‘With a little help from a friend.’
14
A RUBBISH PLAN
‘Daniel, you aren’t serious?’ Si’s skeletal jaw nearly falls off his face.
‘Why not?’ I say. ‘Mrs Binns got me into the Shard in the first place. I reckon she can help me get to the top of it now.’
‘You got yourself in here.’ Si looks really angry now. ‘All that old woman did was set you on the right track.’
‘Exactly,’ I say. ‘Mrs Binns has a way of making you look at things again, of turning problems into opportunities. And frankly, Si, the only vibe I’m getting off you right now is frilly negativity and gloom.’
‘Daniel!’ Si bristles. ‘That is most unfair.’ But I’m already heading off into the less trashed parts of the flat, searching around.
‘It is my job to see you are safe and protected…’ Si goes on, catching up with me in the bathroom. But I hold up my hand for silence.
There, in the corner of the bathroom, beneath a platinum toilet roll holder, is the object I seek.
A small, steel pedal bin.
‘And what, pray, do you expect to find in that?’ Simon couldn’t sound more scathing if he tried. I glare back at him.
‘A little can-do attitude,’ I say. ‘Even if it is trashcan-do.’
Si snorts and folds his arms.
I put my hand on the lid of the bin.
‘Show me what to do, Mrs Binns,’ I whisper.
Then I open the lid, and shine the ghost-shaped torch inside.
There’s a white plastic bin bag with a used disposable razor in it. There’s also an empty and curling toothpaste tube, a used sticking plaster, several screwed-up bits of tissue I really don’t want to touch, and a lot of toenail clippings. I close the lid, then open it again, but nothing changes.
‘Well?’ I can almost hear the triumphant puffs of ectoplasm from Simon’s head as he stares down behind me. ‘What have you found? A grappling hook? A magic carpet? A pair of angel wings to whisk you into the sky?’
‘Shut up, Si, I’m trying to think.’
‘Think?’ Simon blazes spookily at me. ‘You’re looking for a plan in a dustbin! That’s not thinking at all, that’s just desperate.’
‘Shut up, Si!’
‘No! Daniel, we have to leave. This case is too big for us, Mary is too far gone. There’s nothing we can do now but get you away from here, away to safety…’
I chuck the bin at Si’s head. Well, I’m fed up with all his whining, aren’t I? Of course, the bin just flies through him harmlessly, and bangs off the wall, but he still deserves it. The bag of crud falls out, and spills onto the floor.
‘That’s all the thanks I get?’ Simon gasps. ‘After all I’ve done to help you? A bin bag in the face?’
‘Yeah, well, maybe I’m fed up with your help,’ I shout back. Outside, the thunder and lightning make the building boom. At least it’s a good backdrop for an argument. ‘And being told to run away by a useless old dead guy with a pony tail is no help at all.’
‘Oh, fine!’ Si draws himself up to his full height. ‘Well, if sir no longer requires my help, sir can jolly well manage without it!’
‘Fine, yourself,’ I snap back. ‘Buzz off, then.’
Si gives me one last outraged sniff, and then vanishes in a puff of his most superior ectoplasm.
I’m alone in the bathroom, the storm still raging outside. The ruined pedal bin rolls around at my feet.
Ah, crapsticks.
‘Si?’ I say. But there’s no reply.
I kick the bin as hard as I can, then slump in despair on the tiles.
Then I hear a baggy rustling sound.
I look up.
The bag from the pedal bin, now that it’s empty, is hovering in the air above me, as if caught on a breeze. I shine the torch up at it. Maybe it’s the dark or my imagination, I don’t know, but for a moment – just a fleeting moment – I see a face in the folds of that bin bag. The gap-toothed and grinning face of someone I know.
‘Mrs Binns?’
The bag rolls in the air as wind from the storm outside seizes it. Then it zips out through the bathroom door. In a moment, I’m on my feet and running after it.
‘Mrs Binns!’
Back in the open-plan wreck of the apartment, I just have time to see the white bag fly out through the shattered window in a flurry of snow.
It’s gone.
And now I really am all alone.
There’s yet more flashing and booming of thunder, and I imagine that Mary is, even now, trying to force her mind into little Stacey’s body so that she can live again. And there’s not a single thing I can do about it.
Perhaps I really have failed this time.
Then something catches my eye, something fluttering just outside the window. I edge forwards, trying to make it out. The carpet is covered in a thick layer of snow now, which crunches underfoot. The wind stings my eyes. I reach the ragged edge of the floor, and gasp at the sight of London spread below me, without any glass or safety rail. One unlucky gust of wind and I could be out and falling to my death in a moment. But I just need to see what’s flapping. I lean out, a little more…
It’s the bag. The little white plastic bag from the pedal bin. And it’s caught on something.
‘Ropes?’ I say aloud, staring in disbelief.
Then I remember what Tim said in the lift, about the Shard being cleaned by climbers who abseil down the side of the building. Sure enough, the bag is caught on a leather pouch attached to the rope – a pouch which still contains a ragged cloth and a ‘Mr Squirty’ bottle of cleaning fluid.
Taking firm hold of the window frame, I lean out even more and look up. The ropes rise away into the night. But in a flash of lightning, I see the silhouette of a metal frame right at the summit, the ropes reaching all the way up to it.
It’s a way to the top of the Shard.
At that moment, the bin bag dislodges itself and flies off into the dark.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’m mad to even contemplate climbing up these ropes. And yup, I admit there are a number of negative factors against the idea. Let’s list them:
1. I’m hundreds of metres up the tallest skyscraper in Europe, with hundreds of metres still to go.
2. I’m a fourteen-year-old boy with a leather trench coat and a pair of purple specs, not Bear Grylls or James Bond or something.
3. There’s the mother of all electrical storms raging and that rope looks wet, and… well, you get the picture.
4. There is no safety net.
I think I know what Si would say if he was here now.
But he’s not here, is he? And beside, there’s something else to add to that list, something that puts a more positive spin on the rest:
5. I’m the kid who sees dead people.
And over the years, those dead people have been good at paying me back for sorting out their problems. I help them over to the Hereafter, and they give me something in return: a little piece of their memories and experience. After all, a bit of themselves is the only thing a ghost has left to pay me with. And that’s how I know how to hack computers (useful), and speak French (interesting), and solve a Rubik’s Cube (er…). And, because I once helped the ghost of a mountaineer, that’s also how I’m able to look at these ropes and not freak out of my skull at the thought of climbing up them.
I do up my coat. I dig some leather gloves out of my pocket and slip them on. I grab the ropes.
Of course, knowing how to twist those ropes around my body and lock them over my arm like a pro is one thing. Not losing my cool over the scary view down is quite another. I close my eyes and think James Bond-type thoughts, but I’m still trying to get in the zone when the wind suddenly goes crazy and sucks me right out of the window.
‘Aaagh crapsticks!’ I cry out, as I bounce along the glass exterior of the Shard. ‘I’m not in the zone, I’m not in the zone!’
The wind roars its reply in a bli
zzard of snow. By the time I stop bouncing, my nose is pressed up against the freezing glass, and my arms feel ready to pop out of their sockets. But the ropes are holding.
Then I look down…
‘Gnn!’
I close my eyes again, and take a few desperate breaths. Forget James Bond, I need to focus on the borrowed memories of that dead mountaineer. This is the first time I’ve had to use them, so they’re a bit hazy. Why couldn’t I have helped the ghost of a lift mechanic instead? Anyway…
I open my eyes again. The icy wind blasts at my face, forcing snow up my nose and into my ears. My woolly scarf is flying out horizontally into the night. But somehow I manage to get my rubber soles firmly planted on the glass, and my body into position. I pull the rope in a very professional way, and pay out the slack as – against all the odds – I begin to climb.
15
TRASH CAN-DO
I don’t know how long the ascent takes. It’s all I can do to keep going in the blinding wind and snow. Below me, the Shard slopes away to the distant pavement. There’s a glow down there that must be the crowd and the film crew and the giant screen in the square outside the entrance to the building. For a moment I wish I was down there too, eating a ketchuppy hotdog and listening to Christmas carols, and not dangling above certain and very messy death. Why is it always me who ends up dangling? I quite fancy a hotdog, for a change.
There’s a rude squeak as my rubber soles slip on the glass, and I crash into it.
I’m exhausted.
The borrowed mountaineering skills have told me what to do, but my skinny fourteen-year-old body can no longer cope with the demands being made of it. I make a final effort, and manage to get up a couple more metres, but I slip again, and end up kissing the glass once more.
Except, no – it isn’t glass. The surface of the building is wavy now, and icy cold. In fact, it is ice.
I open my eyes and try to get my bearings. As I blink in the snow, I guess that I must now be as high as the viewing level of the Shard.
But all the glass here was destroyed, I say to myself, thinking back to the moment we lost Stacey. How…?
Then I get it. Incredibly, sheets of wind-sculpted ice have formed over the shattered windows. In fact, I now see that the rest of the building above me is covered in one solid pyramidal cap of ice, enclosing the whole peak of the Shard. There is no way in that I can see.
So, I’ll have to make my own.
I get my feet flat on the ice again, and stand out from the building, braced with the rope. I bend my legs and push away, swinging out into the stormy night. Gravity doesn’t let me go for long though, and I’m soon crashing back into the ice. I have to do this three times before I hear a DINK sound, and see cracks appear. I give a final thrust with my legs, my arms screaming at me to stop. When I hit the ice this time, I break through, and tumble down onto the wooden floor of the viewing level.
I struggle to my feet. I’m inside the Shard again, but with the outer surface now made of ice, the interior is bitterly cold. Frosty blooms cover every surface with crystal forms that twinkle in the flashes of lightning. Santa would kill to have this as his grotto. If he could get here without being fried alive by the resident ghost, that is.
‘Mary!’ I shout.
No answer but the crash of thunder.
I head for the centre of the level, where the concrete core of the building continues up. There are frosted stairs here, and I limp up them as fast as I can, pulling my scarf close. When I reach the top of the stairs I stop in amazement at what I find there.
The very summit of the Shard is a square concrete platform, no bigger than my living room at home. On each side, a triangle of steel and glass rises up to form four flat spires. The spires don’t touch though, allowing an opening to the snowy, stormy sky above.
Mary is floating up there, gathering power from the storm, filling the space with a dazzling electrical light.
In the middle of the platform, ice has been drawn up to form the bars of a glittering cage. In the cage sits Stacey, looking unfazed at the extraordinary things that are happening around her. She is wrapped in the folds of an enormous fur coat that must have come from one of the luxury flats beneath us. In front of her is an open box of Turkish delight. She pops a piece in her mouth, and points at me.
‘The weirdy boy!’ she squeals, with a puff of icing sugar.
Something moves at her words, and I see Ned. He’s on the inside of one of the four triangular spires, welded in place by slicks of ice. His eyes are wild, but he manages to aim the camera at me, the red light still twinkling.
‘Hi, Ned,’ I say. ‘The show must go on, I see.’
Opposite him, on another Spire, Venn Specter is struggling against his own icy bonds. He makes faint ‘hmm hmm!’ noises, but a band of ice is completely covering his mouth.
‘Well, Mary, I can forgive you that, at least,’ I say, as I adjust my lapels and set the specs for action.
And it’s now that Mary sees me.
‘You?’ she says, with a crackle of power. ‘Why are you still here?’
‘We, er, we were having a bit of chat, remember?’ I say. ‘Shame it got so rudely interrupted.’ I give Venn one of my coldest stares. ‘Thought we could pick up where we left off.’
Mary drifts down until she is floating just above the ice cage that contains Stacey. ‘Pretty lady!’ says Stacey, forgetting to eat a piece of Turkish delight in her admiration.
‘There is nothing more to discuss,’ Mary says in a blaze of light. ‘I need only the time to fully understand how to take over the child’s body. Since your frilly friend…’
‘Si,’ I point out. ‘His name is Simon.’
‘Since your friend Simon confirmed it can be done, I have made progress. Watch…’
Mary points down to Stacey. Small tendrils of light – like the ones she used on me to show her memories – extend from her hand until they dance around Stacey’s head. Stacey lowers her hand from her face, still clutching a lump of Turkish delight, and turns to me. She opens her mouth to speak, but the words that comes out are all Mary’s.
‘I can already control the child. Her mind is not strong. I have only to make it permanent…’
‘Stop!’ I shout, and jump forward to the ice cage, grabbing the bars. ‘Mary, get out of there! I thought we agreed you shouldn’t do this.’
The tendrils of light retract.
‘My name’s not Mary!’ Stacey shouts up at me, in control of herself again. She recoils into the furry coat. ‘Why are you shouting at me, weirdy boy? Weirdy boy not nice!’
Mary laughs, but it’s a hollow sound.
‘Don’t scare her, boy. Her fate is already sealed. Just turn around and leave.’
‘But Mary, after all the things you showed me, all the stuff we said about fairness and unfairness – how is this fair to Stacey?’
Mary shakes her head.
‘Life is unfair. I’ve had four hundred years to think about that. Now go, boy, before I tire of you.’
I watch Mary rise up to the apex of her ice pyramid one again. I see Venn and Ned encased in ice, helpless. I look down at little Stacey. She sticks her tongue out at me.
I’d like to say that the faint glimmerings of a plan form in my mind, or, better still, that a brilliant idea comes to me in flash. But that doesn’t happen. Instead I just feel cold and numb and defeated. Oh, and fed up. Yeah, really fed up.
Who does this ghost girl think she is?
‘Witch!’ I shout up at her.
Mary looks down at me, stunned.
‘That’s all you are,’ I call up. ‘Looks like those men who burnt you were right after all. I don’t know why I bothered – you’re nothing but a nasty, spiteful, child-snatching witch. So, yeah, I’m going…’
I put my foot through the bars of the cage, shattering them.
‘… and I’m taking Stacey back to her mum.’
I reach in to get her out.
And that’s when the bolt of lightni
ng hits me.
I’m lifted clear off the floor and sent flying back. I smack into the ice sheet between two of the spires with a crash. The ice shatters, and I fly straight out into the night, propelled by Mary’s fury. In no time at all, I’m well out into the sky beyond the Shard, with nothing between me and the crowded square below. I just have time to wonder if they’ve saved me a hotdog when I begin to fall.
16
CONTRARY MARY
My life doesn’t flash before my eyes. Maybe that’s because I haven’t had enough of it yet. Fourteen is no age to die, after all, but then I guess Mary knows all about that.
No, all I can see, as G-force drags my eyelids back and makes my cheeks flap, is the top of a DazzleTV van in the square below as I race towards it like an incoming missile.
They’ll be needing a new van.
I wonder if even my purple specs will survive to identify what caused the crater. Probably not.
I manage to close my eyes just before I hit.
But then…
I find myself opening them again.
At first I can’t see anything other than grey, and I wonder if that’s all there is to see after you die. Then I realise that it’s the grey of the TV van I’m looking at. The surface of it is literally one centimetre away from my nose. I look down at my body, and find I’m hovering in the air!
But I don’t even have time to say ‘huh?’ before I’m racing skyward again, like a crazy replay of my fall, only in reverse. My purple specs get dragged off my face, but I manage to grab them as I rocket back up into the night sky…
… and find myself being lowered, with surprising gentleness, through the hole in the tip of the ice pyramid at the summit of the Shard.
In a moment, I’m standing back on the concrete platform again, my legs trembling. After a few goes, I get my purple shades back on.
‘Daniel!’ Simon swoops over to me, and round and round. ‘Oh, thank the Hereafter! I didn’t know if she could stop you in time.’
Dan and the Shard of Ice Page 7