by C. J. Skuse
C.J. SKUSE is the author of the YA novels PRETTY BAD THINGS, ROCKOHOLIC and DEAD ROMANTIC. She was born in 1980 in Weston-super-Mare, England. She has First Class degrees in Creative Writing and Writing for Children and, aside from writing novels, lectures in Writing for Children at Bath Spa University where she is planning to do her PhD. THE DEVIANTS is her fifth novel.
For my Auntie Margaret and Uncle Roy Snead,
Thank you for the days, those sacred days you gave me.
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
1. A Day at the Beach
2. Moonlight Adventure Saturday, 1 August
3. Thumping Good Fun
4. The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat
5. An Old Friend One month earlier – 9 July
6. An Adventure Beckons
7. Back at Whitehouse Farm
8. Jolly Good Fun
9. A Little Upset
10. A Horrid Shock
11. A Smashing Time and a Piece of Advice
12. Ella Thinks Up a Plan
13. Up To Mischief Tuesday, 4 August
14. A Shock for Max
15. A Rather Unpleasant Meeting
16. Junior Springs a Surprise!
17. Five Go Adventuring
18. Curious Discoveries
19. A Rather Splendid Party Friday night, 21st August
20. A Mystery is Solved
21. Mostly About Ella
22. Back to the Island
23. A Nasty Surprise
24. Discoveries at the Witch’s Pool
25. Several Things Happen
26. One Goes Down to the Sea
27. A Shock for All
28. Away on Their Own
29. Five Have a Wonderful Time
Acknowledgments
Copyright
1
A Day at the Beach
I’m sitting beside the café window when I see the man running up the beach and I instantly know it’s washed ashore. The sand flicks up behind him as he sprints. And he’s screaming.
His face is alive with fear. He’s running so hard to get away from it, what he’s found. In those brief moments, I am the only person in the café to see him. But, within seconds, the quiet crumbles into chaos.
‘Somebody! Help!’
‘What’s he saying?’
‘Did he say a body?’
Someone calls my name, but I don’t turn around. I keep walking, out of the café, into the morning air, along the Esplanade, down the steps and onto the wet sand, like the sea is a magnet and I am metal.
People overtake me. Someone shouts, ‘Call the police.’ Thudding footsteps, snatches of breath. The sand’s covered in a billion worm hills and tiny white shells. A group of crows squawks nearby. They’re all clustered around an object, pecking at it.
‘Let the police handle it.’
‘Don’t look. Don’t look.’
I keep walking towards the mound, until I can see for myself what the man was running from. Until I can see for myself what I have done.
‘Tell me everything. Start with what was happening between you and Max.’
2
Moonlight Adventure
Saturday, 1 August
It’s like those really old paintings you see in art galleries – if you look at them from a distance, they’re beautiful. A quick glance, it’s a masterpiece. But as you get closer, you start to see all the cracks. We were a masterpiece, me and Max. We’d known each other for ever. We had the same taste in music. We finished each other’s sentences. We ate Carte d’Or watching Botched Up Bodies and he’d pretend not to wince. We watched romantic comedies and he’d pretend not to cry. And he had these marvellous arms and always wore sleeveless hoodies in summer.
But close up, there were problems. And these problems were becoming harder to ignore. I was snipping at him more and he took nothing seriously.
He could still impress me though. This one night, he arranged a big surprise for me at the garden centre. I had no idea what the occasion was.
‘You don’t remember, do you?’
There had to be a good reason why he’d gone to so much trouble. Not only had he stolen Neil’s keys and broken us in after hours, he’d set up a table in the café, with lit candles, buttered teacakes and two glasses of milkshake. It looked like something from a honeymoon brochure, with all the fairy lights strung up in the palm trees and the white cloth on the table. Essentially, though, we were still in a garden centre. I’d worn an actual dress and shaved my actual legs to be taken to a place that sold worm poo and weed killer.
‘Of course I remember,’ I lied. ‘This is nice. Thanks.’
He folded his arms. ‘I could get quite offended, you know.’
‘What?’
‘You don’t have a Scooby, do you?’
‘Ummmm, well… I’m pretty sure it’s not my birthday. And you’ve just had your birthday, so that must mean that it’s…’ I scanned my brain for something, anything. What did 1 August mean? But I had nothing. Max looked so disappointed it was almost painful.
And then I got it. It was the synthetic strawberry smell of the shakes that did it.
Our first proper date, five years ago, when I was twelve and he was nearly thirteen and we realised we liked each other more than as the best friends we’d been since primary school. It had been here, in the café, supervised by our mums on another table. We’d had teacakes and strawberry milkshakes, and Max paid for it with his own money from his Pokemon wallet, even though his dad owned the store. Then we had our first proper kiss, inside one of the sheds, while the mums went to look at geraniums. On the way out, Max had held my hand.
My whole body flashed over with goosebumps. ‘Oh God. I’m so sorry!’
‘It’s all right.’ He shrugged. ‘I wanted to do something without my parents or your dad being around. Something for us.’ He pulled out a chair for me and sat down opposite. ‘So I thought we could come here when no one else was around, hang out and have teacakes and milkshakes, just like then. Well, I could, anyway.’
‘What do you mean?’
Like a sadistic magician, Max whipped away my buttery teacake and creamy shake, replacing them with a bowl of freshly chopped fruit and an ice-cold bottle of Evian.
‘I figured you’d be on low cal till breakfast. There’s no orange or lemon, don’t worry.’
I smiled, but my heart sank. My summer training plan meant I was on a strict low-carb low-fat diet. ‘Oh, goodie.’ It was sweet that he’d remembered to leave out the citrus, though. Only Max would know to do that.
‘Happy anniversary, Ella Bella Boodles,’ he said, leaning across to kiss me.
‘Happy anniversary, Max,’ I said.
We tucked in by the light of a salted caramel Yankee Candle. The fruit was freezing, and burst against my sensitive teeth like I was crushing gemstones. It was weird, being there when no one else was around. Normally when me and Max met for lunch there’d be loads of shuffling grannies with walking sticks, or kids on the next table having food fights or pasting stickers all over the undersides of their chairs. Tonight, but for the trickle of a water feature somewhere, the place was silent.
Outside, the night had coloured everything dangerous. Through the large glass windows, the looming mass of Brynstan Hill was just visible. They called our town Volcano Town. Apparently, in Old English, Brynstan meant ‘brimstone’ – that biblical ‘hell hath no fury’ stuff. That was the only exciting thing about this little place – the fact that the huge green hill we lived around could spew out molten lava any old time, and blow all the sheep and Iron Age remains to bits. At Easter they put three crosses on it. In November, they held a huge bonfire on the top with firew
orks – from afar, it looked like an eruption. I liked the night. It was the only time of day I didn’t have to stare at the bloody thing.
‘Did I tell you Dad’s bought a new car?’ said Max, around a gobful of teacake.
I winced as I bit down on a freezing chunk of melon. ‘Another one?’
‘Limited edition Porsche 911 Turbo S. Over a hundred and forty grand. Grey leather seats.’
‘Grim.’
‘No, it’s sweet. The ride on it is unbelievable. Top speed’s, like, two hundred miles an hour. Nought to sixty in three seconds. It’s, like, one of the fastest cars in the world.’
‘Like one of the fastest or actually one of the fastest?’
‘One of the fastest,’ he said, his face alive with joy.
I chomped down on an apple chunk. ‘Don’t say “like” then. If it’s one of the fastest, say it’s one of the fastest.’
‘All right, all right, easy, Tiger.’
‘What’s the point of a car that fast anyway? Can’t drive it anywhere at that speed. It’s ridic.’
‘Why are you so snippy?’
‘I’m not snippy. It winds me up, that’s all. Your dad spends money like it’s going out of fashion, and my dad reuses tin foil.’
I hadn’t realised how much my anger levels had risen in the last five minutes. Max was always the one who pointed out my potential bitchplosions; like a scientist keeping an eye on the heat levels inside the crater. But Neil – his dad – always had that effect on me. Everywhere he went in the town he was treated like royalty, all blinding smiles and two-handed handshakes, but to me he was a show-off who stank of aftershave and wore too much gold.
‘Dad’s earned it, Ells. You can’t say he hasn’t.’
‘How many new cars is that this year?’
‘Only three,’ he said. ‘It’s being delivered from Germany in a couple of weeks. Oh yeah, Mum asked me to ask you to come over for lunch tomorrow.’
‘Bit late notice, isn’t it?’
‘You haven’t got anything on, have you?’
‘Yes, I have. Training.’
‘You don’t train at weekends.’
‘Summer regime.’
‘What about next Sunday then?’
‘I can’t, Max. I can’t mess Pete about.’
He closed up. I could tell he was pissed.
‘Maybe the weekend after next?’ I suggested, more to cheer him up than anything.
‘Yeah, yeah. I won’t hold my breath. It’s not haunted, you know. I know you said it freaks you out, but Jess isn’t there, I promise.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’ I felt bad about lying to him about that.
‘I wish she did haunt it,’ he said, a pink line of milkshake framing his top lip.
‘Funny thing to wish,’ I said, still feeling awful. I reached out to thumb away the mark from his mouth.
‘I know. Sometimes you just need someone to talk to who’s not your parents, don’t you? Like a big sister.’
I reached out to him and pulled his hand towards me. I held it between both mine. ‘You can always talk to me.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ he said, with a smile. ‘So, you’ll come for lunch next Sunday then?’
I sank back in my chair. ‘Your mum always cooks everything in tons of lard.’
‘You can just have the veg, can’t you?’
‘Oh, cheers. I’d rather just be with you anyway, not all your family.’
‘It’s not all my family. It’s just my aunts and uncles. And we don’t have to stay with the olds all afternoon, do we? We can go into town, or across to the island, or something?’
That gave me actual chills, despite the warmth of the restaurant. ‘No, not the island.’
‘We could hire a boat like we used to.’
‘I don’t want to hire a boat like we used to.’
‘All right, all right.’ He threw down his half-eaten teacake and sat back.
‘There’s just no point, is there? There’s nothing to see. Just trees and a few old rocks.’
‘It doesn’t matter, does it? We can just go there for some alone time. We used to spend whole days there when we were kids.’
‘Yeah, well. We’re not kids any more, are we?’ Max’s face was still doing that scrunched-up thing. ‘I’ll come over for lunch soon, I promise.’
‘How about when the new car’s there? That weekend, yeah? Please? I’ll tell Mum to do your potatoes in Fry Light. She won’t mind.’
‘OK. I’ll change my training schedule that weekend.’
His face lightened at once, but I could feel my forearms heating up – my rash was coming on. It was always worse in summer. He reached across the table for my hand and just held on to it for the longest time. As my stress levels dropped, my body cooled, with a comforting sweep of goosebumps.
‘Anyway,’ he said, fiddling with something under the table and pulling out a small turquoise box and a large white envelope. ‘This is for you. Just to say I love you to Pluto and back.’ He handed them to me.
I couldn’t hold back my smile. ‘Not the Moon?’
‘Pluto’s further away, innit?’ He stuffed the second half of his teacake in his mouth and grinned crumbily at me.
I set down the envelope and opened the box. Inside, on a crushed velvet bed, was a silver chain with a solid silver teddy pendant in the middle. ‘Oh, it’s gorgeous.’
‘Cos I gave you a teddy bear on our first date.’ He took the necklace from the box, coming round to my side of the table. The original bear was still on the shelf above my bed – a little koala he’d brought back from Australia after one of his many holidays.
I felt the cold chain graze my neck, and the even colder metal of the teddy bear slide and come to rest at the base of my throat. Max did up the clasp. I looked down to see it and moved the teddy’s little arms and legs. The box said ‘Tiffany’.
‘This looks expensive, Max.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Your dad gave you a loan, didn’t he?’ I said, unable to mask my disappointment.
‘Well, yeah – but when I start here next month, I can pay him back. It’s cool.’
Max was such a sponger where Neil was concerned. He never had to work for anything. He’d coasted through his GCSEs because Neil said he could just work for him at the garden centre. He was only doing A levels because I nagged him to. My dad said he could be so much more if he ‘applied himself’. The thing was, even when Max didn’t apply himself he got grades most kids would kill for. It was so annoying.
‘So it’s not actually from you, it’s from your dad, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Same as your driving lessons, your car, our Glastonbury tickets…’
‘Do you like it?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said, touching the teddy bear – a mistake, as he spotted my scabby knuckles.
‘Christ, what happened to your hands?’
I toyed with telling him the truth, but then thought better of it. ‘I fell over on the track a few days ago.’
‘How did you manage to fall on the backs of your hands?’ He lifted up my other one and looked at it, gently tracing his fingertips over the scabs. ‘This one’s even worse.’
‘I tripped. I think my new spikes are too big.’ I flexed my fingers – the deep ache was still there, but if I didn’t concentrate on it too much, it didn’t matter. Quickly, I diverted his attention back to the necklace. ‘This is beautiful. Thank you.’
I opened the envelope. Inside was an oversized card, covered in pictures of us. He must have spent ages sticking them down, shaking on glitter. There were pictures of us on swings. Our school Nativity, with me as Mary, with a cushion up my dress and Max as the innkeeper, with a scribbly black beard. Selfies in Starbucks. Selfies outside the arena in Cardiff waiting to see The Regulators. Selfies on bonfire night in woolly hats and scarves. Snuggly Duddlies in our Christmas onesies. There was one photo he hadn’t cropped – it was a day we’d spent on the island with some other kids we used to hang around with – Zane, Cor
ey and Fallon. We all had wet hair and chocolate or jam around our mouths, and we were all laughing.
‘God, look at us,’ I said. My throat grew sore.
‘Yeah. I didn’t want to cut that one up,’ said Max. ‘I love that picture.’
‘Me too,’ I said, clearing my throat. I never saw them any more. Even though we’d all gone to the same school, walked the same streets, breathed the same salty air, we were virtual strangers now. Zane had turned out to be the world’s biggest bully, we hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Fallon since the funeral, and though Corey still lived just down the road from me, we rarely spoke any more. Weird, wasn’t it? One day spending every second of the holidays together, the next barely acknowledging each other’s existence.
I opened the card. The message inside read: To my Ella Bella Boodles, who owns my heart and every beat in it. Love you always and 4 ever Maxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
I looked at the front again. At the picture of us all as kids. Me, Max, Zane, Fallon and Corey. ‘Do you remember going to the town carnival? Us all sitting in Zane’s mum’s hairdresser’s window, eating tomato soup?’
‘Yeah, I do.’
‘And watching the fireworks on the hill on Bonfire Night. And that time we went to the island and Corey got stuck up the tree and Zane had to talk him down. God, we’d spend whole days out there in the summer, wouldn’t we? Do you remember camping out?’
‘Ella…’
I’d have given anything for just five minutes back inside that photograph. Before the island had become this evil cancerous lump sticking out of the sea that I could barely look at. It used to be called Grebe Island. Supposedly formed thousands of years ago from a huge blast of debris the volcano spewed out. Another local legend says there’s precious stones buried there. When the council put it up for auction, Max told Neil about the stones and the next thing I knew, he’d bought it and renamed it Ella’s Island. The council and a few birdwatchers were up in arms about that. I hadn’t been back there for years.
Max was looking at me, all glassy-eyed and cheesy smiley.
‘What?’ I said, a mouthful of freezing-cold fruit.
‘I really love you, Estella Grace Newhall.’