“Da, do you think you can be cursed?” I asked over my bowl of cornflakes the next morning.
Grandpa’s porridge spoon clattered on to the floor. Da just sighed.
“No, Amelia, I do not.”
“I think Grandpa’s right. I think the rock did something to me,” I said.
Da poured a big cup of coffee. The kind of cup of coffee that meant he had a long day ahead and he was definitely not in the mood for this conversation.
“Let me guess, you’re ill with something horrible like…” Da paused, searching for the right word.
“Bubonic plague,” Grandpa added helpfully.
“And you can’t go to school?” Da finished.
“No, I’m not ill, it’s much worse!” I began, but Da was having none of it.
“I know you had a bad start to school. But you can’t just give up after one day. I need you to try. Because, Amelia, we can’t go back to the way things were.”
I opened my mouth again. But none of the right words came out. In fact, no words came out at all. I didn’t know how to explain what had happened. Even I half didn’t believe it. But I could feel my head throbbing with everything. I had to tell someone. And there was only one person I could think of who would understand.
That night, before I went to bed, I pulled out Miss Archibald’s blue book from my bag.
Dear Mum, I wrote.
Here are all the people I know who have disappeared:
•Peng Jiamu, 55, a Chinese biologist who disappeared in a desert. Some say he found a lost temple, others say he vanished in a sandstorm.
•Percy Fawcett, 58, went into the Amazon jungle never to return. Possibly eaten by jaguars.
•Amelia Earhart, 39, my namesake, who disappeared trying to fly solo across the globe.
And me, Mum. Last night I disappeared. I don’t know how or why and no one will believe me. I don’t even know if it will happen again.
Chapter 10
I hadn’t tried to talk to Da or Grandpa again about the disappearing. Too much else had happened. A week of school had gone by in a blur of tests, strange science experiments and STAR lessons. I still hadn’t got used to going to classes either; sitting still in a classroom for hours at a time felt almost impossible. At home I had always been able to go and grab a snack, or pop to the loo, and when the weather was good Mum and Grandpa had taken me outside to do classwork.
But having proper classrooms wasn’t all bad. The art room was a bit magic. It was filled with huge paintings and sculptures that the year elevens were working on, with a wall rack filled with every colour of paint you could imagine. I’d ended up getting a bit carried away using them all on my self-portrait. My art teacher, Miss Iris, had said my picture was “very experimental”. I wasn’t sure if that meant it was good or bad. This was something I’d learned about teachers: they never said what they really thought. Well, apart from our drama teacher, Mr Todd, who believes in expressing yourself. He started every lesson with us roaring like lions and had begun teaching us a dance that involved a lot of stomping. Tom was terrible. He kept waving his arms at the wrong time and tripping over his feet; Mr Todd had to make him his deputy choreographer just to keep everyone safe. But the rest of my lessons weren’t so fun. Our science teacher, Mr McNair, spoke in long sentences that never seemed to end, and in English we were studying Shakespeare. This seemed doubly unfair when I struggled with regular words, let alone grand Shakespearian ones. Miss Archibald sat next to me in these classes to help explain things and make notes. But this made it hard to make friends, because nobody wanted to sit next to a teacher. School was so much to take in that it was almost enough to make me forget about the night I’d disappeared. Well, almost…
“Amelia!” Miss Archibald bellowed.
I looked up from my journal. It was our Monday morning STAR class and Miss Archibald was staring down at me and flapping her arms, looking even more like a surprised owl than ever.
“I think this is the third time I’ve asked how your journal writing is going,” Miss Archibald said.
“She’s probably daydreaming again,” Blair hissed, curling her lip.
Blair was right; I did daydream. I didn’t mean to do it. But sometimes I ended up thinking about how fast a cricket’s heart beats, or if you never cut your fingernails would they keep growing and growing until they became long curly claws and you couldn’t lift your hands up, or if you were to climb Mount Everest with a beard would it get all frozen and turn into a block of ice? But this time I was thinking about the night I had nearly drowned in the bog. How it had been one week today since I disappeared.
Nothing strange had happened since. Even Grandpa seemed to have stopped predicting impending doom. And looking back over what I had written to Mum, it all seemed so ridiculous. Was I sure I had disappeared? Had Beryl Markham really helped me get out of a deadly bog? Was I sure it hadn’t just been a strange dream? All these questions made my head spin. Maybe it would be better if I forgot about it. I slammed the blue exercise book shut and Miss Archibald raised an eyebrow.
“You know it’s OK to not let me see what you’re writing, Amelia. It’s your journal project and that means it can be private. I just wanted to check after last week to see if you needed any more help.”
I shook my head.
“All right then, Miss Chatterbox,” Miss Archibald grinned. “Right, class, you can put your journals away. We won’t be writing them during lessons any more. They’re something for you to do at home.”
“Like homework?” Gregory asked.
“Yes, I suppose so,” Miss Archibald replied.
“So does that mean we get out of doing our other homework then?” Ian shouted.
“Sadly, it does not,” Miss Archibald said. “But there is the chance to get a very special prize for it at the end of the year.”
“A prize like not having to do any homework?” Gregory grinned.
“I’m about to give you extra in a moment, Gregory Wilson. Now, everyone turn your attention to the board. Today we will be studying punctuation.”
Everyone groaned and shoved their blue books into their bags. I glimpsed a flash of Tom’s journal before it disappeared. I could see it was filled with the most amazing pictures of ponies. He had even coloured them in with shading to make them look 3D. I didn’t think that’s what Miss Archibald had in mind when she set us a writing exercise, but I thought Tom’s drawings were brilliant. I wanted to go over and ask for a closer look, but I could see Blair glaring at me and Miss Archibald was in full swing, telling us something very boring about commas.
The rest of the lesson crawled by and the school day felt like it would go on for ever. Finally, the last bell went and we were heading back home. I sat on the bus on my own again, but on the ferry Tom came over.
“Hey,” he said, sitting down on the empty seat next to me.
“Hey,” I replied.
Tom drummed his leg nervously against the chair.
“So I’ve been meaning to ask…” Tom paused. “If I could have my rubber back.”
“Sure,” I said, digging around in my bag and pulling the rubber out from my pencil case.
“Great, thanks, cheers, that’s brilliant,” Tom said, getting up and stuffing the rubber into his pocket and walking off. But he hadn’t got more than a few paces away when he turned back around.
“Actually I didn’t really need the rubber back. I’ve got about ten of them at home; I just wanted an excuse to talk to you. I’ve been trying to talk to you all week, but I felt a bit embarrassed after what had happened in that first STAR class.”
“Oh,” I said, flashing back to how horrible it had been trying to read out loud in class for the first time.
“I can read!” I said flushing bright red all over again. “It just takes me longer and in front of everyone I … couldn’t do it,” I finished lamely.
“No, Amelia, it wasn’t anything you did,” Tom interrupted me. “It was me! I was embarrassed. I made an idiot of myself rea
ding out my journal. I just went on and on, until Blair started laughing and Miss Archibald made me stop. I thought I’d be all right if I was reading something I’d written down, but once I started, there just seemed to be more and more words,” he said breathlessly. “Honestly, I wish I had your problem. Because I’ve got the opposite – I’ve got word vomit!”
I’d watched Tom throwing himself head first into everything all week. He’d even refused to give up learning Mr Todd’s dance until he nearly knocked out Chloe. I’d thought he was kind of indestructible. But it turned out he was just as worried about school as me. It made me like him even more.
“I guess we’re both idiots,” I said.
Tom grinned.
“Yeah, best we stick together.”
The ferry docked at Dark Muir and everyone streamed off still huddled in their special friendship groups. But for once I wasn’t alone.
Me and Tom walked through the hodge-podge of harbour houses.
“So I guess I’ll see you at school tomorrow?” Tom said when we got to my turning for Hartleroot hill.
I nodded, my belly feeling full of happy sparkles.
But this feeling didn’t last long. As soon as I got home I knew something was wrong. The back door was wide open and Grandpa was nowhere to be found. I looked for him in the kitchen and then his bedroom. I even popped my head around the door of the scary little attic room. But there was no sign of him and Da wasn’t home yet. This wasn’t good.
Pipi was asleep in her basket, snoring as usual.
“Some watchdog you are,” I said.
Pipi yawned and one of her ears flopped over her eyes. She hadn’t been getting much sleep either. Ever since the night I disappeared, she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. She would sit at the bottom of my bed keeping guard. Every time I got up she followed me, growling. Even when I went to the bathroom!
I sat down at the kitchen table and tried to think of all the places Grandpa would wander off to. But I didn’t have to think for long because I could hear his voice coming up the path.
“Unhand me, woman,” I heard Grandpa shout, and then Hettie and Penny, our thousand-year-old neighbours, appeared. Hettie had one of Grandpa’s arms and Penny had the other and they were frogmarching him back to our house.
“Look who we found,” Hettie said.
“I think he got a bit lost again,” Penny joined in.
“Grandpa, you’re not meant to go out without me and Da,” I said, taking his arm and leading him into the kitchen. Hettie and Penny followed me in, keeping a wary eye on Grandpa just in case he attempted another great escape.
“I went to the shops. Can’t a man go to the shops? But they moved everything. The post office wasn’t where it was meant to be,” Grandpa said.
“We all lose our way sometimes. No harm done,” Penny said, her voice low and soothing.
“I did not get lost. I’m telling you, the post office was in the wrong place,” Grandpa roared, and he went off to have a sulk in his chair.
“We found him down at the harbour,” Hettie told me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “He’s usually not too bad. But sometimes he gets a bit mixed up.”
“Oh, don’t you worry now. I think all us older people are a little off-balance since the rock disappeared…” Penny said, her voice trailing off.
“I never thought it would happen again in my lifetime,” Hettie said darkly.
“We don’t know this is the same thing,” Penny said, shaking her head. “It could just be a high tide like the weather reported.”
“You and me both know that’s not true,” snapped Hettie.
Pipi barked and spun around like she knew what they were talking about.
“It was your birthday the day before the rock disappeared, wasn’t it, Amelia?” Hettie asked, her strange yellow eyes fixing on to mine and her bee brooch glinting in the sunlight.
I nodded, wanting desperately for them to leave. I didn’t like where this conversation was going. I had only just managed to convince myself to forget about the strange night I had disappeared.
“Did you make a wish?” Hettie asked.
“I don’t believe in wishes,” I said boldly, trying not to think about how I’d asked the Serpent’s Tooth Rock to help me find my mum.
“That’s just as well, because dangerous things happen to those who are foolish enough to make wishes on Serpent’s Tooth Rock.”
“Leave the girl alone, you’re scaring her,” Penny said, putting a hand firmly on Hettie’s shoulder. “Don’t listen to any of that nonsense, Amelia. It’s just folk tales and fancy. Hettie’s got carried away, haven’t you?”
But Hettie kept staring at me with her strange yellow eyes. I could tell she wanted to say something else. She opened her mouth and Penny swatted at her.
“You’re right, it’s probably nothing. Just the ramblings of an old lady,” Hettie said, taking Penny’s arm to leave. But before she did she gave me a stiff sort of smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
I watched Hettie and Penny bickering on their way back down the hill. As scary as Hettie was, I had never once seen her argue with Penny. That was the one nice thing about them: they always seemed so happy together. But ever since the rock had disappeared, things seemed to be changing.
Later, in my bedroom, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Hettie had said.
Dangerous things happen to those who are foolish enough to make wishes.
She couldn’t be talking about me? Could she? A whole week had gone by and nothing bad had happened. I definitely hadn’t disappeared again. I wasn’t even sure it had happened the first time. It could have all been a bad dream brought on by a horrible first day at school. Da always said I had an overactive imagination.
“You heard what Penny said – Hettie’s just trying to scare me. It’s all an old wives’ tale,” I said out loud.
Pipi barked and began scratching at my bottom bedside table drawer. The drawer which I suddenly remembered I’d hidden the binoculars in the night I’d disappeared.
I pulled out my drawer, hoping against hope it would be empty. But the binoculars were there, still covered in mud. I picked them up and my hand began to tingle again, but so faintly I could tell myself it was just my imagination. Nothing strange was happening to me, I tried to tell myself again. But this time I wasn’t so sure.
Chapter 11
I tried to forget about Hettie’s strange words. I even tried to forget about the disappearing. But just before the half-term holiday, it happened again.
It started with the fight. Just to make it clear, I wasn’t the one who started it. In fact, I had been trying really hard to keep my promise to Da and try my best at school. But there are some things you just can’t plan for. And one of them was Blair Watson.
We had to sit together again in geography because sometimes we got special help in class. Miss Archibald was helping us make notes and Miss Taylor, probably the oldest women alive, was talking about explorers who had accidentally discovered countries. It was a really interesting lesson, but I already knew most of it.
“Does anyone know who was the first European to discover America?”
I knew the answer but I was too afraid to stick up my hand.
“Christopher Columbus,” Blair shouted.
“That’s a good answer. But it’s actually not true. Does anyone else know?”
“Leif Eriksson,” I whispered under my breath.
“Go on,” Miss Archibald said, and she poked me in the ribs.
“Amelia, do you know?” Miss Taylor asked.
“A group of Vikings led by the daring Leif Eriksson found America and set up a settlement about five-hundred years before Columbus,” I said.
Miss Taylor clapped her hands.
“Well, I’ve never had someone get that right before. I think that deserves a house point.”
“I didn’t know you knew so much about explorers, Amelia,” Miss Archibald beamed.
It was the first time a teache
r had ever seemed pleasantly surprised by something I had said in class. I felt a warm glow of pride, like I had swallowed sunshine.
“Teacher’s pet,” Blair whispered under her breath.
And just like that my summer’s-day-feeling went away.
“That’s enough, Blair; do you want to get another detention?” Miss Archibald said.
I wished right then I had never answered the stupid question because I saw Blair glare at me under her fringe. I knew that look. That was the look of a very mad girl plotting something especially mad just for me.
Miss Archibald kept a close eye on me and Blair until the break bell rang. Then everyone went screaming into the corridors. I waited behind until the classroom was empty and tried to sneak out. But Blair was waiting for me outside, a massive pair of scissors in her hands. I tried to run but as I turned around I heard a loud snip. I felt for my hair but it was still there. Blair had cut a hole in my backpack instead. My books tipped out on to the ground. Her cronies – a girl called Grace and a pair of redheaded sisters – started laughing.
“Leave her alone,” I heard Tom shout.
“Aw, isn’t that sweet, you got a boyfriend,” Blair laughed, picking her way through my books. “Oh, what do we have here,” she yelled, waving my Little Book of Lady Adventurers around. I’d been carrying it in my bag ever since the first day of school. Somehow it made me feel safe, like it could prepare me for anything. But in Blair’s hands it looked like nothing more than a scruffy old picture book.
“Oh my God, its baby’s first picture book. Is this all you can read?” Blair snorted.
“Give it back,” I said, trying to sound fierce.
“Or … what?” Blair replied, clearly enjoying herself.
Then with a loud rip she tore the first page out. I watched it flutter to the ground.
“Stop it!” I cried out.
But with a horrible twist of her lip Blair tore through another page and then another. Amelia Earhart flew through the air. Lady Hester Stanhope crumpled to the floor, the picture of her riding her Arab stallion trampled under Blair’s big, fat foot.
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