GIRL 38
Ewa Jozefkowicz grew up in Ealing, and studied English Literature at UCL. Her debut novel The Mystery of the Colour Thief was published by Zephyr in 2018. She currently works in marketing, and lives in Highbury, north London, with her husband and twin girls.
Also by Ewa Jozefkowicz
The Mystery of the Colour Thief
AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS
www.headofzeus.com
First published in the UK by Zephyr, an imprint of Head of Zeus, in 2019
Text copyright © Ewa Jozefkowicz, 2019
The moral right of Ewa Jozefkowicz to be identified as the author and Anna Hymas to be identified as the artist of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB): 9781786698971
ISBN (E): 9781786698964
Front cover © Anna Hymas
Illustrations © Anna Hymas
Train illustration © Luna Aït-Oumeghar
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
Head of Zeus Ltd
First Floor East
5–8 Hardwick Street
London EC1R 4RG
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For my grandmother
Contents
About the Author
Also by Ewa Jozefkowicz
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Acknowledgements
About Zephyr
ONE
Captain Eagle Heart had done all he could, but everyone on board could hear the engine struggling. An ear-splitting screech ripped the air. Some of the crew started to scream, waiting for the crash, but Girl 38 knew that they were going to make it. She wasn’t like the other girls. She was a highly-skilled space-traveller – cool-headed, noble and brave—
‘Kat, what are you doing? Drawing that stupid comic again? Look…’ Gem hissed at me. ‘He’s here. Apparently he has some news for us. I overheard him talking to Miss Seymour in the corridor.’
I added the finishing touches to crazy, fiery sparks exploding from the spacecraft before I looked up and saw Mr Kim strolling into the classroom. I immediately felt my face heat up. I’d forgotten how tall he was – he looked like one of those celebrity basketball players. He’d had a haircut over the holidays and got different glasses.
I glanced at my sketch of Captain Eagle Heart and regretted getting so far ahead with it. He was modelled on Mr Kim, and I could now see that his new look suited the character much better. But then again, maybe it was for the best. Gem would have definitely noticed the similarity and I wouldn’t have heard the end of it.
‘Greetings, all,’ he said to us, giving an exaggerated wave. I heard Gem sigh. Unlike me, she didn’t think much of him, but then sometimes I wondered whether she thought much of anyone apart from Arun.
‘Welcome to a new term. I hope you all had a great six weeks off. I’m sure you have some wonderful stories to tell. Save them until lunchtime if you possibly can though, because I need to take the register and then I have an important announcement.’
I could tell that Gem was distracted – something, or rather someone, across the room had caught her eye. She whispered from behind her long, dark hair, ‘I’m going to go on a date with him this term.’
For a second I thought she meant Mr Kim and I wondered if she’d lost the plot, but she was gazing at Arun, who was busy looking at his phone under the desk.
‘What? Seriously?’ I asked her.
‘Yeah, my horoscope said so. It’ll probably happen in September, maybe October at the latest.’
‘Right.’ I didn’t know what else to say.
‘Gemma, I’m sure you’re not listening,’ Mr Kim said. ‘And if you were listening, you might find that you’re interested. As I was saying, Julius will be joining us tomorrow. His family are still in the process of moving, so unfortunately he couldn’t make it in today. But I want you all to make him feel welcome when he starts. He’s a top swimmer and he comes from a fascinating part of the country, so he’ll have loads to tell you. Now… next on my list – your timetables.’
A red spot appeared high up on Gem’s cheek. She’d always had that spot. The first time I’d noticed it was when we were in nursery and there was a prize for the most helpful person in our class. It went to a girl called Molly. Gem didn’t cry or anything – I just saw the red spot appear and then her fists clenched tightly at her sides. My own stomach knotted with nerves when I saw it. I guessed that, right now, she was already prickling at the thought of Julius maybe being better than her at swimming, perhaps other things too. It was unlikely, of course, as Gem’s the swimming champion, and best in our class at most things. Even so, she doesn’t like anyone or anything that might be a threat.
I’ve known Gem since we were three, which is a super long time – over nine years. We met at the gates of nursery on our first day there. She was shorter than me and wore a big fluffy white dress that made her look a bit like a snowman.
‘Want to be my friend?’ she’d asked.
I’d nodded. It was as simple as that. I thought I was lucky, because there were always a lot of people who wanted to be Gem’s friend, but she only chose me. And she looked out for me after that. If you weren’t Gem’s friend then you fell into a category of people who she could, at any moment, decide were her enemies. It wasn’t good to get on the wrong side of her.
Throughout primary school it had always been the two of us. We sat next to each other in all our lessons, we were always partners in any activities and we were round at each other’s houses most nights.
Dad seemed to think that I could do with mixing in a bigger crowd, but I told him that I didn’t need to. I had Gem.
Then, at the end of Year Six, there was a panic, as Mum and Dad wanted me to go to the Castle School, which is a private girls’ school in town. Two sisters, Maisie and Abigail, on my street go there. They wear uniforms with long, pleated skirts and they sound posh. I wouldn’t go, of course, unless Gem did, and it turned out that her mum would never have been able to afford it – not with four other children. It wouldn’t have been fair if she’d only sent Gem.
‘I don’t care!’ Gem shouted at me when she found out that her mum wouldn’t even agree to them going to look round on an open day. ‘I don’t want to go there anyway. You sit in your lah-di-dah castle while the rest of us carry on here in the real world. I knew you were stuck up! It’s always about you and nobody else.’
None of that was true, especially not the last part. In fact, I was always thinking about Gem. I cried and cried. I was scared of losing her. I begged my parents not to send me to ‘the stupid castle’. I got
myself into such a state that I made myself ill. In the end, unbelievably, they gave in and I went to Marley High with Gem and most of the others from our primary school class.
Of course, I thought that it would be the same as ever – me and her – but, no. Gem decided that she needed a bigger gang. First, she made friends with Ruby, a tall, thin girl with pale brown skin and her hair done in hundreds of little plaits. Then Ruby introduced her to Dilly, who was round-faced and ginger, and super enthusiastic about everything. So our two became a four and things weren’t the same after that.
I still sit next to Gem but we don’t do anything just the two of us anymore. Ruby and Dilly are always there. It’s not that I don’t like them, but it seems like most of the things they do are to impress Gem or to make her laugh. Guess I do that too. If they don’t succeed, they’re miserable for the rest of the day.
Today, Gem gathered the three of us round her at lunch and asked casually, ‘This Julius. What d’you reckon?’
‘Sounds like a Vilk to me.’
Ruby and Dil looked confused, but Gem knew what I meant. It was our private joke; the Vilks were the enemy in Girl 38, which I’d only shown to her. But she didn’t laugh like I thought she would.
‘He might be all right,’ Gem said, pretending for a second to be cool about it. ‘Who knows? Maybe he’ll create a bit of excitement. Our class is so boring these days.’
When she said that, I wondered for a moment if she meant me, and I felt a tingling of nerves in my stomach. I had a strange intuition that this new guy was about to change everything.
TWO
Weirdly, I found myself thinking about Julius on the way home. In my head, he was tall, muscular and menacing – like the King of the Vilks – a force to be reckoned with. Just as weirdly, part of me secretly hoped that he might challenge Gem. Nobody in our class had dared so far. I know she was my best friend, but she could be so bossy sometimes.
‘Good afternoon! You would prefer vegetable casserole or burger and chips tonight?’ Lena called from the kitchen as she heard me come in. It made me laugh, the way she always sounded so formal. She popped up suddenly in the hall, her hair wet and her cheeks flushed. She was still cradling her phone between her shoulder and her ear. ‘Shhh…’ she whispered into it. ‘One minute, baby.’
I wasn’t sure why she felt the need to be so secretive. I’d found out about her boyfriend a couple of days after she arrived with us. I soon realised that he probably came to the house when I was at school and Mum and Dad were at work. The first time I worked out he existed was when I saw a pair of trainers, definitely not Dad’s, in the hall, and then a week or so later, I saw him in the garden, smoking. I wondered if they’d met at language school.
I’m not certain that Lena always remembered my name, and her cooking was pretty terrible most of the time, but she was definitely more interesting than the other au pairs we’d had.
‘Burger, please,’ I said. I doubted that she’d ever intended to make the casserole, but she felt she needed to pretend there was a healthy option.
‘Allow me twenty minutes,’ she said, brushing down her apron furiously. It was covered in Chester’s hair – Lena’s relationship with Chester was a love-hate one. He adored her (mainly because she fed him), and she absolutely hated him (mainly because he shed his long ginger cat hair all over her designer skinny jeans and everywhere else).
Chester was sunning himself at the end of our garden and I walked out to join him. I suppose it’s one of the good things about Mum and Dad working such long hours – we can afford a huge house and lots of outdoor space. I even have my own private little corner of the garden to sit in. I like to work on Girl 38 there.
I sat down in my usual spot and took out the exercise book. Chester stretched next to me, and then parked himself on my lap as I worked.
Girl 38 stepped out of the remains of the Infiniship, along with First Mate Hawk Eye, the second in command. The first mate was tall and frightening, with beautiful jet-black hair and a sharp fringe. She had carefully selected Girl 38 to accompany her on the first mission on the new planet, which they had named U for utopia. They were hopeful it would form a happy home for them, but they needed to check the terrain. Girl 38 was fearless. She knew the part she had to play.
Luckily, everyone had survived the crash with only minor injuries, though the ship was in tatters. The crew were working hard to fix it, but in the meantime, they had to begin their search for food, as their supplies were running low. Hawk Eye knew about the dangers that lay ahead and was planning to use Girl 38 as a shield in case they came across any predators, especially the Vilks, who were humans with wolf-heads. They had bright yellow eyes and long snouts with huge fangs.
I was beginning to draw the outline of a Vilk when I heard a wail. It came from behind me, from the space between the bushes where the fence had fallen down. I turned in my seat and saw what looked like a blue, furry mound wobbling in the densest corner of the Jankowski Jungle.
A sliver of fear wormed its way down the back of my neck. I barely admitted it to myself, but I’d always been a bit wary of our next-door neighbour, Mrs Jankowski, mainly because she was such a mystery. I knew that she’d lived at number thirty-four for years before we moved in last summer. Dad said that she’d been very friendly when he’d spoken to her, but I’d always been too busy to take any notice of her. And Gem said there were lots of signs that pointed to her being entirely mad. ‘Just look at the place,’ she said. ‘It’s overgrown and creepy. Who knows what it’s like inside, or what goes on in there?’
It was true. Both of Mrs Jankowski’s gardens, front and back, were massively overgrown. The back one was so bad, I called it ‘the jungle’. Rose bushes had rambled out of control. Their thin, thorny branches scraped the air like gnarled fingers. The grass hadn’t been mown in years, so in parts it was knee-high. The whole place was covered with dandelion-clocks that had multiplied in their hundreds; their fluffy seed-heads scattered like tiny white parachutes in the wind. In the front, closest to the fence, there was a bed of nettles so thick that if somebody accidentally fell into them, they would have been covered in nettle rash from head to toe.
The undergrowth was overshadowed by a couple of oak trees that nobody had ever bothered to cut back. A red bird house was fixed to the branches of one, which I’d only noticed because of the pigeons and sparrows that would regularly descend on it. They made so much noise over their supper that Chester would bristle with annoyance as he sat in his favourite patch on the window sill.
‘Is anyone there?’ I asked.
When I heard a reply, I went into Girl-38 mode, jumped over the broken fence before I’d had time to think about what I was doing and was next to her in seconds. I yanked what I soon realised was a navy fleece blanket from her head and pulled her into a sitting position.
‘Mrs Jankowski, are you OK?’
She was shaking, sitting there on the ground, and I was worried that she was hurt. But then I heard a giggle and saw that she was shaking with laughter, and without knowing why, I started laughing too.
I helped her to her feet and she looked at me, the corners of her eyes scrunched up. She had so many wrinkles, and tiny, bird-like hands. Her hair wasn’t short like most old ladies’, but long, thick and grey. She’d pinned it in an elaborate twist. When she stood, unsteadily, I realised that she wasn’t wearing old-lady clothes either, but a white shirt, tucked into a dark blue skirt with beautiful peacocks on it. Their feathers were woven from coloured thread that shimmered in the sunlight.
‘I am a fool. I know I should not wear this ridiculous skirt. It is much too long for me anyway. Sometimes, in my head, I am still a young, tall beauty, when in reality I am a shrunken, shrivelled old raisin.’
I’d never noticed her accent before, but then again, we’d never said much more than ‘hello’ to each other. Now I could hear that her words were soft and slightly whispery, and her ‘a’s and ‘o’s a bit longer than mine.
‘You’re not a s
hrivelled raisin,’ I said to her. I don’t normally speak to people I don’t know very well, but there was something about Mrs Jankowski that suddenly made me feel as though I was talking to a friend.
‘Ha, well, if not a shrivelled raisin, then definitely a silly witch, as they say in my country. Do you know, I was thinking that I could have a little picnic out here? I saw the sunshine through the window, and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to be outside. I think to myself: Ania, why not take out this blanket, bring your food and spend the evening sunbathing? I forgot that, with all the weeds, there wouldn’t be a flat patch anywhere – and that even if I managed to sit, I would not be able to get back up. And do you know the worst part? I managed to trip myself before I even reached my destination.’
‘I can help you if you want?’ What made me say that? Girl 38 again? I wondered what Gem would think about me talking to the witch next door. Except it turned out that she wasn’t a witch at all.
‘You’ve already helped me,’ she said, smiling. ‘And I am grateful, my dear.’
‘No, I mean – I could weed your garden for you. We have a great lawnmower, so I could mow the grass.’
‘You are very kind, but I am sure that you have many more exciting ways to be spending your evenings.’
‘I’d like to.’
I picked up the rug and folded it, then offered her my arm to lead her back inside. She felt so light that I was certain a strong gust of wind would blow her away at any moment. I wondered how she managed to get around.
‘Can I make you a cup of tea to say thank you? Do you drink tea?’ she asked. ‘In Poland, we drink it with lemon and a little spoon of honey, or sugar. Or I can see if I have some lemonade for you in the fridge? I don’t know what young people drink these days.’
‘I’d love a Polish tea,’ I said. I don’t know why, but she seemed so frail. I could sense that she wanted me to stay.
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