by Suzi Moore
‘Let’s go into town then, Zack. It’ll give me a chance to show you around,’ Mum said.
I didn’t really want to be shown around. I didn’t care what the town looked like. I was like 678 per cent not interested. I rolled my eyes at her and turned back to the television.
‘Zack, don’t be like that. You’ll need to be able to find your way around.’
I turned up the volume on the TV, but Mum didn’t like that very much.
‘Up! Now! Go on! Get your backside upstairs and get dressed into something that hasn’t been on your bedroom floor for two days!’ I stared up at her. She glared down at me. ‘Do you want new earphones or what?’ I legged it upstairs.
‘And by the way,’ she said, shouting after me, ‘a wet towel will not dry if it’s left in a heap on the floor!’
We drove back along the valley road away from the sea and through the tiny villages that were scattered up and down the valley, turning right at the blue sign to Minehead.
We parked up and Mum showed me the main street and where to get the bus from.
‘Nothing’s changed, you know,’ she said, looking into the window of an old café. ‘I used to come here when I was your age.’
I peered inside and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Just a plain old café like ones I’d seen a million times.
‘Come on,’ she said, ‘let’s get something to eat.’
It didn’t look very exciting, but I was hungry and I’d noticed the blackboard had the words ‘World’s Greatest Pasty’ written in large white letters.
We sat down at a table by the window which had one of those ketchup bottles shaped like a tomato and, as I stared out across the street, I thought about the café near our old house. It had those ketchup bottles too, but sometimes they got all gummed up with dried sauce and you couldn’t get the ketchup out.
Dad took me there for breakfast one morning and instead of waiting for the waitress to ungunk the sticky plastic bottle I had kind of squeezed and squeezed until a fountain of red sauce came bursting out of the lid. It squirted out with such force that it sprayed ketchup all over me, Dad and the table next to us. And, when I looked up at Dad’s ketchup-splattered shirt, he’d grabbed a fork and held it to his red chest. ‘Argh!’ he cried. ‘But I had so much life to live.’ It made me laugh out loud. It was a line from our favourite movie. It was a zombie movie that I really wasn’t supposed to watch because it was rated fifteen, but Dad let me watch it anyway. Mum didn’t know: it was our little secret.
‘Zack? Zack? You still with me?’
I looked back at Mum. ‘If Dad hadn’t died, if he hadn’t been in that plane, do you think he would have lived as long as Granddad?’ I don’t know why I said it, but somehow it seemed unfair that Dad died so young and some people get to be so old.
Mum suddenly looked sad. I knew the look. It was usually followed by crying, and I quickly grabbed a napkin and held it out to her.
‘Oh, Zack,’ she said, wiping a tear from her cheek. ‘Oh, my beautiful boy, I don’t know.’ I watched her do that weird gulping thing she does when she’s trying to stop herself from crying and I quickly looked around to see if anyone was looking. I hate it when she cries. I was going to get up and sit next to her, but then I spied someone on another table get their food.
‘I hope my pasty will be as big as that.’ And it was.
On the way home Mum made a quick detour so she could show me my new school. She stopped the car at the entrance. I peered out of the window through the big metal gates and my stomach flipped over. It was huge and very modern-looking, but I could see from where I was sitting that the paint was peeling off the gates and they looked rusty and uncared for.
‘So what do you think?’ Mum said cheerily.
What did I think? What I thought was, Oh no, please don’t make me go there. What I thought was, Please just let me go back to Hardwick with my friends.
She saw me looking miserable and then she said something weird. ‘If it was good enough for me, it’ll be good enough for you.’ I looked back at the fading school sign and my heart sank deeper and deeper.
The next week we didn’t get to go to the surfing beach because Mum had to keep going for job interviews and I just spent a lot of time sitting in the car, waiting. ‘We’ll go tomorrow,’ she kept saying, but then there was another interview or it rained, and by the time we had a perfect sunny day it was August 5th and Mum ruined it all anyway.
‘Zack!’ she shouted up the stairs. ‘Zack, I got the job. I got the job!’
We had been to so many interviews that I’d lost track of which one she actually wanted.
‘I’m going to be working at your school, helping those kids that find school a bit hard. I have to start next week because I have to do a special training week and a first-aid course too,’ she said excitedly.
‘At MY school?’
‘Well, yes, but on the other side of the building, Zack. You won’t know I’m there, I promise.’
I turned round and slammed my bedroom door. As if it wasn’t hard enough. Now my mum, who wears the most ridiculous clothes and has hair that she dyes crazy colours, was going to be right there at my new school. Just when things seemed like they might just be a little less bad, a little less than totally awful, she goes and ruins it.
‘Zack.’
‘Just leave me alone, would you?’ I shouted at the door and then I kind of punched it so hard that for a minute I really thought I’d broken my thumb or something, and I had to bite my lip to stop myself from crying out.
‘Zack, please?’
I picked up the photograph frame of me, Mum and Dad. I felt so angry I thought I was going to smash it against the wall. I let it drop to the floor and, with my best left-footed cross, I booted it under the bed.
‘Zack, please don’t be mad. It’ll be OK.’
I didn’t answer, but, when I looked out of the window at the blue sky and sea that was pancake flat, I knew exactly what I was going to do.
15
Alice
I fell asleep holding the photograph, but when I woke up it was on my bedside table propped up against my books. I climbed out of bed and I pulled back the curtains. The sky was so blue it looked like someone had just painted it, and the sea was so flat it looked like glass. The beach. I just had to go again. I never normally did things I wasn’t supposed to, but I couldn’t help it. I felt as though something was almost tugging at me to go back. Besides, it wasn’t as though they needed me. I was just deciding what to take when I suddenly realised I would have to come up with a way to explain what I was doing. I was just thinking about how I was going to get away when I heard shouting from the hallway.
‘David! David! Hurry! HURRY! Your daughter doesn’t want to wait until the end of August!’
I opened the door and saw Mum bent over with her hands pressed to the wall. Then she screamed. It was so loud and so scary I thought she’d broken a bone or something worse.
Dad came running up the stairs, but he had a huge smile on his face, and when he saw me looking scared he laughed and said, ‘Don’t worry, Alice. This is all perfectly normal. Your sister clearly wants to be born now!’
So that is what happened. My little sister arrived into this world on August 5th, but I was nowhere to be found. I had packed a bag and run away.
The walk down to the beach wasn’t as scary as the first time. I didn’t nearly slip and I carefully jumped over the ledge, holding tightly on to my bag. Actually, I almost marched all the way. It was a grumpy, angry sort of a stomp, and all the time I was thinking about how Mum and Dad didn’t need me now they had their baby. My sister was going to have my cot. Mum wanted me to give her my cuddly toys and she was going to get my clothes too.
When we were packing for Scotland, I saw Mum fold away some of the clothes that were too small for me because one day my sister would be able to have them. Later that night, I’d crept down the hallway where I’d found the big box of clothes and I pulled out my favourite blue jumper.
She was NOT having that as well.
When I got down to the beach, I took my shoes off so that I could feel the warm sand between my toes. I tucked the shoes inside my bag and, with a long stick, I swiped through the air to make a loud zipping noise. It was already pretty hot and I was pleased that I’d remembered to pack a little umbrella to give some shade. I found the big rock where I’d seen the strange boy sitting, and I set my bag down and laid out the towel. It was the perfect kind of day to be on the beach and I decided that I would lie in the sun until I was so hot I couldn’t bear it any more. Until I was so stinking hot I’d have to run down the sand and jump into the cool blue waters and swim in the shallow turquoise lagoon.
But I was not alone.
I heard him before I saw him. He was singing. I think I knew the song, but I couldn’t be sure. This time the tide was in so he must have swum round the headland and then climbed on to the big rock. I thought no one could do that. I didn’t know it was possible. I looked again as he slid down from the last rock and waded knee-deep through the shallow waters of the lagoon and, when he looked up in my direction, I quickly darted behind the rock so he couldn’t see me. But I found myself peeping out and watching him like I did last time. What was he doing here?
He slowly walked along the shoreline, occasionally bending down to look at shells, and that was the moment I realised that it was the boy who had moved into the coastguard cottage. It was the boy who had been shouting at his mum. The one Dad had said looked like trouble. I suddenly felt a bit scared and hid further behind the rock. What if he was going to be horrible to me?
I peeped back out from the rock to check, but he was gone.
For a second or two I didn’t move and then I spied the stick I’d found at the top of the beach and quickly grabbed it. I stood up slowly and quietly, gripping the stick tightly in my hand, and when I came out from my hiding place I saw him sitting at the water’s edge. This was supposed to be our private beach. I wanted to be here alone. He had no right to trespass. With that angry thought in my head, I walked down the beach with my weapon in the air, but as I got closer I could hear he was humming a tune I knew. As I got closer, my stride slowed down until I was almost creeping up on him. When I was about an arm’s length away, I stopped, he turned round and I saw his face once again. It was just like I remembered, but it was more bronzed and his nose was a little red from sunburn. He looked up and smiled. I lowered my arm and the stick that I’d been waving in the air like a crazy person. I stood there for some time, just looking at him. I watched him pick up a pretty pink shell and turn it over in his hand.
‘Wow, you kind of look like Pocahontas,’ he said to me.
I said nothing. I had expected him to shout or be mean or something.
‘Are you from Culver Manor?’
I nodded.
‘So this is your very own private beach?’
I nodded again.
‘Are you here on your own?’
I nodded.
His voice was different from those of the boys I knew at school. It sounded a bit deeper or something.
‘I’m sorry; I know I’m not supposed to be here. It’s just . . . Well . . . Mum told me there would be beaches here – ha, another thing she lied about.’ I heard an angry sound to his voice, but then he stopped talking and looked back down at his hands.
I waited for what seemed like forever and then he turned back to me, smiled and said very slowly and clearly, ‘I am Zack.’
Without really thinking, I picked up the stick and, using it like a pencil, I drew in the sand: I am Alice.
16
Zack
‘Open the door, Zack.’ She turned the handle, but I’d already locked it. ‘Zack, please.’ I ignored her. ‘You know this is really hard for me too. This is really hard for us both.’ I heard her crying again and this time I didn’t feel sorry for her. I felt angry with her.
‘What are you talking about? Hard for you? How is it just as hard for you? You don’t have to start a new school where everyone will already have friends like I used to,’ I shouted. ‘How is it hard for you?’
‘Zack, please,’ I heard her snivel, but that’s the moment when I did the swearing thing again. I could have said get lost or something, but the word just came out again and I held my breath. She said nothing. There was a long silence where I think I could just about hear her breathing on the other side of the door.
Then she sort of whispered something I’d never heard her say. ‘My father always used to say you can learn a great deal about a boy from the way he treats his mother.’ I heard her footsteps on the stairs and the front door as it closed behind her. I sat down on my bed and sighed, but when I heard a seagull outside I remembered the beach and the flying rucksack.
This time I packed a bag and I felt excited as I headed off out of the village, beyond the harbour and along the stony beach, but, as I got to the giant boulder, I realised that this time the tide was so far in that the only way to reach Culver Cove was to swim there and that meant leaving my bag and the food I’d brought with me. I stood there for a while, watching the water. I remembered what my mum had told me about the dangerous undercurrent and I shivered a little bit when I imagined myself being dragged out to sea. I could have waited, but I didn’t. I should have been sensible, but I wasn’t, and instead I hid my bag behind some rocks and set off.
I could say the water was really cold, but it wasn’t: it was totally freezing and my skin quickly became numb. I swam quickly and when I reached a large rock that was sticking out of the water I climbed on top of it to rest a while. That’s when I saw the first seal. I watched it dive under the water, popping back up to the surface a minute or two later. Wow, I thought. It flipped over on to its back and was so close I could almost touch its whiskers and, when I looked down at its big round eyes, it reminded me of Otter so much it made me smile.
It made me think of the time Dad and I had been sailing together and a load of dolphins had swum right alongside the boat. ‘It’s like they’re watching out for us, Zack,’ he’d said to me. ‘It’s as though they’re steering us in the right direction.’
I watched the seal swim further and further out, but then it stopped and seemed to watch me. I felt like it was telling me to be careful; it felt as though Dad was right: it was watching out for me so, while it could still see me, I slid back into the water and swam as fast as I could and I didn’t stop until I rounded the headland.
I pulled myself on to the last rock, lay flat on my back and waited until I’d got my breath back. I had made it. When the time came to go home, the tide would probably be out. I could just walk back then, it would be easy, and, as I looked back towards the perfect sandy cove, I prayed that this time I’d be alone.
I was so wrong.
I walked along the beach, but I couldn’t see anyone. I even looked up to make sure there weren’t any more flying Barbie bags and eventually I sat down at the edge of the water with my back to the waterfall. The skin on the tip of my nose was burnt, my stomach was telling me I needed to eat and then my dad’s favourite song popped into my head. The words always made Mum laugh because my dad was the happiest, smiliest person you ever met. I never saw him sad and I never, ever saw him cry. I thought of the words again: ‘I’d like to be unhappy, but I really don’t have the time.’ I was just humming the tune when I sensed someone behind me. My skin prickled and my heart beat quickly, but when I turned round I saw it was her again. The girl from last time.
Her black hair was longer than I remembered, she seemed a bit older too, and when I smiled up at her she lowered the stick she’d been waving in the air. She reminded me of a mini Pocahontas and when I blurted that out I felt really stupid, but she didn’t say anything; she just stared like she did the last time.
I expected her to tell me to leave, but she didn’t. She didn’t say a word and when I asked her if she was here by herself she just nodded. In fact, every time I asked her a question, she just nodded.
The odd thing w
as, when I looked up into her big brown eyes, it was as though I knew her and that had never happened to me before. I muttered something about my mum and when she still didn’t say a word I wondered if she was from another country or something. I can speak a bit of French and a tiny bit of Spanish. Whenever we went on holiday, my dad would do this really embarrassing thing of talking English loudly, slowly, but with a sort of accent that made him sound completely silly. It used to make Mum and I laugh because he didn’t even realise he was doing it.
I looked up at the girl again. Perhaps she doesn’t even speak English, I thought, so I turned back to her, smiled and said very slowly: ‘I am Zack.’
She took the stick she was holding and wrote in the sand, I am Alice.
17
Alice
Me and Zack stayed on the beach until the sun got cooler and the tide had gone out. I don’t know how long we were there together, but we’d already swum out to the rocks twice, eaten my picnic and played noughts and crosses in the sand when Zack suddenly sat up.
‘Best get home,’ he said, pulling on his grey hoody.
I nodded. I knew I’d be in big trouble if Mum and Dad found out I’d come to Culver Cove again and I wanted to be able to sneak back into the garden without being noticed, and then I realised something which made me feel strange. Mum and Dad always let me just go off in the garden for hours. They know I can spend all day making up a magical world in the walled garden, they know I can spend hours trying to make perfume out of the rose petals, but they always asked me loads of questions when I got home. They always wanted to know what I’d been doing and what adventures I’d had, but recently they hadn’t been doing that. Now they didn’t ask me anything and I knew why. They didn’t care. They didn’t care about me any more.
‘Alice,’ said Zack and I looked up at him. ‘Alice, will you tell? I mean, like, will I get into trouble?’