The Last Phoenix

by Linda Chapman

  “Hey, Michael!” said Thomas with a grin. “No one from the primary school mugged you on the way in, then?”

  “See you brought your big sister as a bodyguard.” Josh smiled at Jess. “You know, I wouldn’t mind a bodyguard if I could find one as cute as that.”

  “Nothing about your body’s worth guarding,” Jess retorted. “Catch you later, Michael.” She walked away as the sniggering and comments continued behind her.

  “No little old ladies jumping out from behind bushes to get you then?” Sam teased.

  “There was one,” Michael answered breezily. “Luckily her walker frame got stuck in a crack on the pavement, so I escaped.”

  His mates laughed, and Jess felt a slight wave of relief. Maybe he was going to survive the day. Hope I do too, she thought as she went into the main building and the double doors swung shut behind her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  History was Jess’s first class. “I am so dreading this exam,” said Colette as they found a table. Jodie and Natasha, their other two friends, had already got their books out behind them. “Did you get loads of studying done over the weekend?”

  “A bit,” said Jess. Then she realized that she couldn’t explain her sudden leap in knowledge unless she had been doing some work. “Well, quite a lot, actually. I…um, found a good review program on the internet so I’ve been working through that.”

  “Cool!” said Colette. “I wish the exams were over. So boring! I’ve been going over and over the American Revolution all half term.”

  Just then, Mrs. Riley arrived. She was a young teacher with cropped blond hair. “That’s what I like to hear, Colette!” she said brightly as she put her books down on her desk. “In that case you should have no problem with the little test we’re going to do this morning!”

  There were groans around the class.

  “Come on, now! All books shut.” Mrs. Riley clapped her hands. “You’re in two teams. Let’s split you down the middle.” She drew an imaginary line dividing the class in two. “Team A,” she said, pointing to Jess’s side of the room, “and Team B. First person with their hand up gets to answer the question. If you get it wrong it goes to the other team.”

  For once Jess’s heart didn’t sink. In fact, she felt a growing buzz of excitement. Maybe she’d be able to impress Mrs. Riley with her knowledge. I’ve certainly got some impressing to do, she thought, remembering the bad grades she’d been getting lately. To continue in history next year she not only had to do well on the exam but she also had to get a good report from Mrs. Riley.

  “First question then,” said Mrs. Riley. “What is John Hancock best remembered for?”

  Jess’s heart leaped. Her hand went up.

  Mrs. Riley smiled at her. “Yes, Jessica?”

  “For his signature on the Declaration of Independence.”

  “Good,” said Mrs. Riley, putting a mark on the board for Team A. “Question two: What were the conditions like at Valley Forge?”

  Jess’s hand shot up again as she immediately seemed to hear Fenella trilling: Valley Forge. Oooh, yes. Ever so hot that was. I had a lovely time there toasting my toes. A little place tucked away behind a stables. Perfect place for a phoenix.

  Everyone else seemed to be suffering from Monday morning exhaustion. “I think you were first again, Jessica,” said Mrs. Riley, with a smile.

  “It was very hot at Valley Forge,” said Jess confidently, picturing a small building in her mind. She could almost feel the heat on her skin. “Boiling. There was a big fire for heating horseshoes and only two small windows.”

  Mrs. Riley started to frown. “Whatever do you mean, Jessica?”

  “Windows in the forge,” Jess replied. “In the building.”

  A few people giggled.

  “Valley Forge is the name of the place where George Washington camped with his army, northwest of Philadelphia,” said Mrs. Riley sternly. “You should know it’s not a blacksmith’s forge, we only did it the week before half-term.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Jess felt her cheeks burn. Fenella must have been at a different Valley Forge.

  “Anyone else?” Mrs. Riley said.

  Colette put up her hand. “The conditions there were mild apart from over Christmas,” she said when Mrs. Riley nodded at her. “But lots of soldiers died because of bad site management.”

  “Good.” Mrs. Riley put another mark on the board. “Now, who can tell me how Mary Hays McCauley got her nickname as Molly Pitcher?”

  Oooh, that Mary. A proper nice woman she was. We used to call her Molly Pitcher because she used to bring water out for us birds when she…

  Jess put her hand up. Mrs. Riley nodded at her. “She was known as Molly Pitcher because she used to put out water for all the birds.”

  Mrs. Riley stared. “Water for the birds?”

  There were more than just a few giggles this time.

  “Miss, miss!” Andrew had his hand up.

  “Yes, Andrew?”

  “It was because she carried pitchers of water to her husband and his gun crew in battle!”

  “That’s right. Well done.”

  Jess sat quietly through a few questions, not trusting herself to speak, trying to get her thoughts together. But then Mrs. Riley asked a question she just had to answer: “Why did the Battle of Bunker Hill actually take place on Breed’s Hill?”

  Jess raised her arm and earned a stern look from Mrs. Riley. “I’m almost afraid to ask…”

  “Because the soldiers found a—” Jess caught herself just in time. Because the soldiers found a very stylish phoenix up in a tree, she’d been going to say. Mrs. Riley would think she was cracking up. “Because…because…” She suddenly wondered what reason had been given in the history books. She was sure she had known once but it had gone completely out of her mind.

  “Um…because they found a rare bird there?” Jess cringed as she said it.

  Mrs. Riley’s eyes almost popped out of her head. “Intelligent girls should know when to stop clowning and start taking their studies seriously—if they want to pass their exams!” she snapped.

  Jess sank down in her seat and saw Colette glance at her in a worried way.

  “The soldiers were sent out to fortify Bunker Hill,” drawled Daniel, a boy from the other team. “Some say they chose Breed’s Hill at the last minute as it was closer to Boston and so more defensible, others say it was a mistake. No one really knows for certain.”

  Mrs. Riley smiled and added a point to Team B’s score.

  “Are you okay, Jess?” Colette whispered.

  Jess nodded miserably. But she wasn’t. She felt so muddled up. The things she had learned from actual books all seemed to have been pushed right to the back of her head by Fenella’s memories and she found herself doubting every answer she wanted to give.

  She was very glad when the test was over. But then they started looking through their history books at the Battle of Monmouth and a familiar voice in her head piped up again, saying: Oh no, it didn’t happen like that. I remember flying overhead and… It was hard to concentrate with someone else’s memories crowding in on her own, and she got told off three times for fidgeting and sighing.

  Afterward, Mrs. Riley kept her back at the end of the class and spoke to her seriously. “Jessica, you’re a bright girl. But if you want to have a chance of taking history next year, you need to really knuckle down and study properly. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, miss,” Jess mumbled. She felt awful as she left the classroom.

  Collette was waiting for her outside with a sympathetic look. “I’d forget about that internet study program if I were you,” she said softly. “It doesn’t seem to have helped you much.”

  “No.” Jess sighed. “It hasn’t helped at all.”

  Through the rest of the day she found it hard not to mess up. In geography she almost called the River Thames the Winding Gray Ribbon. In science she had to bite her tongue to keep quiet about extra elements she felt should be recorded in the per
iodic table. And in religious studies she had to try very hard not to blurt out that seven thousand years ago the phoenix was worshipped in ancient China, and start quoting all sorts of strange things about the Spirit of the Fire Mountain.

  By the end of the day she was exhausted. She saw Michael walking up the road just in front of her and hurried to catch up with him.

  “Hi,” she said. “How come you’re not walking with the others? I thought you’d be fine with them by now.”

  Michael pulled a face. “For five minutes they might forget about Saturday night, but then someone comes out with a smart comment and suddenly they’re all laughing again.” He looked totally fed up. “Just felt like walking home on my own. Wish I’d never thought about using that phoenix gold.” He sighed. “How about you then? Did the ash help?”

  “Oh yes,” Jess said dryly. “It helped me look like a total idiot. Fenella knows loads of stuff, but not much of it’s on the national curriculum.” She groaned as she remembered the history lesson. “It was awful, Michael.”

  Michael rubbed the scar on his arm from the day before. “We were better off without magic in our lives. Magic sucks.”

  “Maybe it’s what we try to do with it that sucks,” Jess pointed out. “You didn’t need to treat your mates, you’re really popular anyway.” She looked at him almost enviously. “You always have been. So what if Rick’s come along? Your friends will still like you because you make them laugh and stuff. Only because they’re as stupid as you,” she added, not wanting to sound too soppy.

  “You can talk,” Michael countered. “You don’t think it was dumb to eat the phoenix ash? You didn’t need to. You’ve never failed an exam in your life.”

  “There’s always a first time!” Jess argued. “Everyone says these exams are harder. And if I do fail them then I won’t be able to take the subjects I want next year with all the others.”

  “But you’ve been studying,” Michael told her. “If you’d just carried on doing that, I bet you’d have passed just fine.”

  Jess hated to admit it, but a tiny voice at the back of her mind was niggling at her that he might be right.

  They trudged on up the hill.

  After a few moments, Jess glanced around to see if any of her friends were nearby. They had been really nice to her all day, clearly worrying about her odd behavior and talking about her exam stress. There was no sign of them, but something made her frown. As she turned around, she glimpsed someone ducking furtively behind a tree. She carried on walking but then couldn’t resist glancing round again.

  This time she saw the person dive behind a lamppost. It was too thin to hide him and she could see his raincoat and most of his body. It was a man with untidy gray hair.

  “What are you looking at?” Michael asked.

  “Some weirdo trying to hide from us,” Jess whispered. “A man.”

  Michael looked around himself. “It’s him!” he burst out. He started to hurry on up the hill.

  “Who?” Jess said, half running to keep up with him.

  Michael lowered his voice. “I didn’t want to say anything before ’cause I didn’t want to start a scare. But I saw that guy at the junk shop when I was trying to flog the gold to Barry. He was watching me then, really staring. It reminded me of when we were being spied on by the genies.”

  Jess gasped. “Skribble said to be careful of someone watching us! It must be him!”

  “He could be trying to find where we live,” said Michael. “Let’s try and lose him. If we go down Turner’s Avenue, we can cut through the playground and then through the field and over the fence into the back garden.”

  Jess nodded. “Come on!”

  They both sprinted away, their bags bumping against their backs. As they tore across the playground, Jess glanced back. But there was no sign of the man with the hair.

  They threw themselves over the fence and tumbled in through the back door. Jason and Milly were inside eating chocolate wafers.

  “What are you two doing?” Milly said in astonishment as Jess and Michael dumped their bags thankfully on the floor. “We’ve just taken the clothes back to the hall. No one had even missed them…”

  “Great,” snapped Michael. He went to the window and checked the garden.

  “What’s going on?” Jason asked in alarm.

  “Are Mum and Mark back?” said Jess in a low voice.

  “No,” said Milly.

  Jess sighed and shut the door. “There was this man…following us.”

  “I saw him in the junk shop on Saturday,” Michael put in quickly, “tall with thick gray hair and dark eyes.”

  Jason gasped. “Sounds like the man I saw in Quilborough!”

  “I forgot you saw someone too,” Michael admitted. “Well, don’t freak, you two, but I think he could be the bloke Skribble was warning us about.”

  Milly shivered and looked at Jason. “What if he’s out there waiting for us now? We’ve got to go to the workshop and see Fenella.”

  “And go to the rain forest in Peru and get the herb,” Jason said. “The one that gives agility and balance.” He sighed longingly. “I could really use some agility for this soccer thing on at school tomorrow afternoon.”

  “No,” Jess said, fixing him with a big-sister look. “Don’t you get any ideas about using that herb. It isn’t a good plan, Jason.”

  It was clear from the looks he and Milly exchanged that they had been talking about it. “Why not?” Jason argued. “Magic could help me.”

  “Let’s just get the herb and give it to Fenella. I don’t think that man tried to follow us. If we all stay together we’ll be just fine.” Jess frowned. “But first, we’d better get changed. We can’t turn up in the jungle in our school uniforms.”

  “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” said Michael lightly. “Your own or someone else’s?”

  Jess glared at him. He winked and sauntered off upstairs.

  As she followed him, Jess tried not to think about the strange man. Instead she focused on the adventure ahead. Picking an herb can’t be that difficult, she decided. Least there won’t be any mad phoenix priests running about or future selves to avoid. We’ll go there and get back in no time. Simple.

  But then, Fenella’s voice started up in her head. Oooh, the taste of silphium. It’s such a treat—but my oh my, the price of it if you were to buy it in the marketplace. Everyone wanted it and there was never enough to go round. I remember—

  “Well, I don’t want to!” Jess said out loud, and holding her temples she forced the cheery voice into silence. She groaned to herself. Oh, why had she tasted the ash. Why?

  Chapter Sixteen

  “What are you wearing?” Michael said, as he and Jess came back downstairs.

  Milly and Jason had put on their long waterproof school coats over their jeans and T-shirts and were wearing their rain boots.

  “We’re going to a rain forest,” Jason said. “It’s going to be really wet!”

  “Yeah, you’d better put waterproof things on too,” Milly told the older two.

  “Oh no.” Jess shook her head. “Imagine if Colette or someone saw me on the way to Mr. Milton’s!” She winced at the thought.

  “I’m with you, Jess,” said Michael. “No way am I giving Rick the Slick another reason for laughing at me!”

  Milly sighed theatrically. “You’ll be sorry.”

  Jason followed her out, keeping his eyes peeled for the weird stranger.

  “What have you got in there, Jase?” Michael asked, patting a bag on Jason’s back.

  “Supplies,” replied Jason proudly. “Milly and I were looking on the internet and we’ve packed insect repellent, a torch, a penknife, first aid kit, some water, and—”

  Michael rolled his eyes. “This isn’t some sort of wave-your-flag-around scout camping trip!” he interrupted. “We’re only going to pick some boring old herb and come back.”

  “I’ve decided it’s always best to be prepared,” argued Jason. “We were
n’t very prepared in Egypt, were we?”

  Milly nodded. “I’m bringing some of my phoenix gold too.” She pulled it out of the pockets of her waterproof coat.

  “Milly, we’re going to the jungle,” Jess said. “What use is gold going to be?”

  “You never know, there might be some native people there or something,” Milly argued. “It might come in useful for trading or something.”

  “So it’s the jungle, here we come!” said Michael as they left the main street and turned down the road toward Mr. Milton’s house.

  “I can’t wait!” said Milly. “I hope we see loads of animals. There are lots of them in the rain forest—monkeys and big cats, snakes and spectacled bears…”

  “Ssh!” Jess said quickly as she noticed Mr. Milton in the garden ahead of them. He was carefully pruning some white roses that grew near the statue of the beautiful lady.

  Michael groaned. “Here’s Mr. Freaky.”

  Milly elbowed him just as Mr. Milton looked round. “Back again? My word, you are keen!”

  Milly gave him her most innocent smile. “Oh yes, we love making pots, Mr. Milton!”

  Jess nodded. “Thank you so much for letting us use the workshop.”

  The old man looked pleased. “My pleasure. Now don’t stop on my account. I’m sure you’ve got lots to be getting on with and the last thing you want to do is waste time talking to me. Run along, do.”

  They said good-bye and hurried to the workshop.

  “He’s so nice,” said Milly in a low voice. “I feel a bit mean about tricking him.”

  Jess nodded. “I hope Fenella does give him some gold.”

  “I still say he’s a weirdo,” said Michael as they opened the door.

  The phoenix was moving around behind the kiln. She looked up as they entered. “Hello, my little chickabiddies.” She jumped out from behind the kiln—or tried to. Her first jump didn’t work and she had to flap her wings and try again. She landed on the workbench, breathing heavily. Milly noticed her eyes seemed to be slightly glazed over and her feathers were hanging limply, a few of them falling out to litter the worktop. “So, you’re all ready for your next adventure then?” Fenella paused to take a wheezing breath. “Off to Peru to get some silphium! Well, well, well.” She coughed hard.