Natalie is the first to wake.
She edges out of Nail's slack hold and sits up.
The Madonna glints.
They are the only ones in the chapel.
The kids!
Natalie gets up.
Runs out. Checks the van.
They're gone.
The sea rolls in imperturbably.
She looks across the beach. Searches the tumble of rock to the west, follows the line all the way to end, to the very last boulder, which as she looks is slowly sliding under the swirling green waters.
She scans the beds of rock to the west, backwards and forwards over the pools and the floating bladderwrack, over the rubble of pebble and scree and to the far arm of land hugging the bay. Nowhere can she see the three children.
7
‘What's up, Nats? Where are the kids?’ says Nail, stumbling out of the chapel.
Natalie shakes her head. ‘Gone,’ she says, her voice hollow as the wind. ‘Can't see them on the beach.’
‘They must be in the dunes.’
Nail climbs to the top of the nearest hillock and looks all round.
Suddenly he stops, peers towards the beach and shouts. ‘Something down there.’
They race through the last of the dune paths and stop at a line of broken shells and dried bladderwrack.
Ahead of them, where the white sand is wet, two lines of footprints are leading all the way across the beach towards the sea.
‘Why's there only two?’ asks Natalie. But she knows the answer.
They follow the tracks almost to the sea's riffled edge; to where sketched in the sand is the picture of an animal. It has terrible eyes. Its body is covered in spots.
‘It's the leopard,’ says Natalie.
Resting on the drawing as if crushing the back is a round stone.
‘They'Ve killed it. The little monkeys have killed the leopard,’ says Natalie quietly.
Nail tries to puzzle this out but gives up.
He is staring at the wave ripples already erasing the tip of the leopard's long tail.
8
The footprints disappear into the sea.
Of the children there is no sign whatsoever.
‘They can't have just walked in and…’ says Natalie horrified.
Nail too can't believe the kids would just walk into the sea and drown. ‘Maybe they thought they were fishes,’ he says. ‘They're daftie enough.’
Nail has drawn this picture in his head – kids wriggling into scaly silver bodies and gliding freely back into the ocean – because he knows another terrible picture is lurking there and he doesn't want that surfacing in his head.
Natalie has walked into the sea and the water is swilling into her trainers.
‘Lolo.’ She wails and cries the name. ‘Poor Lolo.’
Nail is looking at the tumble of rock to his left.
‘I know what's happened,’ he cries. ‘I bet they've gone round to the next bay when the tide was out.’
Natalie turns.
Without a word they race to the rocks and begin scrambling up.
Nail hauls Natalie over the topmost boulder.
The bay below is small, the sand is salt-white.
CHAPTER 26
The Sky Boat
1
What they see astonishes and terrifies them.
Drawn in the sand below is the shape of an open boat. It has a sail that looks like it's billowing in the wind. And benches. It seems to be pulling at an anchor firmly bedded in the sand.
They can see, drawn in the bottom of the boat, stacks of boxes and sacks. And a parrot and two monkeys sit in the stern. The sides of the boat are decorated with bunches of something. They look like flowers trailing in rippling water.
In the bow, on a triangle of raised decking, lies a small bundle wrapped in a white blanket.
‘Lolo,’ gasps Natalie.
Two oars lie across the sides of the boat ready for rowing.
Drawn in the sand all around are giant stars twinkling.
‘The Sky Boat,’ whispers Nail.
2
Beside the boat, looking out to sea, stand two small still figures.
‘Chicken Angel and X-Ray,’ says Nail.
Chicken Angel is leaning on X-Ray.
Their trousers are rolled up.
3
Suddenly from beyond the dunes they hear the chug chug of a helicopter.
It comes swinging into view.
As it does so, sirens sound in the dunes.
The chopper seems to hang in mid-air.
Police are running across St Otald's beach.
4
Chicken Angel and X-Ray have got into the boat and are sitting on the central bench.
The oars seem to rest in their laps.
They look far too frail for oars that size.
5
X-Ray looks up, slowly.
Can he see them?
Natalie waves.
6
X-Ray just stares.
Chicken Angel's hair rises in the breeze.
X-Ray turns, puts his arm round her shoulders.
Her head lolls on his chest.
There they sit.
7
The first policeman arrives. Looks down, turns to Nail.
‘Did you call us?’
Natalie shakes her head.
‘What's this?’ The policeman points below.
‘The Sky Boat,’ she says.
‘Yeah, and that helicopter was Batman? Not funny, miss.’
‘It is the Sky Boat.’
The ambulance men are at the bottom of the rocks.
‘Up here,’ shouts the policeman. ‘It's just kids playing silly beggars. In the sand.’
8
Natalie and Nail have to climb back down.
A policeman walks them to the dunes.
Halfway there Natalie stops. Her hand closes over her mouth.
‘Nail, look, look.’
She points to a drawing in the sand.
9
There are two figures, a girl and a boy.
In the blazing white.
Each has been given angel wings.
They are holding hands.
Table of Contents
Cover
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
ANGEL BLOOD
CHAPTER 1: Hypo for Lights Out
CHAPTER 2: The Bin – Puke and Dozie
CHAPTER 3: X-Ray Tranked
CHAPTER 4: Coddy, Nail and Kenno
CHAPTER 5: Morsing Mrs Murdoe
CHAPTER 6: Doctor D
CHAPTER 7: Yellow Tears
CHAPTER 8: Killing the Soul
CHAPTER 9: Sherbert's for Kids
CHAPTER 10: The Purple Baby
CHAPTER 11: An Eye for an Eye
CHAPTER 12: Booty
CHAPTER 13: Cough Cough's Secret
CHAPTER 14: Gone Takeaway
CHAPTER 15: Everything Sucks
CHAPTER 16: Disabled and Deleted.
CHAPTER 17: Tin Lid Gets It
CHAPTER 18: Riding the Leopard
CHAPTER 19: Not So Softly Nail
CHAPTER 20: The Hyenas are Coming
CHAPTER 21: Angel Blood, Leopard Blood
CHAPTER 22: Stupid Little Noddies
CHAPTER 23: Doing Gently Gently
CHAPTER 24: Blackmail
CHAPTER 25: No More Lies, Little Brother
CHAPTER 26: The Sky Boat
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