Bloomsbury Children's First Chapter Sampler

Chapter One In which introductions are made and in which the reader is welcomed to the book

I

t began with a pair of false teeth, or rather it began without a pair of false teeth.

Actually, now I think about it, that’s not exactly the beginning of the story. It might have begun with a red nose. A clown’s red nose, the day that went missing. But really it began well before that too. I suppose it began with the letter -1-

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the Ringmaster received one Wednesday morning . . . or maybe it started before that, even.

Oh, beginnings are tricky, aren’t they? You think you’ve got it pinned down and then you look again and there’s some loose thread dangling out the other side. You tug on it and soon the whole thing’s unravelled on the floor at your feet like a horrible jumper you got for Christmas.

For example, let’s say you wanted to tell the story of why you were late for school this morning. You might start by saying you were late because you didn’t leave the house early enough.That’s pretty straightforward. But why didn’t you leave on time? Maybe your little brother was making a nuisance of himself, and you needed to change your shirt because of the porridge. So, that’s what made you late. But then, you might ask why the little brat was -2-

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being so annoying, and it might be because he didn’t get enough sleep. There was that thunderstorm in the night and he’s so soft that he’s still scared of storms. Well, surely that’s the beginning? But how did the thunderstorm get there? ‘There was a cold depression over the Bay of Biscay,’ the weatherman might say. ‘But, where’s the Bay of Biscay?’ you might ask.

‘Down near Spain,’ he might explain.

But even blaming Spain for making you late for school isn’t the end of it. Why do you have to go to school in the first place? After all, if you didn’t need to go, you couldn’t be late. So then you could look back at the history of education and find out who invented the first school (and why they decided it should begin so early in the morning). And on top of that, it might be worth asking your parents some questions. For -3-

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instance, why on earth did they want to get themselves another child, when they already had lovely little you? And your mother might say that she looked at you as a little baby, fast asleep in your cot, and worried you’d get lonely as you got older, and your father might rustle his newspaper and say that it wasn’t his idea.

So, you see, beginnings really are hard things to pin down.

Now I think about it, the missing false teeth actually come later, much later (not until the end of Chapter Seven).

Before that there’s a boy I ought to introduce.

He’s a normal enough lad, about this tall and that wide . . . But, oh dear, hang on – perhaps I’m still getting ahead of myself. I’m assuming that you know what a boy is. Maybe that’s an assumption too far. Let’s backtrack a little.

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A boy is like a girl, but not as clean. Like a man, but not as tall. Like a dog, but not as hairy (usually).They wear clothes, run around noisily and wipe their noses up their sleeves.

This particular boy’s called Fizzlebert. It’s a silly name, I know. But his mum’s a clown and his dad’s a strongman, so, frankly, he’s lucky he didn’t end up with an even sillier one. He -5-

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spends his life travelling with the circus, and since most of his friends are circus acts with all manner of weird and wonky names and titles, he doesn’t often think about the Fizzlebertness of his name. At least, not as often as I have to.

He’s not the one who has to write this book, you see. It’s a long word to type,‘Fizzlebert’, although thankfully easy to spell, so I shouldn’t really grumble. I mean, if I had to write ‘bureaucracy’ (a word I find almost impossible to spell in one go) on every page, well, then I really would have something to complain about.

But, fortunately, although in all circuses there is some bureaucracy, which is to say paperwork, Fizz’s story doesn’t involve the accountancy department, the Health and -6-

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Safety inspector’s clipboard or the filing cabinet of performers’ contracts which sits at the back of the Ringmaster’s office-cum-caravan.

Or not very much, anyway.

So, where were we? I think we’d got this far . . .

Fizzlebert Stump (who I most often just call Fizz in order to save on ink) is a boy who lives in the circus. He has a selection of library cards, a pen pal called Kevin, red hair, a dashing old ringmaster’s frockcoat, and the ability to hold his breath for just as long as it takes an audience to become impressed by a small boy putting his head in a lion’s mouth, and this book is the story of just one of his adventures.

And that’s all I’ve got to say to get the introduction out of the way. Now, roll on Chapter Two, eh?

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OUT MARCH 2013

Fizzlebert Stump and the Bearded Boy A.F. Harrold

T HE F ALL

Master Frederick Shiverton squashed a fly against the window pane with his thumb. It produced a satisfying pop, and went some way to calming the itch of anger that had become quite unbearable. He had been watching the hubbub from his nursery window for nearly an hour, and still no one had come to tell him what was happening. It annoyed Frederick to be left in the dark about important family matters – it more than annoyed him, in fact: he would make sure that Nanny paid dearly for not coming up to tell him what was afoot.

He wiped the sticky fly-blood on the back of his velvet breeches. Messengers had been galloping in and out of the courtyard below all morning, and all of the servants

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Accounts of the Supernatural

wore a look of clammy terror. Frederick’s mother would still be in bed. Her headaches usually kept her in her chamber until the afternoon, and no one would dare to wake her before then, even for the gravest of news.

Groad, the butler, paced the length of the Shivertons’ enormous town house, occasionally swapping tense words with some of the staff. Normally immaculate, Groad’s dyed-black hair was sticking out in tufts, and Frederick could see a trickle of sweat, grey with hair dye, staining his white, starched collar.

What was going on? Frederick wondered again, his nose pressed against the cold glass, leaving a greasy smear.

And where was Nanny? He had had to get dressed himself this morning! She would pay for that too.

A sudden thought occurred to Frederick, accompanied by a little twitch of excitement. He went to his wardrobe and reached deep into its recesses, past the broken toys and specimen jars filled with dead spiders that he had forgotten to throw away. His fingers brushed what he was looking for and he snatched it up, first checking that no one was coming: he was quite alone.

He brought out the little doll. It was a figure made of felt, crudely sewn by his own small, elegant hands from scraps and thread stolen from the maids. Its eyes, two jet beads, stared back at Frederick blindly. The figure was full

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Accounts of the Supernatural

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of pins – stuck precisely through where the heart, lungs and other organs might have been if it were real – and Frederick handled the doll delicately, conscious of pricking himself. The material was scorched in places from occasional acquaintance with Frederick’s bedtime candle, and the trace of a footprint could just be seen – the result of an afternoon spent being crushed beneath his ornate, buckled shoes. He turned the doll over, and its head lolled to one side; it was half-torn off the body, the wiry horsehair stuffing spooling out of the broken neck like cut veins.

The nursery door opened and Frederick jumped, quickly hiding the figure behind his back.

‘Oh. It’s you,’ Frederick said in his thin, cold voice.

Nanny hovered in the doorway. When she had arrived as nursemaid, she had been plump and rosy-cheeked, but years of looking after the young master had made her as scrawny and skittish as a foal: if anyone were to peel back the sleeves of her dress, they would find her as pin-pricked and burned as Frederick’s doll. Though Frederick liked to torment her more directly, springing out to press on her spoons heated by his candle, or catching her with his lepidoptery pins.

‘Where have you been all morning?’ he asked, taking a step towards her.

Nanny flinched. ‘Please forgive me, Master Frederick,’

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Accounts of the Supernatural

she whispered, ‘but the house has been in much confusion this morning.’

‘I can see that with my own eyes,’ he sneered. ‘What I want to know is why it is so.’

Nanny’s eyes darted around the room nervously, checking for one of Frederick’s traps.

‘Well?’ he demanded.

Nanny hesitated. Frederick took another step nearer.

‘Your father is dead!’ she cried, desperate to prevent him from coming any closer.

Frederick stopped. ‘Dead?’ he whispered.

Nanny nodded.

‘Are you sure?’

‘He fell off his horse this morning,’ Nanny replied quietly. ‘He broke his neck.’

Frederick stood blinking at her, shocked. For the first time since he was a baby Nanny felt a rush of sympathy for the boy. He looked so small and fragile, as any boy of thirteen might having lost his father. She wondered whether she should put her arms around him, but just as she was about to console him, he did a most extraordinary thing.

He leapt up on to the day bed and began to bounce and squeal with joy.

‘Dead!’ he sang. ‘Dead! Dead! Dead! But, Nanny, how marvellous!’

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Accounts of the Supernatural

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Nanny was so jolted that she didn’t know quite what to do.

‘Frederick!’ she hissed, terrified that Groad might come up any minute and see his appalling reaction. ‘Stop that this moment! Frederick, please!’

Frederick stopped bouncing and fixed her with his pale eyes. ‘It’s Lord Shiverton to you now, Nanny.’

He jumped off the bed and pulled her towards him by her shoulders. ‘Has anyone told Mother?’ he asked, shivering with anticipation.

‘She’s not yet awake,’ Nanny answered warily.

‘Wonderful,’ Frederick breathed. ‘I’ll tell her.’

He scampered off before Nanny could stop him, whooping and rubbing his hands with delight.

Later, when Frederick slipped back to the nursery, he tossed his little homemade figure on the fire – after all, he had no further use for it. As he watched the doll shrivel and burn, he marvelled at what a good likeness it was – the coal-black eyes and livid, red hair: exactly like his father’s.

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Arthur Bannister 23B Sudden Street Kensal Rise London NW10 66A Dear Mr Bannister, Shiverton Hall is pleased to offer you the Coleman Scholarship for Academic Excellence commencing at the beginning of the new school year.

The scholarship includes full board, uniform and a book allowance for the duration of your school career.

Please let us know if you would like to accept this offer. If so, we will see you at the beginning of Michaelmas Term.

Yours sincerely Professor Esther Long-Pitt Headmistress, Shiverton Hall

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C HAP TER O NE

Arthur Bannister was ignoring his mother. Or rather, he was ignoring her voice, which travelled into his bedroom from the hallway below at exactly the same pitch and volume as a train whistle. He scrabbled frantically around his room, desperately trying to pack, knowing that any minute now, his mother would burst into the room and discover just how appallingly behind schedule he was.

Arthur had been reading while he was supposed to be packing. Now, in a panic, he started grabbing a collection of increasingly random and useless items. He had so far selected his new football boots (a fourteenth birthday present), his underwear, a handful of mismatched socks, a scuba mask and a hideous tie with smiley pigs on it. As he heard the ominous sound of his mother angrily ascending the stairs, he flung open his wardrobe pulling 7

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things out of it indiscriminately: shirts, Christmas jumpers, a homemade planet costume he’d worn in a school play, aged ten.

The door opened with a bang to reveal May Bannister, red-faced and wearing a violently pink suit and matching hat.

‘Arthur!’ she cried, taking in the apocalyptic mess of his room. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘Packing,’ Arthur replied, quickly hiding an empty crisp packet in his bag.

‘You’re not packed yet?’ May squeaked. ‘We’ve been waiting for you downstairs. We were supposed to leave twenty minutes ago!’

‘I know!’

‘It’s a four hour drive as it is. If we hit the traffic too then –’ ‘I know!’

‘You need to make a good impression, Arthur,’ she said, suddenly fretful. ‘You won’t get another opportunity like this after –’ ‘OK, Mum, I get it,’ Arthur interrupted.

Arthur’s mother sighed – it was impossible to stay angry with him. She hated telling him off; one wounded look from her handsome son and she had flashbacks of him as a little boy, patching up his cuts and bruises and pushing him on the swings. She shook the concern out of her eyebrows and smiled.

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‘Come on, then,’ she said, nudging him aside and removing some of the more insane items from his bag.

‘I’ll help you. It would be a good idea to pack your uniform, for starters!’

Arthur began to take in his mother’s outfit. ‘Mum,’ he said casually, pretending to fold some jumpers, ‘what is that on your head?’

She put her hand up to the enormous pink confection. ‘It’s my new hat. Jean made it. Smart, no?’

‘Mum.’ Arthur tried to keep his cringing to a minimum. ‘Don’t you think it might be a bit much?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’re just going to my new school – we’re not exactly having lunch with the Queen.’

His mother looked crestfallen and Arthur immediately felt horrible.

‘I just want to make a good impression, that’s all,’ she mumbled, blushing.

Arthur put his arm around her. ‘I know, Mum. And I appreciate it, I do. The hat’s fine, but it’s hard enough going to a school where I don’t know a single person. I just don’t want to make a scene, you know?’

May smiled. ‘I understand, petal. No hat.’

‘And no “petal”.’

In no time at all May had slotted the last neatly folded shirt into the suitcase with a satisfied clap of her hands.

‘Right,’ she said as she swept out of the room, ‘you have 9

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five minutes to get into your uniform. If you don’t come down then your brother can have your scholarship.’

Rob, Arthur’s half-brother, sat yawning at the kitchen table. Even though only eleven, he was almost identical to Arthur, with the same scarecrow blond hair and hazel eyes. Both boys had taken after their mother, with barely a hint of their different fathers. The only marked contrast was that Rob was a foot shorter than Arthur and wore a pair of enormous glasses that stood out from his face like bug’s eyes. Rob was not nearly as innocent as his appearance implied – nothing gave him more satisfaction than winding up his brother. From the moment he was old enough to crawl, he was slipping spiders between Arthur’s bedsheets and filling his shoes with golden syrup. But today any jokes had been forbidden by May, on pain of gruesome and painful death, so Rob had to be satisfied with the memory of some of his finer moments, snickering to himself as he recalled the prank a few years earlier that had resulted in Arthur turning up to school with one of his mother’s bras hooked on to the back of his blazer.

Rob looked up as May came into the kitchen, minus her hat. ‘Mum!’ he cried. ‘What happened to the hat? It looked amazing!’

He knew full well how mortified his brother would be if May turned up to the prestigious Shiverton Hall School looking like she was on her way to a Vegas 10

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wedding, and wanted to encourage this as much as possible.

May, unaware of Rob’s real intentions, giggled and ruffled her son’s hair fondly. ‘Thank you, Robbie,’ she replied, ‘but I think your brother wanted something a bit more low key for his first day.’

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Rob pressed on, grinning. ‘Why don’t you bring it in the car just in case?’

‘No, petal. But I’ll tell you what, why don’t I wear the hat to your football match this weekend? That’ll show all the other mums up!’

Before Rob had the opportunity to prevent his idea backfiring terribly, Arthur entered the kitchen, awkwardly wearing his uncomfortably woolly new uniform: a rather unusual pair of humbug-striped blackand-white trousers and a grey blazer with the school crest embroidered over the breast pocket.

‘Arthur!’ May said dramatically, tears welling up in her eyes. ‘You look so smart.’

Rob pretended to well up himself, clasping his hands to his chest. ‘Arthur, you look so . . . lame.’

Rob ducked as Arthur’s hand swiped the back of his head.

‘Stop it, boys,’ their mother snapped. ‘It’s going to be a long journey and the last thing I need is you two going at it like rats in a bag.’

‘Does he have to come?’ Arthur moaned.

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‘Yeah, do I have to?’ Rob echoed.

‘Enough. Car. Now,’ their mother growled.

The boys, admitting defeat, trudged towards the car, pinching each other when she wasn’t looking.

The scenery rushed past the car window, and gradually the orange light and concrete of London slid away into the green of the countryside. It was raining and nearly dark. Arthur tried to push down the squirming in his stomach; he hadn’t even touched the sandwich his mum had packed for him. Rob had spent the past four hours kicking the back of his seat. If there was one perk to attending a boarding school in the middle of nowhere, he thought, it was getting away from Rob. ‘Robert Bannister,’ May said through gritted teeth, ‘if you don’t stop tormenting your brother I swear I will stop this car and leave you here. The wolves can have you.’

Rob looked dubiously at the empty fields and the black forest that stood on the horizon. He was pretty sure that there weren’t any wolves in England, but he definitely didn’t want to find out first-hand.

‘How much further is it?’ Arthur asked, anxiously fiddling with his seat belt.

‘I think,’ May said, peering ahead of her, ‘we’re almost there.’

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Arthur swallowed.

They took a turning off the main road through a patchy wood, filled with twisted, pale trees that looked as though they had died centuries before. They continued on for a few miles, and the wood thickened, until every shard of evening light had been pressed out by the thatch of branches. The car’s headlights bounced off the withered trunks, their shadows giving the illusion of faces trapped beneath the bark. Even Rob, who wasn’t easily spooked, was relieved when the trees thinned into a clearing.

Up ahead, Arthur could just make out a huge, stone gateway.

‘That must be it!’ May said.

They slowed as they reached the gate – two stone columns, each with its own crumbling angel perched on top. The angels held up a rusty, wrought-iron arch that read, in curling, serpentine letters: SHIVERTON HALL. Carved into the columns was the Shiverton coat of arms, the same one as on Arthur’s blazer, with its peculiar collection of symbols: a ship, axes, skulls and a pair of iron shackles. The gate was open, not that it would have mattered if it hadn’t been; it was so old and corroded that a small push would almost certainly have sent the whole thing tumbling to the ground.

‘Creepy,’ Rob whispered as they drove through the gate and up the drive.

Out of the grey sky and the grey, flat land, the outline 13

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of an imposing, grey building could just be seen, a few lights studded in its stern face. Shiverton Hall. A Gothic, turreted behemoth, all ridges and spines and gargoyles.

Arthur stared at it and gulped; it didn’t look anything like the jolly, welcoming place in the school prospectus.

May glanced over at her son, who was looking as though he might throw up. ‘Very grand, isn’t it?’ she said brightly.

Arthur didn’t dare answer. He wanted to go home. He wanted to go back to London, to their poky flat and his messy bedroom. Was it too late to change his mind?

They could just turn around – surely he could find a school in London that would take him? But then Arthur remembered his last day at St John’s. The cold water, and what had happened afterwards. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force the memory back into the dark crevice of his mind.

When he opened his eyes again, Shiverton Hall didn’t look half so bad – after all, it was only a pile of stones.

They followed a queue of cars round to the side entrance of the school, a huge, cobbled courtyard filled with expensive estate cars. The Bannisters stepped out of their beat-up wreck self-consciously. Everywhere parents and pupils hastily carried leather trunks and tuck boxes out of the rain and into the school.

Arthur looked down at his old, battered suitcase and tried to muster up a smile.

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May smoothed down her fuchsia skirt. ‘I think I’m more nervous than you are,’ she whispered, gripping Arthur’s hand.

‘I doubt it,’ he muttered, quickly removing his mother’s fingers before anyone saw.

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OUT JANUARY 2013

Shiverton Hall

Emerald Fennell

Jackson Dawes He’s as tall as doors, standing in his battered old hat, singing his battered old songs, slapping his fingers down the length of the stand like an upright bass.

Badum, dum, dum, dum; badum, dum, dum, dum.

His hips swing gently, his head nods, his smile is wide, big as the sun, as if this is just any other day, as if the world can’t get any better, as if the future is brighter than stars.

Megan Bright, Megan Silver, he sings in that way of his.

Megan Bright, Megan Silver . . .

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One

‘Now you know what I think of hospitals, so you can ring me any hour of the day or night.’

Grandad’s voice seemed a long way off, making him sound even older than he was, making him sound as if he was on another planet instead of at the other end of a telephone.

It was Megan’s first day in. ‘Yes, I know,’ she said, trying to sound brave, wanting everything to be better without having to be in hospital. She followed Mum through the double doors on to the ward, and stopped dead.

A baby ward?

That couldn’t possibly be right.

But it was.

There were babies and signs of babies everywhere.

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Toys being banged. Something rattling. Another thing chiming. Whirring. Squeaking. Somewhere off to the right there was a baby crying.

Just ahead a small child driving a plastic car headed off to the left. The horn beeped. An adult followed in deep conversation with a nurse.

Grandad was still talking, telling her not to worry, but Megan couldn’t answer.

Where were the other patients? People like her?

People her age?

She wasn’t a baby, or a toddler. She was almost fourteen!

Why had they put her here? How could they?

Text Gemma. As soon as possible. She’d know the answers. That’s what best friends were for, wasn’t it? To calm you down, talk you through things.

Though with Gemma it was more a case of hugging you through things!

Dad liked Gemma. She didn’t waste waste words.

Not like some of Megan’s friends. The Twins, for example, who would always use a hundred words when one was enough. or a and that With Gemma it would be a would sum it all up.

Yes. Text Gemma. Even she would have something to say about being put on a baby ward.

Grandad was still trying to be cheerful. ‘They won’t let me loose on a bus, so I can’t come down . . . So if 4

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there’s anything bothering you, lass, just tell them you have to call me. Tell them I’m the oldest man in the village which means I know more than they do.’

Megan laughed because that’s what he’d have wanted, but Grandad wasn’t finished. ‘In fact, if they need a hand with anything . . . washers for taps, spanners, wrenches, anything to do with plumbing . . .’

‘They probably have people to do things like that,’ Megan said, determined to keep the shake out of her voice. It wasn’t easy. She could hear babies crying.

She could hear the whine of toddlers. It occurred to her that she probably wasn’t supposed to be using her mobile. It might interfere with things. Like on aeroplanes. If anyone noticed, they might take it off her. She clamped it closer to her ear. No way. Not before she reached Gemma. Oh. Hurry up, Grandad.

Ring off. Shut up.

But no. He was still trying to make it all turn out right, trying to fix things the way he always had, when he ran his hardware shop.

He could fix just about anything, could Grandad.

‘Well, then, you know where I am.’ He sounded even further away. ‘But it’ll be fine, you’ll see, sure as eggs is eggs. Bye for now, Pet Lamb.’

Eggs is eggs. Yeah. Well.

It was horrible. The whole thing. Having cancer was bad enough, since it wouldn’t go away on its own, but really? A baby ward?

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And the hospital was miles away. It meant that Mum had a lot of driving to do in the city. She hated city traffic and you couldn’t ever find a place in the hospital car park.

It was just going to be too difficult, the whole thing.

‘Well,’ Mum said, ‘this isn’t bad, is it?’

Megan twisted her face. ‘It’s not good.’

‘Of course . . . obviously it’s not good, having to be here, but when you’re poorly . . .’

‘Yes, I know, but . . .’ Megan stopped. But what?

Exactly? What did it matter if the place was full of babies, full of toddlers? She had cancer and had to have it sorted out.

Yet it did matter.

Somehow it mattered.

‘Never mind,’ Mum said, keeping bright, like the colours around them both, on the walls, on the ceiling, wherever you looked. Nothing stayed too terrible for long according to Mum. ‘There’ll be lots to tell Dad when he rings. He’ll want to know what’s what.’

Then her voice changed, the cheeriness disappearing, as if it was too hard to keep it going for ever.

Like balloons at a party. They always went down, eventually. ‘I wish . . .’

Megan knew what was coming. Her stomach tightened as if she’d just swallowed a bowl of cement.

She didn’t want to hear it. ‘Dad doesn’t need to be here. I’ve got you.’ Trying to be cheerful. ‘And I’ve got Grandad. I’ll be all right.’

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Mum sighed. ‘Yes, you’ve got me and Grandad.’

She managed a small laugh. ‘And he’s threatened to phone every day. Twice a day if he has to. I feel sorry for the nurses. He’ll be checking up on them, just watch.’ She shook her head. ‘As if he knows the first thing about hospitals. About this sort of place, anyway.’

A curly-haired toddler came racing towards them on his bottom. He was being chased by his curlyhaired brother who picked him up with a struggle.

Then his curly-haired mother appeared, her cheeks pink, a deep frown on her face.

‘Careful with him, Dylan, please!’

The toddler giggled as if this was the funniest thing ever. His mother smiled a tight kind of smile.

‘Welcome to the mad house,’ she said, scooping up her son who whooped in delight. She gave Megan a sympathetic look. ‘Don’t worry, love, we won’t be here for too much longer! Peace does happen sometimes.’

‘Whoah!’ Something from behind hurtled into her, big hands gripping her shoulders. ‘Sorry!’ The something was a boy, tall as anything, in a big T-shirt and baggy jeans. ‘I’m trying to see how fast you can push one of these. Important scientific research. See ya!’ Sidestepping Megan and her mother, he steamed on ahead with his drip stand. There were four bags of fluid hanging from it and tubes like spaghetti tumbling into two blue boxes clamped on to the stand.

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‘Oh . . . well . . .’ Mum looked vague, ‘research.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Megan said, ‘and I don’t need any more help to make me dizzy. How stupid is he?’

She took Mum’s arm because now she was feeling quite wobbly. ‘Oh no He’s back.’

Sure enough the boy was heading their way once more.

‘Hey, you’re not a baby!’ The drip stand squeaked as he pushed it along. He gave her a huge grin.

‘You’re normal!’

What did he expect, a Martian?

‘Say hello, love. Where’s your manners?’ Mum whispered, nudging her.

‘He’s just collided into me,’ Megan muttered.

‘Where’s his?’

The boy was checking her out as if he’d never seen a girl before. Or had seen too many, and knew just where to look. Scowling, Megan folded her arms, wishing Mum had made her put on a thicker top.

‘We’re new here,’ Mum said, bright as light bulbs.

‘Don’t know where we’re going really, just told to . . . you know . . . turn up!’ She threw her arm around Megan’s shoulder and squeezed, as if this was the first day at Butlin’s.

Shrugging her off, Megan looked at the boy, tall as doors, taller even, with a hat pulled down low like a gangster in a film. His eyes were dancing. He was laughing at her. Probably not even on this ward and just here to gloat. Well, let him.

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The boy was just about to say something when two girls came down the corridor, arms linked, heads close, talking giggly secrets. They stopped and gazed, sparkle-eyed, first at the boy, then at Megan.

‘Jackson,’ said one, her voice high-pitched, her face alive with excitement, ‘got a new girlfriend?’

He shook his head, tutted. ‘Becky, Becky, Becky!

Give us a high five,’ he said. They high-fived. ‘Who’s your friend?’

‘Laura.’

‘Well, here’s a high five for you too, Laura.’ More giggles rang along the corridor.

Was he playing with nine-year-olds? Sixteen, seventeen, maybe, and hanging out with nine-yearolds? Megan picked at a speck of fluff on her sleeve, but it wouldn’t come off. Mum was smiling so much her cheeks were two red balls.

They should be unpacking. The nurses might be waiting, or a doctor. Someone should be told she’d arrived. Yet there they were still, in the corridor, with all its cartoons and him standing in the middle of it, the star of the show.

Megan pressed into the wall, like a shadow.

More giggles behind hands clamped to mouths.

The boy looked down at the girls like a school prefect, the girls looked back up expectantly, as if this had all happened before, as if they knew what was coming next, as if it was all just a big game.

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‘Will you tell us a spooky story, Jackson? Laura wants to hear one. Will you?’

Megan rolled her eyes.

‘Not right now. Go on, Becky. Isn’t your brother waiting to see you? Isn’t that why you’re here . . . ?’

The girls looked at each other as if they’d just remembered. ‘Whoops! OK. See you later!’ Overcome with laughter, they bumped along the walls towards the main ward. Jackson shook his head then turned back to Megan, checking her out once more. She looked the other way.

‘Quite a fan club you’ve got there!’Mum said, giggling like a girl, as if she wanted to be part of it too.

The boy laughed. ‘Something like that.’

Megan stuffed her hands into her pockets, and examined a picture on the wall. It was a fat elephant.

Flying. It had three pink toenails on each foot.

There was a tap on her shoulder. It was the boy.

‘So, what’s your name?’ he asked.

Megan turned to face him, but didn’t answer.

‘Oooh, she’s lost her tongue, all of a sudden. This is Megan and I’m her mother. High five, Jackson!’

‘Mum! Don’t we have to go . . . ? I’ll need to sign in or something.’

‘Yes . . .’ Mum was still smiling, still gazing at Jackson.

‘They do need to know I’m here, don’t they?’ What was it about this boy that had everyone going all gooey? A movement in the corridor made them turn.

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‘Oh-oh! Sister Brewster . . .’

Coming towards them was a tall woman, made even taller by the hair piled high on her head. Under her arm was a bundle of folders. She stopped and turned huge blue eyes to Jackson who was suddenly silenced. Megan shifted her gaze back to the elephant’s pink toenails, trying to stifle a laugh. Not such a big star now.

‘Jackson . . . at least let the girl settle in. She’s not had a chance to catch her breath!’

Megan sensed that Sister Brewster wouldn’t be messed with. Jackson obviously knew it too. With a sheepish shrug, he took off his hat and gave a slight bow. He was completely bald. Mum’s mouth fell open.

‘Polished it this morning, just for you coming in,’ he said, grinning putting his hat back on.

‘Yes. Thank you, Jackson. Show’s over.’ Sister Brewster moved to one side to let him past. ‘You have a visitor.’

Jackson gave them all a wide grin. ‘See you later, everybody,’ he said, striding down the corridor, hips swinging, long legs almost bouncing him away and his drip stand trundling along beside him.

Sister Brewster shook her head and sighed.

‘Completely starved of company since he got here.’

As he headed away, a door swung open and out stepped a small lady wearing a black hat with a feather, a thick yellow coat and a face like thunder.

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She stood with her hands on her hips, round as a dumpling.

‘Jackson? You come right here, boy, disturbing the peace like some hooligan.’ Her voice was loud and gravelly, not to be ignored.

Jackson stopped and turned back to face Megan.

‘Meet my mother . . .’ he said. ‘I don’t know how she does that. Showing up at just the wrong time. How does she do that?’

Megan shrugged a haven’t a clue kind of shrug.

Serves him right. Big-head.

‘Can’t let a poor girl even find her room without you getting in the way. Come here this second, boy.’

‘All right, all right!’

Jackson’s mother stood by the door, waiting until he was back in the room. She marched in after him.

‘That boy,’ Mum said, ‘is just beautiful. He’s like an ebony statue. And that smile . . . it just never stops. Isn’t he lovely . . . ?’

‘That boy,’ Sister Brewster said, ‘could use a distraction, and I think he’s found one.’ She nodded meaningfully at Megan.

No Way, Megan thought. No. Way. Megan hadn’t liked the consultant’s room. It was down in Outpatients and it was where they told her she had cancer. It wasn’t like a real doctor’s room.

Her own doctor had pictures of his children on the 12

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wall. Three boys, all the same age. A nightmare in triplicate, he called them.

He had funny little toys on his desk to keep little patients amused. She remembered going there when she was small; she remembered the tiny monkey which crawled up his stethoscope, or it would have done if it was real. She remembered thinking that he was the nicest doctor in the world.

On the wall above his examination couch he had an enormous photograph of some mountains, all covered in snow, like a ski resort. He looked as if he was always just about to go on holiday, her own doctor. Cheerful, full of fun.

The consultant was about as much fun as a carton of warm milk. He had half-moon glasses and when he smiled, which wasn’t very often, he looked like a frog.

His room had bare walls and too many doors. He had a nurse whose mouth looked too small for her face.

She came in one of the doors with a pile of folders which she put on his desk, then she disappeared through another door. Megan had no idea where these doors led to. She’d come in from the Red Area waiting room, through the sick children’s entrance.

Everyone who came through that door was supposed to be poorly, whether they felt it or not.

Maybe it was to do with all of this that Megan laughed until she almost wet herself, when he said she had a tumour and the tumour was cancer. It was a mistake, obviously. She didn’t feel ill for a start.

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She looked at Mum and Dad to see if they realised that it was all a mistake too, but they just sat quietly, side by side, like those things Grandad had to stop his books falling over. Bookends, he called them.

She hadn’t been ill, just dizzy at times. A bit wobbly. How could it be cancer? It was stupid. She would just go home and forget about it. Easy-peasy.

Anyway, what did he know?

The consultant twiddled with his pen until she’d finished laughing, but just as he was about to say something, Megan fired one question after another at him, as if she’d been saving them up for weeks and had to get them all out. She left no space for answers. Would she still be able to play football?

And go to the ice rink? Would she still be able to go to the cinema with her friends? Would she still be able to go shopping? What about school? Would the tumour go away by itself? Why had it happened?

At last the questions dried up. All of that activity made her tired. Megan slumped back in the chair and could think of nothing else to say or do.

She noticed how the consultant was examining the blotter on his desk.

She noticed how still Mum and Dad were, like statues, how they were holding hands.

‘I realise it’s a shock to be told this,’ the consultant said at last, ‘and I’m very sorry that the tests couldn’t have given better news.’ He flipped open a folder, which must have been Megan’s. There seemed to be 14

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a lot of pages. A lot of tests. ‘But now that we know, and we’re sure about it, we can think about how to treat you.’

Treat me? With chocolate? Ice cream? New clothes? Don’t think so, somehow.

‘I think what we’ll do is try some Chemotherapy and that should make it easier to remove.’

‘How do you do that?’ Megan asked. Her mind had gone completely blank. ‘How do you remove a tumour?’

The consultant seemed taken aback. ‘We do an operation,’ he said.

‘You mean, cut my head open?’

‘Yes, Megan. That’s exactly what I mean.’

But why, when she didn’t feel ill? Why didn’t FrogMan get his head cut open? Check there was a brain in there, because he’d got it all wrong. He must be thinking about some other patient. Probably that stupid nurse with the little mouth had given him the wrong file. There was probably another Megan Bright. That’s what had happened.

Easy-peasy. Lemon-squeezy. And yet, she began to shiver. It wasn’t cold in the room, but she was trembling all over. Someone took her hand. It was Dad. She had to check, because everything was feeling very strange now. She felt like a foreigner, someone who didn’t understand the language, someone who’d do anything to hear something familiar.

The consultant gave his frog smile. ‘. . . I think we 15

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can feel very positive about your treatment, Megan.

I want you to know that.’

Like waving a magic wand. Yeah. Right.

‘So, an operation?’ That was Mum, twisting her handkerchief between her fingers. It was a small lace-edged thing with a green shamrock sewn into the corner. She sounded as though she’d just fallen into the room from another place and wasn’t sure about anything much.

‘When?’ Megan asked.

‘I can’t say at this stage,’ the consultant replied.

‘What I need to say is that you’ll have to come in as soon as we can find you a bed.’ He closed Megan’s folder. Was it a sign for them all to go?

No one moved. Everyone just waited for what would happen next.

At last Dad gave a little cough. He squeezed Megan’s hand. ‘How does that sound?’ he said.

It sounded rubbish.

The bright pink suitcase sat like one of those flowers that grow in the desert after the rain. Mum was putting things away, arranging them the way she arranged everything. Clothes were folded into neat parcels and placed, with meticulous care, into the locker, as if it mattered a great deal where they went.

Standing by the bed, Megan wished Mum would stop. Don’t do that, not yet, she wanted to say. I need to do it, my way, when I want to. They’re my things.

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The words were there, but they stuck in her throat, swelling up inside her.

At last, everything was in place, the locker packed with pieces of Megan’s life, all ordered and hidden behind the doors. Mum’s cheeks were flushed. She was gazing around the room as if taking it all in, or maybe just wondering what to do or say next, hating to be idle.

‘If only your dad was home,’ she said, out of the blue. ‘He wanted to come, be here with you.’

It was enough to un-stick everything. Megan exploded. ‘No,’ she cried. ‘He has a job to do and it’s too far away. He’ll phone, email. You can print them off. I don’t want him to come.’ Megan stopped, realising that she was shouting, but gave the room a disgusted look. ‘It’s not even as if there’s a computer here.’

Deep breath in, deep breath out. Keep calm, don’t lose it now.

Yet with the breathing in and the breathing out, all her strength seemed to go; it just seeped out of her. Not even her eyes would stay open; they were too full, too heavy. She did want Dad, she wanted him so much it hurt, but he mustn’t come. She had made him promise. Made him cross his heart. He mustn’t do anything different. He worked away, that was normal; he came home on leave, when it was his turn, and that was normal.

He had to keep it all the same.

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That way, that way, she would get better. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, her voice quiet, controlled. ‘He doesn’t need to be here. And neither do you.’

An Irish nurse called Siobhan came in to see if they were all right. They weren’t, not really, but at last, after a cup of tea and a little more fussing, Mum said she might think about going home for a few hours.

‘You can stay,’ Siobhan said. ‘There’s a pull-down here.’ She indicated the extra bed folded like a broken wing against the wall next to Megan’s.

‘Parents do.’

If I was little, yes, thought Megan, if I was a baby.

‘Tomorrow, Mum. Come back tomorrow. I’ll be fine.

Really, I will.’

She watched an exchange of glances between Mum and the nurse, who suggested that Mum could stay while she had some blood taken.

‘They’ll be starting your treatment.’ Mum exchanged another glance with the nurse. ‘I should stay.’ Megan gave them a look, a shake of the head.

‘All right,’ Mum said, ‘I’ll leave it till tomorrow. But first thing, I’m coming back. And you have to ring if you want me in sooner. Any time, mind you.’

At last Mum was on her way home, still fussing, still not wanting to leave. ‘Why not talk to that boy?

He’ll know all there is to know about the ward and everything.’ Megan refused to acknowledge her. ‘You could be friends, love.’

‘I’ve got friends. I’m fine.’

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As soon as Mum went home, Megan yanked out every single one of her belongings, surrounding herself with them. She sat like a hamster in the middle of its nest. They were private things, her things, letters from Dad, make-up, underwear. Everything. She wanted them around her for a little longer, wanted to feel them still, these small fragments of home. The only thing that told her who she was Megan looked at the sink, the shelf above it, the bin below, the bed with all of its levers and pedals, the TV on a stem growing from behind, the white board with a name written in big blue letters. Her name. Somehow that was a surprise.

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OUT JANUARY 2013

Anthem for Jackson Dawes Celia Bryce

Chapter 1

My mother hid the knife block.

In hindsight, that was the first sign. And then, two nights ago, she locked her bedroom door. It had to be subconscious, but still, I didn’t want to think too hard about what she was secretly thinking. I guess that was the second sign. And now there was a suitcase on my bed. Which wasn’t really a sign at all. It was the actual event.

The suitcase was full, bu lging at the top, but nothing seemed missing from my closet. Jean skirts. Check. Twenty thousand tank tops. Check. Floor covered with mismatched flip-flops. Check. When I unzipped the top and peered inside, all the hope drained out of me in a single breath. Khaki pants, tags still on. A stack of identical collared shirts. I recognized the emblem from my father’s old pictures. Gold crest on red material. Oh, excuse me, not red—scarlet.

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Those were the colors at Monroe Prep. Gold for victory, scarlet for the bond of blood. They were wrong, though. Scarlet was not the color of blood. And despite what Nathaniel Hawthorne led me to believe, it wasn’t the color of shame either.

I should know.

Brian’s blood had stained the kitchen tiles a fire-engine red. And as I watched him slide to the floor, the color I felt inside was a deep, deep burgundy.

I closed the suitcase, tiptoed down the wooden steps, and curled my toes on the cold tiled floor. The air conditioner was set too low and the vent rattled above my head. It was Labor Day weekend, humid, practically stifling, but using the air conditioner was a new thing in our house. We were a block from the beach and the cross breeze kept things perfectly cool as long as the windows were open.

But we didn’t open the windows anymore.

I walked toward the couch where my parents were busy ignoring me and rubbed at the goose bumps forming on my arms—partially from the artificially cold air, but mostly from the feeling coming from behind me, from the kitchen. Like a high-pitched frequency with no sound. I kept my back to it.

Dad had the newspaper folded open to the crossword puzzle in his lap, and Mom had her feet propped up on the coffee table, painting her toenails a pale pink. But her hands

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kept shaking, and the pink seeped out from the borders and onto her skin, spreading like blood.

I cleared my throat, and Dad looked up. Mom concentrated on her shaking hand, like she wasn’t sure what it would do next.

“You’re sending me to Monroe,” I said. I phrased it like an accusation, but it still came out sounding like a question.

Mom closed the bottle of polish and frowned at her feet.

She wiped her nails with her bare hand. Then she looked at her palm like she was confused about how the color got there, mumbled to herself, and walked into the kitchen. She didn’t seem to notice that the kitchen was pulsating.

Dad spoke. “Mallory, we’re incredibly fortunate. They usually don’t accept applications this late in the process. But given the circumstances, and given my connections, they were willing to make an exception.”

“The circumstances?” I asked, but he didn’t respond.

Must’ve been an interesting conversation. We have a bit of a situation, being that my daughter killed a boy—specifically, her boyfriend—in our kitchen, and people are really none too pleased about that here, you see.

He could rearrange the sentence anyway he chose. It’d still end with me holding the knife and Brian dying on the floor.

Mom walked back to the couch, drying her hands on a dish towel. “Mom?” I asked. This wasn’t the first time Dad had

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tried to send me to Monroe. As a kid, he had dragged me to reunions and weddings and charity golf tournaments. I guess he just expected I’d eventually go there, like most alumni kids. So two years ago, before the start of freshman year, he had sent in a preliminary application. Mom got the phone call from the school requesting my transcript. It didn’t go over well.

“Over my dead body,” she had said back then.

Now she still wouldn’t look at me. She opened the nail polish, propped her feet up, and started again. “It’s a fresh start,” she said to her toes.

Apparently, two years ago, my mother had lied. Apparently, any dead body would do.

O I ran back upstairs, taking the steps two at a time, and dialed Colleen’s number. Someone answered and promptly hung up.

I tried her cell phone, but it went straight to voice mail. Still grounded. Colleen was always getting grounded, though it had never lasted this long before.

She typically got a weekend of house arrest for sneaking out at night. She was sentenced to three days for plagiarizing an English paper once, but it was midweek, so that barely even counted. And that one time she lugged her mom’s supply of alcohol down to the beach in her guitar case and the cops

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dragged her home got her two full weeks. I ran when the cops showed.

I always ran.

This punishment was going on six weeks. Six weeks for one lie. Such a waste. No matter what she told the police, I wasn’t going to be charged. That’s what my lawyer said anyway.

He’d been here the week before, when the knife block was still on the counter and my parents still left their bedroom door unlocked. John Defano or Defarlo or something.

He was tanning-bed dark with slicked-back hair, bleached teeth, and a gold chain that was visible if his collar was unbuttoned (which it was)—and he was, unfortunately, as sleazy as he looked.

“Mallory Murphy,” he’d said, scanning my tanned legs resting on the coffee table. “Just rolls off the tongue.”

“So does Lolita,” I mumbled, picking at a nearly invisible speck on the sofa. But then I stopped digging at the couch cushion and stared at him, at his unnaturally white teeth smiling at me.

The lawyer had never spoken to me before. It was always, “Keep her inside,” or “Don’t let her talk to anyone,” with a thumb jutting in my general direction. And now he was talking to me. And smiling. Even my parents could sense it. They leaned forward in their seats, practically salivating for the news.

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“It’s over,” he’d said. Mom jumped up and looked around like she wanted to grab onto someone. Possibly me. Instead she wrapped the lawyer in an awkward hug. Then Dad and the lawyer did this overly enthusiastic handshaking, and Dad smiled so wide I could see his gums. Then they all turned to me, like they were waiting for something to happen. Like maybe I should hug someone or smile or something.

“What happened?” I’d asked, staying on the couch.

The lawyer stretched his arms out to his sides and waved them around the open floorplan of the downstairs, taking in the living room, dining room, and kitchen beyond. “This is your home,” he said. “It’s yours to defend. Here in New Jersey, you have no duty to attempt to flee the premises unless you are positive you can make it out unharmed.” The lawyer’s gaze slid down my exposed arms, but this time he wasn’t checking me out. He was eyeing the fading pink scars that covered my forearms. “Based on the evidence,” he said, pointing at my arms, “the prosecutors are satisfied with your choice.”

I glanced at my parents, but they were looking toward the kitchen. No, they were looking past it. At the door. “The victim was committing a felony,” the lawyer continued. He motioned toward the living room window, still missing a screen. And below it, the display table, now lacking anything to display.

“As such, the homicide is justifiable.”

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Mom kept saying things like “How wonderful” and “Fantastic,” but I could tell she wasn’t really listening anymore.

I squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t sneak a glance at the kitchen. It didn’t matter. I still saw it burned on the insides of my eyelids. The granite island in the center of the white tile floor. The stainless steel appliances. The skylight. The knife block, now missing one knife. And the door. Of course, the door.

Homicide.

I could’ve made it. It’s what the lawyer thought. It’s what my parents thought. It’s what everyone thought. I could tell because they never asked.

I heard Mom rummaging around in the cabinets while Dad walked the lawyer to his car. And that night, when I ran into the kitchen to grab a soda, the entire knife block was missing. Just in case I didn’t already know what she thought.

I snuck out the side door—not the one in the kitchen— behind the laundry room, and kept to the sidewalk alley between the backs of the beach houses. I walked, arms folded across my stomach, until I reached the intersection two blocks away. Then I paused, took a deep breath, and ran. I didn’t turn my head, but I still saw the pine-green car sitting at the corner, where I knew it would be. Exactly two hundred yards from my front door. Where it had been every day since.

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I barely caught a glimpse as I ran, but I knew she saw me.

I knew by the way the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and the way my ears rang and the way my instincts begged me to keep running. I felt his mom’s eyes on me. I felt her hate. I didn’t have to look to feel it.

I never looked.

I kept running until I reached the back of Colleen’s house halfway down the next block. I didn’t feel safe until I opened the gate of her high wooden fence, eased my body through the tiny entrance, and latched it silently behind me.

I kept off the noisy pebbles by jumping from stepping stone to stepping stone. The house was one level—an older beach home that hadn’t been demolished and rebuilt like the rest of ours—and its windows were wide open.

“Coll,” I whispered into her bedroom window.

She had her music turned up and face turned away, brown curls bouncing to the beat. Yet somehow she knew I was there.

She spun around, glanced at her open bedroom door, and sent me a quick sequence of hand signals. A twist of her first two fingers. A cross of her wrists. A flash of three fingers. Dairy Twist. The one near the Exxon. Three minutes.

Yes, there were two Dairy Twists within walking distance.

Yes, we ate at both. I let myself out of her yard and walked the last two blocks to the Dairy Twist. I was slouched against the white vinyl on the side of the building when Colleen strode

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across the intersection. She sank down beside me on the pavement, like me and nothing like me. She was pale and curvy where I was tan and straight. Curly light-brown hair to my dark straight hair. Blue eyes to my brown.

People still got us confused. Must’ve been the way we walked, or maybe talked. We’d been inseparable since her family moved to town in the fifth grade. Ever since Carly Preston made fun of the gap between her front teeth and I’d told Carly it was better than walking around with a hideous mouth full of metal. Nobody makes fun of anything about the way Colleen looks anymore, but not because of me.

Colleen laced her fingers with mine and leaned her head back on the wall. “She says I’m grounded for life. What do you think that means in Dabner family talk? Two months? Three?

What will you do without me?”

“They’re sending me away,” I said, my voice wavering.

Colleen released my hand and stood up. “Sending you where? Did the lawyer come back?”

I shook my head and stood. “Not prison. Boarding school.”

Colleen sucked in a giant breath and exhaled, “No!” “Yes. New Hampshire. My dad’s old school.”

She shook her head, her curls whipping around. “No. No fucking way. This isn’t happening.”

I started to panic at the way she was panicking—so unlike Colleen. When the cops showed up, she lied through her teeth.

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And when she found me later that night under the boardwalk, she didn’t freak out. Didn’t adamantly shake her head or say things like no or no fucking way or this isn’t happening. Instead she’d said, “I’m sorry,” which made no sense. And besides, I hated apologies.

And now she was freaking out. “God, I can’t believe I didn’t go home with you that night.”

“Cody Parker,” I said, forcing a smile. Trying to force her to smile. “Who could blame you?”

“Cody fucking Parker,” she mumbled. “So not worth it.

God, this is one of those things I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make up to you, you know?”

“Coll, it wasn’t your fault,” I said, because it wasn’t.

And she said, “No, it was Brian’s fault. That little prick.”

Because that was just the sort of thing a best friend should say.

She started crying and said, “Shit,” as she wiped at the mascara under her eye.

She grabbed me around the middle and cried into my shoulder, and I felt that ache in my throat like I was going to cry too, but nothing came out. I held on tight, reasonably sure that I would never love another human being as much as I loved Colleen Dabner in that moment.

Someone leaned out a car window and whistled. We both shot him the middle finger. And then Colleen’s hand tightened around my arm. Because standing on the corner of the

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street was a group of guys, watching us in a way that made Colleen dig her fingers into my skin.

Joe and Sammy and Cody fucking Parker. And Dylan. Brian’s brother, Dylan. I did a double-take before I realized it was him. Even though Dylan was three years younger than Brian, sixteen like me, he had his brother’s same lanky build, same blond hair, same amber eyes.

Empty now, just like Brian’s.

They didn’t speak. Dylan stood so still I wondered whether he was breathing at all, until I noticed the fingers on his left hand twitching. Cody stared straight at me, but he wasn’t making eye contact. Sammy dropped his hands to his sides, and chocolate milk shake sloshed out the top of his cup, running across his knuckles. And without communicating with each other, they spread out in a semicircle in front of us. I could see it happen, the shift in thinking. Like they were losing individual accountability, becoming part of something more.

“Hey now,” Colleen said, putting her hand palm out in front of her.

They shuffled closer, and we backed up against the dirty siding. The only one who seemed to be thinking anything for himself was Dylan, and it didn’t look like he was thinking anything good.

“Cody,” Colleen said, brushing her hair off her shoulder.

Cody jerked his head, registering Colleen for the first time.

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Colleen could get guys to do whatever she wanted with a single sway of her hips or a tilt of her head, and this was no exception. Cody stepped to the side, forming a little path.

“Get out of here, Colleen.”

“Yeah, I’m gone.” She gripped me by the wrist and pulled, like maybe they’d think I was just an extension of her. I brushed Dylan’s shoulder as I passed, and all the muscles in his arm went rigid.

I turned my head to say something, but really, there was nothing to say. And Colleen was moving fast. One more step, and we were gone. We sprinted until we reached Colleen’s back fence.

“Maybe leaving for just a little while isn’t such a bad idea, huh?” Then she squinted, even though there wasn’t any glare, and backed into her yard. I heard her feet scrape against the siding as she scrambled back through her bedroom window.

O There was pizza on the dining room table, but my parents were eating on the couches in the living room. We didn’t eat in the dining room anymore because of the tiny fragments of glass. There weren’t any, really, not anymore. But no matter how many times my mother vacuumed the floor, she swore there were pieces left behind. She said it wasn’t safe. And the kitchen, well, it looked pretty much the same as always except

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for the spot on the floor where the cleaning company had used bleach. Even though the tile and the grout were both white, we could still see the outline where they had to scrub out the blood. Whiter than all the rest.

And there was this feeling now. A presence. Not quite a ghost. But something.

It was that same something my grandma tried to tell me about before she died, but after she knew she was dying. I’d sat on the side of her bed, looking anywhere but at her, and she snatched my hand and pressed it into her bony chest. “Do you feel that?” she asked. I didn’t know whether she was talking about her heart or her soul, but all I felt was knobby bone, riddled with cancer. And then, below that, a weak pulse. “That has consequence.”

I glanced to the door, hoping Mom would come in soon.

I never knew what to say when the medicine took control of her mouth. She squeezed my hand tighter and said, “Mallory.

Pay attention. That’s real. It lives on. It has to.” The she released me. “It’s not the end,” she’d said. “This cannot be the end.”

She died anyway. All of her. But sometimes when I’d walk by her room, I’d catch a whiff of her perfume, feel a fullness to her room. I’d think about what she told me, and I’d stand at the entrance, staring in. Not sure what was left behind. But it was something. And sometimes I’d turn around and find my mom standing behind me, watching me, watching the room.

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But I didn’t stand at the entrance of the kitchen contemplating what that something was. I didn’t really want to know.

This one time I was supposed to meet Brian on the boardwalk after lunch, which was infuriating because he wouldn’t specify a time. Summer was supposed to be timeless, he’d said, which usually meant I ended up waiting so I wouldn’t miss him. I found Colleen hanging out with a group of guys from school and joined her. We were both in the usual dress code for the shore: bathing suit tops and short shorts, and some guy had his hand on my bare back when Brian walked up behind me.

He’d wrapped his arms over my shoulders and said “Hey” into my ear, and I could tell he was smiling. Then he pulled me backward and tightened his arms and said, “Sorry, guys, this one’s mine.” I smiled and mouthed the word “Bye” to Colleen, and walked with Brian’s arms around me, smiling because he had called me his.

But now when I walked in the kitchen, the fullness to the room was suffocating. Like his arms, wrapped around me, squeezing and squeezing until I was short of breath and then out of breath. I felt the word whispered throughout the room, grazing the exposed skin on my arms, my legs, my neck. Mine, it whispered. This one’s mine.

I shivered and grabbed a slice of pizza from the dining room table and took it to my room. I packed a second

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suitcase. My flip-flops and shorts and frayed jeans. My toothbrush and cell phone charger and sleeping pills. The essentials.

Then I swallowed a sleeping pill and waited. It sucked me down into the mattress, my limbs heavy and sluggish. And as I waited, I stared at the ceiling fan, same as every night. I looked straight upward so I wouldn’t catch a glimpse of his shadow beside my closet door, his outline on the curve of my dresser. I kept the comforter pulled up to my chin so I wouldn’t feel his breath against my neck. The word “mine” whispered onto my skin.

I heard it coming, same as every night. Far away at first.

Downstairs somewhere.

Boom, boom, boom.

Coming closer. Slow and steady, in that place between sleep and wake. Like I was half-hearing, half-imagining.

I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. I didn’t want to, anyway.

Because it was here.

Boom, boom, boom.

My whole room throbbed with it.

The beating of his hideous heart.

And then there was nothing but the dream. Same as every night. One moment, stretched out to fill the hours. A breath.

A blink. Infinity in a heartbeat.

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Amber eyes clouding with confusion. A raspy voice pleading, “Mallory, wait.” The word “no” dying on his mouth.

The blood on the floor, the blood on my hands.

The door as I pushed through it, staining it red.

The dark. The night.

Even in my dream I ran.

I always ran.

OUT FEBRUARY 2013

Hysteria

Megan Miranda

1 Ebony

Do you ever stare at your reflection and wonder who that person is looking back at you? For as long as I can remember I’ve felt different, at odds with myself.

I live on a farm in Cedar Oakes West where Dad breeds horses for show. Until last year I used to be home-schooled, but now I go to Cedar Oakes High in town. My next-door neighbour is Amber Lang.We’re both sixteen and best friends.

I’ve never had any major dramas in my life, so why do I feel this deep discontentment? It’s only when I’m out riding, sprinting across the plains beneath the cliffs of Mount Bungarra with the wind in my face, that I really feel like me.

Even when I started high school I still felt disconnected.

I could run faster than boys who were older than me. I could hear whispered conversations from the other side of the playing field as if I stood there too. I soon learned this was not normal.

I taught myself to conceal my differences, and so far I’ve avoided attention, but that’s only because, except for Amber and a few girls I sit with at lunch, I keep my head down.

But there’s something that’s impossible to disguise – my 1

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violet eyes. They’re not as deep as purple, or as light as lavender. They’re precisely midway between blue and magenta on the colour wheel.

Who has violet eyes?

Amber says I should be proud of their uniqueness because they’re beautiful. How can something that makes me a freak be beautiful? It doesn’t make sense.

But I tend to over-think every aspect of my life.

It doesn’t help that Mum and I aren’t getting along that well at the moment. She says I’m acting strangely, but I think she is. Every time I want to know something about my relatives or our family’s history, which is admittedly becoming more often, she starts an argument – on purpose.

She accuses me of being on a search to find myself – as if it’s a bad thing. I know she’s worried I’ll leave the valley some day. Almost everyone does eventually.

My parents have always been overprotective. I’m not exactly housebound, but Mum doesn’t like travelling, and Dad doesn’t like to leave the horses.

For the first few years of my life my skin reacted to ultraviolet light and I had to stay indoors or cover up in dark clothes. I remember the little girl next door wearing pretty yellow and pink outfits, while my clothes were mostly navy blue and black tops and pants, and always with long sleeves. But by the time I was five, my skin had developed the pigment it needed and my sensitivity to light disappeared. Today, Amber says I look tanned all year round.

Anyway, that wasn’t the real reason Mum’s so overprotective.

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My parents had wanted a big family, but Mum miscarried twice, then lost her third pregnancy during the twenty-ninth week. It took years for them to want to try again after that. Finally she found out she was pregnant – this time with twins. But something went wrong again.

Mum gave birth to a girl and a boy. The girl, of course, was me. My brother, Ben, died in his first hour of life.

I think it made them terrified of losing me. And I’m sure it’s one of the reasons they wanted me to be home-schooled.

Once I understood the origin of this fear I didn’t pressure them again until, well, recently.

For most of my home-schooled years I dreamed of sitting in a classroom with children my own age. It wasn’t boredom. I craved companionship. When I turned twelve, my parents let me ride Shadow anywhere within the boundary of our property. With hundreds of hectares to roam, I had my first taste of freedom. I would disappear for hours, exploring the woodlands and creeks on our land. And on these expeditions I would imagine myself a princess living in a world where everyone rode horses, children played on cobbled streets, and the handsomest prince in the land courted me.

Riding Shadow around the property was exhilarating at twelve and thirteen, but I’m sixteen now, and those daydreaming days are well behind me. I need to uncover the real Ebony Hawkins, the girl suffocating inside me. It’s become crucial lately, for reasons hard to explain, except that . . . I’m developing in ways I don’t understand and can’t find in any biology books. For a start, my light brown hair, 3

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weirdly, is turning a sort of dark reddish-brown colour with gold highlights. By itself.

Anyway, back to the here and now. It’s Saturday morning and I’m in the kitchen arguing with Mum about going to a club in town with Amber tonight. Mum is bringing up every reason, absurd and otherwise, why I’m not allowed to go. Dad shot away to the stables at the first hint of raised voices.

‘You have to trust me, Mum.’ I’m standing at the breakfast bar with the sun warming my back through the French windows behind me. I pour a cup of home-made muesli into a bowl. ‘You taught me to look after myself, so why do you still worry?’ I reach into the cutlery drawer for a spoon before lifting my eyes to hers. ‘Unless there’s something you haven’t told me?’ I wait, gauging her reaction.

She closes the fridge door with a jug of milk in her hand and, keeping her eyes down, walks slowly to the breakfast bar. She’s taking her time to formulate a reply, which freaks me out; my imagination leaps.

‘What’s wrong with me, Mum?’ She looks up then, her hand freezing in mid-air.‘Nothing is wrong with you, Ebony. Why would you think that?’

I take the milk from her hand before it spills, kicking myself for asking that foolish question. There is something wrong with me. I feel it in my bones. It’s happening to my bones! But I’m not ready to tackle that particular detail with Mum yet – or with myself.

‘Ebony, are you all right? You’ve gone pale.’

‘Yeah, Mum, I’m fine . . . Well, actually, no, I’m not.’ At 4

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her confused frown, I explain, ‘Sometimes you and Dad look at me as if I have three heads.’

She forces a laugh. ‘What on earth are you talking about, darling?’

‘Forget it. Just let me go tonight, Mum, please.This dance means a lot to me. Amber’s going. Leah’s going. Ivy and Bec are going. And you never let me go to stuff like this.’

‘For good reasons, Ebony. The subject is now closed.’

‘Oh, this one too?’

‘Don’t be cheeky.’

‘But, Mum, Mr Lang has already agreed to drive us both ways since we all know you wouldn’t let me go if one of my friends were to pick me up.’

‘Are you trying to provoke an argument, dear?’

‘Me?’ I shake my head at this. I take a deep breath and count to five in my head, in an effort to tone down any attitude in my voice. ‘Mum, I just want to go to a supervised dance for under-eighteens. What’s wrong with that?’

She cups the side of my face with her hand. ‘Something bad could happen when you’re away from home.’

I step backwards.‘Why do you say that all the time? What were all those self-defence lessons for?’

She lifts her eyes to the ceiling and bites down on her lower lip.

‘Mum? What were those lessons for?’

She sighs. ‘Self-protection, darling, that’s all.’

There’s more in her eyes than she’s saying, so much more that goose bumps break out across the skin of my arms.

Well, if she’s not prepared to tell me anything, I’ll just have to find out for myself.

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‘I’m going tonight, Mum. It’s all arranged,’ I say.

Her eyes turn hard and she inhales through tight lips. I know this look. I hate this look. ‘Young lady, you are not going anywhere tonight.’

‘I am going! You can’t stop me. I’m sixteen!’

‘I can, and I will, and sixteen is still a baby.’

‘Mum, really!’

She takes a deep breath.‘Ebony, calm down.Take Shadow for a ride. Cool that fiery temper of yours.’

Not hungry any more, I dump my muesli in the bin and head for the back door. But once there I stop and turn back.

‘That’s funny, you know.’

‘What?’

‘You say I have a temper, yet I don’t raise my voice or argue with anyone except you. Can you tell me why that is, Mum?’ Her mouth opens and a pained look enters her eyes. She doesn’t say a word but her eyes gleam with unshed tears, and my head fills with more questions.

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OUT MARCH 2013

Hidden

Marianne Curley

Chapter One

S

uddenly nervous about why the two young ladies had asked to meet me in secret, I hurried through the kitchen, went up the servants’ stairs and stood waiting in the hallway between the drawing room and the front parlour, just as Miss Sophia and Miss Alice had requested.

I checked my nails, smoothed down my pinafore and sniffed. I was not used to being right inside the house and the air seemed to close about me stiflingly, an inside sort of air, stuffy and tickling my nose, a mixture of the previous night’s coal fires, the fibres of the thick wool carpets and the scent from the bowl of dried rose petals on the hall table.

I looked at my reflection in the glass of the nearest portrait and tucked a few wayward strands of hair under my cap. Lady Cecilia was known to be a stickler for cleanliness, especially in the dairy, and I couldn’t help but be worried that there had been a complaint against 1

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me. But then surely Milady would have asked Mrs Bonny, the housekeeper, to tick me off, not have delegated the reprimand to Miss Sophia and Miss Alice, who (not just from my own observances but according to kitchen gossip) had little else in their heads but handsome young gentlemen, ballgowns and supper dances.

I sniffed again and wished for them to hurry themselves so that I might learn my fate, whatever that was. I gazed down the hall; from where I was standing I could see right up to the double front doors one way and back the other to the little room (I had heard Lady Cecilia call it a petit salon) where she took tea at precisely four o’clock every afternoon. All along the walls of the passageway, placed at the same distance from each other, were portraits of the family. These were mostly gloomybrown old things, starting with Lord Baysmith the Army Major, stuffed into tight red dress uniform outside the salon door, down to Miss Sophia and Miss Alice (lighter, brighter) in blue dresses with white sashes. Directly opposite the Misses was an oil portrait of their older brother, the present Lord Baysmith’s son and heir, Peregrine, who was away at school.

I counted the portraits: fourteen in all, going back years and years and depicting all the notable Bridgeford Hall residents. There was, I knew, a much more recent portrait of the present Lord Baysmith with Lady Cecilia, dressed as if for a ball but, strangely, sitting under a tree on the estate with two enormous hunting dogs borrowed for the occasion. It had been painted, apparently, by 2

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someone very famous, and now hung in what they called the grand salon over the fireplace. I had only seen this painting a few times but I liked it very much, for in the background the sun could be seen glinting on the river, far away, and upon this river my sweetheart, Will, worked as a ferryman. The painting showed, faintly, a rowing boat with (I had convinced myself) a smudged representation of Will inside, his strong brown arms pulling at the oars.

I slipped into a little reverie, smiling to myself as I thought of Will. We had been walking out together secretly for some months now, and the time was coming when he must call on Mrs Bonny and Mr Griffin the butler with a request that we be allowed to see each other formally. This would mean that we could meet openly after church on a Sunday, or, if the ferry business was quiet, stroll to the village on a summer’s evening.

After we had been granted permission and walked out together for a couple of years, we might be able to wed, providing my family were in agreement and we had somewhere to live. I was hoping that he might speak to Mrs Bonny soon – and I’d dropped plenty of hints that he should – but he was very much a waterman by trade and by type (that is, he did not give a stick for convention). Moreover, I was slightly worried that, not being aware of the social pitfalls, he might say the wrong thing at the wrong time and spoil our chances.

Miss Sophia and Miss Alice suddenly came out of the drawing room door, giggling together. Miss Sophia 3

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looked at me, put her finger to her mouth to indicate I should not speak, then said in a low voice, ‘Is there anyone around, Kitty?’ (I should say here that although I was born Katherine, everyone in the house called me Kitty, as Katherine had been thought too much of a name for a milkmaid.)

I bobbed a curtsey. ‘No, miss. Everyone’s about their duties.’

‘I don’t mean servants! I mean family.’

I shook my head. ‘I haven’t seen anyone.’ How would I see anyone, I thought, unless they came into the dairy?

‘Madam, your mother, is still abed, I believe,’ I added. I knew this because I’d passed through the kitchen and heard one of the upstairs maids complaining that she couldn’t get into Milady’s room to lay the fire and it was going to set her back for the entire day.

‘Because we’ve got something secret to do,’ said Miss Sophia. ‘Something we want you to help us with.’

I couldn’t help but be surprised at this, for unless they wanted to know how to churn butter or separate the whey, there was surely nothing in the world that I knew which they didn’t, what with their governesses and their riding master, their deportment lessons, their needlework and their art classes.

‘And you mustn’t tell a soul about it!’ Miss Alice put in.

‘Nor I would, Miss,’ I said earnestly (but not truthfully, for I was already concocting a story for the servants’ hall).

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‘You know it is the first of May on Saturday . . .’ began Miss Sophia.

I nodded, for of course every last servant in the hall had been talking about this date, their afternoon off, where they were going and what they would wear.

‘Well, our mother is giving a musical evening with poetry and so on, and Alice and I want to do something rather special.’ She began giggling again; she was a giddy goat, much worse than her sister.

‘Oh, honestly, Sophia!’ Miss Alice frowned at her.

‘Kitty, it is this: we are planning to present to the assembled company what is called a tableau vivant.’

I recognised that these were foreign words, for they were uttered in the strange way that Milady said petit salon, but they meant absolutely nothing to me.

‘Silly! She won’t understand that,’ said Miss Sophia.

‘Kitty, it means . . . it’s like a still life picture. Art come to life.’ She looked around the hall and pointed to an oil painting of an ancient Baysmith aunt handing a basket of provisions to a poor family, all of whom were looking at her with upturned, grateful eyes. ‘We could replicate this painting, for example: all dress up in costume and take a part.’

‘But we won’t do that, because we want to be milkmaids!’ said Miss Alice.

‘We’ll be hidden behind screens, you see, frozen into graceful attitudes,’ Sophia went on, adopting a pose like a ballerina, ‘and then when the music finishes the screens will be taken away and everyone will be terribly surprised and applaud us.’

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I did not ask the obvious question: Why? Why should anyone want to do such a thing?

‘It’s quite the latest thing in London,’ said Miss Sophia, as if guessing my thoughts.

‘And we are keen that our guests should be charmed!’

‘It will be an excellent amusement.’

‘Yes, it will, miss,’ I lied, thinking that I had never heard anything so daft in all my life – barring when our chickens at home had lost their feathers and my ma had knitted them waistcoats.

‘And this is where you come in, Kitty,’ said Miss Alice.

‘We are going to present a tableau showing milkmaids in a pastoral setting. Miss Sophia and I are to play the two milkmaids, of course, and we are having new white muslin frocks run up by the dressmaker.’

‘With matching bonnets,’ put in her sister.

‘Very nice, miss,’ I said, thinking that white muslin frocks would be completely foolish and impractical for a milkmaid and that the two young ladies would look much more realistic in brown cotton smocks. Maybe not quite so picturesque, though.

‘One of the gardeners is making us garlands of flowers to wear.’

I looked at them blankly.

‘They say that the milkmaids in London dance down the street garlanded with flowers!’ Miss Alice said.

‘I see,’ I said. Miss Alice was a bit of a book-reader, so she was probably right. It seemed a strange thing to do, however, even in London. Were the cows in the 6

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procession, too? Did they go first or bring up the rear?

Did the cows join in the dancing?

‘So, we intend to get into our places behind screens in the music room, and ask the musicians to finish their performance with something suitable and pastoral,’ said Miss Sophia. ‘When the screens are removed there we will be, as pretty as a picture with trees and flowers and perhaps a lamb or two.’

‘And milk churns and most definitely a cow, of course.’

‘A cow in the music room, miss?’ I asked incredulously.

‘Just one nice cow. A pretty one with long eyelashes.

The reason we asked you here, Kitty, is we want you to choose one and prepare it –’ ‘Train it,’ put in her sister.

‘And then bring it into the music room secretly, through the servants’ quarters.’

‘I see, miss,’ I said slowly, seeing the dangers in this undertaking. ‘But what do you think your parents . . . what do you think Lord and Lady Baysmith will have to say about it?’

‘Oh, Father will be charmed!’ said Miss Alice.

‘And everyone present will be so enthralled that our mother will end up being charmed, too,’ added Miss Sophia.

‘And will either of you be milking the cow?’ I asked.

Tableau vivant, I said to myself, just in case I forgot the words. Tableau vivant.

‘Oh no!’ Miss Sophia said in horror. ‘I should be too frightened in case it kicked me.’

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‘Certainly we will not milk it,’ added Miss Alice. ‘We just intend to stand there looking quaint under a bower.’

‘The gentlemen will love it!’ cried Miss Sophia. She smiled at me. ‘So if you would perhaps begin preparing the cow, Kitty. Perhaps you can get it used to standing about and walking to heel and so on.’

‘And wearing ribbands and flowers!’

‘I don’t know if . . .’

Both young ladies looked at me keenly. ‘We are relying on you, Kitty, to help to make the evening a memorable one. There will be certain young gentlemen in the audience we are hoping to impress.’

I bobbed a curtsey. ‘I’ll do my best, miss,’ I said, thinking that on this occasion my best probably wouldn’t be good enough.

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OUT MAY 2013

The Disgrace of Kitty Grey Mary Hooper