we’re supposed to sit tight and look after everything. I don’t think so.

‘Done,’ I say. I hammer the last guy-rope in with a stone.

We head towards the roars of delight from the nearby fairground. I feel sick with excitement and sweat pours off me.

This is my first time.

‘I’m going to tell ’em,’ says Nash, as we queue up.

He’s only a year older than I am, but he’s been to the Peace Fair four times already. We both know I could be flogged for not attending sooner. Soon as you’re ten, the Saviour’s law says you must attend at least once every three years.

‘Give us a break,’ I whine.

80

He sniggers. Such a gommer, Nash.

It’s Rona’s fault. She won’t say why, but she never attends the Fair. She gets away with it because she’s the only healer in Freshwater. Which is fine, I guess, and none of my business. Except, every year, she comes up with some excuse why I can’t go either. Last year, I kicked up. I told her I was going, no matter what she said. Next thing I know, I’m flat on my back with swamp pox, the only dose in any of the three valleys. Rona denies it, but I swear she gave it to me deliberately. You can die from the swamp pox. It’s a miracle I wasn’t scarred for life.

Well, she might be my mother, but I’m sixteen now.

I don’t have to listen to her anymore.

We shuffle forward and hand over our credits. Nash keeps his gob shut. We flash the man our ID tags. For one awful second, I think he’s going to scan them and figure out that mine is fake. I needn’t worry. This is the Barrenlands – he couldn’t care less. He waves us through. We walk under a stone arch and through a dark tunnel to emerge blinking back into warm eveningshine.

‘Something else, ain’t it?’ says Nash.

‘Seriously,’ I say. My gob is hanging open, but I don’t care.

We’re standing halfway up some stone-built terraces, which curve around to form an immense circular arena. But it’s the size of the crowd boiling below me that rips the breath out of my lungs. Honestly, I didn’t know there were this many people on Wrath, let alone in the Barrenlands.

Thousands must be jammed in here, I reckon. From up here, they look like termites as they mill about, checking out the stalls and entertainments. The noise they’re all making is incredible too, a madhouse of hoots and yells and rough laughter. It makes me feel small.

‘Don’t just stand there,’ shouts Nash.

He’s halfway down the steps, his lump of a face shiny and eager.

‘Hang on,’ I say. At the far side of the arena is a stage. With a start, I realise its backdrop is made from cages stacked on several levels. Even from back here, I can see that each cage has two child prisoners inside. I’ve heard about this – the idents are stuck up there on show between Cutting and Unwrapping. We get to gawp at them, and they can’t mess with their wounds without being seen.

81

EUGENE LAMBERT

‘Is that where Unwrapping happens?’ I ask Nash.

‘What do you think?’ he says. Like I said, such a gom.

He plunges into the crowd and I follow as he pushes his way through.

It’s hard, like hanging on to a wriggling swamp eel. All these people! Is there enough air for all of us? I keep bumping into people and saying sorry. Waste of time. Nobody’s bothered, they’re all having too good a time. I step on one woman’s toe and duck, expecting her to lash out, but she just beams at me.

The crowd’s excitement is more catching than swamp pox. My heart starts pounding. Why was Rona so worried about me coming here?

‘Get us some food,’ says Nash.

‘Where from?’ I say, doing my dumb face and peering around.

Nash curses. ‘God, you’re useless. Gimme a credit.’

Normally, I wouldn’t trust a bully like Nash as far as I could spit, but I toss him the coin and he disappears into the crowd. I hang about, taking it all in. People are here from all over. Most are thick-fingered grubbers like us, but I see some hunter and scavenger folk too. The locals are easy to spot, their pale miner faces scrunched up against the sun. I see nearly as many women wandering around as men, some of them wearing flowers in their hair, to mark the midsummer.

Nash reappears, cheeks bulging, grease running down his chin. He tosses me something steaming wrapped in a purple leaf, then heads back for drinks.

By the time he returns, I’ve wolfed the food down and am licking my fingers.

‘You’re not supposed to eat the leaf,’ he sneers.

‘Oh,’ I say. It was chewy.

He hands me a beaker of froth. ‘Get this down your neck.’

I watch as he takes a long pull from his own beaker. His eyes water, but he doesn’t drop dead or anything so I take a sip from mine. It’s strong beer and tastes foul, but he’s watching so I smack my lips and pretend to like it.

‘Rona’d kill me if she saw me drinking this.’

‘Rona ain’t here.’

After a few mouthfuls, I get used to the bitterness. We wander around the merchants’ stalls, sipping our drinks, chatting and gawping. To look at us, you’d think we were mates. I even cough up for a second round of beer.

After I finish that, I feel all floaty.

I can’t stop smiling, even at strangers.

82

‘Y’know, Nash, you’re not a complete gommer.’

He doesn’t hear, which is just as well.

We bump into girls from our valley – Vijay, Mary and Mary’s little sister, Cassie. They insist on tagging along. After a while, I realise we’re near the stage and that wall of cages. Nash and the girls push on to watch some jugglers, but I see two pale faces peering from the nearest cage and hang back.

Hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

Both girls have exactly the same cropped red hair, the same brown eyes, the same lips pulled down at the corners. One face, two times. Idents.

Despite the muggy air, I shiver. Their own mother couldn’t tell them apart.

Good-looking girls, it’s just …

There are two of them.

I make the Sign of One, the sign against evil.

‘Oh, stop,’ says Nash, back at my elbow. ‘Don’t go all pious.’

Mary and Vijay snigger, safe behind him. Cassie giggles nervously. I shake my head, feeling stupid. The cage looks solid enough and is covered in a thick wire mesh. Both girls have iron leg shackles. They’re going nowhere.

Anyway, neither looks that evil to me, just scared.

‘See the bandages,’ says Nash, pointing.

Further along, two identical boys stand in their cage, gripping the bars. I can see their forearms, bandaged from yesterday’s Cutting. I see too that both bear the tell-tale mark of the ident, the little finger missing from their left hands. And these lads look more like it – like they’d rip your head off, soon as look at you.

I glance back at the redheads, but they see me looking.

Even though I’ve paid good money to be here, I have to look away.

I suppose I’m embarrassed. I know these girls are freaks, put on show for our amusement, but it still feels wrong to stare at them as if they’re cattle.

It just does …

‘C’mon,’ says Nash, ‘I’ll show you something better.’

He heads off.

‘Wait,’ I say. ‘Those girls. The redheads.’

Nash stops and stares, obviously not bothered in the slightest that they see him looking. ‘Yeah. Cute. What about them?’

‘Which do you think is the evil one?’

83

EUGENE LAMBERT

Nash stares at me now, like I’m some dribbling idiot.

‘My money’s on the redhead,’ he says. ‘Oh wait – they’re both redheads!’

He slaps his forehead, which sends Vijay and Mary into fits of laughter.

‘Look, we’ll find out tomorrow at the Unwrapping, won’t we? Now are you coming, or what?’

I let them drag me away.

But seeing the cages and the look on those girls’ faces dents my mood.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still buzzing, and maybe a little drunk, but I’m not so dazzled now by everything I see. Maybe that’s why I start noticing faces in the crowd that aren’t red and shiny with having a good time. I nudge Mary and point out one woman. She’s got a little boy by the hand. To look at her long, grey face, you’d think she was at a funeral, not a fair. Her brat looks fed up too.

‘You can’t please some bogging people,’ I say.

Mary winces, surprising me.

‘The Saviour giveth, the Saviour taketh away,’ she says, quoting our preacher, old Fod. ‘Even idents have families.’

Cassie catches up and grabs my hand. She’s shaking.

‘Hey, what’s up?’ I ask her.

‘I’m glad there’s only one of me,’ she whispers.

Two

‘Y

ou just wait till you see this thing,’ says Nash, with a weird laugh.

‘Will it be scary?’ squeaks Cassie, her brown eyes wide.

Nash leads us out of the crowd, over towards an alcove set deep into the stone wall of the arena. As we get closer, I see wrist-thick iron bars, which seal this space off and turn it into yet another cage. A torn canvas awning flaps above it, filling the interior with scuttling shadows. Off to one side, a sun-scorched old man sits cross-legged on a mat, watching us. Sharpeyed kids are hanging about.

‘Is it some wild animal?’ I ask Nash.

‘Wait and see.’

One brat is slow getting out of our way, so Nash shoves her aside. I expect screeching and swearing, but this girl hardly notices. She keeps staring at the cage, her grubby face a muddle of fright and teeth-bared anticipation.

84

Weird. All I see inside is a heap of rags and bones.

Only then the rags and bones move.

The rags are rags, but those bones still have skin on them. As my eyes adjust, I see a claw-like hand, clutching the rags around a filthy, wasted body. A skull-like head lifts to regard us.

‘Oh – my – Saviour!’ I gasp. I make the Sign of One again.

I’ve never seen a real live Twist before and my guts tie themselves into cold knots. Idents, I’d expected to see, I wanted to see. But this monster with twisted blood – this I’m not ready for. I take several steps back, despite myself.

Cassie pulls her hand free, turns and runs. Don’t blame her.

Nash sneers, but I’m not fooled. He can act tough, but he’s eyeing those bars same as me, gauging their strength.

He’s scared too. Who wouldn’t be?

The bane of Wrath, the devil in human form.

Those iron bars are the only reason we still have throats.

I force myself forward. A breeze shifts the awning and shadows scatter.

I see the mad hatred in the creature’s bloodshot eyes as it watches me. I’m so close now, its stink gets up my nose. The Twist’s skin is covered in muck and angry red blotches, its waist-length hair filthy and matted. I thought I was skinny, but this thing is skin and bone. Male or female? Impossible to say.

It hisses at me like a rock-viper and I see its teeth are filed to sharp points.

Nash elbows me, scaring the crap out of me.

‘They always have it here.’

I nod, not trusting myself to speak. Growing up in the Barrenlands, you’d think I could handle fear. Not this though – this is a special terror.

This is our bogeyman. Behave, or the Twist will get you! Seeing this monster is like seeing my worst nightmares made flesh. I shudder. One of those redhead ident girls would end up like this, if it weren’t for the Cutting and Unwrapping.

‘You scared, boy?’ asks the Twist’s keeper, the old bloke.

‘No,’ I say, wincing.

‘Y’ought to be.’

He cackles, pulls a stiff leather wand from his belt and rasps it along the bars. The effect is horrifying. One moment the Twist is a slumped bundle of rags, the next it lets out this blood-curdling scream, bounds to its feet, 85

EUGENE LAMBERT

hurls itself forward and smashes into the bars. A skeletal arm shoots out, sends bony fingers clawing for the old man’s throat. Just in time, he steps back out of range.

It happens so fast – inhumanly fast.

Behind me, I hear the children’s delighted shrieks.

86

87

kim lloyd

K

im lives on the beautiful Dorset coast with her six-year-old daughter.

She has lived abroad in Saudi Arabia (as a child), Greece (as a teenager) and Wales (as a radio newsreader) and believes this colourful past has helped hone her people-watching skills.

A broadcast journalist by trade, she now prefers inhabiting imaginary worlds and thinks writing for young people the best way to do this.

About The Last Time I Cried Fifteen-year-old Cadence Lamb has a pretty name, but she doesn’t have a pretty life. Home is a grim tower block with an alkie mother and her latest cruel boyfriend, Daddy Dave. The only person Cady truly cares about is her little brother Nate. One night, she steals her new foster mother’s car and crashes, injuring herself so terribly there is no way back to normal life.

Cady is sent to a special rehab centre and her life begins to change in ways she never expected. From negotiating bends in a wheelchair to falling in love with an older man, Cady finds happiness when she least expects it and friendships in the unlikeliest places. But before she can be truly happy, she must face up to a terrible truth and learn to come to terms with her past.

The Last Time I Cried is a life-affirming story, funny and painful, sad and hopeful. It’s about a girl’s struggle to find her place in a life forever changed. kimlloyd76@hotmail.com

89

KIM LLOYD

the last time i cried One

E

verything slows down before it happens. Even though the car is going too fast, way too fast, there are a few seconds when the world goes still.

I guess it’s what people mean when they say your life flashes before your eyes.

There is time to think. Time to realise what’s about to happen.

Time to be sorry.

I see the road black and slick with rain, the line of trees, way too close.

And then the seconds of stillness are gone, the car speeds up again, the tyres screech and there’s a stink of burning rubber.

I hear a smashing sound and a scream.

And then there is nothing.

Two Then …

I

am thirteen-and-a-half when Leah Matthews punches me in the face.

So far, I’ve been largely ignored by her gang; apart from a few muttered ‘goth girl’ comments in the corridor, they have more important things to worry about.

Like cutting off Alison Wheddon’s hair with a Stanley knife.

But one Tuesday afternoon I head for the loos and as the door swings open, the first thing I see is Leah leaning against the cracked porcelain sink.

90

Her dark hair’s scraped back hard from her face, her brown eyes ringed with heavy black liner.

She’s in there with two of her hangers-on, Jade (fat and dumpy) and Ashleigh (face three shades too orange). From the way they all move as one to stand in front of me, I know it’s my turn to be Alison Wheddon.

I try for casual. ‘Hey,’ and keep walking, but Leah blocks my way to the cubicle.

‘Hey, bitch.’ She says this like she’s a thirty-year-old gang member in LA instead of a thirteen-year-old school kid.

She stands there, unsure what to do next. The others shift uncomfortably.

Then her face brightens as a thought occurs to her.

‘Hey, aren’t you the one with a drunk slag for a mother?’

With those few words she hits home. I know I should just nod and agree.

But something in me just won’t let that happen.

So instead I say, ‘Aren’t you the one with a kiddie fiddler for a father?’

‘Whaddid you just say?’ She gets in my face, though I can tell she’s shocked. This is new territory for her. Someone daring to answer back.

She’s giving me the chance to take it back, to grovel. But I see plenty of grovelling at home. I choose a different way.

I speak really slowly, my last chance at keeping my face intact slipping away. ‘Your. Dad’s. A. Kiddie. Fiddler.’

Before I have a chance to move, her hand shoots up and grabs a fistful of my hair. I feel it ripping out at the roots as she yanks my head to one side.

I shove her as hard as I can, but she stays hanging on, taking me with her as her back slams into the sinks.

Shouts of ‘Get her’ from the other two, but they stand well back.

I’m vaguely aware of the door swinging open and a shocked face retreating. Thanks for the help, whoever you are.

Leah is momentarily distracted by the door and I land a punch in her rib area and hear her make a kind of ‘Euuuuuughhhh’ sound. And then her fist lands straight in my face.

I reel backwards, seeing stars (I never knew that really happened) and brace myself for the next punch, but there’s a teacher there, holding her back, shouting about what a disgrace we are and there’ll be suspensions.

91

KIM LLOYD

I concentrate on trying to catch the blood that’s pouring from my nose.

After lunchtime we are taken to see the Head, Mrs Parsons.

My nose is still throbbing and the front of my sweater’s brown and stiff with dried blood.

As I sit trying to ignore Mrs Parsons’ yammering about respect and dignity, I really want to ask why she’s bothering. Most of us will be on benefits or knocked up by the time we’re sixteen.

Apart from Alison Wheddon, who actually turns up for lessons and does her homework.

That’s why she got her hair hacked off.

Leah shoots me a sly look and says, ‘Miss, Cady attacked me, my ribs are killing.’

A brief flicker of surprise crosses Mrs Parsons’ face.

‘Cady?’ That’s all she says. And I look at Leah, the challenge in her eyes.

‘Yes, Miss. I hit her first.’

Mrs Parsons looks hard at me, not quite believing my confession.

I’m just about to give her some details, a motive maybe (she got off with my boyfriend) when the door opens and Mrs Parsons looks over our heads at the person behind us.

‘Mrs Lamb, thanks so much for coming in.’

It’s like a horror film when you’re afraid to look but you just have to. I slowly turn my head and there she is. Andrea.

She puts on her simpering voice, reserved for people in better jobs than hers (just about everyone). ‘Oh, no problem, Mrs Parsons, and it’s Miss Lamb.’

Leah’s looking from Andrea and back to me, grinning and shame stabs through me, flushing every part of me hot and red.

But she’s come. And she’s sober. It’s two in the afternoon; I can’t believe she’s not slurring her words and staggering.

And then I remember. She’s in New Man Mode. Usually lasts about two weeks, involves pretending to be sober (most of the time), talking to me and Nate in this fake-nice voice and laughing way too loud at everything New Man says.

The ‘He’ this time is Dave. She met him down the bowling alley last 92

month. He’s already given her a split lip and chipped her tooth. He has a wolf ’s face and looks at me like you should look at your girlfriend, not your girlfriend’s daughter.

I watch Mrs Parsons pretend not to notice Andrea’s tight PVC skirt, her mottled legs and stick-thin arms. Make-up plastered on too thick, like it could ever contain all her sadness.

Leah gets sent to wait outside and Mrs Parsons offers Andrea a seat.

‘Miss Lamb, there’s no point beating about the bush. We’re concerned about Cady’s behaviour.’

Andrea widens her eyes as if I’m a model child at home. ‘Well, I’m really shocked.’ She turns to me.

‘Cady … fighting … why?’

Her bottom lip, still scabby from Dave’s backhander, wobbles and I want to stand up and applaud.

Then a weird thing happens.

I see my mother.

I really see her. For a few seconds, beneath the too-thick make-up and the stench of mouthwash, I see the woman I used to call Mum. And I realise she really is upset.

It’s not an act.

But it’s too late for her to care.

So I push back my chair and walk out of the room, slamming the door behind me, ignoring the muffled sounds of Andrea calling my name and Mrs Parsons saying, ‘We’re not finished here, young lady.’

I run down the corridor and bang out of the double doors at the end.

Sitting on the wall, smoking, is Leah.

We stare at each other like two cats sizing each other up before the fur starts flying.

She gets down off the wall and slouches over.

I will myself not to flinch as she comes right up to me.

But all she does is hold out her cigarette.

‘Wanna drag?’ She’s smaller than me, but her face looks so old.

‘Sure.’ I take the cigarette and we sit on the wall together.

‘Does it hurt?’ She points at my nose, which I can feel swelling by the minute.

93

KIM LLOYD

‘Nah, not really.’ I sniff, trying not to wince at the agonising pain that shoots up into my head.

The double doors bang open and Andrea comes out. She doesn’t see us at first and starts foraging for something in her bag. I’ll bet money it’s one of her mini bottles of vodka.

Then she spots me and I see she’s been crying, her cheeks stained with black mascara tracks.

I hand the cigarette back to Leah, making sure Andrea sees it first.

I don’t speak as I head towards Andrea, but Leah calls, ‘See ya.’

Three

I

’m at the bottom of a deep, dark lake. I’m cold and naked. My feet are planted in the mud and slimy weeds are wrapped around my ankles. I look up and see sunlight touching the water above but I have no idea how to reach the surface.

I try to kick off from the bottom, but the weeds are pinning me there, my legs useless. I claw at them with my fingers, my lungs close to bursting. Suddenly, the weeds fall away and I am floating free in the water. I try to swim up but my legs hang, useless beneath me. I flail my arms, propelling myself upwards, dragging my legs behind. My head breaks the surface and I am dazzled by white light, gasping for breath.

Then I open my eyes.

Now …

I

don’t wake up straight away. Not properly. The first time I open my eyes, all I see is bright light and it’s too much. My eyelids flutter closed.

Hours, maybe days, later I try again, but it’s like my eyes are glued shut. I can hear machines whirring and bleeping. Something’s stuck up my nose and I can smell antiseptic.

It’s the smell of visiting Andrea when she was near the end.

Hospital. That’s where I am. Another smell fills my nose. Sickly sweet and overpowering. Perfume.

Bit by bit, I piece together the sounds. Not just machines but people.

Rubber soles squeaking on the floor. Hushed crying nearby. Soft voices I 94

can’t quite hear, like when background music’s playing but you can’t tell what the song is.

One voice is a bit louder than the others. A woman’s. My brain joins the smell of perfume and the voice together. It’s Joy. She is speaking close by my ear, saying the same kinds of things over and over. Ridiculous, soap-opera things like, ‘Come back to us, Cady’ and ‘Don’t you dare give up on me.’

If I wasn’t half-dead, I’d laugh.

I try extra hard to open my eyes. I want to tell her to shut up. That no one talks like that in real life. And that the smell of her perfume is making me want to throw up.

But the words stay swallowed.

95

nicola lush

N

icola lives in a Somerset village with her family, two dogs, a cat, a horse and several hens, who all wander into the kitchen in search of crumbs and a leading role in her picture books and early readers. Except the horse, who still can’t negotiate the front door.

She grew up in Ireland, graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, worked for the Abbey Theatre and for Durban Arts in South Africa, before moving to London. She worked for the BBC for many years and now reviews children’s books for Booktrust.

About Rolo’s Tales: Ella the Yella Ella the Yella is the first in a series of early readers about Rolo, an egotistical, exuberant spaniel, faced with entirely normal, but life-changing events – the arrival of a new baby in this case. When the story opens, Rolo is still the youngest, most loved, and most cuddled member of the household. He needs lots of food, fun, sleep and walks. The arrival of brand-new baby Ella is a catastrophe, threatening Rolo’s central position. And the regularity of his meals. Jack and Kate find there is less time for them too as Mum and Dad are constantly exhausted and forgetful. The only one unaffected by Ella seems to be Minniepusspuss. But Rolo knows she is an evil baddy who is up to no good. Can Rolo save the day and prove that he really is top dog? nicola@mccrum.uk.net

97

NICOLA LUSH

rolo’s tales: ella the yella Chapter one

‘Y

ummy yum, bacon,’ I shout, as the best smell in the world swirls into my basket. In an instant I am up and awake, singing my 'Good Morning' song to the world. Dad opens the door into the garden. He has a mug of tea for Mum who is still asleep in her basket. What a dozy mum she is these days.

‘Out you go, Rolo,’ he says, patting my head. ‘Jack, Kate, time to get up,’ he shouts upstairs.

Jack and Kate are my little people. Sometimes Mum calls them Please Hurry Up and Do Stop Arguing. And Dad calls them Let Go of Her Hair and Blow Your Nose.

My name is Rolo. ‘He looks like a ball of chocolate,’ Jack said, when I came to live here. Jack is my best friend in this family. He likes the same things as me: food, running about, food, getting muddy, food, sleeping and more food. These are the most important things in the world. And I am the most important member of our family as I am the youngest. So I am the most loved and the most cuddled.

Now that I am wide awake, I run about in the garden singing to my friends in the road. Albert-Afghan lives three doors down. People think he is really handsome with his long golden hair. But he hates all the brushing and combing. Albert wants to roll in puddles like me, but his Mum never lets him.

‘Hey Albert, are you taking your kids to school today?’ I shout.

‘Yeah Rolo, catch you later, man,’ says Albert. ‘Gotta huge bowl of milk and pops to munch now. Need to focus on not getting my beard all soggy so Ma don’t have to get out that spiky comb.’

98

Next I sing to Lara-labradoodle in number 5.

‘Lovely Lara, rise and shine. I hope someday that you’ll be mine.’

‘Hi honey,’ trills Lara, ‘I’m sending you a big slurp over the wall. You keep your cuddles all for me and no chatting up Polly-poodle in the park.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ I shout. Polly-poodle is a nitwit. She doesn’t like chase-the-crisp-packet or jump-the-bench or dive-in-the-bin. She just stares at me with her big puddle-eyes. I would never prefer perfect Polly to lovely Lara.

Old Mrs Grumbley bangs her clanky back door and stumps down her path. Mrs Grumbley always looks cross. Mrs Grumbley always sounds cross.

She shouts: ‘Will you be quiet, you noisy dog!’

Even though I sing ‘Good Morning Mrs Grumbley’ very politely, Dad calls me back inside.

‘Morning Jack, my friend,’ I say, as I give Jack’s knees a quick slurp.

Sometimes I find tasty spills there.

‘Hurumppph,’ says Jack. He doesn’t talk much in the mornings but he sneaks a crispy crust under the table to me. Then I hear my favourite sound – the clank of my shiny food bowl.

‘Yippee, it’s breakfast time!’

I munch my doggy chunks in double-quick time so I can rush back to sit beside Kate, while she eats her breakfast. There might be chewy gooey bacon rind. Oh yum.

Kate is wearing her blue school dress with white socks and shiny black shoes. They are so shiny that I can see my face in them. When I put my head on her knee, Kate says: ‘Don’t do that Rolo, you’ll crumple my dress.’ But she gives me her bacon rind so I forgive her.

‘I hope you’re not feeding that greedy dog,’ says Mum, coming downstairs. I roll on my back and wave my paws in the air to make Mum laugh. Then she won’t notice my mouth is full of bacon.

Dad cooks Friday breakfasts these days. Mum used to do it, but recently she’s stopped eating much breakfast. No more bacon. No more muesli and banana. She just picks at bare toast. But she’s getting fatter and fatter.

‘How’s that plum in your tum?’ asks Dad, patting Mum’s middle.

‘There’s a baby growing in there,’ he tells Jack and Kate. Dad’s so funny.

Why would there be a baby in Mum’s tummy? I know all about babies from 99

NICOLA LUSH

Albert-Afghan. He has Clara Cry Baby living in his house. Albert says she is stinky and noisy and horrible. We don’t want a baby here. It must be one of Dad’s silly jokes.

After breakfast Mum goes into the loo and says BLEUGGHHH and HUUUUUGGH and WHUUUUUCK. Then she sits at the table with a glass of water, looking pale.

‘Poor Mum,’ I say, putting my head on her knee. ‘I was sick when I ate a mouldy pie in the park. You must be eating lots of mouldy pies as you’re often sick in the mornings.’

Mum gets up slowly to start the Get Ready Game.

‘Come on kids, we’re leaving in five minutes. Get Ready now!’

Jack pours himself more cereal. I pounce on his school tie. I like its chewy food splodges.

‘Where’s my hairbrush?’ asks Kate, through a mouthful of toothpaste.

Kate has three hairbrushes: a red one, a purple one and a sparkly silver one.

She is always looking for them as she loves brushing her hair. I’ve buried the red one in the garden in the big tomato pot, the purple one is under my blanket but I don’t know where the sparkly silver one is. When she finds it, she brushes her hair one hundred times and spends ages choosing a hairband. I like chewing springy hairbands.

‘The time is 8.30,’ says the radio man, so Dad picks up his rucksack.

He gives Mum a big squishy hug and slurps Jack and Kate on top of their heads. Jack wipes his head with Kate’s school jumper. Kate squishes Dad’s knees hard.

‘Almost time to go,’ says Mum, after Dad has banged the door. But my small people aren’t at all ready.

‘Which hairband shall I wear?’ asks Kate. ‘The yellow one with stars or the lime green one?’

Jack grunts and puts his bowl in the dishwasher. He walks round the kitchen saying ‘Where’s my bag?’ and ‘I need a snack for break’ and ‘I really need a poo’ and ‘Why do we never have chocolate snack bars?’ and ‘Have you washed my football kit?’ and ‘Can Josh come round after football?’ and ‘I’m still hungry, I need toast …’

I play the Chasing My Tail game by the door. Mum doesn’t like this.

‘Stop it Rolo, you’re going to trip me up,’ she says. ‘Hurry up kids!’

100

I am being extra helpful, so I stop chasing my tail and have a good scratch instead. I like a good scratch.

‘We’re going to be really, really late,’ says Mum. ‘I’m ready,’ Kate says, picking up her schoolbag. She clips on my lead, so I can show her where to go.

‘Jack!’ Mum shouts. ‘We’re leaving NOW!’ And she walks out of the door with Kate and me. I quickly go in front, though they keep saying ‘HEEL’. I don’t like this word. I don’t know why Mum says it, as I am the leader. It’s my job to go in front.

I can hear Jack playing the Catch Up game. He is always late, so he has to lock the big blue door. Mum looks round as we pass the red postbox: ‘Catch up Jack, oh do catch up.’ Jack runs up at top speed, chucks the keys at Mum and grabs my lead. Kate screeches.

‘Come on Rolo,’ he laughs. When the cars have stopped, we run over the stripy crossing into the park. Jack takes off my lead and throws sticks for me. Sometimes he finds a burst ball to throw. Sometimes I find old chewy lunch. I’m an excellent chewer. I chew pens and slippers and crusts and gloves and bones and socks and hats and chair legs. But sizzling, salty chips are my favourite things to chew. Oh yum.

We walk right across the park through black spiky gates and down a road full of big people and buggies, girls in blue dresses and boys with grey shorts. At the school gate, I rush up to my friend Pete-the Peke. Pete and I pull on our ropes. We want to play in the park.

This is Friday, the special day when Mum doesn’t clatter on the computer in her office. This is the day Pete and I have fun. On Fridays, after my small people disappear into that big, brown brick building called school, my Mum and Pete’s mum, do Fit Club in the park with Mr Mikey Muscle.

‘I want to come to Fit Club,’ Jack says, showing Mum his muscles which are like boiled eggs.

‘Me too,’ says Kate. Hers are like marbles.

Jack and Kate would like Fit Club. They would be much better than Mum. Especially Jack. All Mum does is stretching, jogging on the spot and throwing purple balls at Pete’s Mum, Charlotte. If they drop the ball, Pete and I try to catch it.

Mr Mikey Muscle doesn’t like Pete and me because we have caught 101

NICOLA LUSH

lots of his purple balls. When I catch one, I run across the park to the doggy playground. Or I pretend it’s Deadly Enemy Minniepusspuss, sink my teeth into it and shake it about until it’s dead. What fun. Minniepusspuss was part of this family before me. She has ouchy sharp claws and she is an evil baddy. Jack told me all about evil baddies so I know she is one.

When Mum and Charlotte are pink and puffy at the end of Fit Club, they take us to the cafe. Jack and Kate would like this too. Especially the muffins.

The café garden is for nice people with dogs. Sad people without dogs have to sit inside. It’s stuffy inside. It’s much better to have a dog so you can sit in the garden.

Mum’s stopped eating muffins at the café, so Pete and I sit beside Charlotte instead. But Mum looks like she’s hiding a hundred muffins in her tummy. I wonder what’s happening to Mum and her tummy? Something odd is definitely going on …

102

103

christine macfarlane

B

orn in Liverpool, the eldest of four, Chris spent part of her childhood in Malaysia. She now lives in the West Country with her husband and children. A primary school head teacher for ten years, she says nothing beats writing. ‘It is the most wonderful thing to do. Just you and a story, how good is that?’

About A Girl Called Harry Following the Jimmy Savile scandal, this teen-fiction novel shows that when power is abused, young people can fight back and win.

Harriet Briscoe is sixteen and lives with her younger brother, Sam, and their gran. Her parents separated after Sam was born; her mother later died.

Gran, who’s been the constant grown-up in the small family, suffers from senile dementia and Harry becomes her carer. Harry and her best friend, Jess, are fans of Mike Janesson, drummer in a rock band who has a popular TV show in which he helps out vulnerable children. Harry is invited to this show with other young carers. On their visit to Studio Five, Harry picks up on a darker, more sinister side to the drummer and teams up with the boy next door to save Jess from disaster. Many adults she asks for help don’t believe her. When all seems lost, she finds that her father hasn’t quite abandoned them.

This story is about the abuse of power. It’s also about trust, friendship, and having the courage to stand up and fight for something that’s really important to you. chris_macfarlane@fastmail.co.uk 105

CHRISTINE MACFARLANE

a girl called harry Drummer

T

he camera pans slowly round him. I see his back first, head down and almost invisible from this angle, hair flying. Powerful shoulders are lifted and his arms, strong, bronzed and glowing with moisture, move up and down at an impossible speed.

The camera is at his side now. He leans forward, legs firmly apart, braced and balanced while his upper body is like a ballet of its own. His foot beats up and down on the floor pedal.

Now the camera’s in front of him, view straight on. His entire body is dancing on the spot, fast, rhythmical. One moment his head’s flung back, eyes closed as he inhabits some place deep inside the music. The next moment he’s bringing the riff to a close and his body shudders into slow motion. Then, as the drumming stops, he thrusts his face forward at the camera and opens those ice-blue eyes.

I shiver. He’s amazing and he’s strong, not brute strength but such controlled use of passion and power.

‘Wow,’ says Jess. ‘How cool is that, Harry?’

‘Wicked,’ I whisper.

Jessica’s blonde hair hangs like a curtain hiding her face.

‘He’s got to be more than just Crush of The Month,’ says Jess. ‘He’s actually “It”, isn’t he?’

We stare at the screen of her laptop and at the frozen frame of Mike Janesson, centre stage.

106

One Onto the Rocks Below

‘H

ey, what the hell’s been going on in here?’ I shout. The kitchen’s in chaos. Two eggs are smashed on the floor, another’s broken into the sugar bowl. The gas is on, burnt butter is smoking away in a pan, there’s flour dusting everything, some in a sieve but most on the floor. The oven door’s open wide but it’s cold and each shelf is lined with rows and rows of empty cupcake papers. Someone’s been playing at baking.

I turn off the gas and I’m just about to shout for Sam to get himself in here and clean up when I look again, carefully. It’s chaotic all right, but it looks odd too, all the right ingredients for cakes but in the wrong places.

Sam would have just made an ordinary, yucky mess. He’d have dropped a bit of this and that, mixed all the stuff, put it in the oven and not bothered with the washing up.

Slowly a scary thought is growing. I check everything again: three eggs, flour, sugar, butter, yes, and milk over there. The bottle’s still out of the fridge. I even count the number of cake cases. Gran usually makes about two dozen. There are twenty-four, exactly.

I check my watch. It’s nearly five and Sam’s not home from school.

He’s got football, I’d forgotten. That’s when I have to admit that this ‘baker’ is not my ten-year-old brother but our seventy-five-year-old gran. I get the usual sick, sinking feeling and then a wave of panic hits me in the throat. I feel that I’m standing at the edge of a cliff and that any moment something quite small and insignificant is going to push me over onto the rocks below.

Oh Gran, please don’t lose your marbles, not yet. I lean heavily against the worktop. Haven’t I known it for a while? Haven’t I just been putting off admitting it? My eyes well up. How much more unfair can life be? Darling Gran, she’s tried so hard for us since Mum died, always there, always in charge. I stand in the kitchen, gazing at this pathetic mess which has stopped me in my tracks, something much more serious than another ‘Gran’s bad-hair day’.

I try not to cry and count slowly to ten. I start to breathe out and jump as the doorbell rings. Sam shouts through the letterbox.

107

CHRISTINE MACFARLANE

‘Sorry, Harry, left my key at home.’

I open the door for him and give him a hug. It’s not his fault the kitchen’s in chaos and Gran’s losing it and Jess’ll be over any minute and I’m still in my uniform on a Friday evening. He soon gets the vibes though.

‘What’s the matter, Harry?’

He follows me into the kitchen and his eyes nearly pop out.

‘Wow! What’ve you been up to then?’

‘Me?’ I explode. ‘It’s not me, Sam, and if it’s not you, then it must be Gran.’

‘Double-wow’, he whispers and we stand there together surveying the scene.

‘She doesn’t mean to …’ I pause. I wonder now, looking at the mess, if it’s OK to leave Gran in the house by herself? I think about gas and electricity and stuff like hot irons and kettles.

Without any warning, Sam turns round and hugs me.

‘Don’t worry, Harry, she probably forgot that she started cooking.

She’ll be fine tomorrow.’ He looks up at me through his mud-smudged glasses. ‘Won’t she?’

‘Course she will,’ I say. Gran does have some perfectly normal days.

Though not that many lately, if I’m honest.

‘Let’s leave it for now Sam, hey? Jess’ll be here soon.’

‘Great!’ He charges off through the house calling ‘Hiya Gran, Friday, Jess’ll be here in a minute, want to turn the telly on?’

I look round again and get that same feeling of vertigo. I start to tidy up but it isn’t long before the doorbell rings again.

‘Sam, open the door?’ I call.

He’s already there. Sam adores Jess. Everyone does and that’s because she’s very adorable. She’s blonde, blue-eyed and beautiful, though maybe a weeny bit ditsy, sometimes.

Jess and I started nursery together and we’ve shared so much ever since: starting school, holidays together, moving up to ‘big’ school, staying with her family when Mum was ill.

I step across the flour-covered floor, turn on the kettle and pull four mugs onto a tray. I call out to Jess: ‘Hi Jessie, just making tea for us.’

108

‘It’s OK, Harry, Sam’s looking after me.’ The hallway fills with Jess’s laughter and I immediately cheer up.

Gran’s in her usual armchair, chatting to Jess. She seems fine. Sam puts the TV on.

‘Budge up, you two,’ I say and put the tray on the table.

‘Tea for you, Gran?’ I pass a mug over to her. She lifts her face and smiles up at me. I lean over and kiss her soft, delicate cheek. Her fluffy crown of thick silver hair brushes my face. It smells of herbal shampoo.

‘Cakes in the oven, Gwen.’ Gran often calls me by my mother’s name, but today she doesn’t correct herself.

‘It’s Harriet, Gran.’

Her watery blue eyes gaze up at me over the rim of her mug.

‘Get us a cake, love.’

‘They’re not quite done yet, Gran,’ I say. Jess looks across at me.

‘Everything OK?’ she whispers. I nod and mouth to her, tell you later.

‘Come on, Harry, sit down, it’s starting,’ says Sam, patting the sofa beside him. This has become a Friday night ritual, the four of us sitting down to watch Jess’s favourite TV show. Gran sips her tea and settles down.

The usual music strikes up and the titles roll.

London International Television Entertainments purrs the voice.

Let L.I.T.E lighten your lives this Friday evening with your host, Mike Janesson and The Mike My Day Show. There’s a chorus of cheering and screaming from the studio audience as the presenter appears and runs up his Staircase to Stardom.

‘Wicked,’ says Sam. Mike Janesson is dressed in black leather. The band starts up their latest hit, the backing group gathers and Janesson, juggling expertly with drumsticks, settles behind the drum kit and goes for it. We watch in awe.

‘He’s so fit,’ says Jess. ‘Look at the muscles in those arms, Harry. D’you think he works out?’

‘He must do,’ I say, ‘and he’s got such a great voice, sort of rough and raspy.’

‘Bloomin’ racket,’ says Gran.

‘No, you like this, Gran,’ says Sam. ‘He does loads for people, you remember?’

109

CHRISTINE MACFARLANE

Gran seems to sink into her chair. Her eyes glaze slightly as she loses herself in the programme. I smile and get ready for her usual running commentary.

Now we get a close-up of Mike Janesson’s face. He’s so cool with his thick, dark hair and ice-blue eyes. His jet ear studs splinter the studio lights into dazzling points.

‘L-Ush!’ says Jess.

‘Just a bit,’ I say.

Mike Jensen leaves the drums and comes to centre stage.

Good evening, ladies, gentlemen, kids.

Welcome to my studio.

Can I make someone’s day today?

Oh yes, I think so!

The audience chants this last line with him and so do we.

Now the camera pans away from the drummer and closes in on two identical girls, about twelve years old, sitting next to each other on the famous Atlantic-blue sofa.

I’m Mike Janesson and I’m hoping to make this an unforgettable day for these two gorgeous girls. Hello and welcome to Lizzie and Anna-Marie.

[Applause] These two little ladies may look cool, calm and collected now, ladies and gentlemen, but not so long ago, they were fighting for their lives in a fire in their home near Liverpool. The family lost everything in that fire, folks. Move up you two! Tell your Uncle Mike all about it.

Mike Janesson sits down between them, one arm around each twin.

‘Creep!’ snarls Gran, from the corner. Jessica chokes on her tea and I laugh. Sam feels the need to explain it all to her again.

‘It’s all right, Gran. He’s one of the good guys, remember?’

‘Course I do and I’m not deaf, you know, Sam,’ says Gran.

‘I wonder what he’s like, in real life, though,’ I say.

We watch, only this isn’t real life, is it? It’s TV, a different world.

‘Lucky old twins, Harry,’ says Jess. ‘That one looks a bit poker-faced, don’t you think, considering she’s meant to be having such a great time?’

We watch some local news footage of the fire that burned their house to the ground. I try to imagine how terrifying that must be – a fire, at night, when you’re asleep. No wonder that girl’s looking a bit straight-faced.

110

Mike Janesson talks about how they’re trying to rehouse the family and give the girls new bedroom stuff and clothes. Rock stars are rich, I know that, but they don’t all give their money away like him.

The adverts come on.

‘Those cakes done yet, Gwen?’ Gran asks.

‘I’ll just go and see,’ I say.

‘I’ll help,’ says Jess.

We go into the kitchen and Jess looks round in horror.

‘God, Harry! What’s happened here?’

I don’t say anything.

‘Come on, how long has she been like this?’

So I tell her how Gran’s become more forgetful than I’ve wanted to admit, how she gets me to go to the cash machine, in case she forgets the number, how I do the shopping more than I used to, answer the phone. I haven’t wanted to think about it, let alone tell anyone, even Jess.

‘What are you going to do?’

I don’t know the answer to this. What do people do when their relatives start losing it?

‘It’ll be OK, Jess, don’t worry.’ Who am I trying to convince?

‘Look, I’ll help you clear up later,’ says Jess, giving me a hug. ‘Do you know how amazing you are, Harry? You should be on the Mike My Day Show, you know. There aren’t many kids with no parents around who have a ten-year-old brother and loopy gran to look out for.’

I don’t suppose there are, but I haven’t really thought about it like that.

To me and Sam, Gran is just, well, our own, lovely Gran.

‘Look, Jess, let’s forget these cakes. Why don’t I go and get us all some fish and chips? That way, you get to finish watching the show and we won’t have to cook supper later in all this mess. We can sort it together.’

It’s so good to be out in the cool evening air, away from Gran’s problems, away from the TV show and the mess in the kitchen. I push my hands down into my pockets and breathe deeply. I catch the damp, slightly sour smell of wet pavements. The light’s fading now and I walk quickly down the road to Wing’s Chippie.

The old guy who sells papers is just clearing up for the night. How 111

CHRISTINE MACFARLANE

does he manage things at home? How long is it since Gran walked up here and bought a paper from him?

It’s funny, how people pass by one another in the street. We don’t know each other’s stories at all. These people, tonight, they look at me, maybe they think I’m just another normal kid. But when I think of Gran, Sam, school, it’s just like Jess said. It is all down to me and I wonder how normal that is.

I see a young couple ahead, walking along hand-in-hand. I watch them enviously as they move together, in and out of the puddles of street light, and I just feel more and more tangled up.

112

113

josh martin

J

osh has been telling stories since he was small and convinced his best friends that there were unicorns living under the sea that only they could help. Beguiled by a life of convincing people of impossible things, he has been writing ever since. In his spare time, he does a lot of movie watching, drawing and (terrible) piano playing and also blogs about writing over at www.chroniclesofword.blogspot.com

About Ariadnis There is no doubt about it: being a Chosen One is hard work. No one knows this better than Aula and Joomia, the champions of the last two cities on Earth. It is one thing to be humanity’s last chance for survival, but quite another to be humanity’s last chance to rebuild the world. Aula’s city wants a world returned to industry; Joomia’s city wants a world returned to nature.

Pitted against each other since birth, the two have grown to dread the day they turn eighteen and have to represent their cities in a race through the Ariadnis, a maze made by their God many years ago. In the centre of this maze is the legendary Book of Knowledge. The first one to open it will win great wisdom and prosperity for their city, but are they strong enough to get there? And are they wise enough to survive the largest obstacle – themselves? josh.ch.martin@gmail.com

115

JOSH MARTIN

ariadnis Athenas, City of the Nine Pillars 365 Days Till the Race of the Ariadnis

Aula

C

os today is my birthday, seventeen owls are culled outside my window at dawn. I can hear the birds screeching before their necks are wrung.

Then there’s the murmur of the Priestess giving the blessing: ‘Let the knowledge of the Wise God pass to the Chosen One on this, her seventeenth birthday, that she may better know how to serve The Wise God. That she may better know how to serve her city. That she may better know how to serve herself.’

I smell incense rising through the hot morning to my shutters but right under that I can still smell blood and owl shit and sweat. I drop the nearest pillow to me over my head to block it all out and I’m just getting comfortable when I feel Nadrik appear in my room.

It’s as dramatic as usual. I’m facing the wall, getting all sleepy when my sixth sense, or whatever you wanna call it, prickles and I sit up. Then the naphtha flares brighter in the lantern by my bed and there he is, standing next to my desk all nonchalant like a cat but without any of its vanity.

I reckon he’s got the right brooding, put-upon-but-don’t-worry-I’ma-martyr thing that’s just right for a king but I en’t ever been sure if that’s something he was born with or if he’s been cultivating it since they put the royal circlet over his frown of a forehead.

‘Get up,’ he says. ‘Meet me in the central courtyard in five minutes.

Wear something decent.’

116

Nice. Not even a Happy Birthday.

I crawl out of bed. Try to find any tunics that en’t torn or stained beyond saving. There en’t many candidates but eventually I find sandals, leggings, and a tunic that was probably white once. My hair is too long and tangled and red to look decent unless you have five people teasing it so I just find a headscarf and pile it all up under it. Several ginger strands escape but it’ll have to do.

Nadrik isn’t in the courtyard, but my best friend is.

‘Birthday is hug day,’ Etain says, and she wraps me in her long forger’s arms. I try not to stiffen. Her brambles of black hair smell scorched, and there’s a new burn on her shoulder, livid against her soft brown skin.

‘I’m surprised you en’t in the workshop,’ I say, careful not to wriggle too much.

I hear the gentle click of metal on metal, and when she pulls away, I’m wearing a necklace made from nine silver rings.

‘I finished it last night,’ she says.

‘Aw,’ I say gruffly. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Ma got you this as well,’ she says, putting a book in my hands that smells like varnish from bookshelves and reed glue. I look at the delicate lettering on the front and the inscription on the first page and my throat aches.

It has my foster mother’s touch all over it.

‘Was she in the prophet house all night?’ I ask.

‘She’s still there now,’ Etain says, rolling her eyes. ‘No one there to take over her shift. Bloody prophets. They can see the future but they can’t organise themselves for love or money.’

I laugh, and then Nadrik’s there, like he’s just been waiting in the shadows the whole time.

He nods at Etain, which is quite a privilege even if she is the daughter of his Head Prophet. Then he looks at me.

I nod. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,’ I say and he goes to stand a few metres away to wait for me.

Etain gives me a shifty look then and says, all hushed, ‘I stole some liquor from the kitchens. Meet you in your room at ten? There’s a party on the earth plateau we could go to.’

117

JOSH MARTIN

I let out a wistful sound, wishing it was ten now and that’s where I was heading.

Etain looks at my wrist, where eight blue lines stand bold against my skin.

‘Another year,’ she says, ‘Another visit to the maze.’

‘Another line on my wrist.’

‘You’re seventeen,’ she says, and for a second I think she’s gonna cry.

‘Aula,’ Nadrik says. His voice is all hard and impatient like a teacher’s finger, pointing for obedience.

I sigh, and Etain locks fingers with me like we used to do when we were kids. ‘See you later,’ I say, and then I turn and follow him.

Metis, City of the Nine Trees 365 Days Till the Race of the Ariadnis

Joomia

I

n my dream, it all burns. The trees, caught and soured in smoke. The sea, blistered with oil. The people, blasting each other to dust and blood. The animals falling and drowning and twisting because they are in the way.

I wake up and remember what day it is.

The air tastes of heat and warning.

My hands shake as I fold my blankets. I go to wash. I brush my hair.

‘Happy Birthday,’ says Taurus’s voice, surprising me.

I jump and my best friend laughs his handsome laugh. He has a basket in his hand.

‘Tea,’ he says, showing me. ‘Brightbird eggs. Samphire.’

I want a hug, so I open my arms for one of those instead.

‘I’ll cook,’ Taurus says as we break apart. I shake my head.

‘Why not? We’ve got plenty of time before Mathilde comes to get you.’

I shake my head again and point.

He turns, and there is Mathilde, Elder of Metis and my mentor, standing at the end of the branch that leads to my hut.

‘Can’t it wait for breakfast?’ Taurus asks as she nears us.

118

‘I dunno,’ Mathilde snaps, ‘Can we wait another three hundred years for a Chosen One?’ ‘Ah, come on, Mathilde. It’ll take twenty minutes.’

‘Twenty minutes worth risking the lives of all your people, Master Taurus?’

‘She needs breakfast,’ Taurus says, looking mutinous. ‘It’s her birthday.’

‘But she remembers what is expected of her!’ Mathilde snarls. ‘More than I can say for you.’

Taurus gives me a furious look that says go on, tell her.

And for a moment, I am going to speak to her – really speak to her.

Use my voice. Maybe then she’d listen to me. But the same thing happens, the words become hard shapes in my mouth and I turn miserably to the quiet speech of my mind. It is lucky that my Mentor and my best friend are two of the three people who can actually hear it.

Let’s go, Mathilde, I say.

Taurus clutches his basket like I’ve wounded him. I touch his arm.

We’ll eat later, I say.

Before she leads me up through the hollow passages of the cliff, I am allowed a last look of home. Rising up out of the forest – the tallest trees you’ve ever seen – sprawled out before us in a lattice of branches so thick you can’t see how far the trunks go down. This is my city. This is Metis.

Once, before the airships were destroyed, I flew along the shoreline of the island with Taurus, and we saw our city from the air.

‘The last two cities on Earth,’ he said.

And there they were. Our city, with its nine trees whose branches tickled the underside of the cliff that yawned out over it. And on top of the cliff: Athenas, our rival city, whose nine trees barely justified the name, devoid as they were of branches and covered in hard steel casings.

‘Can you believe those trees are still alive?’ Taurus asked me.

If it weren’t for the fact that the roots of those nine trees grew thick and healthy through the cliff to tangle in our trees’ branches, I knew I wouldn’t have.

Back then, I thought that if it weren’t for that cliff, our cities would be one and there would be no need for all this fierceness toward each other. But 119

JOSH MARTIN

then I learned about pride and tradition and prophecy, and those things are even harder than rock.

If I squint, I can make out Taurus’s thin figure watching us leave from between some of the outermost branches. But then we have to turn up through the tunnel in the cliff and the space around me draws in and there is only dank stone and darkness.

‘Exciting day, Miss Joomia,’ Mathilde says, and I hear a clap. Light appears between her long, pickled-looking hands and spreads out around us in dingy clouds. It makes for a dim, blurry glow, without any clear source, but I can see where my feet are at least. See Mathilde’s wrinkled lips pucker and spit to the side before smiling at me out of her strange old face. She’s drawn her white hair into three braids down her back today and her wrists clank and chime with more bracelets than usual.

She seems to be waiting for me to say something – perhaps to agree – yes, it’s an exciting day, isn’t it?

I nod, to please her.

But she isn’t fooled. ‘I’m sorry, kid,’ she says.

I want to ask, Sorry for what? Sorry I’m your Chosen One? But I don’t.

My throat is tight as a flute. My insides are vinegar.

We walk. The tunnel ascends gradually, in a tight spiral that has tighter consequences on your leg muscles.

And then I feel it: a sudden tug in my solar plexus, quite unlike any leg pain.

I stop. Mathilde looks back. ‘Joomia?’ she says.

It’s nothing, I say. She’s coming. The other one. The other Chosen.

‘How can you sense her?’ Mathilde wonders.

I shake my head. I have never been able to explain it, even to myself.

She is … stronger this year, I say.

Mathilde bites her lip. ‘Come on,’ she says, ‘Let’s keep going.’

120

121

val mote

V

al has spent most of her working life as a stage manager in the US, Europe and even China. While getting paid to travel the world was kind of fabulous, what she really enjoyed the most was writing about her adventures. So after fifteen years of managing everything from Shakespeare to English Opera, Val finally decided it was time to focus on developing her own stories. Some of which are more adventurous than others.

Originally from the US, Val moved to the UK in 2002. Now a dual citizen, she lives in London with her cat, Buzz Lightyear, and her very patient husband. Trev is her first YA manuscript.

About Trev Fifteen-year-old Trev’s dream is to have his sketches of London hung up in the National Gallery. But when he and his best mates, Ali and Stu, witness a murder across the road from their gang-free estate, their lives are turned upside-down. Though they agree not to tell anyone what they’ve seen for fear of retribution, staying quiet is harder than it seems. Especially when Trev is arrested on suspicion of the murder himself. It’s up to the three of them to clear Trev’s name without getting caught by the police or the gangs.

But with only experience of detective work from watching CSI, will they manage to get the evidence they need in time?

Trev is a mash-up of Tim Bowler’s Blade series, Skins and Attack the Block. Minus the aliens. valmote@hotmail.com

123

VAL MOTE

trev Friday, October 24th

M

e and Ali get off the bus down the road from St Andrews where we go to school. Ali’s still practising his Beatboxin’ which he’s been doing like non-stop all week. He’s my best mate and everythin’, but these sound effects are startin’ to do my head in.

‘Alihan,’ I says. ‘Chill.’

Ali un-cups his mouth and makes a sound like a deflatin’ balloon.

‘What do you mean, chill?’ says Ali. ‘South London is alive with the sound of my music, bruv.’

We turn left and walk down the road, past Sam’s Café and corner shop.

It’s only just stopped rainin’ and the pavement is slippery with loads of wet leaves. Ali goes back to riffin’ his drum and wolf howl mash-up. The streets are full of people on the way to the market and work and whatever. All of them look at Ali like he’s got some kinda condition. They don’t know the half.

I’m so glad this is the last day before the break, coz I really hate comin’ here. Our school, St Andrews, is bang in the middle of one of the roughest parts of South London. I call it P-Town. And it’s a proper shithole. I step over some dog poo and a knocked-over bin. Yeah, somethin’ inside is sayin’ that if I sketched this scene right now, all cloudy and grey with leaves and dirty fried chicken boxes everywhere, it ain’t exactly gonna launch my art career. You get me?

We turn right and follow the iron fence outside the school towards the entrance of the car park. St Andrews is a big three-floor Victorian place, but it still ain’t enough space for the amount of kids who go here. As we get closer to the main gate, I notice somethin’ strange. First of all, there’s a ton 124

of kids in groups standin’ along the fence. But no one’s actually goin’ inside.

Which don’t make sense coz it’s freezin’. Plus, I ain’t ever heard this place so quiet and the silence is puttin’ me on edge. The closer we get to the entrance gate, the more tense it gets.

I pull on Ali’s hoodie to get him to stop walkin’ coz he’s so busy making animal beatbox noises, he don’t notice what’s happenin’ round him. He shoots me a look like what do I want? But he stops anyway, and we both look around.

I spot some kid nearby starin’ through the car park towards the front door and do too. That’s when I realise why no one’s goin’ into school.

‘We got problems,’ I whisper. ‘Big time.’

Blocking the front steps of the school are about twenty kids, all with black caps on backwards. It’s the 999 Crew. They’re one of two gangs at this school now and they’re the worst. Coz of budget cuts St Andrews and our old school down the road had to join up. And now, instead of one group of kids harassin’ everyone, we got two. The 999 Crew, from P-Town, and the Reds, from our old school.

To be honest, yeah, back at our old school, copin’ with the Reds wasn’t so bad. All you had to do was stay outta their way, keep quiet and they pretty much leave you be. But this 999 Crew, ain’t so easy to figure out.

They’re off the charts un-predictable, yeah. Put both gangs in one school and, well, tense ain’t even the right word to describe this place. We try to avoid it all as best as we can. Only way to survive is by keepin’ our heads down and hoodies up. But even that don’t always work. Not anymore. And with that many kids from one gang blockin’ the front doors, well, I might need more than my hoodie for protection. You get me?

Truth is, I ain’t never seen that many kids from the 999 Crew in one place before. Not even here. A few of them start throwin’ punches, coz they’re so pumped up. A short kid with dreads under his cap stops them, but it’s clear they’re properly ready to attack whoever goes near them. Whatever’s about to happen ain’t gonna be good. And I ain’t interested in bein’ a part of no gang-land drama.

The first bell rings.

‘Trev, what we gonna do?’Ali asks.

‘Wait, I guess.’

Ali riffs some funeral march.

125

VAL MOTE

‘Ali,’ I snap. ‘Not now.’

A tall, stocky, black kid comes outta the huddle of the Crew. He’s laughin’ low and evil-like. T-Man. Their leader. He’s mental, and not in a good way.

He’s got a dumb arse grin on his face and brain power to match. Whenever T-Man laughs, you know trouble’s comin’. Right now, he’s bustin’ a gut.

‘Bet Antz is too scared to show up,’ a fat kid in a black cap calls out.

‘If he ain’t, he should be,’ says another guy from the Crew. ‘Stealin’ T-Man’s phone. In our hood.’

T-Man don’t respond to his boys. He just smiles his big, stupid grin and paces back and forth on the steps.

Ali shoots me a look like no way.

See, Antz is the leader of the Reds gang. So I get why whole of the 999 Crew is here now. Least I think so. Don’t know much ’bout gang politics, yeah. But I’m guessin’ that if the leader of one gang steals another gang leader’s phone, well … it don’t take a genius to figure that out, does it? Stealin’ that phone was the same as startin’ a war. I look back at the steps. T-Man punches his fist into his hand and laughs loud. This is bad, yeah. Real bad.

The second bell rings. No one along the fence moves. Surprised none of them teachers have come out and told us off for bein’ late. Then again, maybe they saw the 999 Crew and decided they didn’t want the trouble.

Don’t blame them one bit, I wouldn’t neither.

Ali riffs his funeral music again, but this time under his breath. I ain’t gonna stop him this time. I know he’s only doin’ it coz he nervous, just like me. I watch the crew, punch their fists and pace about the steps and the car park. All of them now. Not just T-Man. Someone from the 999 Crew does a cat-call whistle and the rest join in too. The fat kid points towards the gate.

‘Oh no, I can’t look, bruv.’ Ali puts his hands over his eyes.

I look left and spot Nats, the fittest girl in school, go in through the gates. And when I say fit yeah, I mean super-crazy beautiful with dark hair and green eyes and curves in all the right places. You get me? But she’s trouble walkin’ if I ever seen it. No matter where she goes. And right now she’s movin’ quick, with her head down, straight to the front door. Don’t know if she’s even noticed the 999 Crew in front of her or what, but she’s goin’ to that door, on her own. Which is not a good idea, coz she’s Antz’ girl.

126

She’s a proper target for the 999 Crew now, and I got a feelin’ T-Man ain’t gonna be nice to her about what her boyfriend’s done.

T-Man pisses himself laughin’ as he grabs Nats’ arm. Stoppin’ in her dead tracks.

‘Oi! Get off me!’ Nats says. ‘Now.’ But T-Man doesn’t.

‘Wish I had the guts to do somethin’,’ I whisper. ‘Bruv, it’s su-i-cide to go in there right now,’ Ali says. ‘It ain’t about guts. It’s sur-vival, init. Plus, don’t you remember what T-Man said to us yesterday?’ he gulps. ‘He said he was gonna eat me for lunch, bruv. Just for lookin’ near him. I—’ But Ali gets interrupted by T-Man laughin’ again.

‘Let me go!’ Nats spits at T-Man. She’s strugglin’ to get free. ‘I don’t have your phone.’

A bunch of kids makes their way to the door now that the 999 Crew are busy watchin’ T-Man go after Nats. No one helps her. I feel bad, but I know it wouldn’t make no difference. Truth is, if I did try to stop them, the Crew would just go after all of me and Nats. Fact, I got a feelin’ that if Antz don’t show up, the 999 Crew will just take their frustration out on whoever they can find. So, if we’re gonna make it into school, now’s our only chance.

‘Come on,’ I says.

Ali puts his hood up. I do too. Try to be invisible-like. Then we follow the last of the kids in.

‘I told you, I don’t know where Antz is. Or your stupid phone,’ Nats says. ‘Let me go. Now. T-Man.’ ‘You should keep her instead,’ the Fat 999 kid shouts. ‘Nats in exchange for your phone, blud.’

T-Man grabs both of Nats’ wrists in one hand and pulls her close to him. ‘You for my phone. I like that.’ He says, and licks his lips.

Off-the-charts nasty.

The 999 Crew is fallin’ over themselves laughin’ at Nats. We’re almost at the door now. Not far.

Nats looks over T-Man’s shoulder and spots us. I lock eyes with her.

Don’t mean to but I do. She gives me a look like help. When T-Man turns around to see who she’s lookin’ at, Nats kicks him hard enough that he lets her go. She bolts through the front door leavin’ T-Man doubled over.

127

VAL MOTE

By the time the 999 Crew notice what’s happened, Nats is inside. And it’s just me, Ali and the 999 boys left in the car park. A group of them blocks the steps. We turn around but more of the Crew come up behind us. Now we’re trapped, bang in the middle of the whole gang. Oh no. This ain’t gonna be good.

T-Man stands up and walks slowly towards us. He’s breathin’ heavy through his nose. Each step he takes, his gruntin’ gets louder and louder.

He stops in front of me and Ali for a beat, and then starts laughin’ again.

‘You two tryin’ to be like, some sorta heroes?’ T-Man shouts and pushes Ali to the ground.

‘Nah,’ I says, helpin’ Ali up. ‘We, we was just … just goin’ inside.’

‘Good,’ T-Man leans over so he’s right in my face. ‘Coz for a sec, it looked like you was about to get involved in my business.’ He smacks his fist in my face, then laughs so loud I jump. Dumb and evil and so loud it echoes round the car park.

We gotta get outta here now, before T-Man orders his crew to bust us up as some sorta warm-up act for Antz.

‘Boss,’ shouts a voice from the far side of the lot. We all look. A short kid I don’t know in a black cap is standin’ by the entrance. ‘Red spotted!’ He calls. ‘Don’t know if it’s Antz but—’ T-Man shoves Ali into me, knockin’ us both over this time and then bolts off with the rest of his crew. I can hear them laughin’ all the way outta the lot and down the road.

Me and Ali get up and look at each other like what the eff just happened. I mean, we get harassed all the time, yeah. Just like threats and name callin’ and stuff. But that was intense. T-Man in my face. His boys ready to pounce. Shit. And all of this coz Antz stole T-Man’s phone.

‘I just want one day, one day, when we don’t feel like we’re gonna get killed for goin’ to school,’ Ali says, then beatboxes a mash-up of punchin’ sounds and drum beats.

‘Yeah,’ I nod. I can’t wait till we are outta this place for good.

We head up the empty front steps. I put my hoodie back up and headphones in, coz I had enough chaos just now to last me a lifetime. And the truth is, I got a bad feelin’ that this was only just the start.

128

129

lucinda murray

L

ucinda was named after a character in her mother's favourite book and has been living inside stories ever since. She decided she was going to be a writer when she was two, but only started writing Otherworld while driving home one night, when Rory jumped out of a tree and into her head. After a BA and a MA in English Literature at Cardiff University, she enrolled on the Writing for Young People course to chase her dreams of publication. She's had too many jobs to keep track of, including working in a tea tent at music festivals and teaching creative writing at Kilve Court in Somerset. But she still wants to be a writer most of all.

About Otherworld Sixteen-year-old Rory doesn’t know who she is.

Abandoned as a baby on the city streets, her past is a mystery she long since stopped trying to solve and the future feels like a distant impossibility.

Everything depends on the present, on her and her foster brother Adam against the world.

But now someone is trying to kill her. Adam is keeping secrets. And the city is under attack from the Others: the shape-shifting monsters that linger in the shadows.

Plunged into a new world of wild magic, Rory realises that her only hope for a future lies in uncovering her past. The land is waking up and the Others’ time is coming. And Rory will have a part to play when it does … lucinda.murray@gmail.com

131

LUCINDA MURRAY

otherworld One

W

ithin the stones, the city sleeps. Time passes. Its dreams sing with memories, the clash of turrets and invaders. The smoke and heat of battle. Then the rhythmic slap of waves on hulls, shouts thrown against a dockland wall.

Time drags on, persistent as the tides.

The city dreams of magic tingling through its suburbs, but it doesn’t wake. Not yet. The world spins past, accelerating into new ages, but the city sleeps on.

Above, around, inside it, people pass like blood through veins. Living, fighting and dying, pushing endlessly against the world outside. The days get darker and the city’s eyes stay closed. The Writing lines the walls, but the city cannot read its people’s words.

Until one mid-September evening when the world shifts, and a new wave shakes the city awake.

‘Oi, watch it, love!’

Rory jumps. The motorbike swoops past with a growl of exasperation, tearing off into the city. A driver snarls out a warning.

Then Adam’s hand grabs her arm, yanks her back to the crossing. She catches her breath, inhaling a lungful of car exhaust and barbecue smoke.

For a moment she’d thought …

But no. The cars surge past on North Road, as fast as ever, but there’s nothing new moving on the busy main road. Nothing to explain the flicker 132

of Something Else she must have imagined, like a ripple of difference through the streets.

‘What was that?’ Adam asks, as the endless stream of cars grumble to a halt at the crossing. ‘I don’t believe you’re actually trying to off yourself before we even get to presents.’

Rory shakes her head. ‘I just thought I saw—’ she starts. But it’s no use. She doesn’t think she could find the right words to describe it, even if the image had crystallised in her mind. But instead her memory feels slippery, as if she can’t get purchase on the details.

‘Well, you are sixteen now,’ Adam says, grinning. ‘Over the hill.

Ancient, even. If you’re going gaga then I’m not completely surprised.’

‘Very funny,’ Rory says. She rubs her arms, looking around.

It’s a perfect September evening, bronzed with the memory of summer.

It even smells good, the lingering smoke of barbecues mingling with the scent of cut grass. But Rory can’t shake her sense of unease, as if a secret danger lurks beneath the surface of the day. The hair on the back of her neck prickles.

‘Come on,’ Adam says, touching her arm. ‘Sun’s setting. We’re going to be late.’

Rory follows his eyes. The sky seems almost liquid tonight, amber and rose light washing the horizon with streaks of colour. A few clouds drift across the sunset, blue-grey but brushed with gold.

Rory looks at Adam, sees the same longing in his eyes. She feels her smile grow.

Then they’re running, feet beating out a rhythm of exhilaration on the cracked pavement. Rory feels the wind tug on her hair, teasing it free from its braid until it slaps at her cheeks, sees the world around them blur into colour and movement and the simple relief of being free to run. Her feet pound down the hill and towards the railway bridge, nestled beside the university halls with the park beyond.

She touches the bridge a moment before Adam, fingers closing over cool black steel. Rory tightens her hand on the railings and lowers herself to sit between the slats, feet dangling over the empty track. Adam follows, collapsing to the ground in a parody of exhaustion.

‘I think I’m dying,’ he groans. ‘Remind me never to race you again.’

133

LUCINDA MURRAY

‘You always say that,’ Rory says. ‘And it’s usually your idea.’

Adam grins, slow and easy. ‘Maybe. But you inspire me.’

Rory’s breath catches in her throat. Adam is flushed, as pink and golden as the sky overhead. There’s something strangely compelling about his lazy smile, something that sends a quick, uncertain shiver through her body. She exhales quickly, makes herself look away. This is Adam, her foster brother and her best friend. Wanting more would be a terrible idea.

‘You’re just a sore loser,’ she says to distract herself.

‘Au contraire.’ Adam levers himself up onto his elbows, gazing at the sky. ‘I am an excellent loser, and you’re clearly cheating somehow. Admit it.

You’re secretly a ninja. Or a superhero with a secret identity, sent to save us all from the forces of evil.’

Rory grins, despite herself. ‘It wouldn’t be a very good secret identity if you cracked it so quickly, would it?’ she asks.

‘Say no more,’ Adam agrees, twisting to sit next to her. ‘I shall carry the truth with me to the grave.’ He knocks his shoulder against Rory’s, and a thrill of awareness thrums through her. Their bodies are so close now, with only a few inches between them. Rory bites her lip. Perhaps Adam does feel as much for her as she does for him.

Then she hears the distant rumble of the train beneath them. She looks up.

The track stretches almost to the horizon, fading away into blue-grey mountains and the distance. Above it, warm apricot and rosy light spill across the mountains, rendering them more unreal and unobtainable than ever.

‘One day it’ll be us on that train,’ Adam says. The sunset plays across his blonde hair, makes Rory itch to reach out and touch him. ‘Hightailing out of here, never to return.’

‘Sounds nice,’ Rory agrees. She leans a head against the railings, watching. She’s lost track of how many years they’ve been doing this for now, just her and Adam, gazing at the horizon and wishing themselves a hundred miles away.

The train roars under the bridge, leaving it juddering. Golden rays of sun catch the top of the carriages, reflecting off polished metal, until the whole train looks as if it’s been carved from amber. Rory’s breath catches in her throat, makes her want to laugh and cry at once. She settles for gripping 134

the iron railings tighter. Adam’s hand touches hers, and for a moment, everything is perfect.

‘Happy birthday, Rory,’ Adam says.

Then the train reaches the horizon and a cloud throws it into shadow.

Rory shivers.

She looks around at the dark front of the university buildings, the trees crowding in, close and ominous. It makes Rory think of the fairy tales she devoured as a child: the wolves and the witches lurking in the deep, dark woods.

But she knows that’s stupid. She’s not five any more, sleeping with the bedroom light on because she’s afraid of what might be lurking in the darkness. There’s nothing there. And monsters don’t exist.

‘Earth to Rory?’ Adam chimes in. Rory looks over. He’s leaning forward, watching her, and she feels herself flush. She’s suddenly glad her skin is darker than Adam’s, a deep terracotta that hides the blood beneath it and keeps her secrets hidden.

‘Sorry.’ She shakes her head, trying to smile. ‘I was just thinking.’

‘You should probably stop that.’ Adam stands, grabbing Rory’s hand and tugging her with him. ‘It’s your birthday, after all. You don’t want to waste it on trivialities.’ He winks, letting his hand fall away. Rory hopes he can’t see her disappointment scrawled across her face.

‘I hate my birthday,’ she says. That had been another thing about fairy tales, she remembers. The lost children always made their way back out of the woods and found their parents waiting. Which was another reason they were only stories. Rory had expected her parents to turn up on her birthday for years.

‘True,’ Adam agrees, rummaging in his school bag. ‘Curse of the foster kid, isn’t it?’ For a moment, Rory wonders if Adam has learned to read her mind. As if in answer he grins, reaching into the bag slung over his shoulder and pulling out a bottle wrapped in a paper bag. ‘But that’s why I brought supplies.’

Rory reaches out and takes the bag, pulling the paper away. There’s a bottle of coffee liqueur inside, dark and expensive looking despite its wrapping. She blinks.

‘Adam? Where did you get this?’

‘Mrs Ali in the newsagents,’ Adam says, shrugging. ‘I used my fake ID.’ 135

LUCINDA MURRAY

‘But she’s known you all your life,’ Rory points out, torn between being impressed and slightly scandalised. ‘She knows you’re too young to buy alcohol. And she definitely knows that your name’s not Marcus Allen.’

‘She said I had good taste.’ Adam looks almost criminally innocent.

‘And that I had grown up fast, hadn’t I, and would I like to sample it before I spent my hard-earned money on a bottle?’

‘So you used your wiles to wrangle a contraband bottle of alcohol,’ Rory says, fighting not to grin. Adam’s brilliant – she’s known that for as long as she’s known him. But she doesn’t want to encourage him. She can’t shake the slither of fear in the back of her head, the suggestion that, one day, there’ll be a situation he can’t talk his way out of.

‘Try it,’ Adam says, pushing the bottle towards her mouth. ‘I did. It’s good stuff.’

Rory doesn’t want to encourage him, but turning the gift down just seems rude. This time, she lets herself smile.

‘Thank you,’ she allows.

The bottle is emptying fast. Rory swirls the coffee liquor around in the bottle, watches the last rays of sunlight ripple across the dark liquid. She drinks as they walk, savouring the tang of sweet coffee, softened by the aftertaste of something else.

‘Good present,’ she tells Adam, passing the bottle over. He takes it, slinging a spare arm around her shoulders, and Rory feels her heartbeat accelerate.

‘Your love of coffee is pretty well-documented.’ Adam grins, but Rory feels a hint of hesitation in his shoulders. She frowns. ‘And I thought a little distraction might be in order.’

‘Distraction?’ she echoes. She looks over at Adam, bright and warm against the darkness of the woods to their left. She’s distracted enough already.

‘Mm, you know? From the birthday blues.’ Adam waves his free hand in an elaborate gesture of dismissal. ‘And now they’re gone, and I’m a genius.

You can thank me later.’

‘We’ll see,’ Rory says.

She thinks she can still sense an undercurrent to his words, something building beneath the surface. But perhaps the drink has just gone to her 136

head. She’s almost sure that explains the ways the shadows seem to move and stretch amongst the woods, as if the trees themselves are coming to life.

She shuts her eyes, leaning into the warmth of Adam’s arm. This close, he smells of cut grass and possibilities, layered over the familiar musk of his shower gel. She inhales, feels herself relax. She’s jumping at shadows, that’s all. She’s safe here.

‘Rory?’ Adam starts, and something about his voice makes her look up. She straightens and meets his gaze, his blue eyes reflecting the twilight closing in overhead. ‘Do you ever wonder where you’ll be in five years time?

Who you’ll be? Who you’ll be with?’

Rory’s breath catches in her throat. With you, she thinks fiercely. She opens her mouth, then closes it again. Adam’s very close, his lips very red.

‘Rory,’ he says. ‘I—‘ Then they hear the howl.

It floods the evening like a battle cry, calls all the hair on Rory’s body to attention. Adam straightens, staring around. Rory freezes.

At first it sounds like a hound, baying at a scent. But it goes on too long.

The cry ricochets until the park seems to vibrate, drawn taut as a bowstring. Rory screws her eyes up, feels vertigo twist through her. The howl’s too high, too jarring, too wild. It’s a chaos of sounds thrown together; human screams, bird screeches, animal howls; the caterwauling clash of night.

Rory swallows nausea, makes herself look around. The woods never seem entirely safe. Now they’re a shifting maze of shadows, thick with menace. Even the wide ribbon of river is dark and coolly deadly. Her heartbeat syncopates, beats out desperate rhythms in the dark.

An image flashes through her mind of their foster mother’s kitchen, warm in the lamplight with curtains drawn against the night. For a moment, it almost seems like home. Rory bites her lip, steadies her breath. They have to get out of the park, she decides. They have to get back. She looks around for Adam, ready to run.

But he’s already running— Not away – not towards Mrs P’s – but further into the park— Straight towards the sound.

137

ekwy chukwuji nnene

E

kwy was born in busy and sunny Lagos, Nigeria, West Africa. She grew up reading Nancy Drew, Sweet Valley High, the African Writers Series and anything by Enid Blyton she could get her hands on. From these books, she imagined smuggler’s cove and how a jam tart tasted. Most of all, she wanted very much to eat fish and chips.

Her imagination still gets the best of her these days and often she can be found daydreaming at the British Library.

Ekwy, who fled the royal duties of her clan, now lives in London with her family. When she first arrived, she was surprised to find that she didn’t like fish and chips that much. She loves snow though and still thoroughly enjoys ginger beer.

About Circle of Fear Munachi thinks her warring parents and intimidating grandma are all she has to worry about. When she arrives at St John’s, her longing to save her parents’ marriage is quickly displaced by the mystery of the Circle of Fear.

The Circle, a sisterhood, force non-members to do strange, undignified things. Soon, girls are whispering about The Stroll – the night the Circle will celebrate their anniversary by brutally humiliating one girl.

Everyone’s terrified. Only Munachi thinks it’s the perfect opportunity to expose the Circle.

Can she really stop them, once and for all? ekwy.nnene@gmail.com

139

EKWY CHUKWUJI NNENE

circle of fear One Cold Marble Floor

I

mmediately I sit down at the table, I know this evening meal will be different. Because although the delicious smell of jollof rice fills the room, they both eye each other in icy silence, wafts of steam rising from the dishes between them.

‘Munachi, go to your room,’ Mum says. ‘Your father and I have something to discuss.’

My hand freezes mid-air above the serving dishes, the big silver spoon dangling from my fingers.

‘But I am starving.’ I search Dad’s face but he still looks at Mum. ‘Munachi.’ Mum's voice is low. This is how she warns me.

I rise, leave my chair sticking out and slam the door behind me.

Upstairs in my room, I want to phone my friend Chichi to ask her if this is how it was with her parents – did this also happen after they had given her a New Year’s Day present? I take the mobile phone out of my satchel but just stare at it.

I want to ask Chichi if her parents also ignored her hunger. And that even in such a mighty house, like mine, sound carries far, but I think Chichi will not tell me the truth sef. It is too shameful to talk about.

I think back to earlier in the day, when we went swimming at Ikoyi club. I remember Mum worked on her laptop while Dad sat in his kaftan, refused to swim, declaring he had a cold. Everything seemed fine.

Now outside my open window, the bus conductors shout, ‘Surulere, 140

oshodi-isolo, if you don’t hold change, please don't enter o’ on the danfo buses blaring their horns. The early crickets sing to their mates, the rooster crows its evening call and my stomach rumbles. I imagine Bimpe scrubbing the pans in the kitchen, finishing up for the day.

And then my parents’ voices rise.

I clamp my hands over my ears but I can still hear them through my bedroom wall. I kneel on the floor, banging my head on my knees.

Stop, stop, stop.

From the dining room downstairs, the bass of Dad’s voice thuds in my chest. ‘Why on earth is that necessary?’

Mum screeches from time to time. ‘Munachi will join the Circle. My mother says it’s the right thing.’

‘What is this Circle of a thing sef?’ Dad booms.

Then the sound of a pile of heavy things landing on the floor, like wood on stone.

I get up, creep out of my room into the corridor. The marble floor feels strikingly cold on my bare feet. Opposite me, across the banisters, the tall window on the hallway sends in lingering sunset, as if it is a pleasant evening. I crouch to hide behind one of the columns, overlooking the reception below. If I jumped from here, would they stop arguing to come and check on me?

I start with shame as I see the servants lean by the dining room door, listening to my parents’ thunder. Chef Nestor holds a kitchen towel as if he wants to wipe his hands. Bimpe, the house girl, has her eyes closed and her lips whisper something. Monday, the driver, grips a finger between his teeth.

They do not see me looking at them.

Mum’s voice, now quieter, floats through the door. ‘It’s entirely up to you, Dike. You started it, so finish it yourself.’

Silence.

Bimpe shakes her head and opens her eyes. Monday rests both hands on his head. Chef Nestor remains still.

‘Fine,’ says Dad. ‘I’ll tell her.’

From behind the dining room door, slow footsteps approach and very quietly, the servants scatter in all directions. The door creaks open and Dad steps out.

141

EKWY CHUKWUJI NNENE

‘Bimpe,’ he calls.

Almost immediately, she springs out of the kitchen. ‘Yes, sah.’

‘Go and get Munachi for me.’

I hear Bimpe running up the steps but I stay where I am. When she sees me, she jumps in surprise.

‘Oga say make I call you.’

I follow her downstairs, wondering whether she guesses I have been watching them.

When we get to the dining room door, Bimpe whispers, ‘No worry, everything go be OK, ehn?’

Although I think, and how do you know that? I nod as she walks down the corridor into the kitchen. I wonder if the servants will come and listen again. I push the dining room door open, bumping into Dad. ‘Sorry,’ I say.

His face is sweaty even though the air-conditioner is at its coolest; under his kaftan armpits are patches of wet. This is how he sweats when there is trouble.

‘It’s OK, dear,’ he says. ‘Please come in.’ He leads me to my chair and sits next to me. My plate is just as empty as when I left it.

Mum still sits on her chair, opposite Dad and me, only now her face is twisted in a frown. At least she is not punching into the keys of her phone.

Her chair is pushed away from the table; her legs and arms are crossed.

My eye catches the stack of Genevieve magazines usually on the coffee table by the windows, now spread out, in a curve on the floor, like a fan.

So that was what fell. The smell of spicy jollof rice and roast tilapia fish still lingers in the air. In the middle of the long dining table, the steam still rises from the serving dishes. Leaning out of the vase, the bunch of rose flowers is now wilted.

‘Your dad has something to tell you,’ Mum says, looking straight at him.

He hesitates, does not meet my eye. My heart thumps in fear of what Dad is going to say even though I can guess. I wonder if this is how it happened for my friend, Chichi, whether it was her father's choice. Whether she knew what would be said but was still afraid.

‘Munachi, ada m nwaanyi.’ He takes my hand in his. ‘You know I love you very much. You are my only daughter, my only child, and I don’t joke 142

with you. I don’t know how to start this. Obiageli, please tell her for me biko.’ He looks at Mum. Shaking her head, she rests her chin on her palm, elbow on the table. ‘No.’ ‘Dad?’ ‘The thing is,’ he says, squeezing my hand. ‘I am moving out. Your mother and I are separating.’ A drop of sweat from his forehead lands on the hem of his kaftan.

‘What?’

‘It’s all your father’s idea o.’ Mum adds quickly. ‘I am not separating with him. He has decided this.’

‘Dad, why?’

‘Nne, it’s a long story. I am tired, just tired. I wish I didn’t have to do this, true. But I have to leave. I’ve had enough. As Roosevelt said it is hard to fail but it is—’ ‘I don’t remember Roosevelt abandoning his family sha,’ Mum interrupts.

Dad carries on. ‘I know you are a big girl now but when you are even older, you will understand.’

‘Dad, but,’ I start. ‘We’ve been so happy,’ I stammer.

But I know I have just lied. We have not been happy anything. We pretend to be happy.

He looks at me, squeezes my hand again and his eyes say No, we haven’t. With my other hand, I grip the side of my chair hard, willing this to be untrue – to be an April fool’s day joke. Except it is January and even if Dad can be funny, Mum would never joke around. Not about this.

‘Well, Munachi,’ Mum says, her voice weak. ‘Me, I am getting hoarse.

I have shouted enough and tried to reason with him. Just let him go jare.’

‘No, Mum.’ I turn to Dad. ‘Please stay.’ My eyes try to ask him who will draw with me now. Who will take me to the art supply shop on Allen Avenue? Who will talk about the power of curves over lines? All those things Mum will never do.

He shakes his head, sadly. ‘I’ll come and visit, don’t worry. You can always visit me too.’

‘Hrmph,’ Mum scoffs. ‘Visit where? In Dubai?’

143

EKWY CHUKWUJI NNENE

‘Dad, are you going to Dubai?’ The panic stretches my voice.

‘Don’t mind your Mum,’ he says. He tries to sound casual. ‘It’s only for a short consultancy. I’ll be back in Lagos before you know it.’

Dubai? Mum will never let me visit.

‘There is one more thing,’ he says. ‘I’ll let your mother tell you.’

‘What?’ I say. ‘There is more?’

They both nod, a rare agreement.

Mum says, ‘You have gained admission into the prestigious St John’s School for Successful Girls, Orunta.’ She smiles, proudly. ‘You’ll be going with Grandma on Sunday.’

‘Dad?’ I ask. 'What is wrong with my school, Queen’s College? Why Grandma? Why Orunta? It is too far, I will not know anybody.’ My heart wants to burst into tiny pieces.

‘Your mother and Grandma have decided,’ he says. ‘More likely, your Grandma has made the decision – you know how she is. They did not consult me. I am just hearing it now. I would have taken you myself. I disagree with the whole thing.’ He flips a palm as if to catch a falling coin, a sign he is disappointed.

‘Dike, don’t start about my mother,’ Mum says, pointing a finger at him. Then she turns to me. ‘Grandma will look after you, of course. She is coming on Sunday. I’ll let her tell you all about the Circle herself, she is so excited about your future.’

‘But Dad, now that you know what they have planned for me, why don’t you change their minds?’ The tears choke me and I let them slide out of my eyes. They meet my open hand resting in Dad’s. So this is it now – Dad to Dubai and Mum ever busy, Grandma and me to this Orunta school.

I may have imagined my family falling apart but I did not know it would feel like this. The whole thing is over too quick. The pain is very sharp, deep inside.

144

145

pat robson

A

n Eastender, Pat attended the same high school in north-east London as David Beckham – though not at the same time. At primary school, she invented an imaginary class of pupils, wrote their homework in different hands and then rigorously marked them. This led unsurprisingly to a career as an English teacher. She has now escaped to concentrate on her own writing instead of other people’s.

She has loved the Anglo-Saxons forever and is looking forward to 2016, the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. She hopes there will be a surge of national interest in that decisive battle when, in her view, ‘We wuz robbed.’

About The Saxon Shield August 1066. When Edwin and Rowena ride north to escape their brutal families, they have no idea what awaits them. They find the people of York traumatised after surrendering to Viking invaders. But the shock arrival of King Harold and his English warriors sends hope sky-high. In a frenzy of loyalty, Edwin joins them as they take the Vikings by surprise and defeat them at the battle of Stamford Bridge.

Rowena begs Edwin not to join the king as he hurries south to face Duke William of Normandy. Can a wounded fourteen-year-old survive the massive, mounted onslaught of the Normans at Hastings? Only if Rowena is brave enough to follow him. patrobson180@gmail.com

147

PAT ROBSON

the saxon shield Chapter one EDWIN

A

boar hunt and I’m in the thick of it. I crash through undergrowth, my heart pounding. Ahead of me, my father, his arm raised, grips his spear.

I’m close behind, my knife ready.

We’re only yards from the boar. Squealing, it hurtles through the forest, swerves, dodges. Suddenly, it leaps over a log and falls headlong.

At once my father hurls his spear. It pierces the boar’s flank and sticks there, swinging. The beast shrieks. My father throws himself onto it, but the boar squirms away under him. It turns and drives a tusk deep into my father’s groin, making him scream with pain.

I raise my knife high, bring it down hard and stab through the tunic into my father’s breast. Blood spurts like a fountain. A terrible moment as our eyes meet. The boar blunders away.

I wake from the dream with a violent shudder. My body sweats, my chest hurts so much I can hardly breathe. I stumble towards the heavy wooden door and open it. The air smells of herbs. A moth flutters against my face. I take deep breaths but the knot of anger against my father is still there.

It’s a warm, still, August night. Moonlight whitens the thatched roofs of the villagers’ huts and the stone slates of the church. When we were children, the priest, Brother Aylwin, taught me and my friends, Hubert and Rigg, to read and write. Hubert and I learnt fast but Rigg found the Latin difficult. But Aylwin was always patient, always encouraging.

148

Unlike my father, Wulfstan. Three months ago, he found me reading on the riverbank, my fishing rod by my side, my basket full of glistening trout.

‘Book-learning?’ he sneered. ‘What use is that? How old are you now?

Fourteen? And what use are you to me? You and your friends?’

Hubert and Rigg were his wards, their fathers killed in his service.

His eyes were cold, his voice harsh. ‘My kinsman needs warriors. Show everyone what you’re made of.’

A chill wind blew as we set sail for Spain. Hubert shivered in his woollen cloak, his face deathly white. We watched the English coastline become a blurred line in the distance.

Now, standing alone in the darkness, my heart beats faster as I remember what happened next.

I know everyone in this village – who leaves it, who returns, who does not come back.

If it were not for my father, my friends would still be alive.

The sun is up when I wake again. I pull on my tunic and leggings and comb my tangled hair with my hands. Outside, I blink at the bright light.

It’s a fine morning. The villagers open their doors and wooden shutters to let in the fresh air. Drifting woodsmoke rises from each roof. Near our kitchen door, Ned chops wood and all across the valley rise the high voices of children at play.

Bronwen, our cook, brings me some porridge. She does not speak, which is usual. As I eat it, I tell myself I must let go of the anger that wells up inside me. This is a good life. Many folk would be glad of it. I take deep breaths, begin to calm down.

On my way to see Brother Aylwin, I stop by the mill to watch the wooden cogs of the water-wheel as they clunk and churn the rushing gurgle of water. Suddenly, other sounds reach me from downstream – splashing and a girl’s cries. I start to run, passing the trees that hide a bend in the river.

Cerdic, the miller’s son, stands up to his knees in the water, the front of his tunic wet, his mouth open. His friends watch from the bank. Gytha, a slave girl, her clothes drenched, her long hair plastered to her scalp, struggles in deep water to reach the far side. She almost reaches it when Cerdic, with a 149

PAT ROBSON

great shout, lunges forward and grabs hold of her. He throws her away from him so violently that she disappears underwater. She comes up, gasping, and claws at the waterweed.

Rage chokes me. I don’t stop to think. I leap into the water and punch Cerdic on the jaw as hard as I can, sending him flying backwards into the river. He sits up, spluttering, head and shoulders draped in green slime. I stand over him, fists clenched. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Gytha lift her sodden skirts and steal away.

Cerdic retches and tries to cough up what he’s swallowed. I hope it’s a few frogs. Only then do I glance at the onlookers. Standing among them, his face dark with anger, is my father.

‘So! Edwin the hero. Coming to the rescue of the fair maid.’ His voice is loud.

Some of the watchers snigger.

I glare at them and they fall silent. What on earth can I say to him, in front of all these men? ‘I thought that …’

‘You thought! Hear that? Edwin thought! Now he’s a thinker as well as a hero! What does that make us then? Eh? Eh?’ I wade back to the bank, holding my anger in. But my father carries on hurling insults.

‘Who are you to interfere with our sport? Who is head man here? Why don’t you get back to your books?’

The men cheer after every question, the last one causing a storm of laughter.

I climb out of the river. The knuckles of my right hand sting where they met Cerdic’s chin. But that’s nothing compared to the stinging feelings inside me.

I don’t care about the stupid men. But my father’s conduct is shameful.

A thane should keep apart from such brutality.

I hear his footsteps behind me and turn round.

‘You!’ my father snarls. ‘Ride to Riversmeet and collect what is due to me. An hour after sunset. An errand meant for Cerdic. Let him nurse his bruised jaw while you do something useful!’ His face twists with contempt.

I give him a brief nod and stride away. How much longer can I go on coping with his hatred? And the anger that surges up inside me? After this task, I’ll leave my father’s household. For good.

150

It doesn’t take long to collect what I need: my eating knife and my seax, the short sword, two blankets, two cloaks and some food and water for the journey. There’s one person who’ll be glad about the errand – Gamel. As I reach the stables, I hear him talking to a horse.

‘Now, just keep still while I brush your coat. It won’t be long before you’re out in the fresh air. I know you’re bored at being stuck inside. So am I.’ It was Gamel’s love of horses which made me choose him out of all the village boys. He is motherless, like me, and fatherless too. When I picked him, he used to sleep in a corner of a hut belonging to his elder brother, wife and four children. Now he’s my stable boy, he beds down beside his beloved horses, sharing their warmth and breathing the same musky air.

His face lights up when he sees me carrying stuff for a journey.

‘Here! We shall need these,’ I say.

Gamel whistles as he straps them behind our saddles. We mount our horses and walk them slowly through the village.

Flies buzz in a black cloud around the dung heaps. I laugh at Gamel holding his nose as we pass the pigsties. A piglet squeals as Alban, the pigman’s son, catches it by its leg. Offa, the carpenter, is busy sawing wood.

Nearby, his children play with the mounds of fresh sawdust, their arms freckled with gold. Berta, a milking pail in each hand, smiles at me. She blushes when I smile back.

The sunshine feels good. My anger at my father melts away. Gamel beams whenever I look at him. He’s never happier than when he’s on horseback. Sometimes I wish my life were as simple. To begin with, I’d like to know what sort of errand this is.

Chapter two ROWENA It takes six strong men to lift my father’s coffin. At the altar, they lower it into place and lean his sword and shield against it. Candles line the walls of the cold, stone church. The painted saints stare at us with their bright, flat eyes.

151

PAT ROBSON

My stepmother, Eleanor, veiled in black, kneels beside the coffin. She sways and seems about to fall as the priest recites the words of the funeral service. Behind her stands my brother Oswald, tall and fair-haired like Father. His wife Mildred clings to him. He does not move but keeps looking straight ahead. I know his grief is heartfelt, like mine.

When Mother and the new baby died, Father held me close.

‘We must love each other,’ he said, in his gruff voice. ‘You, me and Oswald. That is what Mother wanted. We shall keep strong.’

And so we were, for four years, until Eleanor appeared. I saw my father watching her as she danced at a wedding, her chestnut hair escaping from her snood. I knew then what it would mean.

‘Eleanor is your mother now,’ he said, smiling as if he believed it. He took my hand and placed it in hers. It was cool and limp. I pulled mine away as soon as I could.

In the graveyard, a chill wind blows. All the villagers are here, huddled in cloaks and shawls with their children pressed up close. Many of the women weep. The six men, from my father’s band of personal warriors, grasp the ropes and lower the coffin into the earth. I hold my breath as I hear it grating on the stony soil. Something is squeezing my heart.

When the priest finishes the prayers, I open my hand and let the primroses I have been holding flutter down onto my father’s coffin. Eleanor turns her head and sends me a look of sheer hatred. But it’s gone in a flash.

‘Come, daughter,’ she says, pulling me away from the graveside. I can’t free myself from her grip. She drags me across the graveyard and, out of sight of the mourners, pushes me against the church wall. I cry out as the rough stone bruises my spine. She hisses at me, so close that her spittle hits my face.

‘We must think what is best for you, Rowena. As a thane’s daughter, you should be educated. Tomorrow, you will ride to the nunnery at Wilton.

I believe much can be learnt in a year.’

I shrink away from her, feeling sick with horror. A nunnery? For a year?

152

153

helenka stachera

W

hen Helenka was eighteen, she had her fortune told. The palm reader looked at her hand and said, ‘You can do anything you want, but you never will.’ This scared her a bit, because she had always loved stories and wanted to be a writer. ‘Soon,’ she thought. ‘Maybe even tomorrow, I’ll start writing my novel.’ But she got a job as a teacher, had a family and for a long time, she was too busy to write a book.

She never thought of herself as a risk-taker. But she didn’t want the fortune-teller’s prophecy to come true. She gave up her job and started the adventure of writing her first novel, Mute.

About Mute Eve has no mother or father. She lives with her aunt in an oppressive religious community called the Ark, ruled by the sinister Brothers. They’re the only people left alive in the whole world, the only people God chose to save from His destruction. Except for the mutes, silent telepathic beings who evolved from humans.

When Eve discovers her father is an ‘evil’ mute, she is horrified and ashamed. She can’t tell anyone, not even her closest friend, Aaron. If the Brothers find out, they’ll kill her.

Eve and Aaron escape from the Ark and begin a journey that leads Eve to the truth about who she really is. A coiled secret from which a tragedy unfurls. helenkastachera@yahoo.com

155

HELENKA STACHERA

mute The Book of James, Chapter 1 verses 1-5 In the year of our Lord, 2015, God looked down on his creation. He saw that greed had turned the people into beasts. The corporations stripped the earth. The rich squeezed the poor until they bled.

The people had turned away from God and worshipped only money and the things that money can buy.

‘I will destroy all mankind,’ said the Lord.

But there was one whom God loved, even though he lived in the house of money and was one of its high priests. His name was David.

God said to David, ‘A great disaster is coming, more terrible than my flood, more destructive than my plagues. All of mankind will perish. But you shall be saved.’

Driftwood

E

ve pulls the silver hook out of the mackerel’s lip, releasing a ribbon of blood. She dispatches it efficiently, drops it into the bucket with the others.

‘Want to go back?’ says Aaron. ‘We’ve got more than enough.’

Eve nods. The wind off the sea is bitter and she’ll be glad to get in. She cups her freezing hands round her mouth, blows warm breath onto them.

Aaron turns the boat towards the beach.

Eve sits opposite him. They’re close, their knees almost touching. It’s difficult to know where to look. She keeps catching his eye. She smiles, looks away, focuses on his hands, gripping the oars. She’s noticed them before. Beautiful hands, long-fingered and capable.

156

As the prow touches the sand, he leaps out into the surf and drags the boat up onto the beach. He offers Eve his hand, helps her out.

‘I’ll get on with gutting the fish,’ he says.

‘What shall I do?’

Aaron looks up and down the beach. It’s deserted. Before the end of the world, it was a holiday resort. Behind the dunes, there’s a shell of concrete and rusted metal that used to be a car park. But the wind and sand have eaten it away and there are no cars now.

‘Why don’t you collect driftwood?’ he says. ‘We’ll need a fire to cook the fish.’

Eve watches as he takes a mackerel and slits its belly open. With his thumbs he forces out the innards and rinses the fish clean in the surf. The blue-green strobes glisten in the cold winter light.

He looks up, smiling, ‘Go on then.’

Eve turns reluctantly and heads off up the beach. She narrows her eyes against the biting wind, scans the tops of the cliffs. She shouldn’t be here with Aaron. If they’re found together they’ll be in trouble. But they’re miles from the Ark and there’s no one to see them.

She has gathered a few ancient-looking sticks when she notices the mouth of the cave. She has to duck down, but inside, the roof arches up and she’s able to stand. It’s twilight inside the cave and it takes a few moments for her eyes to adjust. She squats down to inspect a wide pool of seawater.

It’s full of life; tiny shrimps and sea anemones, waving and flailing their limbs to catch the specks of food floating by.

In between the cave wall and the pool, half-buried in the sand and strewn with fronds of bladderwrack and tongue weed, is a pile of driftwood.

It shines, bone-white in the gloom.

Eve tries to tug away the seaweed, but it’s stuck, matted into something grey and stringy. The strands of a nylon rope, she thinks. She pulls, harder this time and the driftwood starts to lift out of the sand. But it’s heavy, much heavier than it should be. She bends to dig away the sand.

She pulls again, but it’s not coming away, and, what’s this? She peers closer.

Under the grey strands she sees an ear.

Eve scrabbles backwards, her heart beats like it’s going to burst. She 157

HELENKA STACHERA

stands, stumbles towards the light coming from the mouth of the cave, but forgets to bend and bangs her head hard on the rock. She sobs, clutches her head, gasps for breath as she staggers out onto the wide, bright sands and falls to her knees.

She tries to call out, but only a thin wail escapes her constricted throat and is carried away by the wind.

Aaron has seen her. He stands, a fish in one hand, the knife in the other. He drops them, runs towards her.

‘What the hell—?’ He drops to his knees, pulls her hands away from her head. They are covered in blood.

She tries to speak, tries to explain, but all she can say is, ‘Not me, not me.’ She turns and points towards the mouth of the cave.

Aaron approaches warily. He pulls back the grey, stringy hair, hesitates for a moment.

‘It’s human,’ he whispers. He works quickly, digs the sand away with his hands.

Eve hangs back at the mouth of the cave. She dabs at the cut on her head with the sleeve of her dress.

‘Come over here,’ he says. ‘Give me a hand.’ When Eve doesn’t budge, he turns to her. ‘I can’t move it by myself.’

He’s already half dug the body out. The skin is white, luminous in the half-light. It lies face down, its pale, sleek limbs stretched out on the sand.

Eve gingerly picks up an arm and holds it by the wrist, ready to pull. She feels a faint pulse beneath her fingers.

‘Oh God,’ her voice echoes in the cave. ‘It’s still alive.’

They lift the body, flip it over and lay it on the sand. Its head lolls to the side and Eve sees a wound, a crimson bloom on its pallid forehead. Its slanting eyelids flutter.

Eve shivers, looks away. ‘It’s a mute.’

He turns on her. ‘What do you mean ‘it’? Can’t you see she’s a person, a girl?’

Aaron has never been angry with her before, and she frowns, trying to hold back tears. ‘But mutes are evil. Everyone knows it … we have to tell the Brothers.’

Aaron shakes his head. ‘No,’ he says. ‘We won’t be doing that, Eve. She 158

needs our help. Don’t you remember what the Brothers did to that mute they caught?’

Eve shrugs.

He doesn’t say any more. But she sees the tension in his jaw and the look he gives her is enough to make her lower her eyes. She is ashamed.

Aaron bends to the mute, tenderly pulls the hair away from her face.

He fills his cupped hands with seawater and washes the sand from her body.

Her skin is milk-white, flawless under Aaron’s careful touch. Her lips are fragile pink, like the heart of a seashell. Eve feels the fear and the pain of it, because the mute is beautiful.

He takes off his shirt. ‘Help me get her dressed, she’s chilled to the bone.’

Aaron builds a fire right there in the mouth of the cave. He fetches an old tarpaulin from the boat and wraps it around her pale body. She lies on her side by the fire. Her strange silvery eyes are wide open now. She won’t look at Aaron, but she stares at Eve, studying her.

Eve looks away, hugs her knees to herself, wonders if she heard her, whether she understood what Eve said about going to the Brothers.

And then the mute speaks. ‘My name is Gul,’ she says.

Eve jerks her head up, looks at Aaron. He carries on skewering the mackerel, ready to cook over the fire.

She speaks again, but this time Eve’s looking right at her, and her lips don’t move.

Somehow, she’s speaking right into Eve’s head.

‘You look like a lander, but you’re one of us.’

159

cerianne teague

C

erianne grew up in Wales but moved to Wiltshire as a teen. Secondary school was harsh, and it got complicated. Married life in the army didn’t suit her either but motherhood and a new direction towards college and university did.

Cerianne graduated from Bath Spa University with a degree in English literature and took the MA in Writing for Young People because she firmly believes that it isn’t about what happens to you in life that defines who you are: it’s how you choose to deal with it.

About Pad Brats Cole (sixteen) cares for his critically ill mum, Isabel. She wants Cole to repair his fractured relationship with Martyn, his dad, before social services get involved. But Martyn, who is a sergeant in the Armed Forces, left them, remarried and has a new baby and a stepdaughter. Cole feels he’s been replaced and resentment seeds deep.

Jessi (fifteen) has to move and start a new school. She meets Khloe and gets asked to a party but Nat and Ana don’t like it. This is their turf. Jessi meets a guy called Benny at the party. Things are finally looking up, until the family meal where she finds out Benny’s real name is Cole Bennett; and he is her stepbrother.

Can their lives get any more complicated? Well … cerianneteague@gmail.com

161

CERIANNE TEAGUE

pad brats Drip Zombies

T

he Princess Anne wing was really warm. Intermittent beeps echoed through the ward. Patients moaned, or chatted, and nurses flitted.

His mother was supposed to be in a side room. Cole knew he should have waited at the abandoned nurses’ station to be shown where it was.

Sod that! I’ve been in enough of these places to know there aren’t that many side rooms.

‘Can I help you, young man?’ asked a nurse, more an accusation than enquiry.

‘I’m here to see my mum, Isabel Bennett,’ Cole said.

‘OK. I’ll just check for you, come with me.’

Cole followed her back to the nurses’ station.

‘Oh. That’s right.’ She hesitated. ‘Your mum has been taken up to the Intensive Care Unit on the next floor.’

Intensive care? That’s … bad.

Her tone was now compassionate, her eyes sympathetic.

‘The new treatment was probably a bit much. Try not to worry. What’s your name, love? I’ll get someone to take you there.’

‘Cole.’

His hand clenched the desk, his knuckles suddenly bulging. Dread pulsed through him.

‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ the nurse told him, and disappeared down the corridor.

Cole started counting to stop himself worrying but just couldn’t concentrate. His thoughts wandered to what it was like before all of her 162

treatment started. Like when she’d surprised him with a homemade chocolate cake for his sixteenth birthday and how she liked to bring him a cup of tea in his mug every morning before he left for school. But all he could visualise was her sad face when she’d sat him down and told him she was getting worse, and needed a longer stay in hospital for more treatment.

He brought her little gifts to cheer her up all the time but as she wasn’t keeping food down any more, Cole ordered a bunch of her favourite daisies.

I wasn’t even allowed to take the flowers onto her ward so she could look at them. Stupid hospital policies.

The nurse came back, breaking his thoughts.

‘Here’s some of your mum’s things.’ She handed him a plastic bag, stamped with the hospital’s logo, like it was a gift.

The nurse also had a brown medical folder tucked under her arm.

She held it up, her fingers covering most of the name except a few letters: NETT. Cole felt his stomach drop instantly.

Not even time to take her medical folder with her …

‘I’ve asked Paul to take these medical charts up. If I leave it on the desk in the out tray, will you tell him where it is? He knows you’re waiting, all right?’

Seconds after the nurse had gone, Cole reached over and picked up the folder, looking around to see if anyone had noticed.

A patient wearing a hospital gown and clutching a drip stand appeared and startled him.

Bloody drip zombies!

‘I need to use the phone. Are you using the phone? They don’t like us using the phone,’ she mumbled.

Cole caught the slight scent of something metallic. He realised it was blood.

This place is so mank.

He looked at the paper folder in his hands. All of Isabel’s details were inside. Cole knew he shouldn’t look. He swallowed the lump clotting in his throat.

I need to know.

Paul, a hospital care worker, suddenly came around the front of the desk.

‘You don’t need that,’ he said, taking the phone away from the patient, 163

CERIANNE TEAGUE

which earned him a dirty look before she walked off.

Paul rolled his eyes. He turned and said, ‘Cole?’

Cole nodded. Paul extended his arm for Cole to lead the way out.

‘Hate to point out the obvious but I don’t know where I’m going,’ said Cole, heading towards the ward doors anyway until Paul fell in to step beside him.

‘Obviously I’ll show you the way. Oops!’ Paul said, halting right where he was. ‘I forgot a folder. I’ll be straight back.’

Cole held out the folder.

‘Ah,’ Paul said, ‘you shouldn’t have that.’ He waggled his bushy eyebrows, making Cole wish he could set fire to them.

‘I didn’t read it,’ said Cole.

I didn’t get the chance.

Cole handed over the folder but kept his grip on it just a little too long. Paul tugged it and said, ‘I should hope not. Hospital policy means you can only read medical folders if you are medical. Or next of kin. So, I don’t know why you had it.’

What a knob-head.

Cole headed up a set of stairs but kept enough distance so he didn’t have to talk to Paul. As they entered the ICU ward, intermittent monitors bleeped and oxygen respirators hissed through the bright corridor. Nurses talked in low whispers adding to the eerie atmosphere. Cole and Paul stopped outside an isolation room.

‘Here we are. Would you like me to go in with you?’

Is he serious?

Paul put his hand on Cole’s shoulder. He shrugged hard, making Paul’s hand drop.

He so needs to back off.

Cole looked into his mum’s room through a small, square window.

His gut felt like it twisted.

Tubes snaked around her hands, a thin one threaded under her nose.

Thick, white tape was stuck to her cheek as if it was holding her together.

Her skin was so transparent, it was as white as the hospital sheets. Her face blurred for a moment as Cole struggled to hold back his tears. He blinked, trying to force them away.

164

She looks so still.

He gently pushed the door open and went over to his mum. He’d barely kissed her forehead when she opened her eyes. Those dark green eyes, normally so self-assured, looked tired and distant.

‘It’s OK, I’m not asleep.’ Her voice sounded dry and raspy.

‘Hey,’ he whispered, relief battling the fear inside him. Not sure what to do, Cole held up the bag the nurse gave him. Isabel’s dressing gown had been dragged along the corridor. Cole hadn’t noticed. He looked at the dirty cord end and shrugged apologetically.

Isabel tried to laugh but ended up coughing. She clutched her stomach, her eyes wide, pupils dilating with pain.

Cole tensed and he reached for her hand.

‘I’m … all right.’ Her speech was slurred; she sounded as tired as she looked.

‘I need to talk to you about what’s going on,’ she said, clasping his fingers. The heart monitor increased its annoying bleep-bleep-bleep.

‘I think that monitor’s a bit of a spoiler,’ he said.

‘Smart-ass.’ Her eyes regained a little of their lost sparkle. ‘Did you bring my iPod?’ ‘Sorry,’ he said, patting his pockets. ‘I forgot. I will next time, promise.’

‘Don’t worry. Listen Cole, I wanted to ask you something. Well, tell you really. I need you to let me finish what I’m saying before you …’

‘Sure. Don’t I always …’

She didn’t smile at him, and her frown made a small crease at the top of her nose.

‘I know you can look after yourself but I don’t want you left on your own in the flat any longer.’

‘You won’t be here much longer, and then I’ll tidy up the flat and pretend I kept it clean the whole time, and you can come home and cook dinner.’

Her whole face looked smaller somehow, pinched together.

I’m not going to like this …

‘I might be here for a while yet and you can’t stay at home on your own. Social Services are already trying to get involved.’

‘Whoa! What do you mean?’

His mum opened her mouth as if to say something but just then her 165

CERIANNE TEAGUE

hospital door creaked open. Cole turned, expecting to see a nurse, or a doctor, or maybe even Paul. It wasn’t any of them. Cole’s chair screeched across the floor as he jumped up.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he shouted. Shock buzzed through his body, he couldn’t think straight. He turned back to his mother, expecting anything except the small grateful smile she was giving the huge man blocking the doorway in his khaki uniform.

Dad? No way. No freaking way!

Party Invitations

F

riday. Should have been a good day.

Double sports this morning. Groan!

Autumn leaves were clumped around the edges of the Victorian building in front of her. The hundreds of sycamore trees covering the grounds added to the country manor feel of the place, but it looked gloomy on the outside and inside was definitely the pits. Jessica Lewin just knew her grade reports were going to suffer. She trudged along the corridors, making herself as late as possible, like she’d done all week. She wished with her whole being she could rewind the last few weeks.

It’s bad enough mum having a baby with Mr I Am The Military. We didn’t have to move to this dump as well.

‘A change will be good for us,’ said her mum, Evie. ‘And Martyn needs to be there for his son.’

The son that hasn’t even shown his face yet, not even to meet his new baby sister.

Evie and Martyn talked about it: moving, new school, Cole. Jessi had screamed and cried about it. And then they’d moved into army quarters anyway.

And we all lived happily ever after. They’ve taken selfish to a whole new level!

It felt like she’d been time warped into another place. Everything she’d ever known, just gone.

By the time Jessi had sulked her way to her tutor building, she was also limping thanks to the burst blisters on her heels. At least now she was 166

making some friends. Sort of. The first few days she was buddied up with some girl called Shell, but she’d been off sick since Tuesday. That’s when Jessi ended up sitting next to Khloe, who also lived on the local army garrison.

They’d had a right giggle together.

Thank some divine intervention for Khloe! At least someone talks to me, even if it is another Pad Brat.

Jessi shrugged, as if it could make the jibe ‘pad brat’ go away.

Now everyone thinks I’m one as well. Who wants to make friends with someone who moves around all the time anyway?

Jessi yanked the main building’s rotting wooden door open and made her way past a few other late people in the dank corridor.

‘Jessi! Come on, you’re going to be late!’ said Khloe.

And that would be a shame because?

Jessi was actually really pleased to see her and gave Khloe a huge smile.

Khloe gave Jessi a quick hug which earned her a look of scorn from Nat. Look out, bad-tempered Barbie alert!

Nat pulled Khloe away from Jessi and said, ‘Hey Khlo, did I tell you I might be able to get you an invite to Mash’s party?’

Khloe’s dark brown eyes were suddenly huge. ‘Wow, really? Wow!’ Must be the party of the century. Though I doubt it.

Nat snaked her arm around Khloe’s shoulder and whispered. Khloe squeaked in excited response.

That’s so rude! I hate Nat already.

Ana was usually Nat’s conjoined twin, arms always linked, but right now Nat was blatantly ignoring her and giving Khloe the BFF treatment.

‘So are we all going to the party together?’ said Nat, looking at Ana and Khloe, and snubbing Jessi completely.

‘That’s a great idea!’ said Khloe. Turning to Jessi, she asked, ‘Coming to Mash’s party tomorrow?’

‘You can’t just invite her,’ snapped Nat, tightening her ponytail. She folded her arms across her chest.

‘Sorry,’ mumbled Khloe, putting her head down so her long, dark fringe, cut into a layered bob at the shoulders, hid her face.

‘I could ask if she can come, but …’ Nat slowly looked Jessi up and down and pinched her lips together like she was sucking salt. ‘You know 167

CERIANNE TEAGUE

what we were just talking about?’ As if that explained everything, but Khloe gave Jessi a sideways glance and nodded slowly.

The girls looked at her and Jessi could feel her cheeks reddening. She chewed the corner of her lip.

What the hell were you both just talking about? Me? Khloe looked anxious and twiddled with her hair.

‘Mash only lets hot girls go to his parties. Not things he wouldn’t touch with a shit-stick. You’ll have to ask Mash yourself if you want to invite Jeffrey,’ Nat said to Khloe, hoiking her thumb at Jessi.

‘What the hell did you just call me?’ Jessi’s cheeks burned with humiliation. Heads turned when Jessi said that. It was a bit too loud. As if a sixth sense travelled around the room, the whole class fell silent in seconds.

OK. ‘What, Jeffrey?’ Nat smirked at Jessi. Clearly Nat was a girl you didn’t mess with, and now everyone was watching.

‘Drop dead!’ Jessi spat before she could stop herself.

168

169

yael tischler

F

our summers ago, Yael lost her voice. For three months. A naturally gregarious person, she couldn’t fathom being without words. That’s the summer she became a writer.

Yael grew up in Vancouver, Canada, surrounded by boys. Her relationships with her six male cousins and two younger brothers inspired Kiv’s relationships with her family in Shards of Glass.

Yael holds a BA in English Literature from Columbia University and has lived in New York, Montreal and Bath. She currently resides in London.

When she’s not writing, she’s most likely riding her bike or spontaneously belting out show tunes.

About Shards of Glass Scraping together an existence on the ruins of Paradise, the last city on Earth, seventeen-year-old Kiv’s got one goal: to stay alive. But then, her brother Tal catches the Wasting disease. The disease they’ve been running from their whole lives. The disease that killed their parents. The disease that’s killing the world.

Kiv refuses to believe there’s no cure. Her list of enemies grows as she turns Paradise upside-down looking for a way to save Tal. But then she meets Elisha, a man who claims magic flows through his veins. He promises Kiv a cure, in exchange for her services as his acolyte. But what secrets does he hide, this man who returns life to those past saving? And what does he mean when he says that Kiv’s ultimate purpose lies far beyond the welfare of her brother? yael.tischler@gmail.com 171

YAEL TISCHLER

shards of glass Then

I

survive the Wasteland by tracking breaths.

Not my own: my father’s. Cool and rasping against the back of my neck.

In— a sign he’s alive.

Out— a promise he’ll live a moment longer.

In— a sign he’s not left us.

Out— a promise we’ll reach the city, soon.

In— And then, nothing.

No more breaths.

I expect to feel something, but in that moment, I’m hollow. The sun scorches my skin. The full weight of my father’s body sags against me, pressing me towards the chapped earth. I’ve carried him a month through the Wasteland.

Just like he carried my mother before. Maybe that’s why I don’t feel anything now; I knew what was coming. I made myself ready for it. The only shock is that this is the first time I register how heavy he is, a sack of bricks strapped to my back. I stop walking.

172

‘Tal!’ I call. My little brother’s raced ahead, as usual, light on his fiveyear-old feet. Even with the pack I’ve made him carry, he scampers about like he’s got no burden at all. ‘Tal, you gotta stop!’ My voice cracks, rough against my throat. There’s a tight feeling behind my eyes. No, I say to myself.

I’m not gonna cry.

Tal doesn’t stop, likes to keep moving, just like me. I reach up to loosen the cloth that’s tied my father’s body to my back like a baby.

‘Tal,’ I shout. The words rip at my parched vocal cords. ‘Tal, it’s time for me to take the pack back.’

He turns around, then. Looks at me with those all-seeing brown eyes, mirrors of my own. He watches me for a second, head cocked to one side, his small body a dark silhouette against the hills of Paradise, the sandcoloured mounds in the distance we’ve been trudging towards as long as I can remember. A blistering breeze flaps at his black curls. Underneath them, his tanned face is a mask of questions.

And then I see him understand.

He takes off towards me, running. His face, so dry a second ago, is wet.

It feels like somebody’s clenched a fist around my heart, tight. I can’t look at him. My lungs feel full of sand and dust. I remind myself to breathe.

I take my father off my back and lay him on the ground. I feel sick to my stomach, thinking about what we’ve gotta do now.

We’ve gotta keep on going and never look back, just like he said.

We can’t waste time with goodbye or Death’ll catch up with us, too.

We’ve gotta leave him here.

In the desert sun.

Alone.

My eyes sting – from the dry wind, the dust or the saltwater welling up in them against my will, I can’t say. I just know it feels wrong, leaving him here, just like that.

But it’s not him, I remind myself. Not any more. All that’s left of him is a skeleton, brown skin stretched around it like animal hide. His eyes are an empty black, his once-wild hair a limp grey. He’s not the man whose muscles rippled like water around stones as he moved, who showed me the way to wield a knife.

He’s not the man who tried to teach me to read, tracing letters into the dust. He’s not the man who told us that we’d have a new life one day, in Paradise.

173

YAEL TISCHLER

Tal throws himself at our father’s body, his sobs so loud they could make the earth break open. ‘Daddy!’ he wails. ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ Each word tears at my chest like shards of glass.

I look away. Feel the saltwater seep down my face, blurring up my eyes.

I should rein it back, I know. But it feels like the whole world’s collapsed on top of me, like if I don’t fight back it’ll smash me into the ground. I sink to the earth, pull my knees in close, bury my head between them, try to stop the streams of water coming out of my eyes. I cover my ears so I don’t have to hear Tal, his howls like a wounded coyote.

I stay like that, longer than I’d care to say. Until I hear the words inside my head, loud. The ones my father whispered in my ear as I carried him, every day until he wasn’t here enough to whisper anymore: ‘You’ve gotta get to Paradise, you and Tal. When I’m gone, you’ll be mother and father to him. You understand?’

‘I understand,’ I told him, again and again. ‘I promise.’ I understand.

I promise. I understand. I promise. The words a rhythm, pulling me forward through the great big desert of nothing.

‘I understand,’ I whisper now, to the empty space between my knees.

‘I promise.’ I’m all my brother’s got. There’s nobody in the whole world left to look out for him, just me.

I push myself off the ground. Wipe off my face with the back of my hand. It comes away caked in sweat and dirt and tears. Fucking hell. We can’t stop for a meltdown. It’s hot as death out here, no signs of life for miles and we’ve got nothing but the clothes on our backs, half a canteen of water and a can of peas we nicked off a dead body. We’ve gotta keep moving.

Waste time here and we’ll be passed out from the heat and hunger. Then there’ll be no chance of making it to Paradise.

I take one deep breath, then another, each one pushing the tears deeper and deeper inside of me. Hurting’s not a priority.

I turn back towards my brother. He’s rolled into a ball, his head against our father’s shoulder, whimpering.

‘Tal,’ I say. ‘We’ve gotta go.’

He stays put. His crying gets louder.

‘Tal,’ I say. ‘C’mon. Get up.’

‘No,’ he wails, the sobs shaking up his little body.

174

I take a deep breath, try to keep myself from telling him not to be such a baby. I kneel down, take him by the shoulders. Turn his body to face the mounds on the horizon. ‘You see those hills?’

He won’t even look up, just cries and cries.

‘We’ve gotta get there.’

‘No,’ he forces out. His face is a mess of saltwater and snot. I look away. ‘We can’t leave Daddy.’

I bite my lip. Try to keep from feeling the shards of glass, pressing deeper into my heart. ‘That’s not Daddy anymore,’ I say, sharp. ‘The Wasting got him. You know that.’

‘I don’t wanna go!’ he wails.

‘We have to go,’ I say, forcing my voice steady.

‘Why?’ The empty desert all around us swallows up his whine. It’s too hot to think. Too hot to feel. And every breath I take is dry.

‘Cuz Daddy said so,’ I say. ‘Cuz there’s food and water there. If we stay here, we’re gonna die. Like him.’

Tal cries even harder.

I shake him. ‘You’ve gotta stop crying,’ I snap. ‘You’ll get dehydrated.’

He doesn’t stop.

‘I’m serious, Tal. You keep on like that, you won’t make it.’

He just keeps bawling.

‘Daddy wanted us to make it.’

He pauses, long enough to catch his breath. Then his tears start up again, but he quiets to a mild sniffling.

I unzip the pack on his shoulders, pull out our canteen, hold it out to him. We don’t have enough, but it’ll have to do.

‘Just a little,’ I say. He’s gotta make up for all the water he’s lost.

He drinks a sip or two, then hands it back to me. I don’t take any. ‘C’mon,’ I say. ‘Let’s go.’

He shakes his head, doesn’t move. I hold out my hand to him. He doesn’t take it.

‘We have to go.’

In answer, he wraps his arms around our father’s torso and holds tight.

‘For God’s sake, Tal. You have to let go. Now.’ 175

YAEL TISCHLER

He won’t.

So I reach down, pry his arms off the body and pick him up. He scratches at me like a wildcat and kicks, but my skin’s so thick from growing up in the Wasteland that none of it hurts. I strap him to my back with the cloth ties, tight, just the same as I carried our father before. He struggles, but the ties hold. Soon, he gives up and collapses into my back.

And I walk towards the hills that cradle Paradise.

My father said it was the last city left. Better live up to its name, I think.

We’ve lost too much for it to fall short.

And then I’m back to tracking breaths. My brother’s now: warm and wet, in between sobs.

In— I understand: I’ve gotta get him to Paradise.

Out— I promise: I’m mother and father to him now.

In— I understand: I’m all he has left in the world.

Out— I promise: I’ll keep him alive, no matter what.

Now Five years later …

Chapter one

T

he first thing I do when I open my eyes is make sure Tal’s still next to me, breathing. It’s what I do every day at the butt-crack of dawn. I check to make sure I’ve kept him alive, like I said I would.

Not that it’s hard to tell; he’s squashed up next to me like a parasitic plant, drooling, and his breath’s hot and sticky on my neck. I fling him off and sit up, taking in the aroma of boy. Tal’s eyes flicker open, then close

176

again and he snuggles up to my waist and hugs it tight as a leech. On his other side, Hiro’s still out like a hibernating bear, his enormous chest rising and falling with his snores. Ren’s spot next to Hiro is empty; he must’ve got up early to watch the sunrise.

‘Tal,’ I say. ‘You wanna give me a hand?’

Tal’s eyes flash open and a smile lights up his face. ‘Am I gonna come with you today?’ he asks. ‘Into the city?’

I snort. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

Tal frowns, looks at the rickety tin roof above our heads, and crosses his arms. If I don’t act fast, I’ll have to deal with one of his snits. I flash him a conspiratorial smile. ‘Looks like your brother could use some help getting up this morning.’ I cock my head towards Hiro.

Hiro and Ren aren’t our real brothers – of course not – but they’ve been as good as since we came to Paradise five years ago. Tal’s face shifts into a smile that mirrors mine. Waking Hiro up in the morning is one of his favourite things to do. But then his face darkens again.

‘I will if I get to go to Paradise today,’ he says.

Our camp’s just past the city limits. One of the first rules Hiro and I made when we had to strike out on our own was that Ren and Tal wouldn’t be allowed anywhere inside the city itself. Neither of them’d last a second.

‘Tal, you know you’ve gotta stay here,’ I say, trying to keep my voice calm. ‘There’s gangs out there and people that’d try to snatch you and sell you, and a whole lotta crazies that think messing up little boys is the most exciting thing in the world.’

Tal turns away from me, the whole of his body transformed into one big sulk. ‘You just don’t want me to do anything. Ever.’

I roll my eyes. ‘No. I just don’t have a death wish for you. So quit going on about it, OK?’ He doesn’t answer for a moment. The whole hut’s sticky and hot. My eyes run along the flimsy wood-plank walls. I wonder how much longer they’ll hold.

‘OK,’ says Tal, real quiet. There’s something weird about the way he says it, like it weighs only half as much as every other word he’s ever said.

I wonder if I should believe him or not, cuz he gave in so fast, so easy. My heart beats a little faster than normal. Maybe I’m being crazy.

177

YAEL TISCHLER

‘For real, Tal,’ I tell him, my words clipped and firm.

He turns towards me, looks me straight in the eye and says full and confident, ‘OK.’ This time, it’s like he means it. My body relaxes.

‘Good.’ I reach over and ruffle Tal’s hair. His body stiffens against my hand. Should I read anything into that?

Hiro says I should worry less. Maybe he’s right. I take the lingering sense that things’re off and push it deep down inside. This is a day like any other day.

And I’m gonna go on like normal.

178

179

sharon tregenza

S

haron's debut middle grade novel, Tarantula Tide, won the Kelpies Prize and the Heart of Hawick Award. Her second children’s book, The Shiver Stone, will be published in 2014.

Sharon has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Wales, and a second MA in Writing for Young People from Bath Spa University.

Sharon is an active member of the SCBWI, SAS and CBI.

About Secret of The Spike When a mysterious sinkhole opens up and swallows his Nan, Felix is haunted by his failure to save her. He moves in with his uncle and aunt who live in a dilapidated Victorian workhouse (The Spike) off the coast of Cornwall. Bullied by his cousin and appalled by the squalor of his new home, Felix becomes increasingly distressed.

More holes appear and the community is thrown into panic. Suspicion falls on the strange youth called Pythagoras Jewell.

A dying rat, a magic spell, and a Holy Well help forge a friendship between the cousins. Together they make the discovery of a secret maze of tunnels beneath The Spike. But a shock encounter with a gang of thieves puts the children in danger. Felix and Cinnamon are abandoned underground.

When another hole opens up and Cinnamon plunges into the abyss, can Felix save her and exonerate himself?

Secret of The Spike is contemporary middle grade fiction in the mystery genre. sharontregenza@gmail.com / www.sharontregenza.com 181

SHARON TREGENZA

secret of the spike One Crash

W

hen a hole in the earth opened up and swallowed my nan – everything changed.

We didn’t know it was going to happen. How could we?

It was Sunday. It was sunny for a change. We were weeding the flesh eaters.

‘You do around the cobra lilies, I’ll sort the monkey cups,’ Nan said.

‘Then we can both work on the Venus flytraps.’

I tapped at the soft soil with my trowel. It was too hot to put much effort in. Besides, I didn’t like those plants. Nan loved them because Nan hated flies. She hated flies almost as much as she hated rats. There was a can of insect spray in every corner of every room. It was like she was at war with all the flies on the planet. Her hungry plants were the first line of defence.

If a fly got past them into the house, it was zapped.

For a while, if I saw a fly crawling on one of her plants, I would blow on it so that it took off and wasn’t eaten alive. When Nan caught me, she was cross.

‘That’s just silliness, Felix. They’re nothing but germ factories. Don’t you know they vomit on everything?’

That stopped me for a while. No one wants to eat fly puke do they? But still …

She didn’t mind me rescuing other things though – spiders, caterpillars, ladybirds.

Cobra lilies, monkey cups, and Venus flytraps – great names for plants 182

and they looked so pretty at the edge of the lawn. No one would guess they spent all day and night eating things alive.

‘Come on, put some hard work into it, Felix. We need to get this done.

It’s treat night, remember.’

I nodded, chipped at the earth, and pulled up a dandelion.

‘Ah, here we go. Look,’ Nan whispered and pointed to where a bluebottle crawled at the edge of a Venus flytrap flower. I knew what happened next. The movement of the fly triggers the hairs on the plant.

Then BANG, the open jaws of the flower snaps shut, trapping the fly inside.

The plant turns the insect’s insides into goo and sucks it dry.

I didn’t want to watch. I pretended not to hear her.

My trowel clinked on something hard and I stopped. I thought it was just a marble at first – it was about the same size and shape – but when I crumbled the earth away, it glistened.

‘Nan? Look.’

‘What have you got there?’ She took a wet wipe out of her pocket and rubbed until it shone. ‘It’s a tiny compass – silver by the look of it. It’s got a link on the top so it’s come off a necklace or a man’s watch chain.’

She balanced it on the fingertip of her gardening glove. ‘Pretty thing, give it a good clean and it should come up nice.’ She handed it back to me.

‘Looks like digging up treasure runs in the family. It’s not quite a Golden Jaguar but I bet your dad and mum would be proud of you. Maybe you’ll be an archaeologist like them?’

I rubbed the last of the dirt off the compass with the edge of my T-shirt. ‘Maybe,’ I said.

When I think about it now, I reckon that compass meant me to find it.

I think it was trying to tell me something – give me a warning.

That night, after my shower, my skin buzzed from the day in the sun and my white sheets were cool. I placed the silver compass under my pillow. As I fell asleep, I heard an owl. I like owls.

The crash was like thunder in the room. The jolt racked my body and threw me to one side of the bed. The house shook. The window in my room cracked and shattered.

183

SHARON TREGENZA

‘Naaaan!’

My bed tilted and I clung to the headboard. I thought it was an earthquake. My wardrobe rocked, juddered forward, and then toppled with another crash.

‘Naaaan!’ I yelled again.

In the dawn light I saw the floor was sloping at an angle, the door flung open and twisted on its hinges.

‘Naaaan!’

When everything stopped moving, there was silence except for the screaming siren of Nan’s car alarm. The lights flashed on and off my bedroom wall in rhythm with my heartbeat. With a sick churning in my stomach, I watched my duvet curl and slither slowly off the bed and onto the floor as if it was alive.

Two Hole

I

don’t know how long I clung to the headboard. When I got the courage to move, my legs shook so much I couldn’t stand. Dust swirled in through the door like smoke and I coughed and rubbed my stinging eyes.

On my hands and knees I crawled towards the doorway. Levering the door open with my foot I squeezed my body through. There was another deep rumble and my bedside table slid across the room and thumped into my side. With a groan I pushed it away. The dust was even thicker in the hallway and there was a stench like dirty water – like drains. It filled my nose and throat and I heaved. I could see enough to know that Nan wasn’t in her bed. Sobbing with fright, I lurched through the chaos in every room, shouting for her. The floor sloped like a ship’s deck in a storm. Stuff had fallen out of cupboards and off shelves. Cans rolled across the kitchen floor. Burst bags of flour and sugar spilled off the counter tops. The kitchen table was on its side, the breakfast crockery smashed beneath it. What was happening? Nothing made any sense. Nan wasn’t in the kitchen, lounge or bathroom.

184

A cold draft blew up the hallway towards me. The front door swung off its hinges, creaking like old timbers. I crawled towards it, pulled it open and stared into – nothing.

The garden was gone.

The garage was gone, the lawn was gone, the trees were gone. Even the flesh-eating plants were gone.

Just a foot from the doorstep, where the garden should have been, was a massive hole.

A tree twisted with a loud snap. It bowed, thrashed its leaves, and was dragged down into the seething mass of earth and rubble. The surface rippled and more earth twisted in on itself like a dark whirlpool. Land was still sliding slowly into the pit – sucked into the void. The back end of Nan’s beloved sports car – her red MGB – stuck out of the hole. Its lights flashed, its alarm screamed.

Then I realised …

With a panic that froze my bones …

That … my nan must be down there too.

I hurled myself into the hole.

Immediately I felt the drag of the soil, as if it was trying to suck me under. I scraped desperately at the earth and rubble, screaming.

‘Naaan.’ My mouth filled with dirt. I gagged and spat. Something snapped with a loud crack and fell on top of me. It smashed into the side of my head. I didn’t feel the pain. I clawed at the earth – digging, digging, digging.

Arms grabbed me from behind and pulled me.

Voices shouted: ‘Get him out! Get him out!’

‘It’s still moving.’

‘Grab him. Quick!’

I tried to fight them off, swinging my fists, wild with terror and rage.

‘My nan’s down there! My nan’s down there!’

‘She’s gone, boy! You can’t help her now.’

They were too strong for me and I was dragged away still screaming, ‘Naaaaaan!’

185

SHARON TREGENZA

I remember sitting inside an ambulance, my body shaking so hard my teeth rattled. A paramedic had his arm around my shoulder and was talking to me. He dabbed at my head. The white cloth came away bright red with blood. I couldn’t work out what he was saying. I watched his mouth move but he didn’t make any sense. There were police cars with flashing lights and people everywhere.

It was like a movie. Nothing seemed real. One officer moved people back, while another cordoned off our home with a reel of tape. People hovered in silent groups just behind the hedge. They stared at me, their eyes wide with shock. If I turned towards them, they quickly looked away.

Mr Richards, the farmer from up the lane, was talking to a police officer. I realised he was one of the men who’d pulled me out of the hole.

When he’d finished he and came over. ‘Felix? You OK, my boy? I’ve called your uncle. He’s on his way.’

I lifted my arm to pull the blanket tighter around me and winced as pain shot like a bolt of electricity from my right side around to my back.

Without thinking, I said, ‘Nan’s going go ballistic when she sees the mess they’ve made of her garden.’

Mr Richards stared at me for a minute and then buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking. A woman wailed.

‘Your uncle’s here, he’ll come to the hospital with you.’ The police officer patted my shoulder. He turned sharply and raised his voice. ‘Someone shut that bloody car alarm off!’

They lay me down on a stretcher in the ambulance. The paramedic held my fingers, curled them gently towards my palm and then back towards my wrist. He was testing for broken bones, I suppose. I saw, with surprise, that my hands were covered in thick black mud – and blood.

Gerrans, my uncle, climbed in, sat beside me and took my bandaged hand in his. I’ve never seen anyone so pale. His hair and beard stood out black against his skin. I thought he was going to pass out but he steadied himself against the ambulance door. ‘My God, Felix.’

We avoided each other’s eyes.

He dropped his head and his long hair hid his face.

Neither of us spoke another word for the whole journey to the hospital.

186

187

bec treveil

B

ec was reared in the remote countryside near Folkestone, Kent. Aged eleven, she started to write stories about groups of girls leading lives far more exciting than her own, and she hasn’t been able to stop writing since.

The idea for Encoded came to Bec on a particularly tedious day at work. She heard the tick and tock of the clock and pondered whether the two sounds were bickering with one another, very systematically and rhythmically, and what they might be arguing about. When she started to wonder what other sounds might say, she realised she had unearthed the first of many distorted sensory abilities.

Bec currently lives in an attic in Bristol. When not working and writing, she plays in goal for a local hockey team, takes photographs, and has various comical mishaps in everyday life, a frightening number of which involve train doors.

About Encoded Sixteen-year-old Barley can smell emotions. She believes only her missing family know, until she gets to her latest foster placement, the lavish Brackhampton Grange. She meets Teddy and Eva, who have secrets of their own. Together, they unravel the sickening reality: they’re not foster kids, they’re science projects. Monitored. Tested. Trapped.

For Barley, this is no longer about tracking down her family. This is about staying alive. bect28@gmail.com

189

BEC TREVEIL

encoded One Barley

P

eople say smell is the strongest memory trigger. I was five years old when I realised I have a sort of sixth sense. Or maybe an extra-special fifth sense.

I don’t remember much except that I was lost in a supermarket. But I remember the panic. It was like an invisible cloud around me. It smelled like blood, sharp and metallic.

It’s the same smell the little boy toddling past me up the aisle of the train is giving off. Out of habit, I run my tongue around my mouth. I always seem to do that when I detect panic. When I smell blood, I feel as though I can taste it.

This is definitely the smell of panic.

No one else on the train reacts. Of course they don’t. They can’t smell what I can.

I can smell emotions.

I climb out of my seat and step over my sleeping social worker, careful not to kick her with my biker boots. I catch up to the little boy and his copper trail in the door compartment. He’s looking around desperately, his cheeks wet. Now I can smell fear mixing with the panic. I hate the smell of fear. It smells like sweat – heavy, clammy, clingy sweat. This little boy is giving off so much terror that my stomach heaves.

I smell my own revulsion now. Sour milk. Not helpful.

I crouch down in front of the little boy. He can’t be more than four.

190

‘Hey, it’s OK,’ I say, forcing an upbeat tone into my voice. ‘Have you lost your Mummy or Daddy?’

He nods. ‘Mummy,’ he says, biting his lip.

‘No problem,’ I say brightly. ‘We’ll find her together. Easy. My name’s Barley. What’s your name, Lil’ Man?’ ‘Tommy,’ he replies.

‘That’s my very favourite name,’ I tell him, smiling. It’s working. The negative emotions around him fade, leaving herbs. He feels safe with me.

‘OK, Tommy, what we’re going to do is walk up the train and call out for your Mummy. If we don’t find her, we’ll get the ticket man to make a special announcement on the loudspeaker. How does that sound?’

He nods again and I breathe in a blend of sage, parsley, and all the other things Mum used to grow in the window box. It’s nice.

We walk into the next carriage and I grab the back of a seat to steady myself. ‘Is Tommy’s mummy in here?’ I yell down the aisle. ‘Anyone, Tommy’s mummy?’

No one answers and the smell of blood is back. Tommy stops and looks at me, stricken.

‘Don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll be in the next carriage. We’re the good guys, and the good guys always win,’ I tell him. I hope he doesn’t find out what a complete lie that is until he’s older. ‘The good guys, the superheroes.

Who’s your favourite superhero, Tommy?’

He thinks about this carefully, then answers, ‘Buzz Lightyear!’

I’m glad it’s a name I recognise. ‘Best one there is. To infinity and beyond!’

I say loudly, shooting my fist out in front of me and marching on. Tommy copies, giggling. I detect peppermint around him – bravery. I love that smell.

The doors open and my nose is once again assaulted by the stenches of panic and fear, much stronger than when I first smelt them on Tommy.

With a bigger person, the smells are more intense.

‘Is Tommy’s mummy here?’ I call out.

I spot a woman crouched in the middle of the carriage, frantically peering under seats. She looks up.

‘Mummy!’ Tommy yells, running unsteadily towards her. She envelops him and suddenly the blood and sweat coming from the woman is gone, replaced by the sweet smell of chocolate. Relief.

191

BEC TREVEIL

The woman glances over Tommy’s shoulder and gets a proper look at me. Her expression changes and so does her smell. The sweetness is gone, replaced by acid. Vinegar, specifically. She’s suddenly apprehensive that her precious little boy – who she lost, let’s not forget – has been in my care for all of one minute, and she’s let off a spurt of aggression.

I roll my eyes. Wonder what it could be. Dyed red hair? Ripped leggings? Nose ring, perhaps?

‘You’re welcome,’ I yell with all the charm of an addict on a comedown.

I’ve got no problem with little kids – I’ve been around enough of them over the past few years. It’s adults I can’t be doing with.

As much as I’d love to stick around and pass along a few parenting tips, I should probably get my bag. I’ve got my own journey to worry about.

Only twenty minutes before this train arrives at Reading, where my social worker and I are due to meet my new foster family.

If all goes to plan, I’ll be long gone by then.

I don’t reckon my latest social worker – Sharon? Or was it Karen? – has had a chance to go through my file yet. Granted, it’s not exactly light reading.

Still, if she had, she might have noticed that I’ve run away from each of my last ten foster places. If she’d seen any of the incident reports, she might have decided that travelling by train to my new foster family was a bad idea.

And if she had half a brain cell to her name, she definitely wouldn’t have fallen asleep.

I smirk. It’s not even a challenge.

I yank my canvas duffel bag off the top shelf of the luggage rack. The two metal climbing clips – carabiners – clink together. The sound sets off the smell of herbs from me and I smile. I feel safe when I hear that sound.

Those metal clips, heavy and scratched, are my good luck charm. A gift from some half-decent foster parents who got me into climbing. Proper climbing, with ropes and safety equipment. Before then, I just climbed trees.

I’ve got a few minutes yet. I head into the toilet cubicle, lock the door, and perch my bag on the lid of the loo. From my smaller bag, a fraying satchel, I take out a hairbrush and scrape my shortish hair into a side ponytail. Sod the eyeliner; the train’s so bumpy I’ll probably poke my eye out.

When I look in the mirror, I often wonder whether my family will 192

recognise me when I finally see them again. Maybe they’ll be upset that I changed my hair, or have a go at me for the way I’ve behaved over the last four years. Maybe they’ll be so glad to see me that none of that stuff will matter.

I hope I find out soon.

BANG BANG BANG. ‘Tickets!’

I roll my eyes and flush the toilet for effect. ‘Give me a minute, yeah?’ I yell through the closed door. ‘Unless you’d rather I didn’t wash my hands first?’

I don’t hear anything so I presume he’s buggered off, but when I finally unlock the door, I barrel into a beast of a conductor. He has a moustache like a caterpillar crawling across his sweaty top lip.

When I show Caterpillar Tash my ticket, he looks up at me sharply.

‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’

Having just finished my GCSEs, I’m free for the summer, so no. Not that he’ll believe me. Adults have a habit of not believing a single word that comes out of my mouth, especially when it’s true.

Rule Number Five: Whether you lie or tell the truth, grown-ups won’t believe you.

That’s one of the Golden Rules for surviving foster care. Things to remember, to help me through the rough bits. And there have been some really rough bits in the last four years.

If grown-ups won’t believe me either way, what’s to stop me lying?

‘School? God, no. I’m undercover, on a mission,’ I tell him seriously, tapping the side of my nose. ‘I work for MI6. Got an engagement in London. Top secret, hush-hush. If I told you anything more, I’d probably have to kill you. You know how it is.’

Caterpillar Tash looks at me, gobsmacked. He smells of vomit – confusion. Then, trying to regain his composure, he coughs and smooths his hands down the front of his jacket, which is struggling to contain his gut. ‘I’ll ask again. Why aren’t you in school?’

‘I’m going to my new foster home,’ I inform him.

‘On your own?’

I look around, making a point of checking. ‘Looks that way, doesn’t it.’

He folds his arms across his chest, turning redder and redder. The smell of vinegar wafts around him and I wrinkle my nose. He’s getting angry. ‘Is that allowed?’

193

BEC TREVEIL

‘Apparently my new foster parents couldn’t be arsed to come and collect me,’ I say bitterly. Because it’s true.

Caterpillar Tash has turned so red, his head looks like a giant spot, ready to burst. ‘Proof!’ he suddenly spits out. ‘Papers, documents – surely you’ve got those?’

Doesn’t this guy have better things to do?

‘Forwarded on,’ I say, shrugging. ‘If I had to carry around all my paperwork, I’d need another suitcase. I bet I’ve had more foster homes than you’ve had shags.’

A vein looks like it’s about to pop out of his temple. ‘If you keep playing up, I’ll be forced to eject you from the train,’ he warns me. The smell of vinegar around him is so strong, I can’t help but gag. I put my hand over my mouth and swallow.

Then there’s a jolt and I stumble forward a step. We’re slowing down.

The muffled announcement says we’re pulling into Didcot Parkway. Last stop before Reading.

It’s now or never.

I stand up straight and try to hide my smile. I’d planned to get off at Didcot either way, but now I can get off the train here and piss off this bloke into the bargain.

‘Playing up? How exactly am I playing up?’

‘You’re exhibiting threatening behaviour,’ Caterpillar Tash says precisely.

I grin. ‘Yeah? And which page of the Manual for Dipshit Conductors is that on?’

He huffs and puffs, then takes hold of my elbow. ‘Make way! Out of the way!’ he says, pushing me ahead of him.

‘Oi! I’m pretty sure this isn’t in the manual,’ I snap as I’m forced through the commuters waiting to get off the train. As they watch me being frogmarched to the door, I smell confusion. It hangs in the air like a cloud of vomit. I hold my breath.

I hear a shrill shout from the carriage behind me.

‘Barley? Barley, are you there? Excuse me, sorry … Barley!’

Oh. Sharon/Karen must have woken up. I doubt she’ll see me or my duffel bag with the giant Caterpillar Tash in the way. Sort of like hiding behind a barn.

194

Caterpillar Tash throws the door open and escorts me onto the platform, away from everyone milling about. ‘I don’t have time to fill in a report,’ he sneers, ‘but maybe a wait for the next train will give you a chance to cool off.’

I shrug my shoulders. This is all part of the plan, I remind myself, even if it now involves getting a public telling-off.

The guard on the platform blows his whistle and the train pulls away.

I turn around, then suddenly I hear hysterical yelling. It takes me a second to work out it’s Sharon/Karen hollering through the sliding window at me.

‘Don’t think I can’t see you, Barley Morgan! Don’t think you’ll get anywhere before we track you down!’

I almost carry on without acknowledging her. But I can’t resist. I turn around and show her my middle finger. She keeps shouting, even as the train disappears around a bend.

I make that Barley – 11, Social – 0.

195

sarah waterstone

S

arah was born in West London, but moved to the countryside with her family when she was three. In a house-on-arches beside a river, her childhood was full of amazing wildlife which inspired a deep and lasting connection with nature.

In 2007, she took a degree course in Creative Writing and Art at Bath Spa University and discovered how much she liked writing for young people of all ages. She now lives on the edge of the Somerset Levels with her two youngest children.

About The Light in Our Hands In the near future, a region at the edge of north-east Europe is in crisis.

A power struggle rages between different factions over dwindling resources.

Kasha (fifteen) and freedom fighter Marek (seventeen) find themselves on opposite sides in a brutal immigrant war but bond through their determination to rescue orphan baby Tullia and reunite the child with her traveller grandmother. Zain, an old classmate turned vigilante, is determined to stop them. As winter sets in and the struggle to hide out in the forest gets harder, Kasha and Marek experience the best and worst of human nature.

Through loss, Kasha learns about love and finds the resilience and courage in herself to stand up for what is right.

The Light in Our Hands is a dystopian love story for teens with elements of folklore and myth. sarah.waterstone@yahoo.com

197

SARAH WATERSTONE

the light in our hands The Beginning

M

idsummer’s Eve is the shortest night of the year. A turning point, Mum says, where fire and water mix, where magic happens.

Generations back, for as long as anyone can remember, the flames of the midnight fires have licked at the heels of the couples who jump over them and young women have floated wedding wreaths on the lake, hoping to make the young men of their dreams fall in love with them.

Tonight, it is my turn to wear the long, swan-white dress that my sister wore when she was fourteen. In the afternoon we pick goldenflowered marigolds, ox-eye daisies and roses. We shape them into a circle with bunches of emerald green ferns.

‘Smile, Kasha!’

Mum snaps me on her phone. I smile out at her from the screen. A midsummer angel with a halo of flowers, bright against my dark hair.

We make our way down to the lake, Mum, Dad, Hanna and me.

Groups of people gather around a huge bonfire that flares and crackles against the sky. A yellow bar of sunset reflects on the glass-like water, as the sun grazes the horizon.

It won’t grow properly dark tonight.

I join my friends splashing and singing by the water’s edge. The boys approach us, also dressed in white, with fresh leaf crowns and ferns stuffed into their red belts.

‘Make them wait,’ someone screams but I am too impatient. I am the first to float my wreath of flowers. The other girls follow me. We watch to see which way our destinies will move.

198

A shiver sweeps through my body. My wreath begins to tip over, halfsubmerged, as it floats out into the lake.

I walk in deeper. The water reaches my waist.

‘Kasha!’

I hear my name and turn, see Marek wade in and spin through the water to catch my garland before it sinks.

He swims over, rests it on my head and smiles at me.

‘Hey!’ he says.

I can see the midnight fire reflected in his eyes. A boy I hardly know won’t let fate turn against me.

I don’t care what the others think about him.

I smile back.

In the distance, silhouetted against Silva Island, a fishing boat blazes. An offering for a good harvest and to burn bad luck. Back then, the end of the world was a fortune not told on midsummer’s eve. We didn’t know it yet but the magic had stopped working. That was the last time my family celebrated the old ways together. Soon, the war would rip through our lives and change everything.

One

I

’m fifteen today. I sit at the kitchen table in my new shorts and white lace top. Hanna and I eat pancakes for a treat. Our mother’s blue patterned bird dress, instead of her normal jeans, marks this day out as something special. Mum had us young and sometimes people think she’s our sister, what with us all having the same straight, dark brown hair.

I feel different dressed up. A picnic in the back garden is a waste. I want to see people my own age.

‘Mum please.’ I pull my best puppy dog expression. ‘Can’t we go into town and look round the market?’

I know a lot of the shops have shut down but I am sick of being stuck at home, listening to bad news on the radio. Ever since the war started and school closed, my life has become a nightmare of boredom. I dream about hanging out in the park with my friends like before.

Things have been quiet lately.

199

SARAH WATERSTONE

‘No, it’s too risky. I’m sorry Kasha.’

Mum’s eyes shine with regret. She smooths and folds a piece of scrunched-up wrapping paper.

But I won’t let go.

This is the worst birthday ever.

I push and pull my angry words backwards and forwards at her until she caves in and I get my own way.

We park at the Bear Hotel where Hanna works, and walk through the busy market square. The umbrellas and stalls are an island of colour against the grey stone buildings. Above the blue boxes of fresh fruit, I spot the strawberry man. I persuade Mum to buy me some. She chats to him while I bite into the sweet taste of summer.

Beside me, a dog suddenly barks and pulls at its lead. I take a step back and knock into a stack of melons. I can see Mum frown at me.

‘Kasha you klutz, pick them all up.’

I duck down beside the stall, hear the church clock strike three.

Mum is there and then she is not.

In that split-second my world changes.

A bomb rips through our summer day and blasts us into a different future.

You could fit the whole of time into a giant quietness.

It curves over me as I wait inside the darkness.

A scorching, metallic wind sears my skin and hammers my ears shut.

Something heavy slams against my foot. I stumble blindly for a minute but my ankle won’t support my weight so I sit down and I am so cold that I shiver and my eyes are tightly shut and I’m too terrified to open them. I wait for the smoke to clear. Wonder how I am still alive.

I fumble for my T-shirt and pull it up over my nose and mouth. A person touches my back and pulls me into reality. I force open my eyes the tiniest bit. I can’t hear anything but the smoke is clearing. I can focus. At first I think it’s Mum, because they are roughly the same height with dark 200

brown hair and a side parting. But it’s not her and I think it must be an angel and that I am dead until she crouches down in front of me and presses her hands on my knees and I can feel her soft breath on my skin and read Medic on her green coat.

‘OK?’ She smiles and it’s good when she puts her arms round me.

‘My name’s Gina. What’s yours?’

I struggle to think straight.

Hang on— Before— before, we were in the square— me and Mum. I focus on Gina’s kind face. She helps me to stand and pulls my arm through hers. Throbbing pain fires up around my ankle and when she guides me away from the market, I’m scared so I shut my eyes again. But I have to look when we skirt around something lumpy on the ground. White and red – like strawberries and cream. I tell myself it’s a broken doll or a shop dummy from one of the stalls, but it can’t be because it’s moving.

Next thing I know, I’m lying in the back of an ambulance, bundled up in silver bubble wrap, blue-lighting it across town to the hospital. I’m breathing in mist under the mask that covers my nose and mouth. Gina tells me it’s a drug to make me feel sleepy. I feel safe in the ambulance but I am still shaky. An inflated bandage holds my left leg raised up and straight. Gina sits beside me and asks me loads of questions about my name and how old I am and what Mum’s name is. Her pen flies across the notepad, balanced on her knees.

Two

G

ina rushes me through the packed emergency department straight into a treatment room. I am prodded all over by two doctors and scanned for internal bleeding. They try to talk to me but my hearing is fading in and out. I struggle to lip-read but I can’t keep up so I press my hands against my ears and they finally get that I can’t hear properly. They 201

SARAH WATERSTONE

scissor my clothes off. Work out a system for pain – one thumb for no, two for yes. I’m pulled into a log roll while they feel along my back for broken bones.

‘You’re a lucky girl,’ Gina tells me with shiny eyes as she bandages my ankle and gives me some tablets for the pain and cream for the burns on my face.

I am lucky to be alive.

A sob catches in my throat as a lumpy white and red image shoehorns its way into my thoughts.

Gina squeezes my shoulders.

‘Soon as I find your Mum, you can stay with her. OK?’ She helps me off the bed and into a wheelchair, then parks me beside reception. There’s nowhere else I can go. All the waiting areas are crammed with injured people and busy hospital staff.

‘Wait there,’ Gina commands.

I nod and calm my breathing. Glad to be told what to do for once.

The bright lights sting my eyes and my head throbs with the worst headache I’ve ever had. I’m wearing a hospital gown with teddy bears all over it but nobody notices or cares. Probably they have more important things to focus on, like staying alive until they are seen by a doctor. I clutch my bag of medicine and look around. There’s a line of payphones a bit along the corridor. I need to call Hanna and make her come to the hospital. But my purse is gone and I don’t know her number.

I struggle to think straight. There’s a ringing in my ears as sounds fade in and out.

I feel so drowsy.

A huge commotion jolts me awake. Someone kicks over the fake palm tree by the entrance. Tries to make a run for it. Two men in bullet-proof vests and helmets pounce on him, handcuff him, and drag him over to reception. They throw him onto a chair opposite me.

I freeze – recognise him instantly.

Marek!

He’s breathing hard and blood trickles down out of a cut above his eye. One side of his face is swollen. He stares at me in amazement while the guards talk to the reception people. It’s been over a year. His eyes haven’t 202

changed though. They hold mine with the same intense gaze as before. My hands reach up to my hair automatically before I realise it is matted with blood and dust and bits of the market.

Suddenly I feel too sick and upset to be embarrassed that I am a mess slumped in a wheelchair and wearing a children’s hospital gown.

‘Kasha?’

I lip-read him say my name.

But I still can’t speak.

Just nod.

Unable to explain.

Three

A

t first I don’t recognise Mum. The heart monitor is bleep – bleep – bleeping.

She lies on her back, lost in a tangle of wires and drips hooked up to machines with flashing lights. So I sit beside her, downgraded to a wheelchair, no longer an emergency.

I hold her soft hand, look at her swollen, unconscious eyes. A crumpled sheet covers everything but I can see her legs are intact.

I wish I could turn back time because I know it’s all my fault.

I tell her that I’m sorry, over and over again. Fat tears splash onto our joined-up hands. My eyes are glued to the dancing green numbers because if I stop watching, she might stop. I force myself to stay awake.

A doctor with kind eyes pulls up a chair beside me. He tells me that Mum has a serious head injury but she is stable enough to be moved. She needs a special scan on a machine, but they don’t have one in this hospital.

They want to airlift her out tonight to give her the best possible chance of recovery.

I don’t like how that sounds.

What about me?

‘I’m sorry.’

He squeezes my shoulders and leaves to track down Hanna. My heart kicks against my chest.

No! 203

SARAH WATERSTONE

The evening arrives too quickly. The nurses surround Mum’s bed for ages, fiddling about with drips and wires. They add more blankets. Hanna joins us at the lifts. Hugs and kisses us both. She looks pale and sad. I wonder if she blames me but it’s the wrong time to talk.

We walk with them to the helipad on top of the hospital. I cling onto Mum, I don’t want to say goodbye. The kind doctor jots down the name of the special brain injury hospital they are flying her to. He promises us he will look after Mum like his own sister. They load her stretcher into a waiting helicopter. The door slides shut and a mini hurricane whips at our clothes and hair as the blades whizz into a blur and the helicopter rises a little unsteadily before it swings away across the pink and orange skyline.

I hobble across the roof, waving my scarf at the sky as our mother shrinks to a black dot and disappears.

204

205

acknowledgements

T

he MA Writing for Young People class of 2013 would like to thank everyone who helped us cultivate our wild talents and produce the work which is represented in this anthology. We have benefited from wonderful help from the following people. t 1SPGFTTPS %BWJE "MNPOE GPS IJT JOTQJSBUJPO t +VMJB (SFFO PVS PVUTUBOEJOH $PVSTF -FBEFS XIP NBLFT FWFSZPOF feel that their work matters. t 0VS UVUPST Β &MFO $BMEFDPUU -VDZ $ISJTUPQIFS +VMJB (SFFO Marie-Louise Jensen, Jonathan Neale, CJ Skuse, Mimi Thebo and Steve Voake, for their advice and encouragement. t 0VS QVCMJTIJOH NPEVMF UVUPST +BOJOF "NPT BOE +PIO .D-BZ GPS opening our eyes to the world of publishing. t 5SJDJB -ZOO BOE IFS IFMQGVM TVQQPSU TUBê BU $PSTIBN t ɨF JMMVTUSBUJPO UFBN GSPN UIF 4DIPPM PG "SU BOE %FTJHO BU #BUI Spa University led by Tim Vyner and Matt Robertson. t /JDPMB -VTI GPS IFS UJUMF BOE XPSET PO UIF CBDL DPWFS t 0VS GFMMPX TUVEFOUT GPS UIFJS DP PQFSBUJPO t $PQZ FEJUPS /JDPMB 1SFTMFZ BOE UZQFTFUUFS +FOOJ .PPSF t $BSPMJOF )BSSJT GPS IFS QBUJFODF TLJMM BOE QSPGFTTJPOBMJTN JO producing the finished work.

Thank you, Val Mote and Pat Robson, Co-Editors of the MA Writing for Young People anthology, 2013.

206

illustrators t $PWFS CZ &NJMZ )VOUFS emilyrebeccahunter@gmail.com / www.emilyrebeccahunter.co.uk t ɨF 8FJHIU PG -JWJOH QBHF CZ "NZ 3PCFSUTPO amyjeanrobertson@gmail.com t *O " %JêFSFOU -JHIU QBHF CZ 3FCFDDB #BHMFZ bagley.becky@gmail.com www.bagleyart.com / www.bagleybooks.com t )PX UP (FU " -JGF CZ 5+ +BDLTPO QBHF CZ -JMZ ,OJCCT lilyknibbs@gmail.com / lilyknibbs.com t * UP * QBHF CZ &MIPSB 1PXFMM elhoradavis_@hotmail.co.uk t ɨF /FJHICPVST QBHF CZ 3BRVFM -PXTMFZ rlowsley@yahoo.com / www.raquellowsley.com t ɨF :FBS PG UIF 3BU QBHF

Cover illustration by Matthew Johnson, copyright Simon & Schuster t 0SMBOEP T (IPTUT QBHF CZ #FB #BSBOPXTLB beabaranowska@hotmail.com / beabaranowska.com t .Z /PU 4P 1FSGFDU -JGF QBHF CZ ,JSTUZ 4UBOMFZ kirstyjanetstanley@gmail.com / cargocollective.com/kirstystanley t ɨF 4JHO PG 0OF QBHF CZ /JD .BD nicmac2805@gmail.com / http://cargocollective.com/NicMac t ɨF -BTU 5JNF * $SJFE QBHF CZ 3BRVFM -PXTMFZ rlowsley@yahoo.com / www.raquellowsley.com t 3PMP T 5BMFT &MMB UIF :FMMB QBHF CZ &NJMZ 4BOUPT 'JHVFJSB emilyfigueira@hotmail.com t " (JSM $BMMFE )BSSZ QBHF CZ +BNJF 4PVUIXFMM Southwell.jamie@gmail.com t "SJBEOJT QBHF CZ +PTI .BSUJO josh.ch.martin@gmail.com / http://whatjoshdrew.weebly.com t 5SFW QBHF CZ 3FCFDDB #BHMFZ bagley.becky@gmail.com www.bagleyart.com / www.bagleybooks.com 207

t 0UIFSXPSME QBHF CZ 3FCFDDB #BHMFZ bagley.becky@gmail.com www.bagleyart.com / www.bagleybooks.com t $JSDMF PG 'FBS QBHF CZ &NJMZ "MFYBOEFS em_kate@hotmail.co.uk / www.emilyalexanderdesign.co.uk t ɨF 4BYPO 4IJFME QBHF CZ +PTI .BSUJO josh.ch.martin@gmail.com / http://whatjoshdrew.weebly.com t .VUF QBHF CZ 3FCFDDB #BHMFZ bagley.becky@gmail.com www.bagleyart.com / www.bagleybooks.com t 1BE #SBUT QBHF CZ &NJMZ )VOUFS emilyrebeccahunter@gmail.com / www.emilyrebeccahunter.co.uk t 4IBSET PG (MBTT QBHF CZ &MIPSB 1PXFMM elhoradavis_@hotmail.co.uk t 4FDSFU PG UIF 4QJLF QBHF CZ $BSM (PEGSFZ carlgodfrey@hotmail.co.uk t &ODPEFE QBHF CZ #FB #BSBOPXTLB beabaranowska@hotmail.com / beabaranowska.com t ɨF -JHIU JO 0VS )BOET QBHF CZ 3FCFDDB #BHMFZ bagley.becky@gamil.com www.bagleyart.com / www.bagleybooks.com

208