by Suzi Moore
With a deep breath, I pushed back the rose bush and crawled underneath, and in the darkened corner of the garden, hidden completely by the scented red rose bush, was the door I had been looking for. The secret door which was covered almost completely in ivy. One by one, I peeled back the green tentacles and slowly slid the rusty bolt across and, with a racing heartbeat, I stepped through the door. I stepped through the door to the other side and headed off for the deserted beach where I could leave everything else behind.
But I wouldn’t be alone.
7
Zack
When moving day arrived, I felt so sick that I didn’t want to eat the toast that Mum had made for me and I ended up feeding my breakfast to a hungry-looking Otter who lay curled up on my feet. Mum was rushing this way and that. The hallway was full of big brown boxes. Boxes filled with what little we had left. I sat there with my head in my hands and my eyes closed. Perhaps something would happen. Perhaps there was time. Maybe some miracle that meant we didn’t have to leave after all.
I opened my eyes and looked around at the empty kitchen. I remembered Dad always making me pancakes on Saturdays, and how once he forgot to put the top on the juicer so that pink smoothie sprayed all over the white cupboards, and we both laughed when Mum walked in and a big pink dollop of smoothie dripped down from the ceiling on to her face. Thinking about it made me smile at first, but then it made me feel so sad that I thought for a second I was actually going to cry. My throat got tight and my eyes began to sting, but then Otter farted one of his world-famous stink-bomb farts and I kind of laughed instead.
Mum was upstairs when the doorbell rang so I reluctantly got up, went to the door and opened it.
A fat, red-faced man stood on the step. He wore blue dungarees with the words A 2 B Removals in white letters on the chest pocket. He took off his baseball cap to reveal a completely bald head and when he smiled I saw he had a gold tooth.
‘Hello! You must be Zacky.’
I frowned. No one calls me Zacky. What an idiot. I turned round and headed back to the kitchen. Not that it stopped him talking.
‘I’m Gary. I knew yer dad. Him and me we knew each other when we was teenagers. Jonny and me were like brothers way back when.’
Jonny? My dad was Jonathan, NEVER Jonny. Then Mum appeared and when she saw Gary she ran over and threw her arms round him.
‘Oh, Gaz! Thank you so much for this. Thank you so much!’
‘Anything for my little Janey,’ he said, grabbing a pile of boxes from the hallway and heading back outside.
I looked up at Mum and frowned.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Zack. Gary is the sweetest man. He used to live in Spain and has only just moved back. He thought the world of your dad. He owns a removal company and he’s moving us today for free. Out of the goodness of his heart, so please, BE NICE.’
I felt a bit bad then, so I helped a bit, sort of, and by the time it came to put Otter in the back of the van the whole morning had disappeared. I stood on the road for ages. I looked up and down the street where me and Lou always took our skateboards, where we always had a street party on the last day of summer and where I always used to sit on the pavement, waiting for Dad to come home. I stood like that for ages and, with the heaviest legs and a sort of pain in my chest, I climbed into the van next to Mum.
Gary’s van had a radio, but it didn’t work so he tried to sing instead and he is the worst singer you ever heard; he even tried whistling a bit, but he kept forgetting the tune and, when we stopped for petrol, I scrambled around in the back of the van for my iPod. I let Otter out and filled up his water bowl so that he could stretch his legs and have a drink. I sat down on a little bench by the van and, when Gary disappeared into the shop, Mum sat down next to me and told me some more bad news. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: as if it could get any worse.
‘Zack, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about Otter. When I start work and you’re at school every day, we can’t leave Otter all by himself. It’d be cruel. You know he hates to be all alone. Well, the thing is I discussed it with Hannah and she’s going to help us.’
Hannah had visited us loads after Dad died. She’s my mum’s best friend. They say they’re like sisters who just look completely different from each other. Mum is kind of skinny with short hair and Hannah is kind of different. She has big red curly hair just like her daughter Lexi.
‘I spoke to Hannah last night and she agrees with me so we’re going to let Otter stay with them for a little while . . .’
‘What! NO WAY!’ I shouted so the whole car park heard. ‘No way, Mum! NO WAY! No way is that horrid ginger brat having MY DOG!’ I stomped off to grab Otter’s collar and knelt down to stroke his ears.
‘Zack, firstly Lexi is not a brat.’
I thought about the last time I’d seen her; it wasn’t long after the airport incident when Mum took me up to Bristol for the weekend. I was minding my own business, eating a bowl of cereal, when Lexi appeared at the door with her friend Eddie.
‘Is it true you kicked a policeman?’ Lexi said and I just stared back at her. ‘Your mum told my mum that you did.’
Why are girls so annoying? I watched her friend picking a scab on her elbow and I suddenly went off my Shreddies.
‘If you want to come for a walk with me and Otter, you’re gonna have to be less annoying,’ I said, putting my bowl in the sink.
Lexi just laughed and said, ‘Well, if you want to come for a walk with us, you’re going to have to change your top; it’s got last-night’s dinner down the front of it.’
I shook my head and stroked Otter’s ears.
‘Look,’ Mum said, trying to put her arm round me, ‘it’s just a temporary thing. I promise. Just until we can get ourselves together. When we’ve unpacked and settled in, it’ll be different. We can come back for Otter. I promise.’
I looked down at Otter’s big brown eyes and shook my head. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t do this to me as well.
‘Zack, the good news is that Hannah said we can use her spare car, you know, until I can afford one of our own. At least we don’t have to walk everywhere now. I know it’s not much, but it’s a start.’
I refused to talk to her after that and when we arrived outside Hannah’s house I wouldn’t get out. I saw Hannah and Lexi come running to the van and start making a fuss over MY dog. I watched Otter skip up the driveway as though he knew that his rightful place was in another really big house just like the one we’d left. I sat there for ages, picking the skin around my nails, until Gary told me I had to get out.
‘You and your mum are gonna drive down in the car so I’d best get a move on. This old thing isn’t as fast as a car.’
I ignored him and stared out of the window.
‘Your new home is in one of the most beautiful places in the country. Me and the missus took our caravan there last year; it’s magical. You’ve got woods, moorland with all sort of animals and loads of beaches.’
I was fed up with hearing about how fantastic the place we were going was when I’d just had all my stuff taken off me, my home, my friends, and now my dog was being given away. I got out of the van, slammed the door and slowly went inside. At least, I thought as I wandered into the kitchen, at least there’d be beaches. I remembered the surfing holiday me and Dad had been on in Cornwall and, with a sort of smile, I told myself that maybe there was something to look forward to.
Hannah had made us all a late lunch of a home-made pizza thing which at least tasted good, so I ate four slices. I watched Otter make himself at home and saw how Lexi had already worked out that he likes his ears stroked best. When the time came to go, I felt like I had that morning, like I was in a horrid nightmare that wouldn’t stop. As we walked out of the house to the car, Otter came running out of the house and when Mum opened the boot he jumped straight inside. He didn’t want to be left behind. He wanted me. He wanted to come with us.
‘Look, Mum, see, Otter wants to come, don’t yo
u, Ott?’
I was kind of pleased to see that after two and a half years of being my dog Otter wasn’t prepared to give up without a fight.
‘Look, Mum! Look!’ I said to her, but she just shook her head and lifted him out of the boot.
I watched Otter being taken inside. He sat down by Lexi’s feet and as we drove away it felt as though my heart would burst.
8
Zack
The rest of the journey took ages and it was on one of those windy roads that make you feel a bit sick. As each mile went on, as we got further and further away from London, I felt myself getting sadder and sadder. I couldn’t stop wondering about the new school and what the boys there would be like. What would it be like to go to a school with girls too? Would I make friends? Or would I always be ‘the new boy’ like Ed who came to my old school, Hardwick Hall, three years ago. I didn’t want to be ‘the new boy’ that didn’t know anyone or how to find which classroom I should be in.
I had been at Hardwick for eight years; I knew every room, every corridor, where to sit at break time, which table to sit on at lunch and where the place to hang out was. Now I’d be just like Ed, sitting on my own, getting lost along the corridors, not knowing what to laugh at and what not to laugh at, and being teased for not talking like the rest of us.
I thought of Ed on his first day and how Lou and I had sniggered at his weird American accent, and when me and Lou decided something was funny everyone else joined in. It was ages before that stopped and I know it was kind of mean, but until Ed showed everyone that he was just about the best skateboarder you ever met everyone kind of ignored him. Would that happen to me? Would I be the new kid that everyone teased or ignored until I proved I was cool or something? Then I thought of my dad and it gave me an idea. I’d just tell everyone about him and they’d like me, but Mum had other ideas.
We’d been driving for about an hour when she started to tell me about the new school again.
‘You know I told you how your new school is quite a lot different from Hardwick?’
I grunted. Hardwick was a private school and this other place wasn’t. Hardwick was boys only; this new place had girls too.
‘Somerset Vale is a lot bigger. The students come from all over the area so there’ll be quite a mixture of boys and girls.’
‘Yeah, Mum, I know. You said, like, six times already.’
‘Well, I’m saying again because you haven’t been to a school like this before and you haven’t been in a classroom with girls and boys from all walks of life. Do you know what I mean by that?’
‘I’m not stupid, you know. You’ve told me already. It’ll be different, I get it.’
‘I want you to just be careful about what you say when you start. I think it would be a huge mistake to go to this new school telling people about your dad.’
‘Why not?’ I said angrily, thinking how else I could impress anyone.
‘Zack, at your old school having a stuntman dad was cool, but at Somerset Vale the students are the children of farmers and normal people. There won’t be anyone there whose parents arrived at school sports day in a helicopter. There won’t be anyone who had a chauffeur-driven car to bring them to school or anything like it.’
Why was she telling me this all over again? I wasn’t stupid; it wasn’t as though I’d lived in some weird rich planet and never left. I met loads of different people when Dad took me with him. I just wish she’d stop going on about the same stuff every day.
‘So the thing is, well, put it this way, Zack, if you turn up at your new school and start boasting, if you say things like “my dad was a stuntman”, you’ll discover, pretty quickly, that no one will like you for it. No one likes a bragger. Just be you and it’ll be fine.’
Be myself? What does that even mean anyway? Dad was really cool; why wouldn’t I want to speak about him? She kept going on, but I stopped listening to her after a while and instead I tried to see if I could still name every football home ground. I got stuck on Spurs. How could I not remember where Spurs play? It was a road, wasn’t it? Gigg Lane? No, that’s where Bury play. Spurs play at . . .
‘Zack, for God’s sake, are you even listening to me?’ Mum snapped.
‘White Hart Lane. Yes! I knew it!’ I blurted out; I knew I couldn’t forget where Dad’s team played. But Mum just rolled her eyes and sighed.
I must have fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes again Mum had stopped the car at the top of the road. I looked out of the window at the view. Mum saw me staring and smiled.
‘This is Porlock Vale, our new home. Amazing, isn’t it? It’s a long way from London, but it’s worth it, right?’
I didn’t want to agree, I really didn’t. But the land before me was greener than any countryside I had ever seen or at least it was a shade of green that I’d never laid eyes on before. It was lighter, fresher, as though it had just rained, and it stretched out for miles in a sort of patchwork of fields, until I could just make out the blue of the sea. On each side two enormous hills stood as tall as mountains, but dropped into the sea like two giants whose outstretched arms were reaching out to the water.
Mum drove further and further along a twisty road. Then the road became a lane and the lane became a track. We drove higher and higher until I heard my ears pop like they do when you go on an aeroplane. Then she suddenly stopped, got out of the car and told me to follow. I scrambled up a steep bank off the side of the road towards the start of what looked like a path that was covered in rocks and plants that I had never seen before.
‘Come on,’ she shouted and I had to move quickly to keep up with her.
The path got narrower and narrower. Then it got steeper and steeper, and on either side the funny-looking plants became large thorny bushes which were covered in pretty bright yellow flowers. It got so steep I had to bend down and use my hands to climb up the rocks. I could feel the sweat begin to drip down my back and my breathing become heavier and heavier. My mum, on the other hand, was scrambling up the steep rocky path like a mountain goat, and then she suddenly stopped, stretched out her arms and I watched her take a huge breath.
‘Ah, Zack, look at that! I forgot how beautiful Exmoor is. Centre of the universe, that’s what my dad used to say.’
And, when I finally climbed up to the spot where she was standing, when I finally reached the top of the hill where Mum stood like some kind of crazy person, I saw with my own eyes a sight I will never forget. It felt as though we were standing right on top of a mountain on the very top of the world, and the valley that I’d seen earlier was below our feet, but this time I could see all of it. The rolling patchwork of fields, the farmhouses, churches and forests, but most of all I could see the sea like it was rising up towards us.
I took a deep breath and smelt not salty sea air, but something different. Something completely unexpected. Coconut. And, as if Mum could read my mind, she put her arm round my shoulders and whispered, ‘That’s the gorse flower. Some people say it smells like honey, but I don’t agree. I think it smells like . . .’
‘Coconut,’ I said, breathing in the lovely scent once more.
‘Yes, like coconut.’
When we got back in the car and set off again, I gazed out of the window at the magnificent view and I started to feel a bit OK. Just a bit. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Mum so happy and, for a short while, I forgot all the miserable thoughts and worries. I didn’t feel sad or angry or anything like that, but it didn’t last very long at all.
We followed the road through the middle of the valley past lots of funny-looking old houses that were all painted a sort of pale yellow colour. We drove through a village and Mum pointed out her old primary school, but, when we turned right to the village of Porlock Weir and towards the sea, all my sort of happy feeling vanished as fast as you can say ‘surfboard’ because the beaches weren’t at all what I had been expecting. They weren’t covered in white or yellow sand. They weren’t like any beaches I was used to because THERE W
AS NO SAND AT ALL. Just rock and stones and some really big boulders.
Mum had told me over and over how amazing the beaches were and I’d thought I could go bodyboarding like we’d done on holiday. It was the one thing I’d thought might just be OK, but, as we drove down to the harbour, I saw with horror that all three beaches were full of stones. Massive stones. The sort of stones that break bones. And when I saw the sign ‘Danger! No swimming’ I felt my blood boil and the little angry feeling became one enormous shouting rage.
‘You lied! You totally lied to me! You said there were beaches! Proper beaches. You can’t even swim here,’ I yelled, pointing at the sign.
Mum stopped the car outside a row of white cottages and sighed.
‘Zack, these are beaches. We can go rock pooling and . . .’
‘Rock pooling? Are you mental? I’m not five years old, you know!’
This was the moment that Mum lost her temper with me, and she took her seat belt off and banged her tiny fists on the steering wheel.
‘Zachery Drake! I know you’re not five years old, but right now I wish you bloody well were. Because then you were sweet and adorable and not a spoilt, grumpy brat.’
‘Well,’ I said, shouting back, ‘I’m so sorry, Mother, sorry for being born, sorry for being such a horrible accident after all!’
And with that I got out of the car, slammed the door and ran as fast as I could out of the harbour, along the stupid, stony beach, and I decided that today was probably the worst day of my entire life.
9
Alice
Remembering every little detail I had overheard, I set off down the overgrown footpath. I walked carefully and close to the left, watching out for the edge and making sure I held on to branches in places where I thought I might slip. I felt my heart beat a little faster with each step that I took, but it was a kind of exciting feeling too. The path was so overgrown that the green branches made it feel a bit like I was walking through a tunnel.