ILLUSTRATED BY CYNTHIA MARTIN
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Marci Peschke
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Raintree is an imprint of Capstone Global Library Limited, a company incorporated in England and Wales having its registered office at 7 Pilgrim Street, London, EC4V 6LB – Registered company number: 6695582
“Raintree” is a registered trademark of Pearson Education Limited, under licence to Capstone Global Library Limited
Text © Stone Arch Books, 2008
First published in United Kingdom by Capstone Global Library in 2010 The moral rights of the proprietor have been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS (www.cla.co.uk). Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission should be addressed to the publisher.
Edited in the UK by Laura Knowles
Art Director: Heather Kindseth
Graphic Designer: Kay Fraser
Originated by Captone Global Library Ltd
Photo Credits
Karon Dubke, cover
ISBN 978 1 40621 582 3 (hardback)
14 13 12 11 10
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN 978 1 406215 97 7 (paperback)
14 13 12 11 10
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN 978 1 406254 68 6 (eBook)
14 13 12 11 10
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Brezenoff, Steven.
Alley of shadows. — (School mysteries)
813.6-dc22
A full catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Prologue
The Girl in Room 424
Chapter 1
Brothers
Chapter 2
The Girl in the Alley
Chapter 3
Sunday Morning
Chapter 4
Church Lunch
Chapter 5
Laughter
Chapter 6
The Alley
Chapter 7
Chase
Chapter 8
The Youth Centre
Chapter 9
Not Dreaming
Chapter 10
There’s No Girl Here
Chapter 11
Saved!
Chapter 12
Heroes
Chapter 13
The Hospital
Epilogue
River City
- PROLOGUE -
THE GIRL IN
ROOM 424
A thirteen-year-old girl lay unconscious in room 424 of River City General Hospital.
She had been in a coma since the ambulance workers brought her in several nights earlier.
There was always at least one visitor at her bedside.
Tonight was no different.
Tonight, her parents stood nearby and gazed down at their daughter.
She was wearing pink cartoon pyjamas and her eye was badly bruised.
The girl did not know they were there.
The girl did not even know where she was.
But somewhere in the back of her mind, while she lay unconscious, the girl heard the adults around her talking.
“She’s going to be okay, Mrs Duran,” said a voice.
“I just hope she wakes up,” said her mother.
“How will the church manage without her?” asked a man’s voice.
“I don’t know,” said another voice. “The youth centre really needs the help.”
“I don’t care about any of that,” her mother said softly. “I just want her to open her eyes again.”
The girl just lay there, unable to open her eyes, unable to move.
Deep in the back of her mind, the girl heard the voices.
They sound so sad, the girl thought. I wish I could help them.
Then she wished.
She wished hard.
BROTHERS
“Ow!” sixteen-year-old Forrest Summers shouted. “Nice one, Ben!”
Forrest and his younger brother, Ben, who was fourteen years old, were supposed to be carrying a big brown leather sofa into their new block of flats in River City.
They never made it to the first set of stairs.
Ben threw his hands up. “It wasn’t my fault, Dad!”
“You dropped it on my foot!” Forrest yelled.
Mr Summers put down the heavy cardboard box he’d been carrying.
He walked between the brothers and asked, “Forrest, did you really think Benny would be able to carry that sofa with you? You should have waited for me.”
“I can carry it!” Ben protested. “Forrest just twisted it wrong at the corner.”
“That’s enough,” said Dad. “You take this box of dishes, Ben. Forrest, I’ll help you with the sofa.”
The boys and their father had been dragging things up the stairs all morning.
The climb to their new flat was five flights of stairs. Ben was sweating by the time he put the box of dishes in their new kitchen.
As he walked back down the stairs to get another box, he muttered to himself, “I wish we could have stayed in Montville.”
His dad came down the steps behind him. “Now, Ben,” Dad said, “we’ve been over this. My new job means we have to live here, in River City.”
“Yeah,” added Forrest, running down the stairs. “Stop whining. It’s going to be more fun in the city anyway! Old Montville was boring-ville!”
Dad and Forrest passed Ben on the second floor landing and carried on down to the van. Ben lagged behind.
“I don’t think it’ll be more fun,” Ben said to himself. “I already miss my friends from back home.”
“Well, you’ll make more friends,” said a tiny voice from beside him.
Ben spun around.
Next to him was a girl about his age.
She had long black hair in a ponytail, and she was wearing shorts and a T-shirt that said “River City Youth Centre.”
A skipping rope dangled from the girl’s hand, and she was smiling at Ben.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” Ben replied. He was blushing a little. He hoped she couldn’t tell. “Do you live in the building?” he asked.
“No. Nearby,” the girl said. “My name is Kaya.”
“My name’s Ben. We’re moving in because my dad got a new job,” Ben said.
“This is a nice building,” Kaya replied. She headed down the stairs. “You’ll like it. See you around, Ben!” she called.
Ben followed her downstairs to the main door.
But by the time he got outside, he only saw his father and brother unloading their rented van.
“Here you go, Benny,” Forrest said, handing Ben another box to carry upstairs.
“Did you see a girl out here?” asked Ben.
“A girl?” Forrest asked, raising his eyebrows.
Ben ignored Forrest’s eyebrows. “She came out of our building,” Ben said. “She was holding a skipping rope. I was just talking to her on the stairs.”
“Oh yeah?” said Forrest with a smile. “Hey, Dad! Ben has a girlfriend already!”
“Shut up!” Ben yelled.
Forrest laughed. “So, do you still miss Montville, Romeo?” he said with a chuckle. “You never had a girlfriend b
ack home.”
Forrest lightly punched his little brother in the shoulder.
“Okay, guys, that’s enough,” ordered Dad. “Let’s get back to work.”
Ben moved close to his brother and whispered, “She’s not my girlfriend.”
Then Ben quickly looked up and down the street. No sign of Kaya anywhere.
“Whoever she is,” thought Ben, “She’s pretty fast.”
THE GIRL IN THE
ALLEY
That night for dinner, Dad brought home takeaway burgers and chips.
“I don’t know about you boys, but after that hard work today, I’m starving,” he said. He set down the bag of food on the kitchen table, and put a burger on each plate. “Chips are in the bag,” he said. He grabbed his burger and took a big bite.
Forrest sighed with happiness. “I could eat ten of these.”
“Me too,” said Ben, taking a handful of chips and shoving them into his mouth.
“Benny’s a big man, Dad,” Forrest said. “He could eat ten burgers, and he’s got himself a girlfriend.”
Ben threw a chip at his brother’s head.
“Forrest, stop picking on your brother,” Dad said. He winked at Ben. “Just because he’s already had more luck with the girls than you in the new neighbourhood is no reason to be jealous!”
Ben laughed, but Forrest didn’t find it so funny. “Oh, ha ha, you two are a riot,” Forrest said, getting up to grab a drink from the fridge.
“All right,” Dad said after another chuckle. “Let’s clean this up and get some sleep. It’s been a long day, and we’ll need to get up pretty early for church tomorrow.”
*
That night, Ben collapsed onto his bed. He was worn out. His muscles ached. But he just couldn’t get to sleep. He was too nervous about being in a new city. He’d have to make new friends and start at a new school in the autumn.
Ben had plenty of friends back home in Montville.
“Can’t call it home anymore, though,” he thought.
Ben had known those friends all his life. He didn’t even remember meeting them. It was more like they were just always his friends.
“I’ll never get to sleep,” he said to himself, throwing off his blanket.
He got out of bed and walked over to the window. The view from his new window wasn’t very nice. It was nothing like the view from his old room in Montville.
He closed his eyes and pictured the old tyre swing hanging from the big oak tree.
A creek lay beyond the tree, with an old wooden bridge crossing it. It was a very old bridge. Ben always thought it would fall apart whenever he stepped on it, but he loved it.
Ben wished he were back in Montville.
Maybe, if I wish hard enough, he thought.
He could almost smell the old lilac tree that grew next to his old bedroom window.
He could almost hear the whack of a bat as someone played baseball at the Montville Park. He could almost hear the neighbour’s cat meowing in their back garden.
Now, Ben opened his eyes. Montville was a dream, far away in the night.
Instead, there was a dirty, old brick building next door. All the windows were dark.
Ben wondered if everyone in the city besides him was asleep.
Between Ben’s block of flats and the dirty one next door was an alley.
Overflowing dustbins, torn bin liners, stray cats, and cardboard boxes littered the alley.
Suddenly, Ben heard a loud crash from below.
He looked down and saw that a dustbin had fallen over and hit the brick wall across the alley. At first he thought a cat must have jumped and knocked the can over.
After a few seconds, Ben could hear a person moving around in the alley below.
He leaned out the window and squinted down at the alley.
He couldn’t see anyone.
A flickering streetlight shone into the alley, but it was still very dark.
Even so, staring past the railings of their fire escape, Ben could make out a girl playing in the alley.
It was Kaya, the girl he’d met on the stairs. The girl with the skipping rope.
“What is she doing out so late? And why’s she playing in a dirty alley?” Ben asked himself.
He could hear laughing. He also heard the thumping of her feet each time they struck the hard ground.
Then he called down to the alley, “Hey! Kaya!”
The girl stopped jumping and looked up. Suddenly she wasn’t smiling anymore. The streetlight still flickered, and made crooked shadows across her face.
She waved to him, and then turned and ran into the brick building next door.
“Wait!” Ben called, but the door slammed shut.
The girl was gone.
SUNDAY MORNING
The next morning over breakfast, Dad turned to Ben and said, “Before your brother comes out of the shower, why don’t you tell me about this girl you met yesterday.”
Ben swallowed a bite of his eggs.
His father had always made the best scrambled eggs back in Montville. He added ham, cheese, onions, and peppers, and they’d always been his special Sunday morning breakfast.
Before church back in Montville, Dad would make those eggs for whoever came by.
Even though everyone was usually dressed in their best Sunday clothes, uncomfortable and itchy, the breakfast at the Summers house was always fun.
All of Ben’s friends, his dad’s friends and Forrest’s friends, would sit in the big, crowded kitchen, eating Dad’s eggs and laughing.
So Ben was relieved when he woke up that morning and smelled the familiar cooking. He was glad that he didn’t have to leave those eggs behind in Montville.
“Well, her name is Kaya,” Ben said.
He tried to picture her face in his mind, but besides her long ponytail and the T-shirt she wore, the image was fuzzy.
“She looks like she’s my age, or maybe a year younger than me, I guess,” he added.
Dad stood up and put his empty plate in the sink. “And she lives in the building?”
“I thought she did,” replied Ben.
He remembered the door slamming shut the night before when Kaya had run into the building.
Slowly, he said, “But then I saw her playing in the alley last night, and then she ran into the building next door. So I think she lives there.”
“Impossible!” called Forrest as he came into the room wearing just his bath towel. He was dripping wet.
Oh no, thought Ben. Forrest was eavesdropping!
Forrest grabbed a piece of toast. “That building is condemned,” he said. “No one lives over there.”
Forrest punched Ben in the shoulder and laughed. “It’s worse than I thought! Benny has an imaginary girlfriend!”
“How do you know that building is condemned?” asked Ben.
“First of all,” said Dad, “don’t go walking around the house dripping all over the floor. Get dried off and dressed.”
Dad sat back down at the table and sipped his coffee. “Second,” he said, “just because a building has been condemned doesn’t mean no one is living there.”
“What do you mean?” said Ben.
“He means the homeless,” said Forrest.
“I mean that not everyone is lucky enough to be able to live in a nice flat like ours,” said Dad. “It’s not rare for some families to set up a home wherever they can. Especially in a huge city like this one.”
As his dad started doing the dishes and Forrest ran into his bedroom to get dressed, Ben glanced out the kitchen window.
Was Kaya homeless? Was that why she didn’t tell him exactly where she lived?
CHURCH LUNCH
Ben sat on the hard wooden pew, pulling at his collar and wondering why the church didn’t have air conditioning. His bum was already asleep, and he was relieved when the preacher seemed to be wrapping things up.
The preacher smiled down at the people in the pews. He said, “Remember, everyone, we need your
help more than ever since last week’s robbery. Anything you can offer will go to replace the funds we’d already raised for the youth centre.”
“That’s a real shame,” Dad whispered beside Ben. “Stealing from a preacher and a little girl.”
Ben started to ask what he was talking about, but Dad shushed him.
That’s grown-ups for you, thought Ben. It was all right for them to talk in church, but a kid wasn’t allowed.
After the service, Ben, Forrest, and their dad walked out into the hallway.
Dad was busy introducing himself to the neighbours, and Forrest met a few kids his age who were hanging around before the church lunch.
Ben wandered down the hallway alone, looking at the pictures hanging along the walls.
He was homesick for Montville, and for all his old friends.
Something in one of the pictures caught his eye.
“Hmm,” he thought, looking hard at the photo. “That girl looks like Kaya.”
“What did you find, Benny?” Dad said as he joined Ben.
Ben pointed at the photo. “I think this is the girl I met yesterday on the stairs.”
“Then I guess her family must go to our church,” replied Dad. “Maybe you’ll see her at the lunch.”
Together they headed down to the basement.
The basement of the church was set up like a big canteen. There were about a dozen long folding tables. Each table had benches running along both sides. At one end of the room was another table, even longer than the others.
Several women, volunteers at the church who had brought the food for lunch, stood behind the longer table. They wore hairnets and aprons, and were spooning out mashed potatoes, vegetables, and chicken in breadcrumbs. A plate of cupcakes for dessert was at the far end of the table.
The food smelled so good. It seemed like hours before the Summer family reached the front of the queue. Ben didn’t mind so much, since he was busy searching for Kaya in the dinner queue.
“Over here, boys,” Dad said after they had got their plates of food. He had claimed three spots on a table in the middle of the room.
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