Lightning Chase Me Home

by Amber Lee Dodd

  The room flickered and whirled around me and whoosh.

  I disappeared.

  Chapter 7

  When I opened my eyes, Pipi and I weren’t in my bed any more. I wasn’t even in my room. I was pretty sure I wasn’t even in my house. Because it was no longer my glow-in-the-dark stars that twinkled above me. I was out under the big, bright night’s sky.

  The storm that had roared in my ears was suddenly all around me. It ripped through the tall trees and crackled through the sky. I tried to get to my feet, but my body was all wobbly, like I had just done a really long run. Gently, I sat up, the blood rushing to my head. I could hear the frantic beating of my heart. Pipi licked my face. She only does this when I’m sad or ill, but I wasn’t either. I wasn’t sure what I was. I felt all mixed up. What had just happened? And where was I? All around me were standing stones. The same stones from the dream.

  I must still be dreaming, I told myself. So I shut my eyes tight, feeling certain that at any moment I was going to wake up and I’d be back in my little room, tucked under my velvet blanket, listening to Grandpa snoring and the rattle of the loose catch on my window. But all I could hear was the roar of the wind as the rain soaked through my dinosaur pyjamas. And when I opened my eyes again, it wasn’t my glow-in-the-dark stars that twinkled above me.

  I reached out and touched the stones. They felt cold and hard and very real. And so did my frozen feet and wet pyjamas and Pipi’s shaking body in my arms. This wasn’t a dream. I balled my fists together and held my breath and hoped that whatever magic had taken me would take me back. Because I knew these stones; I knew this place. And it was the last place in the world I wanted to be! It was where everything had gone wrong on my ninth birthday.

  It had all started off so brilliantly. Mum and Da hadn’t argued all day and Grandpa had given me these amazing chess pieces that he’d carved out of wood. The knight was extra special because he’d made it look like a shaggy Shetland pony. But best of all, Mum had decided I was finally old enough to go camping with her. I could go anywhere on Dark Muir I wanted. And there was only one place I wanted to go: Sometimes Island. You can only reach it when the tide is low, so most of the time it’s a secret island. It seemed such a magical place.

  Mum had got me an Indiana Jones hat and a hiking backpack with pockets for everything. She even let me use her special binoculars, the ones her da gave her for her very first trip abroad. We had climbed a tree and taken turns with the binoculars to watch a nest of short-eared owls. Then we walked all the way to the top of the island and Mum had shown me the standing stones and explained how the stones were meant to be the scales flicked from the sea serpent’s tail when it had churned the seas to make the islands. When it got dark we made a campfire and ate hotdogs and burnt marshmallows and Mum told me about her adventures filming clouded leopards in Borneo. It had been the first time in ages that Mum seemed really happy.

  But I didn’t like camping as much as I thought I would in the dark. I couldn’t sleep with all the strange noises around me. And it was so dark in my tent without the glow of my plastic stars. And then something had slithered into my sleeping bag. It was warm and smooth and not at all like how you would imagine a snake to feel like. But that didn’t make it any less terrifying as it slipped across my feet.

  “Mum!” I screamed, furiously trying to wiggle out of my sleeping bag.

  It took a moment for Mum to groggily open her eyes. But then she leaped into action, grabbing the snake by the tail and flinging it out the tent door.

  “I got it. It’s gone,” she soothed.

  But I couldn’t stop panicking; imagining that my whole sleeping bag was filled with snakes. Or even worse: that my pyjamas were filled with snakes too.

  “What if there’s more!” I sobbed.

  “I don’t see any,” Mum said, waving her torch across the tent.

  The tent was filled with shadows and in my head all sorts of horrible things were hiding in the dark. I stood on one foot, refusing to get back into my sleeping bag.

  “Amelia, come here,” Mum said, pulling out The Little Book of Lady Adventurers that she’d packed for our trip.

  “Remember Kate Jackson?” She flipped to a page with a picture of a woman in glasses grinning, her head covered in snakes.

  “She was so scared the first time a snake crawled over her, that she wouldn’t stop screaming. But then she went on to travel the world collecting snakes. She even went on an adventure to the Congo where she was bitten by one of the snakes she had found. Luckily it wasn’t a venomous snake. But in surviving the bite her pygmy guides believed she was a witch,” Mum told me.

  “She wasn’t, was she?” I asked.

  Mum shook her head and carried on.

  “The next time she got bitten she wasn’t so lucky, though, because it was from the deadly black cobra.” Mum waved her arm and turned her hand into the hungry mouth of a cobra. “But she managed to rush back to her camp and get the antivenom in the nick of time,” Mum finished, snapping the book shut and putting her arm around me.

  But for the first time, one of Mum’s stories hadn’t made me feel better. It had made me feel much, much worse. I couldn’t stop imagining black cobras in every corner of the tent, waiting to slither into my sleeping bag and bite me.

  “I want to go home!” I yelled.

  “But I thought we were having such a good time, just us girls.”

  “Da wouldn’t have let a snake crawl into my bed.”

  Mum’s face fell. “I was trying so hard to make this nice,” she said.

  And it had been. It had been almost the perfect day, until I ruined it. In the morning Mum had packed up our rucksacks and our tent and we had gone home. She hadn’t said a word about why we had to cut our trip short to Da. But I knew how disappointed she was in me.

  A week later, Mum left. I knew it was all my fault. If I had just been braver that night everything could have been different.

  The sky burst into rain. I fell back, shivering, and Pipi leaped into the air, snapping at the streaks of lightning. I’d landed on something hard and I turned to see something glinting in the ground. Half buried by dirt and leaves were Mum’s binoculars! I turned them over in my hands; they felt as heavy and precious as the first time I’d held them. I frowned. Why hadn’t Mum come back for them? She’d need them on her adventures all over the world, wouldn’t she? The lightning crackled overhead. I put the leather strap around my neck and tried pretending I was one of Mum’s favourite explorers, brave and fearless.

  I tried to remember the way back home. But all I could recall was that it had been a long walk. What would Da think if he woke up to find me missing? He would be so mad when he found me. Then I shivered as a dark little thought crept into my head. What if he never found me? I got to my feet shakily. We couldn’t stay here. My dinosaur pyjamas were already soaked through. And the storm was only getting worse.

  “I don’t suppose you know the way home?” I asked Pipi.

  But before Pipi could reply, the trees rippled as if something very large was moving in them. An owl screeched, birds took off from the bushes, and then we heard it: a deep rumbling growl. Pipi looked up, sniffing the air. Then she bolted through the undergrowth.

  “Wait!” I yelled after her.

  But it was too late. I watched her white body dart into the trees and then I couldn’t see her any more. I could only hear barking. I ran after her, calling her name. I didn’t know where I was going. Everything looked strange and different in the dark. My feet slipped over wet grass and tripped over tree trunks, branches lashed out at my face and then I heard it again: the low growl. And then Pipi’s barking stopped.

  “Pipi!” I yelled. But there was nothing.

  I could feel my imagination going to the dark little place in the back of my head. The place that comes up with all sorts of frightening things. I imagined the horrible fates that could have happened to Pipi. She could have fallen into a rock pool, or been attacked by mad owls, or eaten by hu
ngry foxes.

  “Please don’t let Pipi have been eaten by foxes. Please let her be OK,” I whispered.

  The wind howled, and the night crackled with lightning. But from far away, I thought I heard a bark.

  I ran towards it. My hands caught on thorns, the leg of my pyjamas ripped, and then my foot slipped and suddenly I was on my bum and sliding fast. I tried to grab on to tree branches, but they whipped through my hands. As I slid through the undergrowth, I could hear the barking again. But I couldn’t see anything as I tumbled into the dark.

  With a jolt I landed on something furry and growling. I was sure I had fallen right into the monster’s waiting jaws, but then it licked my face.

  “Pipi!” I yelled, and she buried her wet nose into me.

  When I managed to pull Pipi off I could see we weren’t by the standing stones any more. We weren’t even in the forest. We had fallen on to a rocky bank.

  “Where did you take us?” I said, scratching Pipi behind her ears.

  The rain stopped as quickly as it had begun. The sky brightened and out from the trees I could see the slope of the cliffs and the lights of the harbour. And straight up, right above me, I could see the brightest star in the sky, lighting the way back to our house on the hill.

  “You found it, Pipi, you found the way home!” I said, grabbing her front paws and dancing.

  Even though my feet were cut and bruised, and I couldn’t stop shivering, I started running towards the lights in the harbour. But before I could make it very far, Pipi grabbed on to my pyjama trousers. She growled and wouldn’t let go.

  “Look, it’s no use being scared now,” I said, shaking her off.

  Pipi whimpered. She didn’t agree.

  “Come on,” I said, “I can see our house. It’s just a bit further, I promise.”

  But Pipi wouldn’t move. She lay down and put her head in between her paws instead.

  “Fine, then. We’ll just live here. In the middle of nowhere, for ever, with scary animals that like to eat small children and their dogs. That sounds good to you?” I said, collapsing down next to her. Pipi licked my hand.

  “We should’ve got a cat,” I said, shaking my head.

  I got up and starting walking towards home, sure Pipi would follow. But it didn’t take me long to realize why she hadn’t. I hadn’t taken more than a few steps before there was a horrible eggy smell, then a rush of water, and with a slurp my foot disappeared. In the dark I hadn’t seen that the way back home was across a deadly peat bog. I pulled my foot out, but the other one sank further in. I tried to dart across the next few steps. I was sure if I just ran fast enough I could make it. I stumbled over the bog, the mud squelching between my toes. But it wasn’t long before I fell into another marshy spot. With a gurgle my ankle disappeared, and then my knee. I wiggled forward but every step made me sink faster. The mud bubbled and oozed and with a great slurp both my legs were pulled under. I could hear Pipi barking from the bank. But it was too late to turn back.

  Chapter 8

  The mud pulled me down further, my feet were numb and I was so tired, so very tired. If I just closed my eyes, if I just took a little rest…

  I was alone in the dead of night being sucked under by a bog. But up ahead I could see something. Was it a large rock? A seaweed-covered island? Whatever it was, I had to get to it. I was nearly up to my waist and sinking fast. Think, think! I squeezed my eyes shut in concentration. The story of Beryl Markham popped into my head. Beryl Markham was the first woman to fly solo East to West across the Atlantic. But on her attempt to be the first person to fly nonstop from Europe to New York, her plane had crash-landed into a freezing bog in Nova Scotia. I remembered Mum reading me her story and telling me what to do if I ever found myself in a bog. We even made a list and called it Beryl’s Tips. It flooded back into my head.

  Beryl’s tips to escape a Deadly Bog:

  1.Don’t panic

  2.Pretend you’re swimming

  3.Go slow

  Tip number one was easy. I stopped thrashing about and the awful gurgling stopped. Tip number two was harder. How was I supposed to swim in mud? But I threw myself on to my belly, grabbed a mossy clump and pulled myself forward. Slurp. I felt my right leg pull out of the mud, just a bit. I wriggled forward, the bog oozing around me. But the mud no longer felt like a vice on my legs. With another shuffle forward my right leg came free and then the other slid out.

  Tip number three was the hardest. I inched myself forward, half-crawling, and half-swimming through the smelly bog. But I was still sinking. My mouth was filling with oozy mud, my toes and my knees were being dragged beneath me. Inch by inch I pulled myself closer to the rocky island. Finally I grabbed hold of it and hoisted myself up. There was a sucking sound and then I was free! I scrambled up on to the rock, panting.

  I looked around. There were three flat mossy mounds between me and the beach that led up to the cliff tops. If I could jump to each one of them, I could make it home. But I could hear Pipi still barking from the bank. There was no way she could make it through the mud to the rock island. And there was no way I was leaving her behind.

  “Come on, Pipi, jump!” I yelled.

  But Pipi just barked and ran up and down the bank.

  “Jump!” I called out again in desperation, patting my muddy thighs and whistling.

  I thought of all the tricks I had tried to teach her back home. When she was a puppy I tried to make her leap through a hoop, or climb up a slide, but I barely managed to make her understand the words “sit” and “stay” and I had only managed to do it then by promising her biscuits. Biscuits were the only thing that persuaded Pipi to do anything, I suddenly realized.

  “Biscuits!” I yelled.

  Suddenly a white furry shape was flying through the air. With a thump Pipi landed in my arms. I hugged her tight, letting her nuzzle into me, her wet nose pressing against my ear.

  “I guess it’s my turn now,” I said, getting up and staring across to the other rock islands. I tucked Pipi into my pyjama top, wrapped my arms around her and with a deep breath I jumped. I could feel my legs cartwheeling through the air, Pipi slipping out from my arms, and then thud.

  My feet landed on the rock and Pipi wriggled the rest of the way out of my shirt. I looked out at the final rock island. It was further away than the last jump and I had barely made this one. I couldn’t carry Pipi with me this time. But Pipi didn’t seem to want to get back into my pyjama top. She was already standing on the edge waiting for me.

  “Together,” I said, and Pipi barked in agreement.

  We hurtled ourselves on to the last rock, panting. I clambered up the mossy top and slid down the other side to the beach. As soon as my feet touched solid ground I started yelling and Pipi joined in barking and spinning around in the sand, furiously wagging her tail. We were finally safe.

  It was nearly dawn by the time Pipi and me could see our house, its white stone walls twinkling in the fading moonlight. I had never been so pleased to see it. I squeezed through the half-open back window and stood in the kitchen shivering and shaking. I pulled moss and twigs from my hair and brushed the dirt and leaves from my poor cut feet.

  In the gloom of the kitchen I waited for Da or Grandpa to rush down the stairs to wrap me in their arms, relieved to see me. I even waited for Da to storm into the kitchen, shake me by my shoulders and yell at me for disappearing in the middle of the night. But the house was quiet. All I could hear was the ticking of the clock and the racing of my heart. Nobody had noticed I was gone.

  In my room I stuffed Mum’s binoculars into the bottom shelf of my bedside drawer. Then I took off my dinosaur pyjamas. The mud coating them was so thick that it took both me and Pipi pulling at them before they came off. I bunged the trousers and the top deep into the back of my wardrobe. In the bathroom, as I washed off the rest of the dirt and pulled on a fresh pair of pyjamas, I looked at myself in the mirror. There was a little cut across my cheek. But I couldn’t remember how it had happened. I couldn
’t remember very much at all. I tried to remind myself, but I was so tired and it all sounded so impossible.

  When I went back to my room, Pipi was asleep on the foot of my bed. The storm had faded away and it was as if nothing had happened. I climbed into bed and wrapped my velvet blanket around me. Maybe when I woke up tomorrow this was all going to have been a horrible nightmare, I thought, before sleep closed in around me.

  Chapter 9

  After Mum left I put all the things I didn’t want to think about into a box in my head. But the problem with this is sooner or later the box gets so full up that all the scary and nasty thoughts come pouring out. When that happened I got really upset and did all sorts of bad things. Like I’d smashed up all my space shuttle models and once I’d even tried to run away. But running away when you live on a tiny island is difficult: it’s not like you can get very far. So it hadn’t been very hard for Da to find me after an hour or so, sitting on the bench outside the post office. I thought he was going to be so cross with me. But he wasn’t. He’d just wrapped me up in his arms and cried. I’d never seen Da cry before, so I’d started crying too. That’s when Da made me promise to talk to him about the things that upset me.

  But I didn’t know how to tell him about last night. I wasn’t even sure what had happened. One moment I had been in my room and then poof, I’d disappeared and ended up on Sometimes Island. All I knew was it was something to do with the Serpent’s Tooth Rock. The day I had touched it, it had made something happen to me.