It’s the strangest-looking gingerbread house that I ever did see.
I give it a lick. It tastes of metal, like when you bite on your tongue and make it bleed.
My heart has forgotten that Outside People ain’t scared. It’s beating up alarms against my ribs.
All the quiet is eating into me now. There ain’t no trees, and that’s getting to me, too.
I turn to my right and see what I reckon is a house. Ain’t like no house I seen in the books, though. It’s made of squares all stuck together and has big windows looking at me like dark eyes. And I can see more stuff inside those eyes that I don’t like one bit. Not one bit. A big table, meant for a Giant. People on the walls, trapped in squares. I reckon, too, that somewhere in that house is the thing the Giant uses to grind bones to make his bread.
I drop my sword and it makes a huge clatter as it hits the Outside floor. I jump up and back, letting the door slam on the rock behind me. My ears are whooshing with all the noise and I dive back into my new corner, hiding under my shield.
And I know what you’re thinking. What kind of person spends all their whole life wanting to be Outside, then can’t stand it none when they are?
I know. I’m thinking it, too.
Twenty-Two
They’re in my dreams. All of them.
Bee is playing with my hair, while Cow is trying to read out the words of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’. His voice is slow, click-clacking over all the words like he’s saying them for the first time. And Queenie. Queenie is lazing against the wall, her long feet crossed over mine.
‘And – the – bears – chased – Goldilocks – away – into – the – forest – and – she – was – never – seen – again,’ Cow finishes up.
A big smile cracks over his face, pleased as punch that he read the whole thing through himself, though he’s read it plenty of times before. But then I see it. The thought sparking up something behind his eyes.
‘What?’ Bee whispers, spotting it too.
Cow frowns. ‘Why’d the Three Bears chase Goldilocks away?’
All three of them look at me. They always do when there are answers to be had. I smile and close my eyes.
‘’Cause she ain’t the same as them, is she? She don’t belong in no Bear house. She’s a person.’
Queenie grunts and I feel her toes curl round mine. I carry on anyway.
‘Just like how I don’t belong here with you.’
Bee stops playing with my hair.
I open my eyes, expecting them all to be mighty sad, but Cow just looks confused. ‘What you mean, Ele? You do belong here.’
‘Naw,’ I say, smiling at Cow’s simple way of seeing things. ‘I ain’t looking like you, for one, am I?’
And now Queenie is smiling too. She looks me in the eye and says, ‘I’d say you look pretty much the same, yeah.’
And I look down and it’s their hands I see. Their knobbly knees and their pot bellies. And I feel at my mouth and don’t feel no lips.
I wrench myself up, my head all in a panic. ‘Bee?’ I say, but it ain’t my hair she’s playing with. It’s my long, pointed ears.
I am an Other. I am them, and they are me.
And I’ve gone and left them Inside.
Twenty-Three
I barely even make it to one handstand when I wake up. And I ain’t sure whether it’s ’cause my stomach feels as empty as it ever has or ’cause I’m carrying all this worry.
Course I checked myself as soon as I woke up, and I don’t look nothing like an Other. I got the same hands and hair that I’ve always had. But I can’t shake that feeling off that I’ve done something mighty bad by leaving them behind.
I din have no choice, though. Did I?
I feel them clinging to me when I’m running, making my arms and legs feel heavy as Ogre armour. I squeeze my eyes up tight and try to shake them off, spinning round and winding my arms up and back and round, faster and faster. The more I move, the lighter I feel.
The more like me I feel.
I’m an Outside Person. And they knew it too, which is why they let me run, just like the Three Bears let Goldilocks run.
They knew it. Jack knew it. Zeb knew it.
And I can’t let any of them down.
I can’t never let the sad stop me running.
How to be an Outside Person – number five: Don’t think about the Inside.
And I know that’s gonna be the hardest of all the rules to follow, but I’ve got to if I’m gonna be a real Outside Person. Even if I feel that Inside pulling at me to follow it back like a trail of bread, I’ve got to remember that there ain’t nothing but a Witch’s house at the end of it.
I ain’t never going back to Him.
So I’ve got to forget it, OK? I’ve got to be an Outside Person, inside and out, like I’ve been here my whole life and know everything there is to know already.
I pick up my shield, then stride on over to the door, ready to go slay the sun.
How to be an Outside Person – number four: Go Outside.
And that’s when I hear them – with my hand pressed against the door and my whole self pushing at me to go on through.
Voices. Outside.
My heart kicks up and I squat down, scurrying back over to the window.
Is it the moon laughing at me with the sun for what it seen of me last night?
I strain my ears real close, trying to make out the words, but it’s all just sounding like mumbled mess to me. One thing’s for sure, though: that ain’t no Other speaking. Other language is all click-clacking in the throat, and this is more like the words He speaks, but different at the same time.
All my blood drains out of me for a moment, and I have to grip the ledge under the window to stop me from falling over.
It ain’t Him, though. I won’t let it be. He’s Inside. Not Outside. Not here.
I stay real quiet, letting my heart beat my blood back to where it should be, before I lift myself up to the window and look out through some of the extra-skins I hung over it. I can see two shapes moving near the Giant’s house I saw last night. And shapes near a Giant’s house can only mean one thing.
Giants.
My heart has now climbed up between my teeth and I’m biting down on it hard to stop it from making a racket.
One of the Giants is standing still, tall and kind of orange around the head. The other is all dark, moving from left to right. They ain’t very big, but you can tell that they’re angry at something. I can feel it, even with the window between us.
I look around for my sword, before realizing that I dropped it Outside last night when I was all in a panic.
I gotta be braver than that now. I strain my ears to hear them.
‘The sooner ye do it, the better.’
I’m pretty sure that’s what it said – the orange Giant. The other one don’t say nothing back and they both just stand there for a moment, sizing each other up.
‘Fine,’ the dark Giant says, and the orange Giant turns and moves into the house, away from what I can see from the window.
One down …
The dark Giant kicks something on the floor and I realize that it’s my sword. And, as if he heard me thinking too loud, he turns and marches over. Towards the metal box. Towards me.
I ain’t even got time to scream.
I hear the squeal of the door as he yanks it open, and before I can do anything but fall down he strides on in and comes face to face with me.
And he ain’t like nothing I’ve ever seen.
Twenty-Four
It ain’t no Giant. It’s an Outside Person.
It’s a boy.
He shouts when he sees me, and I flinch, but I can’t move no more than that. I can’t take my eyes off him. He’s looking at me all round-eyed and slack-jawed, and he’s looking to the door like he’s about to run away and get the orange Giant. But all I can do is look and look and look.
It’s a real-life boy. A boy who’s nearly a man.
He’s got skin so dark he could be one of those clouds whispering to the moon last night. He’s dressed in extra-skins of all different types – all bright, like he’s been coloured in. His fingernails look like moons and they’re all trimmed down too. Not like His nails were. They were as long as mine.
His hair is the most interesting, though. His eyebrows are dark, his head hair is dark, and he even has little dark hairs on his arms. And his head hair ain’t like no truths in no books. It’s all together and bouncy.
And here’s the most surprising thing of all: he’s looking at me like he’s afraid of me. Him – a big ol’ boy – is afraid of little ol’ me.
I start laughing. I can’t help it. It starts coming, then it won’t stop – rolling from me like feed from a pipe. I put my hand to my mouth to stop it, but that don’t do nothing but make it echo.
He still looks at me, but now he looks more confused than scared. He steps through the door and it squeaks shut on the rock behind him.
‘Are you OK?’ he asks, his voice deep but soft, like when Bee would cup her hands round her mouth and tell stories.
(I ain’t thinking about Bee, though. I ain’t.)
I quit with my laughing, though it’s hard to do it completely.
‘What’s funny?’
And I want to say ‘you’, but I ain’t never said no People words to no one but the Others and Zeb before, so I just smile at him instead.
He takes another look towards the door, that worry back in his eyes again. ‘So, um … why are you in my shed? And, you know … naked?’
I look down and see that the extra-skin I put on has slipped off my shoulders, so I pull it back on. And I’m thinking over what he’s seeing: me, all hair and bones, skin white as light, just glowing out.
I ain’t looking like him one bit.
How to be an Outside Person – number three: Look like them.
I scowl, covering myself up with my hair, my eyes fixed on my toes like they’re the most interesting thing going on here – and not that I’m talking to a real-life boy or nothing.
He takes another step forward and I feel him kneeling down next to me, kind of close, but not quite.
‘Er … should I maybe get someone?’
I glance up at him and see him looking at me, brown eyes as deep as mud, but pointing over towards the door – where the Giant is.
And goddamn, this boy is stupid. Ain’t no one in no books speaking with no Giant.
I fix my eyes on him and shake my head big and wide, so even a stupid ’un like him can see that I mean ‘no’. No. Don’t tell him I’m here. Don’t tell no one I’m here.
He stops pointing to the door, but he sighs through his teeth.
‘Well, you can at least tell me your name.’
I look at him from under my hair. He still looks kind of scared of me, though he’s trying not to show it. And it makes me feel brave.
‘Ele,’ I say. In People. To a person.
He smiles a bit then. It’s a smile that catches at one corner of his mouth and goes up like a handstand that can’t quite get up off the floor. ‘So you can talk, then.’ He leans back, his shoulders releasing with that breath he was holding.
And he looks better. Less afraid.
How to be an Outside Person – number six: Talk to them.
He smiles wider, easier this time. ‘I’m Willow.’
Willow. Willow.
I throw myself forward and choke up on question marks. I got all these trees flashing in front of my eyes, and I want to ask him. I want to ask him:
Did you know that Willows are pretty much always next to lakes?
Did you know that Willows are one of the fastest-growing trees in all the Outside?
Do you know where all the Willows are?
But all I can squeeze out are little gasping sounds.
A tree. He’s a tree.
Finally, I just give up and sit back on my feet, my head still full of wonder and leaves.
Willow cocks his head to the side so the sunlight coming in through the extra-skins on the window goes and flecks his eyes up with gold. ‘Can I, um, get you anything?’
Again, he looks at my Princess extra-skin, and my stomach growls at him.
His eyebrows rise. ‘Food? You hungry?’
I roll my eyes and he smiles wide again, showing teeth that are bright white and straight as houses. ‘I can fetch you some stuff.’ He hops up on to his feet and dashes towards the door, all full of life all of a sudden. He stops before he gets there and looks back at me.
‘Erm … stay there. I’ll be back.’
And, with that, he’s gone.
I stand up and watch him through the window as he goes to the Giant’s house, charging in through the door like it ain’t even nothing.
Now, I ain’t saying I was wrong about Willow being stupid, but maybe he’s a lot braver than I reckoned. The way he charged in after that Giant, he even looked a bit like a Prince.
I pull my hair from my face and smooth down the extra-skin I got on. I’m mighty pleased I chose this one. It’s all white and outwards on me, looking just like what a Princess wears. Exactly what an Outside Person should be looking like when they meet a Prince.
And he said something, din he? That Prince. He asked what I was doing in his ‘shed’.
I look around my new room, at the triangle ceiling and the metal walls. It’s called a shed.
How to be an Outside Person – number seven: Know all the Outside words.
And suddenly I’m thinking of all the other stuff in here that I ain’t seen in no book and don’t have no words for. And I’m wondering – I’m wondering how I can ask him what they all are when I’m pretending I’ve been Outside my whole life, but I ain’t able to tell him more than my name. All of this is fizzing up in my throat and churning in my head, and it’s a relief when I see him bounding back towards me, arms full of stuff, ready to save me from my thoughts.
He comes in with another breath of Outside and walks over to me. There are ropes on the extra-skins round his feet that are jumping about all excited as he walks.
‘I raided the kitchen. Some of these went past their use-by date last month. You don’t mind, do you?’
He pulls a hook on top of a strange mini-bowl, and as it opens like a creaky door I smell feed, even though the wet slop inside it don’t look nothing like it.
I launch myself at him, snatching it out of his hands and not even thinking about how his skin feels like mine even though it’s all dark.
He raises his stupid eyebrow, but I don’t care one bit. I sit down and shove my fingers into the bowl and then into my mouth as fast as I can. It don’t taste right – all mush and no crunch, like it’s already been eaten – but I reckon I could be eating just about anything right now and it’d taste like the best thing in the whole damn world.
I finish off one bowl and start on another, this one all chunky and tasting even stranger than His lunch did that time back in the Tower, making my mouth fill with water.
But I finish that bowl and I get on the other. I eat and I eat. And then I lick up the water from the thing he calls a ‘cup’. He watches me drink with that eyebrow raised, so I close my eyes tight. I finish as much as I can, then put the cup back down on the floor.
Willow squints at me. ‘You’re not from around here, are you?’
I think back to my rule about forgetting the Inside and I nod that I am. Yes, siree. I’ve been here my whole life.
‘Are you –’ He looks quick towards the door and then back at me again. ‘Are you in some kind of trouble?’
He’s looking at me like he wants answers. I shift from side to side, thinking.
Trouble. Am I in trouble? I ain’t in no more trouble here than I was before, but then there’s no saying what that Giant will do if he finds out I’m hiding in here.
Does Willow know something I don’t?
I must look mighty worried, ’cause his eyebrows shoot up into his hair.
‘Hey,’ he s
ays, putting his hand out like he’s gonna pat me on the shoulder but then thinks different at the last minute and strokes his own hair instead. ‘It’s OK, you know. You’re safe here. And I – I’ll look after you.’
He says it all nervous, like he don’t really believe it himself, but my smile goes wide.
A Prince. Looking after me.
Now, I ain’t saying that I need no looking after. I’ve done a mighty fine job of looking after myself until now. I din need no Prince to escape that Tower, did I? But there’s no harm in having a Giant-slayer on your side. Especially when you’re living next door to one.
He looks at my smile and his shoulders rise. ‘Yeah,’ he says, nodding. ‘I can look after you.’
He believes it this time. I can tell.
‘I’ve done it before …’ His eyes have gone sparkly and, even though they’re looking at me, they ain’t really. They’re looking backwards, to an Outside Inside his Head. I get up on to my knees to peer in with him.
My movement snaps him back out and his face starts turning red. ‘Um,’ he says, moving back. ‘OK. This is going to sound pure weird.’
He starts tapping out words on his knees like he’s got a Jack living in there. ‘Don’t laugh, OK?’ he says, raising his head to check that I ain’t laughing, before smiling back down at the floor and tapping on his knees even faster.
I sit back and lick up some more water to make sure I ain’t got no room to laugh.
‘All this – you being in the shed and being –’ he eyes me guiltily – ‘you know. It just kind of reminds me of this game I used to play when I was a wee kid.’
He waits for me to laugh, but he ain’t said nothing funny yet. He carries on.
‘I had this, er, imaginary friend.’ His cheeks go even redder. ‘Called Angus. He was a time-traveller – in the game, I mean. And he’d turn up at the bottom of the garden – the bit behind that broken dyke. Aye, well … he’d turn up there, you see, and he’d need me to take care of him, right? ’Cause he’d just come from, I don’t know, Ancient Egypt or something, and he’d be hungry and need a rest and stuff. And I’d help him.’
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