I had been so excited until Mum had said the next bit.
“And maybe it would be all right if I brought a friend…?”
I tried to think of all the friends of Mum’s that I knew. There was Miss Wilson from the sweet shop and Tony, the guy Da hired to help out on the boat sometimes. And there were the Selkie Swimmers who Mum would sometimes join for an ice-cold dip. But If I really thought about it, Mum didn’t have any proper friends on Dark Muir.
“Who’s the friend?” I asked, confused.
“Bob from work. He’s a producer on the documentary I’m making.” Then Mum’s voice went all strange. “He’s a very special friend, Amelia. I’d like you to get to know him.”
But I didn’t want to get to know Bob. I knew if Mum came home with him that she and Da would never get back together. And then she would leave me forever.
“I don’t think so. Me and Da have planned all these special things for just the two of us,” I lied.
“Oh,” Mum said, her voice all sad and small. “Well, I don’t want to come back and get in the way of anything.”
“Then you shouldn’t have left in the first place!” I yelled and once the words tumbled out of my mouth I felt a wave of anger crash over my body. “Da’s right: we’re much better off without you,” I added meanly.
The phone line went quiet. I could hear Mum sob softly but I was too angry to take back what I’d said. I just let the words hang in the air and listened to the crackles on the phone line.
“Amelia,” Mum finally said, her voice all strangled.
But I didn’t want to hear anything else. Because it wasn’t like talking to my mum any more, it was like talking to a stranger, a stranger who had friends called Bob and never came home. So I hung up.
Mum didn’t come home for my tenth birthday, but I knew she would still give me a special phone call. I couldn’t face it, not after the last one, so I ran away. There had only been one place to run and hide on Dark Muir and that was Puffin Cave. When Da finally found me I had lost my voice yelling into the cave and filled my pockets full of bits of sea glass. I thought he would be so angry at me for running away, but he wasn’t. He helped me wash the sea glass clean in the waves and then wrapped his big arms around me. We sat there for a very long time listening to the water until it got dark and I felt ready to talk about what had happened. Afterwards, Da had shown me the seven stars that made up the Big Dipper and together we found the big, bright North Star. That night Da stuck the plastic stars on my ceiling and we made up our own constellations. It had been one of the worst and best birthdays rolled into one.
Outside, I could hear the screeching of puffins and the roar of the ocean. And the roar was getting louder. Water trickled in around me. I struggled up to my feet. My legs still felt wobbly, but I didn’t have time to lie around. I could hear the crash and froth of the waves outside of the cave. The tide was coming in and soon Puffin Cave would be completely underwater. I could feel a shiver run up my spine that had nothing to do with the cold. Shakily, I got to my feet.
“I want to disappear,” I said. Waiting for my hand to grow warm and the cave to flicker.
But nothing happened.
I squeezed my fists, held my breath and closed my eyes.
“I want to disappear,” I said again, but the words felt all wrong just like they had in Miss Archibald’s classroom with Blair. They simply wouldn’t work.
The water in the cave was rushing in faster.
“Hellllpppppp!” I roared, and my panic boomed around the cave.
But no one could hear me. No one even knew where I was. Not Miss Archibald, not Tom, not even Da. I was going to have to escape myself.
The only way out was to climb the cliffs. Up above the sea caves were the old cliff steps, but they were steep and slippery and mostly worn away. Mum had always used a rope and harness when she went to check on the puffin nests.
Outside the cave, I pulled myself up along the rocky edge and hauled myself over the rocks. The sea crashed around me, the wind whipped my knotty hair against my face and my eyes stung with the cold. The weather had changed again, just like it had the other times I disappeared. But it wasn’t the inky storm from the book. Or the rumbly thunderstorms from earlier. From the dazzling white sky, snowflakes fell as soft and light as feathers. They vanished as quickly as they hit my skin, leaving me shivering as I edged out of the cave and on to the dangerous steps. I pulled my school blazer tight around me and thought of Tom and Blair. They would probably be in science now, listening to Mr McNair and his daft jokes. I’d never wanted to be in a lesson so badly.
The puffins whirled and groaned above me, as I edged my foot on to a broken step. It was slick with seaweed. Carefully, I edged my way up the first few. Then the wind caught me and threw me back. I slipped against the sharp rock face, grazing my arm and bashing my elbow. I hugged the wall and watched as bits of loose rock tumbled past.
Just think good thoughts, think good thoughts, I said to myself over and over in my head. But I couldn’t help but do a Grandpa and think of all the terrible ways I could die:
•Drowning
•Falling
•Being eaten by puffins
I closed my eyes and tried to think of one of Mum’s explorer stories; they always calmed me down. I thought of the story of Junko Tabei, who had survived being buried by an avalanche to become the first woman to climb Everest. I could picture Junko in her orange climbing suit waving a Japanese flag from the top of the mountain. I looked up at Puffin Cliffs and tried to picture myself at the top waving a Scottish flag. The first girl to scale the cliffs of Dark Muir. I screwed up all my courage, grabbed the old guard rail with both hands and hauled myself up on to the slippery staircase. Below me I heard the wild whoosh of the waves. I gripped the cold metal rail again and climbed higher, but the wind buffeted me back and my hands slipped. My legs slid out from beneath me. I managed to catch on to the bottom of the rail before I tumbled off. But I was dangling on the edge, my legs swaying in the wind. Snow swirled around me. The only thing stopping me from falling into the sea was my grip on the rest of the rail. But then it creaked.
The rail started to pull away from the edge. I swung my knee up on to the nearest step, but I missed. I swung again and the rail shuddered and groaned.
“One more time,” I whispered.
With one last effort my leg hooked on to the step. I pulled myself back up on to the carved stairway, just as the guide rail came away. With a huge splash, it plummeted into the rising sea.
The puffins circled above me, making their chirping cries. But I couldn’t move. I felt glued to the edge. One step more and I might slip again. I looked up and saw the cliff edge; it was so close I could almost touch it. I tried to imagine planting a flag on the top, of people taking my picture to go on the front page of newspapers around the world.
“I’m Amelia Hester McLeod, the great mountaineer!” I yelled.
I grabbed the rail again and pulled myself up the last few steps and over the top of the grassy cliffs. The blizzard had stopped but the sky hung bright and heavy and I could still taste the snow. I lay in the grass shivering, my heart hammering in my chest.
Chapter 23
I must have fallen asleep because the next sound I heard wasn’t the squawk of puffins, or the chirping of fluffy pufflings, or even the roar of the sea. It was the sound of a car – it was Da. He had found me! When the jeep stopped, Da’s heavy boots swung out of the car. I wanted to rush over to him and have him wrap his arms tight around me and squeeze me until I felt like I couldn’t breathe. But then I saw his face.
It was worse than the face he had when Grandpa first got lost on his way back from the shops. It was worse than the face he had when mean Miss Stokes said I was unteachable. I’d only seen Da with that angry, sad face once before: on the day Mum left.
Da wouldn’t talk to me the whole way back. He wouldn’t even look at me. When we got home it was even worse. I could see the answer phone blinking: it was fi
lled with messages. Da pressed the button on the voicemail and the messages started to pour out.
“Mr McLeod, this is Miss Rutherford, the head teacher at Bridlebaine Academy. It appears that your daughter Amelia has left the school grounds after an incident with another student. We have sent the pastoral team to look for her, but it’s possible she may have taken a ferry back home. Please can you call me at your earliest convenience?”
“Hello, Mr McLeod? This is Miss Archibald, the head of Learning Support. I think we need to have a talk about Amelia’s behaviour and progress at Bridlebaine.”
“Amelia, are you there? It’s Tom. Where are you? Everyone’s been out looking for you. Let me know you’re OK.”
The messages kept coming, but I couldn’t listen to any more of them. I just wanted Da to look at me. I needed to explain everything.
“I’ve been driving all over the island looking for you,” Da said. His voice was hoarse like he’d been shouting my name for hours. His eyes were red as if he’d been crying, too. “You know what I thought when I heard you were missing? I thought—” His voice trailed away.
He didn’t have to finish. I knew exactly what he’d been thinking. That I’d run off for good just like Mum had.
“It’s not all my fault,” I started. “I didn’t run away from school. It’s like I’ve been trying to tell you, I disappeared!”
But before I could explain any further, Da held up his hand.
“I don’t want to hear it, Amelia. I really don’t! I stupidly thought that things were getting better. That you were improving at school, making friends. But I was wrong.”
I wanted to tell him that I had been trying at school, that I had been making friends. It’s just that amazing and terrifying things were happening to me too. But I could see Da’s eyes glaze over. So I just stared at my shoes and waited for him to get angry. To ground me, or tell me off, or for us to have one of our great house-shaking rows. But Da just rubbed his forehead and covered his eyes.
“You know, for the first time I’m glad your nanna’s not around. If she saw this…” Da’s voice trailed off again.
But he didn’t need to say anything else. I knew he meant she would be disappointed in me. I had been so bad I had not only disappointed Da, but I had managed to disappoint someone who wasn’t even alive any more. I wondered what Mum would think of me.
“Go to bed, Amelia,” he said. “I just can’t look at you any more.”
I slammed the kitchen door behind me, startling Grandpa out his chair. But I didn’t care. I thumped my way up the stairs and threw myself into bed. But I wasn’t really angry, just sad. I lay in the darkness, unable to sleep. Everything that had happened spun around and around in my head: the fight with Blair, Tom’s lies, and the terror of scaling Puffin Cliffs. The scrapes and bruises on my arm still hurt, but not nearly as much as the ache in my chest from Da’s words. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get them to fade away. I cuddled into Pipi’s soft white fur and waited for him to come up and check on me. But that night, for the very first time, he didn’t.
Chapter 24
A letter came two days later. It dropped on to the doormat like an unexploded bomb. I looked at the thistle logo and the official-looking type and knew it was from the school. I didn’t have to open it to know what it would say. I had stood in the head teacher’s chilly office the day before. Miss Rutherford hadn’t been nice like the first time we’d met. Instead she had gone on and on about behaviour and expectations. Then she had walked around her desk several times, the bangles on her wrist jangling up and down, before she said it.
Suspended.
Da’s face had crumpled.
“But I don’t want Amelia missing any more school, I don’t want her falling any further behind. I was really hoping that this school would provide her with the support she needed. I know she struggles with her reading and writing but she really is very bright,” he said.
“I agree Amelia has a very keen intellect, but there have to be consequences for her actions,” Miss Archibald said, wiping her glasses sadly.
I glared at Miss Archibald, trying with all my might to summon a lightning bolt that would set her hair on fire.
“It’s no good giving Miss Archibald that look; it’s only down to her protests that you haven’t been expelled,” Miss Rutherford said.
“Amelia Hester McLeod, you will be giving no one dirty looks here. It’s you who’s at fault,” Da said, turning on me.
I folded my arms to show I didn’t care, but I couldn’t help but wince at him using my full name.
“Did you hear what Miss Rutherford said? You were nearly expelled!”
Miss Rutherford nodded and added, “It’s not just the trespassing and fighting we had to take into consideration, which on its own goes against everything that is expected of Bridlebaine Academy’s students. It’s the very serious matter of Amelia leaving the school grounds unsupervised and without permission.” She folded her heavy ringed fingers together and stared up at me from her desk. “Yes, I was all set to make my very first expulsion,” Miss Rutherford finished in a very disappointed voice.
“But we decided it would be a shame to lose a pupil like Amelia, who up to this point has shown no bad behaviour,” Miss Archibald chimed in.
I folded my arms tighter across my chest. I wasn’t going to thank Miss Archibald for saving me, not when it was her fault I was in trouble in the first place.
“What I would like to know is how on earth you managed to get out of the school gates? They’re locked in the daytime,” Miss Rutherford added.
I held my breath and looked at Miss Archibald, who shifted uncomfortably in her chair. I was certain she had seen me disappear before her glasses were knocked off by the streaming crowd of kids. She opened her mouth to say something but then stopped herself and shook her head.
“Well?” Miss Rutherford clicked her tongue.
I murmured something about climbing the ivy, running along the castle wall and flipping over the top of the gates. All of which would have taken the skill of an Olympic gymnastics champion to pull off. Miss Archibald gave me one of her pointed looks over the top of her glasses. But nobody asked any more questions. It’s funny how easily people believe lies over the truth.
My suspension crawled by. Tom rang nearly every day and left long-winded messages about all the devious things Blair was getting up to. But I didn’t call him back and when he stopped by, I hid under the kitchen table. He peered through the letterbox and then pushed a card through the door. But I didn’t even look at it. I just shoved it under my bed along with the broken compass. I had had enough of the trouble Tom and the disappearing had got me into.
My suspension ended just as the Christmas holidays started but nothing changed. Da remained just as frosty. He didn’t even seem that bothered about Christmas. And Christmas had always been Da’s favourite time of year. Every year he would dress up like Father Christmas. He’d pull on the old red cap and do his whole “have you been good or bad this year?” routine. And even though I was now too old for it, seeing Da running around in red pyjamas with a pillow up his top always put me in hysterics. But this year Da couldn’t even be bothered to wear his Santa cap. Or make mince pies. He didn’t even want to help me and Grandpa put up Christmas decorations. Usually there were so many lights strung up that it was likely that our house was visible from space. But this year all we had was a little plastic tree. It was stuck next to the cooker in the kitchen where its fake needles curled up from the heat. I had tried to hang Grandma’s special glass baubles on it but they were too heavy and kept falling off. Grandpa had tried to put up some tinsel, but Pipi had eaten half of it. She had gone around burping up glittery bits and whining, so eventually me and Grandpa gave up. No amount of decorations could have made me feel Christmassy anyway. Not with the way Da was acting. He had barely said a word to me since we had come back from the head teacher’s meeting. He had spent every moment since then banging doors, and getting up and leaving
the room when I came in. I wasn’t sure if Da was angry, or disappointed, or if he really just didn’t want to be around me any more. It made me feel so confused and I wasn’t the only one.
“Are we playing a game?” Grandpa said, after another of our awkward, quiet dinners.
Da didn’t roll his eyes with me like usual. Instead he went into the living room and turned the TV up loud. I could hear him flicking through channels. There was the roar of a game-show audience and then the tinkly music of a crime show and then it settled on the sound of David Attenborough’s voice narrating a wildlife programme. I wanted to go and curl up on the couch and watch it with him. But I knew I couldn’t. Because even though Da was only in the other room, it felt like he was on the other side of the world.
Chapter 25
When I finally returned to school in January, the days had become shorter. It was dark when I left home and even darker when I came back. The weather had changed too. It hadn’t snowed again like the day at Puffin Cliffs. But it stormed constantly. If it wasn’t pouring with rain, the wind was whistling down the corridors at school, blowing doors open and thumping against the windows. It was like the outside wanted to get in.
It was a relief to be inside even if it did mean I had to sit through our start of term assembly. I lined up with the rest of my year and we were shepherded to the front of the hall by Mr McNair. As we took our seats I tried to remember how excited I had been the first time I saw the great hall. I had seen the swords mounted above the stage and thought I’d be learning to fence, and looking after eagles and wildcats or learning how to sing and dance whilst someone played the grand piano in a top hat. I mean, I knew that some of that had been a long shot, but I had thought I’d at least make some friends. I looked at Tom. He was drumming his legs against the floor again. I knew having to be quiet and sit still made Tom all twitchy and anxious. But I didn’t care any more because as far as I was concerned Tom and me were enemies.
Lightning Chase Me Home Page 11
