The Mystery of the Colour Thief

by Ewa Jozefkowicz

  THE MYSTERY OF THE COLOUR THIEF

  Ewa Jozefkowicz

  Start Reading

  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  www.readzephyr.com

  About The Mystery of the Colour Thief

  First the accident, then the nightmares.

  A shadowy thief steals the colours from Izzy’s world.

  Will her new neighbour and a nest full of cygnets save Izzy and solve the mystery of the colour thief?

  This is the story of a girl called Izzy, of a friendship lost and another one found, of a cygnet called Spike and the power of feathers gathered from strong wings. It is about hope, healing, nature and new beginnings.

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  About The Mystery of the Colour Thief

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Acknowledgements

  About Ewa Jozefkowicz

  About Zephyr

  Copyright

  To Magda and Julia

  One

  He came out of nowhere, a man in the smoke. He was nothing more than a shadow at first, a smudge of black in the grey. But as he loomed closer, he grew bigger, became more solid. My heart was a drum. He was shouting at me, but the sound bounced off my ears in eerie echoes. His long arms reached out. He was so close that I could smell him – a mix of sweat and burning rubber. He leaned in…

  3.05 a.m.

  The luminous figures stared back at me in the dark. The glow of a street lamp seeped through the wooden slats of my blinds. It was quiet. The man had gone. A nightmare. Though somewhere in the depths of my mind I knew that it was more than a nightmare.

  That morning I was late getting ready because Milo wouldn’t come in from the garden. He’d been leaping around like a maniac, chasing a tiny vole that he’d found. Eventually I managed to get him indoors and I waited for my best friend, Lou, while grabbing scraps of breakfast. Dad had gone to work already, leaving me a note on the kitchen table:

  Diz, see you after school. Have a good day x.

  Lou usually arrived at 8.45 a.m. on the dot, so we didn’t have to rush, but it was almost 8.50 a.m., and she wasn’t here. She must have been running late herself and decided to go in on her own. I couldn’t wait any longer.

  I broke into a run as soon as I was outside. My feet hit the pavement in sync with the beating of my heart. The houses on either side of Gulliver Avenue shifted and swayed, and my ears ached inside from the sharp nip in the early autumn air. Clusters of people huddled at the bus stop passed me in a burst of charcoal greys, the white and black of offices and banks and traffic merged into a single, moving stream.

  I ran and ran until I reached the finish line of the school gates, my arms propped against the railings, my chest ready to burst. The bell had gone. Even the usual crowds of sixth formers with their slouchy rucksacks and rolled-up blazer sleeves had disappeared inside. I walked into the empty entrance hall.

  Lou saw me by the lockers and gave me a disapproving glance, not mentioning a word about why she hadn’t come to mine. I’d got used to these glances over the last few weeks. Ever since we’d started Year Eight, she’d been acting as though she was a guru on everything from clothes to hair, music and even who to hang around with.

  ‘Why are you always so last minute about everything? And look at you – what’s with the stains on the skirt?’ She shook her head. I ignored her. Lou’s own skirt was far too short and I hadn’t said anything about that. She’d hitched it up recently to expose her skinny knees. It was part of her new look, which included poker-straight hair and thick smudged lines on her eyelids.

  ‘Come on, Izzy, hurry up!’

  And before I could ask her why she hadn’t called for me on the way to school, she turned on her heel and disappeared in the direction of our classroom. I stood there, thinking that any second she would turn around and wait for me. She didn’t.

  ‘Izzy, what are you still doing here?’ Mr McKenzie sounded irritated. ‘Daydreaming in the corridor? It’s already gone 9.05 a.m.! Get a move on.’

  We had double maths first with Mr Coruna who was, as always, striding backwards and forwards at the front of the classroom with a dazed expression on his face. He looked as though, in his thoughts, he was somewhere far better. I liked him a lot – he was kind and funny, even if he wasn’t always great at explaining things.

  Today, his classroom was horribly hot, and Jonah and Dave were sniggering about something in the corner. I would put money on them having turned up the radiators just for a laugh. It was exactly the sort of thing that they would find hilarious.

  Someone dropped a book on the floor and Mr Coruna was brought back to reality. He started talking about the value of ‘x’, but because of the heat and the fact that I wasn’t very interested in algebra, my fingers lost their grip, my pen began to slip and my eyes grew heavy. I rested my head in my hands and pressed my knuckles against my eyelids, thinking that the pressure might help me stay awake. Despite my best efforts, I found myself drifting – a silhouette appeared, the flicker of a shadow in a swirl of smoke… and then the awful crawling began in the pit of my stomach.

  ‘Izzy! Oi… he’s going to notice.’

  Lou’s prod jolted me awake.

  ‘Can’t believe you fell asleep. What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I don’t know… Lou?’

  ‘What?’

  Her eyebrows were raised and she looked annoyed but I carried on. I had to tell somebody.

  When Mr Coruna turned to write something on the board, I whispered, ‘I had the most horrible nightmare last night. One I never want to have again. There was a man… a shadow man. He was all black – I couldn’t see his face or anything. He came out of a cloud of smoke and he was shouting at me… I was so scared.’

  I expected her to be shocked, but she rolled her eyes again and I noticed flecks of mascara on her eyelids, like two miniature feathery fans.

  ‘What are you banging on about now, Izzy?’ she whispered back. ‘You’re such a weirdo. You’ve been so different ever since…’

  She tailed off and had the decency to look guilty for a moment, before turning to her equations again.

  Mr Coruna tapped me gently on the arm as I was walking out of the classroom at the end of the lesson.

  ‘Izzy,’ he said, ‘I just want to tell you how sorry I am for what happened to you. I also wanted to let you know, as your head of year, that we’re going to do everything we can to support you. I hope you feel you can come to me if you need help with managing homework or anything else. You know, of course, that we have Mrs Tomkinson, the school counsellor. If you wanted to arrange a visit to…’

  ‘I’m all right,’ I said abruptly and immediately felt bad. I knew he’d meant well.

  ‘Thank you,’ I managed finally, before shuffling off.

  But I wasn’t fine when I got back to our form room for our last lesson to find Frank the Skank sitting next to me, in Lou’s usual seat. His dark fringe fell into his eyes, but I could see that he was trying to avoid my gaze.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked him.

  ‘She wanted to swap. I… I said I didn’t mind,’ he stammered, glancing over at Lou, who was settling herself into a seat at the front of the class,
next to Jemima. He brushed his fringe out of his eyes still avoiding my gaze, taking ages picking up the pen he’d dropped on the floor.

  The shock rolled over me in waves. Lou was also being careful not to look at me, but I knew she realised I’d just found out what she’d done. She and Jemima were hunched together, giggling, as they looked at something on Lou’s iPad.

  I sat on the edge of my seat. Surely it was a joke? A mean joke. Any second now, Lou would start laughing at me for being such a sucker and believing she’d do that to me. But when the bell went for the start of the lesson, she hadn’t budged.

  I thought of saying something to our form teacher, Mr McKenzie, though he didn’t care where we sat, as long as we were quiet and got on with what we were supposed to be doing. Every time anybody bothered him, he’d say that he had ‘bigger fish to fry’ as if he were some celebrity seafood chef. At the start of the year I’d wished more than anything that we could have had Mrs Gilberton again, but she was teaching the new Year Sevens. I imagined her with them now, wearing one of her homemade dresses, probably getting them to read ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ in different voices. If she’d been here, she would have noticed straightaway that something was up and she’d ask to speak to me or to Lou at the end of the lesson. She always helped to sort things out quietly, without making a fuss.

  Now we just had Mr McKenzie and his limericks, which I couldn’t focus on no matter how hard I tried.

  It was sad because I loved limericks – they were my favourite poems. I’d written a great one for Dad about a man who lived in a bucket. It made him chuckle for the first time in weeks and I felt like I’d won the jackpot. But today two things on my mind left no space for anything else. The first was the nightmare man and the second was Lou. We’d been friends since playschool. She wouldn’t give up on me. Would she?

  Two

  That day, I got out of school as soon as I possibly could. Usually, Lou and I would walk together, but after what had happened, I was desperate to avoid her. I was walking so fast that I almost collided with some Year Sevens making their way to the tube station.

  ‘Izzy?’

  Drat. It was Lou’s mum, Shelley. Of course – it was Monday, which meant she would be giving Lou a lift to swimming.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  ‘How are you, Izzy?’ she asked, her face arranged in an expression of concern. It struck me suddenly how unlike Lou she looked – she was all soft edges, where Lou was skinny and angular. I liked Shelley. She was the sort of mum that made even the worst things seem like they would be OK.

  ‘I’m… I’m fine,’ I muttered. ‘I’m in a rush… I…’

  But she continued to look at me and the more she looked, the more I felt her gaze piercing right through me.

  ‘You haven’t been to see us in a while,’ she said. ‘We miss you. You know you’re always welcome.’

  Of course I wasn’t welcome. If only she knew… I opened and shut my mouth, feeling like an idiot. ‘Thanks. I’ve just been very busy.’

  ‘I know… I know, my love. Listen, I’m sure that many people will have said this to you, but if you ever need anything. Honestly, if you ever need anything at all, give me a call. Or you can just tell Lou, and she’ll pass it on. Speaking of Lou… where is she?’

  ‘Oh, she’s still in class…’ I hopelessly searched my brain for an excuse that would seem believable as to why I hadn’t waited for her. I felt the heat rising inside me, and suddenly standing there in front of Shelley became unbearable. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lou and Jemima, listening to something on Lou’s headphones, one ear-piece each.

  ‘I have to go,’ I told Shelley and was off before she had a chance to reply.

  I stopped at the corner of Gulliver Avenue, where I knew that I was out of sight of them, and I leaned on a garden wall, breathing hard. I couldn’t help looking back. From where I stood, I could make out Shelley trotting behind Jemima and Lou, trying to keep up. It was obvious that Lou hadn’t told her anything – Shelley was just as clueless as I had been this morning. But Lou wouldn’t have decided from one minute to another that she didn’t want to be friends with me. She must have been thinking about it for a while… I carried on walking.

  It was only when I turned into Ravens Road that I figured out where I was going. I hadn’t intended to walk this way, but somehow my feet took me in the direction of the bus stop. The number eleven came within minutes, as if the driver knew I’d be waiting. Was it a sign?

  A few sixth formers got on at the same time as me, but luckily one of my two favourite seats was free – on the top deck at the front. It was the seat Mum always sat me on, when I was small, because it had an amazing view and I could pretend that I was driving the bus.

  ‘Mind that tree,’ she used to say, as I held the imaginary steering wheel, and she’d shut her eyes in mock horror, as a particularly leafy one came our way. ‘Phew, you got us past that – just.’ I could hear her voice so clearly that if I closed my eyes, I really felt I was there. I could smell her perfume, sense the tickle of her long hair on my arm as she leaned close to hug me…

  The driver hit the brakes, we were flung forwards, and the moment splintered. I moved to a different seat then – I couldn’t bear the memory. One of the sixth form boys gave me a funny look, but I didn’t care.

  By the time I reached the hospital car park, it had started to rain. I walked to the main entrance through a cloud of fine, misty raindrops. It softened the edges of everything and calmed the scuttle-crawl in my stomach.

  I knew where to go. Dad had made me memorise the route, so I could find my way easily if I came with Nanna Jem, Mum’s mum, or someone else. ‘It’s the second floor in the lift, then follow the red arrows to Ward C.’ He repeated the directions twice and smiled at me, but the smile didn’t quite stretch to his eyes.

  I hadn’t made it very far yesterday, even though he was with me, or maybe because he was with me. Today I would do better. At the very least, I would step inside the room and look. I would have to look.

  I worried for a second that somebody would stop me if I wasn’t with Dad. But the nurse at the reception desk recognised me and nodded in the direction of the lifts.

  That was it – no turning back. First the lifts, then the red arrows. I put my hand against my chest to calm the flutter, and turned the handle to the small room just off the side of Ward C.

  There, wrapped up, pale and motionless, was my mum. It was her, of course it was her, but in many ways, it wasn’t her at all. I dared myself to walk closer – one step, and then another. Her right arm lay over the covers, and there were tubes coming out of it. The other – the one that had been damaged – was carefully tucked away. The doctor had told Dad that he wasn’t sure when they would try to bring her out of the coma. It depended on how she healed, but he was hopeful it would happen within a few weeks, so for now there was nothing to do except wait.

  I saw that her hair had been cut, shorn close to her head. Something made me want to touch it – it was soft and suede-like. I thought I would feel angry that her long, dark brown curls had been reduced to this, but I felt no anger, there was just that same awful sting in the pit of my stomach. I had done this. It was all my fault. I had made her like this.

  There were bruises on her left cheek and forehead, even though it had been five weeks and three days. They were shades of yellow and green.

  My eyes followed their edges where they met the tiny veins beneath the surface of her skin at the temples.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The words escaped my mouth before I realised I was saying them.

  I reached to touch her, but at the last moment I snatched my hand back. I was frightened that Mum’s would feel cold and lifeless – nothing like her usual firm, warm grip.

  So I sat down in the grey, plastic chair and I talked to her. I talked to her for the first time since it happened.

  ‘I’m having a horrible time without you. We all are. Lou is being strange. She doesn’t want to be friends an
y more. She says I’ve changed since… since what happened. I don’t think I have, but maybe?’

  The whole day and more spilled out of me. I told Mum about the nightmare, and Lou making fun of my clothes, and the awful desk move.

  I shut my eyes and wished more than anything that when I opened them, Mum would be turning around in bed, smiling at me, telling me not to worry about Lou – that things would be all right. She didn’t. She lay there, still and quiet. The only sound was the occasional beep of the heart-monitoring machine with its zigzag on the screen. I had seen ones just like it on TV, and it seemed unreal that this particular one belonged to her. The beep grew louder and louder in my head, and then I was on my feet walking quickly out of the room.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered again, but nobody heard me.

  Three

  The beeping of the machine was still echoing in my head when I turned into our road, and I realised that I was scared of it. I knew it was a strange thing to be afraid of, because the beeping signified life. Maybe I was scared it would stop, as that’s when you’re really in trouble. It followed me, that beep – and I put my hands in my ears to try to make it go away. I walked like that all the way down the road but the sound continued, persistent and loud.

  It only stopped when I spotted someone opposite our house – a small, silhouetted figure. At first I thought it might be a person sitting on a chair, which struck me as a strange thing to be doing in the middle of the pavement, but as I got closer, I saw it was a wheelchair.

  In it sat a boy of about my age, with blond hair. A pair of round glasses balanced on his upturned nose. He grinned and waved. Just like that. It was the weirdest thing. Strangers hardly ever wave at each other. I didn’t want to be rude so I waved back.

  ‘Hi,’ he said when I got within talking distance. He was smiling, a mysterious smile.

  ‘Hi.’