by Suzi Moore
‘Zack, will you just answer me, please?’ She sounded angrier now and when I did finally look up at her she was shaking with rage. I didn’t dare say a word; all I could think about was Alice. She’d seemed fine when I last saw her. She looked perfectly OK as I watched her running down the driveway and when David had told me what had happened I was hoping it would all just go away. Why had he telephoned my mum? My mind drifted back to Alice’s lifeless body as I’d dragged it up the beach. I remembered the relief I’d felt when she came back to life. Poor Alice, that’s what Mum had said . . . what if?
I think Mum had been shouting some more, but I’d been so busy thinking about Alice that I hadn’t heard her. She came round the coffee table so that she was standing in front of me.
‘Zack!’ she bellowed. ‘Are you listening to me at all? Do you know how lucky you are to still be alive? Have I not been through enough without you risking your life just to go for a stupid swim?’
I thought about Dad and his jumping-out-of-planes job. I thought of how Dad was always risking his life until he risked it a bit too much and I felt angry.
‘Dad did!’ I shouted back. ‘That’s what he did every day, wasn’t it?’ I said, feeling my throat get tight and doing my best to stop myself from crying. ‘How can you have a go at me for just going to some stupid beach when Dad did crazy things all the time?’ I screamed at her. I almost spat the words out and the anger started to rise up in me until I was screaming terrible things at her, until I was shouting the worst and most horrid words back at her, until I was shaking as much as she had been. Until I lifted the guitar up into the air and, without thinking, I smashed it down hard over the television.
Splinters of wood flew across the room and the strings twanged backwards at my face. I felt one scratch my left cheek, but I wasn’t finished yet. I threw what was left of the guitar across the room and then I kicked the table over.
‘Zack! Stop!’ Mum shouted, but with my left hand I swept all the photographs off the mantelpiece.
‘Zack! Please stop!’ she cried out, but I picked up a mug and threw that against the wall. I couldn’t hear anything any more, just a sort of humming, buzzing sound, but as I kicked the log basket over Mum had to leap out of the way, falling backwards over the kicked-over table. With my hand, I grabbed the vase from the window sill and I was just about to throw it at the kitchen door when there was a loud knock at our front door.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Mum lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. I stopped shouting, the vase still raised above my head.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
I felt my chest rise and fall with each breath.
‘Open the door!’ a man’s deep voice called out. ‘Open the door now! It’s the police!’
I saw Mum wipe the tears from her cheeks and the shock of what I’d done began to creep upwards from my feet. Upwards and upwards, like dark shadowy fingers that moved higher towards my chest. Tighter and tighter I felt them grip my shoulders until the door was flung open and two policemen came barging into our little cottage.
Mum didn’t move and neither did I. I watched the policemen’s faces as they looked around at the room. I saw them eye the broken furniture, the shattered glass, the smashed-up bit of guitar and the look of fear on Mum’s face.
‘You!’ said the smaller of the two policemen, pointing at me. ‘You stay right there.’
I felt my heart thumping in my chest; the buzzing, humming noise began to fade. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my mum get to her feet and I wanted to die. But when the younger policeman saw the red mark on her face he turned to me.
‘Did you do that?’ he asked, looking disgusted. I looked over at Mum and then back at the policeman.
I saw him reach for his handcuffs and I panicked. I heard Mum say, ‘No, no, he didn’t do that.’ She said angrily, ‘Don’t be crazy! He didn’t touch me. I had an accident at work. Really, we’re fine.’
I could see they didn’t believe her. The smaller policeman shook his head and they both moved closer.
‘We heard the noise coming from this house. It seems like we got here just in time,’ he said, stepping over the shards of glass towards me.
I saw the open door and didn’t think. I just ran. I ran out of the door and over the bridge, up the lane and past the café. I ran until I felt the sweat dripping down my back and a stitch in my side, but the sound of police sirens got louder. I ran through the churchyard where my grandfather was buried and I didn’t stop. I leapt over the wall to the lane, grazing the backs of my legs as I fell forward. I made a dash through someone’s garden and a security light flashed on as I collided with a bin. I jumped over a rose bush, taking half the petals with me and catching the thorns against my arms. I ran until my legs were almost falling forward by themselves and my lungs burned so much I thought I couldn’t take it any more.
I turned left in the village at a sign I recognised, but the streetlights disappeared and darkness surrounded me. I ran further and further, the sirens seemed to fade and I had only moonlight to guide my way. The road became a lane, the lane became a track and the track became a scramble. I was running and then I wasn’t. I was scrambling up a track and then I wasn’t. I stood at the beacon on Porlock Hill, where I’d been with my mother on that first day and I looked down the moonlit vale and out towards the blackened sea.
Everything was fine until it wasn’t, and I knew right then that I couldn’t run any more.
I waited until I got my breath back and felt my racing heartbeat become normal again. Then, with shaking legs and aching arms, I turned round to face the journey home. But which way? In front of me were two paths. Which one was the way back down? I didn’t know, so I just guessed and headed left along a path, hoping that I’d picked correctly.
I was wrong. I think I must have been slowly walking for twenty minutes or so when I realised it wasn’t right, but something told me to keep going. Even though I knew in my heart it was the wrong way, I kept going and going until the sweat on my skin made me feel cold and shivery. I think I was almost sleepwalking when I saw a building in the distance. A sort of house that seem to shine. Was it made of glass? I couldn’t be sure. Did I see my face reflected in the walls? I was too tired to think or care and I stumbled round the building to ask for help. I cried out, but no one came.
My teeth were chattering so much I could feel the vibration in my head, but there was no sign of life in the house. I wandered round the back of the shiny building until I saw what looked like a barn or was it bigger? It could have been stables, but I didn’t hear any horses and I sighed with such relief when I saw a door was open. I stepped inside.
I reached up on the wall and felt for a light switch which clicked loudly as I turned it on. The lights flickered slowly on and off; a strange humming noise echoed off the walls. The lights continued to flicker as though they couldn’t decide whether to work or not and then suddenly the room was lit up. I expected sleeping cows or horses. I imagined the smell of hay or the sight of riding boots lined up against a wall. I thought there’d be a rusting tractor, a sleeping sheep-dog or a lawnmower. I expected all of these, but that’s not what I saw.
I blinked once. I blinked twice and I almost pinched my arm to make sure I wasn’t imagining it. I was in a huge room which contained a collection of the most amazing things. An old motorbike and sidecar, a shiny red Ferrari, its bonnet freshly polished, two Aston Martins and my favourite ever car, a 1957 Mercedes-Benz Gullwing. How had Dad described it? A thing of beauty? And in the middle of the room was a plane. I smiled. It was the little blue plane that I kept seeing. It had to be the same one.
I felt myself being sort of pulled over to it and before I knew what I was doing I was staring at my own reflection in the door. Was it open? I reached up with my left hand. Click, click. It was locked. I walked round the plane and sighed. It was the same one as Dad’s. A Tiger Moth. I felt my eyes start to close. I was so tired. I looked around for somewhere to rest my aching body, but the concrete
floor was uninviting. I tried the Gullwing first, but it was locked, then the Ferrari, but it was as well. I tried both the Astons and then a little silver Porsche and in the end I spied a dark green car I didn’t need to worry about locks for because it didn’t have a roof.
I ran back to the door to switch off the lights and crept back to the corner of the room. A Rolls-Royce. It had to be one of the oldest cars I’d ever seen, and I took my shoes off before I carefully climbed over the door and on to the springiest leather seats I’d ever sat on. I felt my eyelids closing and I lay back on the creamy white seats and fell fast asleep.
26
Zack
I woke up slowly and a woollen blanket tickled my nose. I tried to move. Everything hurt. I turned my head and my neck felt stiff and painful. Something wasn’t right. This wasn’t my bed and I suddenly remembered the night before. The night before. Oh God, I thought. What have I done?
I looked up at the ceiling. A tiny bird flew up into the roof and, as I turned my head to watch it disappear into a nest, I saw a man standing by the car. His hair was almost white; it curled upwards and outwards in a way that made me think that the red baseball cap he was wearing was there to keep it from springing away. He leaned against the bonnet of the Rolls-Royce and looked back at the little plane. I watched him take a puff of his pipe; a plume of bluish smoke hovered round his face and then he turned to me and smiled.
‘Well, I guess if I had to pick a car to fall asleep in I’d have chosen the Roller too.’ He rested a hand on the door of the car and looked right at me. I peered back at him over the woollen blanket. His face was tanned and papery-looking and there were long creases along his forehead, and around his mouth and eyes. He wore a greenish shirt with the collar turned right up and I noticed that there were tiny holes and rips and stains all over it. He looked down at his shirt. ‘I hate wearing overalls to work in. I think I’ve had this polo shirt since little Nelly died.’
‘Who was little Nelly?’ I asked, folding the blanket away from my face, but the old man just laughed.
‘Ha! It’s just something my father used to say. No idea who she was, but I’ve no idea who you are either,’ he said, stroking the side of his face.
I took one more look round the room at the collection and sighed when I saw the plane. I thought of the night before and a horrible feeling of dread came over me. What’s going to happen to me? Mum, I thought and I saw her frightened face as the police had come barging into the house. Did they really think I’d hurt my own mum? Were they still looking for me? I was going to get into so much trouble. I felt the scratch on my cheek. I thought about my smashed-up guitar and I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out.
‘You look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders,’ said the man and I did. It felt as though everything was piling on top of me. ‘I’m George,’ he said, opening the door for me and, as I lifted my aching legs out of the car, I looked at him.
‘I’m Zack.’
I followed him back across the room, but I slowed down when we reached the wings of the plane.
‘A Tiger Moth,’ I said, reaching out and touching the tip of one wing.
George looked at me in surprise. ‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’
I nodded. ‘My dad’s was yellow.’
‘Did he fly it much?’
I nodded again, but then I pressed my thumb on the side of the wing and winced in pain.
‘Oh crikey!’ said George, looking at the red and swollen thumb. ‘That’s quite a splinter you’ve got there. Let’s go inside and I’ll get it out for you, but then, young man,’ he said, ruffling the top of my hair, ‘then we’d best get you home.’
Home, I thought. What was waiting for me there?
We walked round the side of the building I had stumbled round the night before and as we turned left to the house I looked up in amazement. It was a house like I had never seen before. I hadn’t imagined it. It was shiny; I had seen my face reflected in the walls because it was a house that was made entirely of glass. A sort of glass box which shimmered in the sunlight.
‘Come on then,’ said George, holding open the door, and I stepped inside.
It was a room a bit like the one in my old house where the kitchen, the sitting room and the place where you eat are all in one room, and in the middle a kind of fireplace hung down from the ceiling so that you could walk all the way round it. At one side of the room was a fish tank, but it was the size of the ones you see at the aquarium. I saw three black, orange and white fish swim by as I walked past it.
‘So,’ said George as he held my thumb carefully under the light, ‘you look like you’ve been in the wars. Bad night, huh?’ he asked, but I said nothing. I winced as he tried to free the splinter from underneath the skin. ‘Let me guess, you had a row with your mum and dad, you said things you wish you hadn’t and now you need to lick your wounds, eh?’ Still I said nothing. ‘Or did you do something you really shouldn’t have and instead of taking the punishment you ran off?’
I watched with relief as the largest splinter I’d ever seen was prised out of my swollen thumb. ‘Things are never that bad, you know,’ he said, wiping the wound with a bit of cotton wool that made it sting.
I didn’t say anything, but a photograph on the wall behind his head caught my eye. It was a picture of the car that I’d slept in and sitting on the back seats was a group of children that I recognised. My mum sat squashed in between two boys and in the front seat, with her arms in the air, was a girl with long blonde hair; she was sitting on the lap of the boy who peeped out from behind my granddad in the other photo. Where had I seen that smile before? It was there in my mind, but I couldn’t tease it out of my head.
When George saw me staring at the photo, he sighed. ‘My wife called that lot the Famous Five, you know, like the books.’ I waited for him to tell me more, but he didn’t and on hearing my stomach rumble louder than it ever had he smiled and handed me a biscuit.
‘Right, young Zack, there’s one thing I know for sure: your parents will be very worried about you so why don’t we go and choose a car and I’ll drive you home.’
I chose the Ferrari. We drove back down the hill with the roof down and it made me think of that last day with Dad. When I pointed out my home to George, he went quiet. ‘You live here?’ he said slowly.
I unbuckled my seat belt and nodded. ‘We just moved here. It used to be my granddad’s cottage, but—’
George suddenly looked upset. I saw his hands grip the steering wheel so hard they went sort of white. ‘Are you Jane’s son?’
I nodded and when I looked into his eyes I saw they were filled with tears. He turned away and coughed. ‘Time to face the music,’ he said, without turning back to me. ‘Off you go.’
I thought about the smashed-up guitar, about the police and about Alice. I felt the panic rising and for a moment I wanted to stay put. For a second I thought about telling him or asking him to take me into town.
As if George could read my mind, he turned back to my frightened face, put a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Nothing is ever as bad as it seems.’ But I saw a tear roll down his cheek.
I climbed out of the car slowly, thanking George as I shut the door. I watched him drive back up the road. What had made him so sad I wondered? I was just standing on the road like that for ages, my head full of questions, when the door to the cottage was suddenly flung open. Mum came running out towards me, her arms outstretched, and I could see her eyes were puffy and red.
‘Zack!’ she said, throwing her arms round me. ‘My Zack! Where have you been?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m so sorry.’
She bent down towards me; her eyes were filled with tears and she kissed me on my forehead, my cheeks and then my nose. ‘I was so worried about you.’
When we went inside, I saw that Mum had already cleared up the mess from the night before. The police, Mum told me as we tucked into bacon sandwiches, were across the street last night,
investigating a suspected burglary, when they heard the shouting from our cottage. She had explained to them about Dad and everything else and they’d understood.
‘But they were chasing me in their car,’ I said worriedly.
‘No they weren’t, sweetheart. Just after you legged it, they got a call about an emergency in town.’
I thought about the police sirens I’d heard and I felt kind of stupid. I thought about the guitar and the sound of breaking glass and I felt horrid. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again.
‘It’s OK. Well, it’s not OK to lose your temper like that, it really isn’t, but you have had a lot to cope with this last year. We both have. Shall we try starting again?’
I smiled and nodded.
‘Are you going to tell me where you went last night?’ I took a bite out of my sandwich, a slurp of my Diet Coke and I told her the whole story, but when I was finished she just stared.
‘You found your way to George’s house? All that way? Of all the places you could have ended up!’
But when I told her I’d fallen asleep on the back seat of a dark green Rolls-Royce she made a little yelping sound and put her hands to her face and slowly shook her head. I remembered the photograph I’d seen.
‘George said you were one of a sort of Famous Five. Is that—’
Mum suddenly looked up at me with worried eyes. ‘He said that?’ She set down her mug of tea, leaned in closer and said very quickly, ‘What else did he say? What else did he tell you?’ She looked afraid; her eyes were wide and alert. ‘Well?’ she said more insistently.
‘N . . . nothing,’ I sort of stammered. ‘He didn’t say anything else. Why, what would he have said?’
She got up from the table and went into the kitchen, so I followed her.
‘What is it?’ I asked as I watched her move round the kitchen, picking things up and putting them back down again. She leaned against the back door and sighed. She rubbed her eyes, kneaded her temples and frantically twirled her wedding ring round and round.