I started before I’d even made the wish. I started right at the beginning on the day Mum left.
Tom sat in silence for a very long time. I could tell he was bursting to jump in with questions. But he didn’t. He let me tell him about how Mum and Da hadn’t stopped arguing, how Mum had moved into the attic room and how nothing I could do would make her move back. He let me tell him about how one day out of the blue she announced she had a new filming job. How I had tried to stop her going. But after our camping trip she had made up her mind. How it had been nearly two years since she had left.
Eventually Tom said, “And you don’t think she’s going to come back?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t tell Tom the awful part. The reason why.
“And you don’t know where she is?” Tom said.
I shook my head again. I didn’t have a clue where she was. The closest I had been to finding her, to being with her, was when the rock’s magic had taken me to places that brought special memories of my mum to the surface. But the pages Tom had taken from the shop spoke of this magic growing stronger, to the point that the wish was fulfilled. Which means it could take me to Mum. This made me very much not want it to stop happening.
“Amelia, let me help you find your mum. My dad used to be a policeman; he said there’s loads of ways to track people down. He cracked a burglary ring by bidding for a thirty-foot stolen panda on eBay. He says there’s hundreds of ways to find people just on the internet. You just have to know how to look for them.”
I chewed my lip. I wasn’t completely convinced by Tom’s plan.
“But if the disappearing is really going to take me to Mum…” I started.
“But what if it doesn’t. What if it goes wrong? What if something terrible happens? What if a storm destroys Dark Muir like that book warns?”
I thought of how scared I had been trapped in the bog, that first time I’d disappeared. How I nearly hadn’t made it home.
“That wish, the transfer of power, it’s dangerous, Amelia. Didn’t you see how everyone was scared when the rock disappeared?”
I bit my lip and thought of what Grandpa had said: “The rock grants wishes at a terrible price.” My stomach churned as I looked at the inky storm on the pages in front of me.
“You need to transfer the power back to the rock – then the island will be protected again,” Tom said.
“But we don’t know how,” I said.
“I bet it’s in that book. We just have to get the rest of the pages. But Amelia you have to promise me you won’t use your powers to disappear again. It brings the storm closer when you do.”
“I don’t even know if I can control what’s happening to me. I tried when Blair threatened us, but nothing happened.”
“That’s probably a good thing. Can you imagine what she would have done if she’d got a recording of that?”
The thought made me shiver.
“So we’re agreed. You’re not to use your powers again?”
I nodded.
“Promise?” Tom asked, offering me his pinkie finger.
I was still scared of the disappearing and the dark, inky storm illustrations in the book, so I wanted to agree with everything Tom had said. But as we linked pinkie fingers I knew in my heart that I wouldn’t be able to keep my promise. Because if there was no more magic, there would be no chance of finding Mum.
Chapter 21
It didn’t take long for me and Tom to perfect our ninja-style escapes to the room under the castle stairs. All we had to do was split up after a lesson had finished, find a good hiding place and, when the coast was clear, head for the library. There were more hiding places in Bridlebaine Academy then you could imagine! And Tom and I had found them all. We had hidden in supply cupboards, trees and even in the recycle bin once. Although after I got covered in cobwebs and sticky yoghurt pots, I decided that bins were to be avoided. But we had become so good at hiding that eventually most of our year got bored trying to follow us. This made Blair Watson furious, because on her own she was no match for our ninja skills. Or so we thought.
Over December the tower room had grown so cold that we had to build an igloo out of broken fold-up chairs and dust blankets. But even in our igloo, with our hats and gloves on, our teeth wouldn’t stop chattering.
“What have you found out?” I asked Tom.
“Not much, but next weekend is the last one I’m grounded for. Then I can use the computer and we can do a proper search for your mum,” Tom said.
“What about getting hold of the rest of the book?” I asked.
“I thought about that too,” Tom said. “I thought I could ask Mr Sinclair if I could help out at the shop for free, to say sorry. If Gran thinks I’ve taken my punishment seriously and am really trying to make amends I’m sure she’d convince Mr Sinclair to take me on.”
Suddenly there was a loud screech and a burst of light. The door to the tower room had been flung open. Tom put a finger over his mouth and peeped out under the dust cover.
“Blair,” he mouthed silently to me and I could feel my heart jump.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Blair sang, the heels of her pointy black boots thumping on the creaky old floorboards.
“Where could they be?” Blair asked no one in particular as she upturned an old table, making the whole room shudder.
Tom was trying to communicate a complicated escape plan in sign language but I felt frozen to the spot.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll come out. I know you’re up here…” Blair said as she kicked the piano stool across the room. It flew into a pile of chairs with a sickening bang.
“Run,” Tom said, grabbing my hand as an avalanche of chairs swept across the floor.
But Blair reached the door before us.
“I knew you were hiding around here!” she yelled triumphantly.
“What are you doing?” Tom bellowed. “You could have got us all crushed!”
But Blair wasn’t listening. She was staring at me.
“What is that?” Blair said, with a glint in her eyes.
I looked down. In all the running my mum’s compass had slipped out of my shirt.
“That’s how you do it, isn’t it?” Blair shouted. “You’ve got some kind of magic necklace.”
“N-no,” I stuttered, desperately trying to tuck it back under my shirt collar. “It’s just a necklace.”
“Oh, yeah? Well you won’t mind letting me have a look at it, then.”
I tried to back away but I tripped over one of the fallen chairs and into the piano. It gave a tuneless tinkle as Blair ripped the ribbon from around my neck.
“Give it back,” Tom said, trying to grab for it.
“Or what?” Blair snarled, pushing Tom out of the way as she strode over to the window.
“So how does it work, then?” she asked, holding the compass up and letting it twist in the light. I could see my mum’s initials glimmer.
“I told you: it doesn’t. It’s just a compass, all right? It used to belong to my mum,” I said, the word “mum” getting stuck in my throat.
I knew if Mum were here, she would have refused to let me be scared of Blair Watson. She would have told me that if Amelia Earhart had been scared, she wouldn’t have been the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. But I couldn’t help myself. No matter how hard I bit my lip, I couldn’t stop the tears welling up.
“I’m going to get a teacher!” Tom yelled as he stumbled over the chairs and out the door.
But Blair didn’t seem to care. She was rubbing the compass like it was a magic lamp.
“I want to disappear,” she whispered.
But of course nothing happened.
“How do you make it work?” Blair said, shaking it.
“It’s just an old compass,” I said, sniffing back tears.
Blair shook it again and put it up to her ear. Then she turned it over in her hand while muttering.
“You’re right, it’s just a dum
b old compass,” she sighed.
She held the compass out to me but just as I went to grab it she snatched it back.
“No use to me then, is it?” she hissed. And I watched her arm wind back in what felt like slow motion.
“Stop!” I half-managed to get out before she threw the compass across the room.
I could hear the crack as it hit the stone wall. When I turned to look I could see bits of shattered glass shining up from the floor and a big ugly dent in the gold case. I ran over and picked it up, cradling it in my hands. It was broken: the compass needle no longer pointed north; it could no longer always point me in the right direction home. I roared and threw myself at Blair, who stumbled on the pile of chairs and went crashing to the ground just as the door flew open.
“Amelia Hester McLeod!” Miss Archibald bellowed.
It was the first time I’d heard my full name at Bridlebaine Academy. So I knew I was in big trouble.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Tom squeaked as I realized I was on top of Blair, her horrid ponytail in my hand ready to be pulled hard.
“Well, it looks like Amelia was halfway to strangling Blair with her own hair,” Miss Archibald said, raising an eyebrow in the most dramatic fashion.
“Blair started it. Amelia was just trying to defend herself,” Tom protested.
“So you were up here too, in the out-of-bounds room when this happened?” Miss Archibald asked, her eyebrow arching so far up I was afraid it was going to fly off her face.
“You could have had a serious accident up here,” she continued sternly. “I’m sorry, Tom, but I’m going to have to inform your parents about this.”
Tom turned white. He had only just worked off being grounded the first time. His parents and his grandma were going to be furious. I tried to squeeze his hand but he shuffled away.
“No, don’t! I mean there’s no need. Because I was never in the out-of-bounds room!”
Miss Archibald pushed her round glasses up her nose. “I see. So how did you know to come and get me?”
“It’s just; I went to the library to get this book. This book on, um, football.”
Miss Archibald narrowed her eyes over her glasses. Tom was literally the least sporty kind of person there could be. Watching Tom try to play football was like watching a spider try to tap dance.
“So I was reading my book about football. Because I love football, obviously. So I was up there, in the library, reading all the fascinating things about the kicking of balls into nets. When I heard a sound and then some crashing and then, well, I came and got you.”
I couldn’t believe it. Tom was lying! And he wasn’t even doing a good job of it.
Miss Archibald sighed heavily.
“So if I have all this right, you were busy educating yourself on the joys of the beautiful game when you heard a fight and thinking only of doing the right thing you ran to inform me?”
Tom nodded, avoiding my eye.
“Well, in that case you couldn’t have possibly seen who started the fight?”
“No, miss,” Tom said, looking down at his feet.
Miss Archibald folded her arms and made a face like she had just sucked on a very sour lemon.
“Well, then, I can only go on what I saw which is that you were both very much involved in this fight,” Miss Archibald said, looking at Blair’s pulled out ponytail and my ripped collar. Then she shook her head.
“I would expect this kind of behaviour from Miss Watson, but from you, Amelia? I thought we were making progress. I know you had some problems settling in here, but I’ve seen how well you’re doing in geography and how bright some of your answers are. And I thought after our little chat you might finally find your feet. But maybe a school setting isn’t right for you after all. Maybe I need to have a serious chat with your da.”
I opened my mouth but no words would come out. It was like they were all scrambled up in my head. I looked at Tom desperately, but he just kept staring at his feet. I couldn’t believe he was going to let me take the blame. It was his idea to come up here and it was Blair who had broken my compass. I could feel the shards of glass digging into my palm. I wanted so badly for Tom to speak up and explain the truth and make Miss Archibald, the one teacher I liked, understand. But Tom turned away and Miss Archibald just carried on shaking her head. And what was even worse was Blair smiled through everything. She didn’t care that she was in trouble. She was always in trouble! Her parents probably don’t even notice any more. Her da wasn’t going to be disappointed and her mum wasn’t going to leave like mine did.
“Fighting in this school is unacceptable. There are going to be some very serious consequences,” Miss Archibald said as she began to list them.
But I couldn’t listen any more and I couldn’t look at Blair’s smug face. Or Tom’s lying one. Out of everyone I knew, I trusted Tom the most: he knew all my secrets, and I didn’t share those with anyone. I had even told him about my mum. Tom letting me down was worse than any punishment Miss Archibald could give me. It was even worse than Mum’s compass being broken. My hand squeezed the compass as I thought how much I wanted to be with Mum, far away from this room, this school, these islands. And that’s when I felt my hand tingle.
This wasn’t like any of the other times, the times when I had been afraid of the magic making me disappear or when I had harnessed it out of desperation. With the compass in my hand I could feel the pull of the rock’s magic. I could feel it wanting to help me find Mum. And I didn’t want to fight it any more.
“So the first thing that will happen is an official report of the incident will be sent to your parents,” Miss Archibald carried on.
But I didn’t wait to hear the second thing. I squeezed the compass and bolted down the stone steps and into the first-floor corridor. I heard Miss Archibald yell and Tom shout “Amelia!” in a scared little voice. But I didn’t care about either of them. I didn’t care about the extra trouble I was getting myself into or that I was about to break my promise to Tom. I only cared about one thing.
As I sprinted down the stairs, I thought of all the times Mum had read me stories of brave explorers and all the times we visited Puffin Cave together and all the times she made me laugh so hard when she made up the completely wrong words to a song on the radio. I felt the compass in my hands grow hotter. I could hear Miss Archibald’s heels clacking after me and Tom’s voice bouncing around the empty corridor. But I didn’t open my eyes. I squeezed my hand, felt it get hot.
“I want to disappear,” I murmured.
The sound of the ocean poured into my ears as my eyes snapped open. The corridor flickered as Miss Archibald, Blair and Tom appeared breathlessly from around the corner.
“I want to disappear,” I whispered again and my legs vanished.
“I told you!” Blair shouted triumphantly.
Miss Archibald ripped off her glasses, her mouth a perfect round O of horror. Blair grabbed for her phone. But before she could pull it out, the bell went. Children poured into the corridor, knocking Miss Archibald’s glasses out of her hands and pushing Blair back. In the middle of the crowd I could see Tom towering over everyone. He was waving his arms desperately for me to stop. But it was too late. With the crackle of thunder, we both knew what was going to happen next.
Chapter 22
If I was to write a list of All Time Stupid Things to Absolutely Never Do, at the top of that list would be:
DISAPPEARING FROM SCHOOL
It didn’t take long for me to regret what happened. I’d disappeared in front of so many witnesses, one of them being the only teacher I liked. I was going to be in so much trouble when I went back. But that wasn’t the biggest reason why I was terrified of what I had done.
Which brings me to number two on my All Time Stupid Things to Absolutely Never Do list.
DISAPPEARING AT SCHOOL WITHOUT A PLAN
Mum always said that the best explorers have plans. Just like Ida Reyer Pfeiffer, who before going to visit a tribe of cannib
als learned how to say in their language, “I am too old and tough so would not be good to eat.” It saved her life. But back in the corridor I hadn’t had a plan. I hadn’t really been thinking at all.
I opened my eyes, blinking into the dark. I could hear birds but I knew I wasn’t on Sometimes Island. I could hear the sea too, but I knew this wasn’t Seal Beach. And I knew this definitely wasn’t the boys’ loos. My eyes adjusted to the dark and I didn’t have to wonder where I was any more. The magic had disappeared me and brought me back to the place where everything had begun. It had brought me to Puffin Cave.
The light cast rainbows across the cave walls and the sound of the sea rushed and whooshed around me. I struggled up. The cave floor was covered in rough rocks, but beside me was one so shiny it shone like a diamond. I picked it up and rolled it in my hand; it was just a piece of glass polished by the sand and sea. But Mum had always thought finding these were special.
“It’s not quite a fossil, Amelia, but it takes hundreds of tides to make this. And that makes it something worth having.” She had said this every time we found one in the cave.
I had found loads of them because Puffin Cave had always been mine and Mum’s special place. It was where she took me whenever I felt upset.
“Just yell out all the things you’re sad about,” she used to say.
And we would fill up the cave with all our bad thoughts, hear them ricochet and echo off the walls and then listen to them fade away. And as they faded, some of their pain and power faded too. This place had always made me feel better. Right up until I had done the awful thing.
It was a few days before my tenth birthday. Back when Mum still telephoned sometimes. Back when I thought she might come back to me.
I asked the question I had asked a million times.
“When are you coming home?”
I could hear Mum sigh all the way from Australia where she was filming a documentary about kangaroos.
“Not for a little bit, Amelia,” Mum had said. “But I was thinking if I get some time off from filming that I could come and visit for your birthday.”
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