by Gwyneth Rees
For Eliza and Lottie
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
My name is Emma, and I live with my perfectly ordinary mum Marsha, my perfectly ordinary dad Jim and my six-year-old sister Saffie.
Saffie and I both look ordinary enough – though if you met us you probably wouldn’t guess that we’re sisters. I have straight dark brown hair with brown eyes, whereas Saffie has extremely curly reddish-brown hair and blue eyes. I’m tall for my age, whereas Saffie is short for hers. I’m quite shy with people I don’t know very well, whereas Saffie will chatter away to anyone.
But despite being different in many ways, we do have one very important thing in common . . .
You see we both have the same superpower!
It’s not that Saffie and I can fly, or make ourselves invisible, or read minds, or make our bodies incredibly elastic or anything amazing like that. But what we can do is make all sorts of non-living objects come to life – which Mum says is called animation. This weird gift runs through my mum’s side of the family but it always skips a generation, which is why it missed out Mum and jumped straight from Granny to us.
So now you’re probably thinking, Wow! Having a superpower must be really cool! Well, it is in lots of ways . . . I mean, Saffie and I can do loads of extraordinary things that our friends can’t. For instance, Saffie can make her dolls really talk to her – not just pretend talking. And I can make my pencils dance all over the desk if I get bored while I’m doing my homework. And we can have lots of fun with all Granny’s garden gnomes!
But it isn’t all fun and games. Dad is totally freaked out by our ‘unnatural ability’, as he calls it. It gets a bit irritating after a while, the way he just can’t seem to get used to the idea. I mean, he still nearly jumps out of his skin every time one of his shoes says hello to him when he goes to put it on. And then there’s Mum, who you’d think would be pretty cool about the whole thing, wouldn’t you? After all, she grew up in a house where the vacuum cleaner did the cleaning all on its own, the washing always hung itself out on the line to dry, and her toothbrush used to come and find her if she forgot to brush her teeth. But Mum says she hated having to live side by side with all those crazy objects that Granny had brought alive, especially as she had no control over them herself.
So anyway, Mum is just as stressed about our special powers as Dad is, and not just because she doesn’t want to have to share her house all over again with a bunch of dancing brooms and out-of-control cutlery. She’s also scared because she says that some people out there might want to take Saffie and me away and do lots of clever scientific tests on us if they find out about our powers.
Granny is always telling Mum to stop worrying so much. ‘After all, nobody has turned them over to the local science laboratory yet, have they? And it isn’t as if your neighbours haven’t already witnessed a few odd things . . .’
Mum had to admit that Granny was right. You see, although Saffie and I are absolutely not allowed to use our superpowers outside the house, there are times when it just sort of happens – especially when Saffie is upset about something.
But then something changed that meant even Granny had to agree that we totally should start worrying . . .
It was a Saturday at the start of the summer holidays when our new next-door neighbours moved in.
That afternoon Mum sat Saffie and me down together and spoke to us very solemnly. ‘I want you two to be very careful around our new neighbours. We don’t know what they’re like, and remember . . . when it comes to your special ability, we can’t trust anybody.’
‘Yes, Mum . . . I know . . .’ I said with a yawn, because, like I said before, our mother stresses all the time about other people finding out about us.
Saffie looked like she was hardly even listening. Her best friend, Rosie, had lived next door, and Saffie was so upset and cross about her moving away that she’d refused to say a proper goodbye or to stand outside and wave nicely with Mum and me as they’d driven off.
As soon as Mum had finished talking to us my sister muttered, ‘Don’t care about the new neighbours!’ in a silly baby voice. Then she stomped upstairs and shut herself in her bedroom, where she started to play a very angry game with her dolls. It sounded as if they were calling each other names and throwing things at each other. It’s weird, but it seems that when Saffie’s in a bad mood everything she animates is in a bad mood too.
‘Oh dear. I suppose we’d better check nothing’s getting damaged up there,’ Mum said with a sigh. I knew before she even said it what was coming next. ‘You go, Emma. You’re always so good with the dolls. If I go up there I’ll lose my temper with them and it will only make things worse.’
I let out a big sigh too and put on my grumpiest face. ‘Oh, Mum, do I have to?’
Mum got firm with me then and called me by my proper name, which I hate. ‘Yes, Emmeline, you do. As I’ve told you many times before you are the best equipped to deal with your sister when she gets like this. I wish that wasn’t the case, but it is. So please just go up there and see what you can do! And don’t let that red-haired rag doll get the better of you – she’s always the troublemaker!’
I trudged up the stairs, feeling cross.
‘Serafina, what are you doing?’ I demanded angrily as I pushed open her bedroom door. If Mum was going to call me by my proper name then I didn’t see why I shouldn’t call Saffie by hers. (Too late I remembered that lately my sister had started to absolutely love her name because she thinks it makes her sound like a very exotic princess.)
My sister didn’t reply.
Inside her bedroom her two favourite dolls, Dorothy and Elvira, were squabbling with each other. Dorothy is a very cheeky-looking rag doll with brown freckles and long red woollen hair, and Elvira is an old hand-me-down dolly that was our mum’s when she was a girl. Elvira has a soft lumpy body and a delicate china head, and Mum is always really protective of her. If you ask me, that’s why Mum is so bad at handling any fights between Saffie’s dolls, because she always takes Elvira’s side no matter what.
Elvira was the first object Saffie ever brought to life after Granny discovered a box of Mum’s old toys in the loft when we were staying with her one time. Mum actually cried when Elvira stood up and smiled at her, partly because it was the first time Saffie had used her gift and partly because Mum suddenly remembered how much she had loved it when Granny had brought Elvira to life for her as a child. (She said she’d almost forgotten that there had been some good things about having a mum with a superpower.)
In Saffie’s bedroom the floor around the two dolls was littered with smaller toys that had clearly been used as missiles. An entire dollies’ tea-set was scattered about the room and there were books everywhere.
‘I don’t care if I never see you again, Miss Straw-for-Brains!’ snapped Elvira rudely.
‘My brains are made from the best quality stuffing!’ Dorothy defended herself. ‘And at least my head isn’t hollow like yours. If your head ever gets cracked then we’ll all be able to look inside and see that you haven’t got any kind of brain at all!’
‘Elvira! Dorothy!’ I said sternly, but they ignored me.
Saffie was lying on her bed with a face like thunder. ‘Go away!’ she grunted at me without taking her eyes off the dolls.
I decided to try a different approach.
I chose the teddy bear that was sitting on Saffie’s window ledge. His name is Howard and he’s a sensible brown bear dressed in red dungarees and a little bow tie. Toys tend to have the
ir own personalities (as well as being influenced by whoever brings them to life), and the more a toy gets animated then the stronger its personality becomes.
Howard used to be mine, which Mum says is the reason he’s so level-headed. He’s always sensible – even when Saffie threatens to de-animate him if he doesn’t let his hair down. In fact, once, when Saffie brought him to life and gave him some rice to throw down at Dad (who was mowing the lawn), he told her she was very silly and actually refused to do it.
I knew he was the perfect choice for what I had in mind.
This is the bit that’s difficult to describe – what it actually feels like when you make something come alive. All I can say is that it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t feel unnatural, and when I was little I couldn’t understand why everyone else couldn’t do it too. It’s really just a case of looking at an object and then sort of mentally zapping it into life. Of course the zapping is the bit that’s difficult to describe. Granny says it uses a very special part of our brains, a part that just doesn’t function that way in normal humans. (Dad calls it the wacky part, though not in front of Granny.)
As I focused really hard on Saffie’s teddy I felt that funny ‘ping’ inside my head, and the next moment he was folding his arms together and glaring severely at both dolls. ‘Cut it out, both of you!’ he growled in a voice that made them jump. He stayed standing on the window ledge as he addressed Saffie sternly. ‘Now just you listen to me, young lady . . . We all know how upset you are about Rosie moving away, but she’s only moved to the other side of town. You’ll still be able to see her.’
Saffie looked at me rather than her teddy as she replied, ‘But we won’t be able to visit each other without a grown-up and we won’t be able to play in our special den any more.’ She and Rosie had converted the old garden shed in Rosie’s garden into a den, and they used to spend hours playing there together.
I did feel sorry for her then because I knew how much she loved that den.
‘Maybe the new family will have children too,’ I said in an attempt to cheer her up. Rosie’s mum hadn’t known if they did or not – in fact she’d hardly known anything at all about the people who were buying her house. Dad says that’s quite unusual. (Dad is an estate agent and he’d been a bit miffed that Rosie’s parents hadn’t asked him to sell their house so that he could personally vet our new neighbours.)
‘I don’t care if they do have children,’ Saffie declared huffily.
‘Well, you should. They might let you play in their shed with them if you ask them nicely.’
‘It’s not up to them,’ my sister said angrily. ‘That shed is Rosie’s and mine. It’s our secret den and no one else is allowed inside unless we say so.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I said, starting to get impatient. ‘Listen. The new people are moving in this afternoon. I’m going round to say hello to them later with Mum. Why don’t you come too?’
But my little sister just narrowed her eyes and stubbornly shook her head. She can be very, very stubborn when she wants to be. ‘I told Rosie I didn’t want her to move away,’ she declared, at which point Elvira lunged at Dorothy and gave her long woolly hair a sharp tug.
Dorothy yelped but immediately recovered enough to grab a teacup to hurl at Elvira, who had climbed on to Saffie’s beanbag chair, then up on to the window ledge to hide behind Howard. Just as Dorothy hurled the cup at her, Howard ducked and the cup hit Elvira smack in the face. Elvira started wailing and I rushed over to the window ledge to pick her up before Mum heard.
That’s when I looked out of the window and spotted a boy my own age in the neighbouring garden, staring up at us. And judging by the look of disbelief on his face I was pretty sure he’d seen everything.
I quickly leaned out of the window and called down to him, realizing he must be our new neighbour. ‘Hi! We were just having a . . . a . . .’
Lying to protect Saffie or myself is something Mum has given me permission to do and usually I’m pretty good at it. But right then I couldn’t think of anything. My mind seemed to have gone blank.
‘. . . puppet show!’ Saffie rescued me as she came over to see who I was talking to.
‘Pretty crazy puppet show if you ask me!’ the boy called back, grinning. ‘Still . . . girls are always playing babyish pretend games with their dolls.’
We watched the boy – who was blond and skinny – disappear round the side of his house.
Saffie and I immediately scuttled across to our parents’ room, which faces the street. Out of the window we saw the boy emerge from the side path, dodge past the bins, which Rosie’s family had left out the front, and walk over to a car that was parked outside. The car hadn’t been there the last time I’d looked.
The boy opened the back passenger door and took out a Spiderman rucksack, poking out of the top of which was a scruffy-looking toy bear.
I turned to look at my sister, who seemed to be concentrating very hard as she gazed in the direction of the boy and his bear. ‘Saffie . . .’ I began tensely. ‘You’re not trying to—’
I broke off abruptly as the teddy bear suddenly gave his head a little shake, then wriggled out of the rucksack and leaped to the ground without the boy even noticing.
‘Saffie, no!’ I scolded her. But the bear was already marching across the drive, swinging its stumpy paws and heading for the bins.
‘He shouldn’t have called us babyish,’ Saffie said with a grin as we watched the bear climb inside.
Not long after that a huge removal van arrived and Saffie and I sat at the living-room window watching it being unloaded. We also got a quick glimpse of a couple who looked around the same age as our mum and dad, but we didn’t see the boy again. I knew I had to do something about that teddy bear, but as the bin men weren’t due until Tuesday – and it was only Saturday – I reckoned I had plenty of time.
Mum seemed to have temporarily lost interest in our new neighbours because she and Dad were too busy arguing about Granny. Dad always creates a huge fuss whenever Mum wants to invite Granny to stay. Dad says that not only is Granny the most annoying mother-in-law anyone ever had, but it’s all her fault that Saffie and I have turned out to have these weird powers.
‘That’s just not fair, Jim,’ Mum is always saying – and was saying again now. ‘It’s not her fault that one of her ancestors got accidently struck by lightning and had their DNA altered, is it?’
Dad just rolled his eyes as if he thought the story that’s been handed down in our family about how our ‘gift’ originated was highly unlikely in any case.
Mum sighed. ‘Jim, she has to come and stay with us. She’s the only one who can teach Saffie how to control her power so that she can start school.’ (Mum was homeschooling Saffie, which she said had made her hair start to go grey.)
‘Why can’t Emma teach her? She doesn’t have any problems at school, does she?’
‘Jim, this isn’t a job for a nine-year-old! And anyway, Emma only learned to control her power because my mother came and taught her.’
‘Marsha, I do not want your mother coming here this summer . . . I’m telling you, if I have to listen to one more piece of “motherly” advice, or have you complaining one more time after she’s upset you, or sit through yet another story about her freaky garden gnomes . . .’
‘Granny’s garden gnomes aren’t freaky,’ Saffie muttered without turning round – which just goes to show that Mum’s right when she says that my sister is quite often listening even when you think she’s not.
‘Listen, Jim, it’s true she’s not an easy person to have as a house guest, but we need her help, and not just because I want Saffie to go to school. We’ve been lucky until now having wonderful loyal friends living next door, but now we have complete strangers moving in. What if they see Saffie in action? I can’t handle her on my own any longer, Jim. Yesterday in the supermarket there was this big cardboard advert of a cow beside the dairy counter and Saffie actually made it start mooing. The old lady behind us nearly had a he
art attack!’
Saffie was obviously listening to that too, because she started sniggering.
‘Look, Saffie!’ I gasped, pointing to a large trampoline that was being carried round the side of our neighbours’ house by the two removal men. ‘Rosie didn’t have one of those, did she?’
Saffie pressed her nose against the glass as Mum and Dad came over to see what I was talking about. Just then the man and woman we had spotted earlier came out of their new house and went to unload some stuff from the back of their car. The man pulled out an open cardboard box containing what looked like lots of racks of glass test tubes, and the woman took out a very large and expensive-looking microscope, which she carried into the house as carefully as if it was a newborn baby.
‘Don’t panic, Marsha,’ Dad said, because he knows the way our mother’s mind works. ‘This doesn’t mean they’re here to spy on us on behalf of some secret government science department.’
Mum gave a hollow laugh and I could tell that she didn’t find his joke funny at all.
No one was talking much as we sat down at the table for dinner that evening. Dad was serving out the shepherd’s pie, Mum was dishing out the vegetables and I was helping by fetching everyone a glass of water.
‘I don’t like broccoli,’ Saffie complained in her whiny voice as Mum spooned some on to my sister’s plate.
‘You ate it at Rosie’s house the other day,’ our mother said.
‘Yes, but Rosie’s mum’s broccoli tastes nicer than yours!’
‘Don’t be silly, broccoli is broccoli,’ Mum told her firmly.
‘Though it does depend a bit on how limp you like it,’ Dad teased. (When Dad cooks our veggies they’re always crisp, whereas Mum likes them a lot softer.)
Just as Mum was giving Dad a glare I noticed that something strange was happening to the broccoli on my little sister’s plate. It certainly couldn’t be described as limp. The three green stalks on her plate were standing on end and dancing around her blob of mashed potato shouting, ‘Please don’t eat us, please don’t eat us!’