‘Oh shit.’
I’d deliberately avoided that place. There were gaping sockets where the windows should have been, half the roof was missing, and the weather-beaten walls looked set to collapse at any minute.
Maybe it was just a trick of the light. Yeah, that was it. Sloth was like that. I was probably just seeing things. Much better to pack it in for the night and come back tomo—
AND THERE IT WAS AGAIN.
Unmistakable this time, it winked at me from the window, almost as if the wiley old ruin was sizing up its prey.
Dropping onto my belly and clawing my way across the ground with my forearms, I stalked the old blackhouse like a professional assassin. Perhaps six long weeks with Dan Lulham hadn’t been completely pointless after all. How many times had I seen his pathetic mini-me performing exactly the same manoeuvre in that sad killing game he played twenty-four/seven on his Xbox?
Voices; I was sure I heard voices. If I could just get a little closer, I might be able to hear what they were saying. The rear wall was a short crawl through a natural assault course of long grass and nettles. I stretched my sleeves to protect my hands, whispered a soothing mantra of St Thomas’s Community College’s favourite expletives, and went for it.
Maybe I’d imagined the voices too. Crouching beneath the rear window, all I could hear was my heart beating dubstep and the agonised wheeze of my heavy breathing. Down in the valley, the pods glimmered like a distant family of breast-shaped nightlights. You have no idea how much I wanted to run towards them. But there was nothing for it but to take a peep inside.
The window was right above me. How hard could it be? I turned to face the wall, kneeling in front of the decaying masonry, like I was praying – which is pretty much exactly what I was doing, as I rose slowly to my feet.
‘Keep calm and carry on,’ I whispered, only centimetres now from the window ledge. It’s funny how a few silly words can make you feel better. Because whatever I was about to see, suddenly I was ready for it. Simple really; just straighten my legs and . . .
BLACKNESS! DEEP, DARK AND INPENETRABLE, LIKE I’D SUDDENLY GONE BLIND.
I tried to scream, but it came out all muffled.
‘Keep quiet, Jess,’ said the voice. ‘Someone might hear you.’
I tried struggling, but it was no use. A clutch of hands tightened simultaneously around my arms and neck and dragged me backwards through the nettles.
‘Stop kicking, Jess,’ said the voice, ‘or do you want to get hurt?’
They bundled me into the blackhouse, forcing me down onto the dank grassy floor.
‘You can let her go now,’ said the voice. ‘And you’d better take that blindfold off too.’
More hands on the back of my neck. The darkness turned to blinding light.
I was almost too angry to be scared. ‘Well, go on, then, big shot; do your worst. What is it that you lot get up to, anyway?’
I couldn’t see him because he was shining a torch in my face. But I’d known his voice all along.
‘We’re the Firewallers,’ said Campbell.
Firewallers
Some of the others produced torches too, holding them under their chins, like a low a budget horror movie.
‘Hi, Jess,’ said Lucy. ‘We hoped you’d come.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I said. ‘And what’s with the Jess all of a sudden? I thought you freaks didn’t abbreviate.’
They all seemed to find that pretty funny.
‘I was quite pleased with that one.’ Campbell smiled. ‘Not bad for the spur of the moment.’
‘Oi, Jess,’ said the boy in the logo-less baseball cap. ‘Why didn’t you bring your sister? She’s well hot.’
‘Don’t worry about him, he’s got sex on the brain, haven’t you, Ed?’ said Lucy. ‘But is she all right, though? Your sister, I mean. She looked a bit under it.’
‘I don’t know what’s the matter with her,’ I said. ‘She’s been acting all weird since we got here.’
‘It takes people that way sometimes,’ said Campbell. ‘You should have seen some of this lot when they first arrived.’
Naseeb was carrying one of those old-fashioned egg timers, which she kept turning over every time the sand ran out. ‘You never really get used to it. You just learn to cope with things.’
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t clocked it before. All the girls had put their hair up – which was a one million per cent improvement, let me tell you.
‘Wait a minute,’ I said, starting to wonder if that was really Lucy’s natural colour. ‘I thought you lot were really into that Dawdlers stuff.’
‘That’s what we want them to think,’ said Ed.
It was more confusing than the Demon Headmaster’s uniform policy. ‘Are you saying you don’t actually like it here?’
‘What do you reckon?’ said Ed.
‘It totally sucks,’ said Lucy. ‘They’ve had their lives; why do they want to go and ruin ours too?’
‘Don’t you just hate all that mud?’ said Naseeb. ‘Never mind those disgusting animals – talk about gross.’
Ed was head-banging in agreement. ‘If I never see another “breathtaking sunset” for the rest of my life, it’ll be far too soon.’
‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘If you all hate it so much, why don’t you tell them?’
‘To keep them off our backs,’ said Jack. ‘It was bad enough when they could only Facebook-stalk you from work. Think what it could be like now they’re practically living on top of us.’
‘So long as they think we’re happy little Striplings, they’ll leave us to get on with it,’ said Lucy.
‘And they really believe you’re happy?’
‘It’s what they want to believe,’ said Campbell. ‘They’re too busy with their tragic mid-life crises anyway.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Ed. ‘It wasn’t the internet that killed childhood, I’ll tell you that for a start.’
It still didn’t explain why they’d had to scare me silly. ‘OK fine, but you could have told me.’
‘We had to make sure you felt the same way first,’ said Lucy.
‘How do you know that I do?’
The blackhouse rocked with uninhibited laughter.
‘Oh please,’ said Lucy. ‘If you really want to look like you’re interested in conservation, you’ll have to get a lot better at disguising your yawning.’
‘Yeah, and real animal lovers don’t hold their noses every time they go near one,’ added Campbell.
‘So how about this . . . Firewallers thing?’ I said, anxious not to dwell on my obvious inadequacies as a counterfeit Stripling. ‘What’s that all about?’
Campbell stepped into the torchlight. ‘It’s what we do to remember. Each one of us is an expert in some aspect of our old lives.’
Lucy sounded like an annoying co-presenter on the Shopping Channel. ‘For instance, Molly’s our reality telly person, Ed’s our Xbox guy and Naseeb knows everything there is to know about social networking.
‘Yeah, and porn star poses!’ quipped Ed.
‘We take it in turns to give lectures or run workshops on our specialist subjects,’ said Campbell. ‘That way we won’t forget.’
‘How about you, Jess?’ said Naseeb. ‘What are you an expert on?’
‘Dunno. Hair and beauty, I suppose.’
‘I’m hair and beauty,’ said Lucy firmly. ‘But I’m sure there’s something else you’re good at.’
Ed’s machine-gun snigger was reassuringly St Thomas’s-like.
Naseeb was checking her egg timer. ‘We’d better get going. If we stay out too long they’ll start asking questions.’
The girls started letting down their hair.
‘Wait a minute,’ said one of the Harrys. ‘Shouldn’t someone tell Jess about her initiation?’
‘My what?’
Campbell smiled sadistically. ‘We’ll do it tomorrow night, Jess. Same time, same place.’
‘Don’t worry,’ whispered Lucy. ‘I�
�m really girlie and I managed it.’
‘But what is it?’ I said. ‘Tell me about it now.’
The torches went out in unison. A sliver of starlight pierced the hole in the roof.
Campbell was already halfway through the door. ‘We haven’t got time. And anyway, it’s supposed to be a surprise. Come on. Last one to the Symposium has to ask Derek about the ice caps.’
It was the best I’d felt in a long time. Flying down the hill with the Firewallers was the perfect antidote to the worst two weeks of my life. For five minutes at least, the past and the future didn’t matter. I wasn’t worrying about Dad for a change, or why Mum and Millie seemed to be at war. I wasn’t even worrying about the precise details of my so-called initiation. For five minutes at least, I was ‘in the moment’.
Campbell was the fastest. He stood outside the Symposium with a smug smile on his face, holding the entry hatch for the rest of us. ‘What kept you?’ he said. ‘Admiring the sunset, I suppose.’
I’d already slowed my pace to a gentle dawdle, realising that if I rolled in last, we could have some one-on-one time. I’m not sure what it was about him, but he needed taking down a peg or two.
‘Hey, Campbell,’ I said, doing that thing Ella taught me where you suck your cheeks in to make dimples. ‘Who made the name up, then? Firewallers, I mean?’
‘That would be me,’ he said, looking dead pleased with himself.
‘Bit lame, isn’t it? I mean, what are you, nine years old or something?’
He tried to smile, but what came out was a pleasing mixture of surprise and indignation. ‘Well, if you can think of anything better, be my guest.’
‘Might just do that,’ I said, slipping into the Symposium with a real spring in my step.
Girl Talk
Meanwhile, back at the pod, the past and future were lying wait for me.
‘No one dies in it you know, Millie.’
My sister was sitting up in bed, the tatty copy of The Railway Children about five centimetres from her face in the solar-powered murkiness.
‘And I don’t think there’s any sex.’
Mum was asleep already. I was still pretty pumped after my encounter with the Firewallers. It was the perfect opportunity to have another go at her.
‘You’re not still wearing that old sweatshirt are you, Mills?’
Her eyes never once left the page.
‘So, what have you been up to all day?’
Millie threw down her book and snarled. ‘What are you, my mother or something?’
‘No. I just wondered how you were.’
‘What do you care? I thought you were too busy saving the world with the Secret Seven.’
I wanted to tell her everything, but I wasn’t sure I could trust her not to shoot her mouth off. ‘Why don’t you come with us tomorrow? They’re actually pretty OK when you get to know them.’
‘I’d rather stick pins in my eyes.’ They were so red and puffy, it looked like she already had. ‘Anyway, if you must know, I’ve been working on my first carving.’
‘That’s great,’ I said, doubtfully. ‘When can I have a look?’
‘I’ve only just started,’ she said, pulling the blankets around her like a witch’s cloak. ‘I’m not showing anyone until I’m good and ready.’
That sounded more like the Golden One. She never went public with something until it was absolutely perfect.
‘OK, fine,’ I said, ‘but I want to be the first one to see it when you’ve finished.’
Millie grunted and buried her head in her pillow. ‘Now would you mind switching the light off? I need to get some sleep.’
‘OK . . . Night, then . . . See you in the morning . . . Don’t let the bed bu—’
‘Just get on with it.’
Darkness. Slipping into bed and pulling the coarse grey blanket up to my chin, I remembered that silly joke Dad told us when we were little.
Where were Jess and Millie when the lights went out?
In the dark!
But it wasn’t the darkness exactly; it was what you saw in the shadows when your eyes started getting used to it. Two weeks with the Dawdlers and I’d already got part of my childhood back: the terrible feeling that often ambushed me at bedtimes – the feeling that some word-defying catastrophe was about to happen and that I’d be powerless to stop it.
‘Millie?’
‘What?’
‘When do you think we’ll be going home?’
‘How should I know?’
‘What’s the matter with you? Why are you being like this?’
No answer; just a thousand more questions rising up out of the shadows.
‘Mills?’
‘What?’
‘Do you think. . . Do you think Dad’s OK?’
This time she flashed back her answer at the speed of light. ‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’
‘Look, I know you hate being here,’ I said, trying not to be angry with her, ‘but you can’t blame Dad, Millie. It’s not his fault.’
‘How do you know?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘If you knew what I knew, you might not —’
‘Tell me,’ I shouted, failing miserably on the anger management front. ‘Why are you being such a grade-one bitch?’
‘Forget it; doesn’t matter.’
‘Well, if you won’t tell me, I’m going to ask Mum.’
Three seconds later Millie was sitting on my futon, her sour breath in my face. ‘Don’t, please. She’s got enough to worry about already. And anyway there’s nothing to tell, promise. I’m just a bit . . .’
‘Yeah, I know,’ I said, a little disappointed that she was already returning to her own bed. ‘Hey, Mills?’
‘What is it now?’
I thought if I could just cheer her up, she might start seeing things more clearly. ‘Can you imagine what a laugh this would be if Dad was here? What do you reckon he’d say if Sue asked him to hand over his laptop? Yeah, exactly. And how do you think he’d cope with meditation?’ I gave her a few seconds to enjoy the unlikely image. ‘You miss him as much as I do, don’t you?’
But I think she was already asleep.
A Very Respectable Cacophony
‘It had better not be goat’s cheese again,’ said Jack. ‘I mean, what exactly is wrong with a burger anyway? No wonder Derek’s got the runs.’
‘Or even a sub,’ said Ed. ‘They’re supposed to be really healthy.’
Molly was already developing a limp. ‘And why do we have to walk everywhere? My feet are nearly as bad as Ed’s face.’
Poor Ed could certainly have benefited from a purification mask and a decent defence lotion, but that didn’t stop me laughing with the others.
‘The whole place is a health and safety nightmare,’ said Harry M. Or was it Harry W? ‘I’m covered in bites.’
We were trailing up the side of the hill again. Derek was ‘indisposed’ that morning, so Earl was leading the Striplings to the moor for a ‘special workshop’. For someone who believed that speed was the enemy, he certainly looked like a man in a hurry.
‘God that bloke’s an idiot,’ said Jack.
‘Give him a break,’ said Lucy. ‘He’s not that bad.’
‘You obviously haven’t heard the latest then,’ said Jack. ‘He wants to release a pig into the new forest and take the men hunting.’
‘That’s well cruel,’ said Naseeb.
I couldn’t help wondering if anyone else had noticed. ‘Look, I’m not being funny or anything, but do you think Earl’s started wearing make-up?’
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Molly. ‘You mean the little black squiggles under his eyes?’
It was good to feel part of something again. Most of them had already popped over to say hi. They’d been on the island since before Christmas (‘Worst present ever,’ according to Molly) so they were desperate for news from the outside world. I did my best to satisfy them. Jack was keen to pick my brains on the ne
w breakfast menu at Burger King, Harry M wondered if they’d released any more trailers for the Bond movie, Naseeb hoped they hadn’t been messing about with the Facebook news feed settings again, Molly seemed pleased about the new housemates in Celebrity Big Brother, Ed was praying they’d brought zombies back in the latest version of Call of Duty, and Harry W was keen to establish if some rapper I’d never heard of had dropped a new mix tape.
But whenever I asked them about my initiation, they smiled mysteriously and reassured me that ‘even though I was a girl’, I’d probably be all right. All I could think about was Death Rock and those dizzying cliffs. Surely they weren’t expecting me to —
‘Come on, guys,’ called Earl. ‘We haven’t got all day, you know.’
‘I thought that was the whole point,’ whispered Harry M.
And then there was Campbell. I had a feeling I’d upset him with my Firewallers joke. It’s true he’d sidled up to me outside the Symposium and mumbled a half-hearted apology for ‘giving me a hard time’, but it wasn’t long before he and Lucy were smiling and whispering together, like a celebrity couple on a photo shoot. I didn’t know what he saw in her anyway. Her nose was about two sizes too big for her face and that voice of hers was so grating you could make cheese sauce with it.
‘OK, guys, gather round,’ said Earl. ‘Now today I want to show you a very simple technique that will serve you well for the rest of your lives.’
Ed turned and rolled his eyes at me. Jack screwed his index finger into the side of his head.
‘Now, I know you Striplings are pretty chilled, but you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t get angry from time to time.’
‘You can say that again,’ murmured Harry M.
Earl’s designer stubble was turning into a bushy free for all, and he’d exchanged his smart linen suit for cut-down jeans and a hallucinogenic T-shirt. ‘Right, we’re all going to sit down in a circle and close our eyes.’
There were several enthusiastic noises: ‘Sounds interesting’, ‘It’s just what I needed this morning’, ‘Thanks for this, Earl’, but as soon as he closed his eyes we all started making faces at each other. Apart from Campbell of course, who was still spoilsporting an embarrassed frown.
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