SUNK

by Fleur Hitchcock

  I lift it again, and again, but I can’t quite leave the beach with it.

  What?

  I make a third attempt, this time with all my strength, but the deckchair becomes heavier than me. I can’t actually lift it and when I let go the wind takes it back onto the pebbles.

  I stand on the steps, looking down at it.

  I’d swear it’s got a Tilly face on. Smug.

  The rain beats on my head. I am now actually getting wet inside my waterproof, and I am officially cross. How on earth am I going to get a sample of this deckchair to Eric?

  Back on the beach I check to see if any of the joints are loose. Sadly they aren’t.

  So I search the tar blobs and fish heads scattered along the beach for something sharp. I find a mussel shell, a biro lid and a piece of slate.

  The biro lid bends and the slate shatters but the mussel shell lets me prise the tiniest splinter of wood from the chair, and cuts me a thread of the cloth.

  ‘Ha!’ I say to the deckchair. ‘Ha! Serves you right.’

  The deckchair falls flat on the beach and the splinter and the piece of cloth whisk from my hand and vanish into the wind.

  I’d swear that the deckchair laughs.

  ‘OK then. If that’s the way you want to play it.’

  I hold up my right hand, form an O with my thumb and my forefinger and …

  Click.

  5

  Smoothie Volcano

  The tiny deckchair is flipping about inside my pocket. I shrank it – it’s this thing I can do, but only here in Bywater-by-Sea. If I came round to your house, I wouldn’t be able to, and Eric wouldn’t be able to produce water from the end of his fingertips and Jacob wouldn’t be able to set fire to things.

  We’ve all got strange powers because of the meteorites – the ones from the sky that we caught, and the giant one under the castle. We’re not the only ones with strange powers. Grandma can shrink things too. She knows all about us, but Mum and Dad don’t and nor does Eric’s dad. It’s weird and wonderful, and sometimes gets very complicated.

  ‘Tom, enter.’ Eric’s dad stands in the doorway. He’s wearing pyjama trousers and a parrot-green Hawaiian shirt.

  ‘Hello, Mr Threepwood.’

  ‘Good,’ says Eric’s dad.

  I stand in the hall, not quite knowing what to say. I never know quite what to say with Eric’s dad. He’s not like other people. But then Eric’s not like other people. Most people are not as nice or as clever as Eric or his dad.

  ‘Um,’ I say in the end.

  Eric’s dad smiles and wanders off into the kitchen. I stand for a moment, my hand on the front door, feeling embarrassed.

  ‘Shall I go and find Eric?’ I say, but Eric’s dad’s not listening. Instead of answering me, he picks up an enormously thick book about space travel and starts eating something that looks very like straw.

  Upstairs Eric is playing Scrabble online with someone in Russia. ‘That’s “keckle” – K-E-C-K-L-E – it means to wind something up with a rope,’ he bellows at a tiny picture in the corner of the screen. ‘Oh – hello, Tom.’

  ‘I shrank the deckchair and brought it here,’ I say, staring at the Scrabble board, which is dotted with words I’ve never seen before. ‘What’s a “palpi”?’

  A pained expression flickers over Eric’s face. ‘It’s not “a palpi” – palpi are the plural. They’re the sensitive bits on a crab – surely you know that, Tom?’

  ‘Anyway,’ I say. ‘Here it is.’ I place the tiny deckchair on Eric’s desk. ‘This is the deckchair, or at least I think it’s the deckchair. Albert Fogg was washing it down, and talking to it, when it was big.’

  The tiny shrunken deckchair looks like a very careful piece of model-making. It’s about the size of my little finger and harmless. In fact, I’d almost call it cute. Eric closes the laptop and peers at the chair. ‘Washing it down, you say. Unusual.’

  ‘Will you be able to analyse it? Even if I’ve shrunk it?’

  In answer, he opens a cupboard door. An avalanche of single shoes, game controllers, batteries and last year’s cracker presents cascades to the floor. He pushes them out of the way and wades into the debris. ‘There should be –’ he says, shoving aside a plastic skeleton – ‘a microscope here somewhere. I’m sure I saw it … Ah!’

  Triumphant, he turns, holding a small battered cardboard package and laying it reverently on the desk. It’s covered in what looks like Chinese writing and has a picture of a huge spider on the front.

  ‘In here –’ he lifts the lid from the box, revealing a brittle plastic insert that’s cracked and clings to the object it encloses – ‘should be Dad’s microscope.’ Eric shakes off the shards of once-white plastic packaging and stands a small object on the desk.

  ‘That’s a microscope?’ I say. It doesn’t look anything like the microscopes we use at school.

  ‘It’s a bit old – Dad had it when he was a child. 1970s?’ He waves the plug at me. ‘Put that in over there,’ he says, fiddling with what might be the lens.

  I plug it in and amazingly nothing goes bang.

  ‘If it isn’t a microscope,’ says Eric, ‘I don’t know what else it could be.’ He takes the deckchair from my palm and places it on a dimly lit piece of glass.

  I stare, waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t so I sit down and squeeze some water from my trousers.

  ‘Yes,’ he says eventually.

  ‘What?’ I say.

  ‘This microscope is either not a microscope or it’s broken. We’ll have to try at school.’

  Downstairs, Eric’s dad offers me a kelp and hempseed flapjack.

  ‘Er, no thank you, Mr Threepwood,’ I say, heading towards the front door.

  ‘Eric?’ he says, holding out the plate.

  ‘I’m good, thanks, Dad.’

  ‘Oh.’ Eric’s dad stares sadly at the plate of misshapen brown things. ‘Or a bulgar and wheatgrass smoothie?’ He points into the kitchen towards the blender, which seems to have had some kind of green volcanic accident.

  I shake my head.

  ‘In that case, take a poster.’ He hands Eric the plate and reaches into a wellington boot, pulling out a roll of paper. Striding to the kitchen table, he places a jar of molasses on one end and unrolls the rest.

  He peels a sheet from the top and hands it to me. ‘Do you think you could put it up in the window of the model village?’

  VOTE FOR COLIN THREEPWOOD.

  MEDITATION FOR ALL AND FREEDOM

  FROM CONSUMER TYRANNY

  ‘Or you could have this one, it’s snappier.’

  BE POSITIVE. THREEPWOOD FOR MAYOR

  I stand staring at the poster. ‘Sorry, I don’t quite understand. Are you running for mayor?’ I ask.

  Eric’s dad nods his head enthusiastically. ‘Yes.’ He puts his arm round Eric’s shoulder. ‘I am, totally. Eric, my marvellous son, has persuaded me that I can do it. That I have a lot to offer our community, that I can help lead us into the new millennium with consideration and love and freedom from corporate globality.’

  Eric stands by his father’s side and beams.

  ‘Right,’ I say, rolling up a poster and jamming it under my arm.

  ‘It’s all there, Tom. All there for us to take.’ Eric’s dad stares at me, his eyes big and round. ‘Because, Tom, here, at the heart of Avalon, the astral plane is vibrant.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Threepwood,’ I say.

  ‘You do understand what that means?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Threepwood,’ I say again, wondering what on earth he’s on about.

  ‘Anything could happen, Tom.’

  I nod vigorously. With enthusiasm.

  ‘It’s a wondrous place, this place,’ he says.

  ‘Yup,’ I say, backing towards the door, clutching my poster. ‘Sure is.’

  ‘Tom’s got to go now, Dad,’ says Eric, opening the door behind me and shoving me out into the street.

  ‘Sure you wouldn’t like a flapjack?’


  ‘He wouldn’t,’ says Eric.

  ‘Pity,’ says Eric’s dad. ‘Pity.’

  6

  Die, Pasta, Die

  Eric’s dad running for mayor is unexpected. Although, perhaps it isn’t really. Perhaps it’s something he’d be brilliant at, but I can’t imagine him sitting in a boardroom discussing blocked culverts or parking schemes. He has a weird way of saying things, not like other adults. I don’t think most of it means anything, but sometimes some of it means something.

  I’m wondering what an astral plane actually is, and about his warning that anything could happen, when I pass a huge stack of newspapers outside the post office.

  CHILD EATEN BY HER OWN BUCKET! in the Bywater-by-Sea Guardian

  WILD CARNIVOROUS PAIL CHEWS CHILD VICTIM in the Evening Echo.

  And on a copy of the Bywater Globe: BRAVE BEVERLEY’S BUCKET FRENZY!

  A couple of women are staring open-mouthed at the headlines.

  Bucket?

  I wonder about nipping back to Eric’s but I remember the smoothie volcano and head on round to our house.

  Grandma’s got the TV on full volume and after we’ve sat through an item on knitted road signs and another one about novel sandwich fillings, the announcer gets on to Bywater-by-Sea.

  ‘And finally, just at the beginning of the holiday season, in the sleepy town of Bywater-by-Sea a young girl had a narrow escape. It’s unclear about the events leading up to the accident, but it seems that six-year-old Beverley Woodruff of Bywater Regis was enjoying a wet afternoon on the beach when she managed to jam a bucket on her head. At first her parents tried to pull it off, but then an anxious passer-by called the fire brigade. Sergeant Bradley Thomas of the local fire station said, and I quote, “In all the years I’ve been a fire officer I’ve never come across a more peculiar case. It was as if that bucket was alive” …’

  ‘Well I never,’ says Grandma, dropping her knitting. ‘Know anything about this, Tom?’

  ‘No, Grandma.’

  She stares at me very hard over her glasses. ‘Sure?’

  ‘No – I really don’t, honestly.’

  * * *

  ‘I’m not eating that,’ says Tilly, pushing her plate away.

  ‘But Dad spent hours cooking it,’ says Mum.

  ‘Don’t care,’ says Tilly, scratching her head furiously. ‘It’s disgusting.’

  ‘Well, I’m not cooking you anything else,’ says Dad, doling out the pumpkin pie.

  ‘All right then,’ says Tilly, standing up. ‘I’ll make my own supper.’

  ‘That girl,’ mutters Grandma after Tilly has left for the kitchen.

  ‘She’s her own worst enemy,’ says Mum.

  ‘Bless her,’ says Dad.

  ‘Yes,’ says Mum. ‘It’s just a phase. Such a difficult age. Although I wish she could see things from another person’s point of view – just sometimes.’

  ‘Complicated girls,’ says Dad. ‘Not like us, eh, Tom?’

  I nod. Tilly is certainly complicated. Whether it’s because she’s a girl I couldn’t say.

  There are terrible sounds of pans hitting other pans and things boiling over while Dad, Mum and Grandma scrape their forks on their plates and clear their throats.

  ‘Very nice this pumpkin pie, dear,’ says Grandma eventually, chewing hard.

  ‘Lovely,’ says Mum, glugging several glasses of water.

  I look at the desiccated pumpkin pie lying orangely on my plate. ‘Aren’t pumpkins things you get in autumn?’

  Grandma smiles and pushes a cindery piece of pastry around her plate.

  ‘Just using up the contents of the freezer,’ says Dad.

  There’s a long silence, broken by the sound of Tilly shouting at the fridge.

  ‘Haven’t found a job yet,’ says Mum.

  ‘How about the ice-cream factory?’ says Dad.

  ‘Or the Royal Hotel?’ says Grandma. ‘I gather they’re likely to be under new ownership soon. The dear old Finch sisters have finally given up.’

  ‘I thought I could go into politics,’ says Mum.

  ‘Goodness,’ says Grandma.

  Tilly drops something hard and large into the sink.

  ‘Did you know that Eric’s dad is running for mayor?’ I ask.

  Grandma stops attacking her pastry. ‘Colin Threepwood! I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Really? How extraordinary,’ says Dad, getting up from the table and walking over to shut the door to the kitchen.

  Mum sweeps her pie off her plate and into her napkin. ‘How interesting,’ she says, wandering past the piano and dropping the pie inside. ‘I wonder what brought that on.’

  I shrug. That’s it from me in terms of conversation.

  Psshshshshshsh.

  A long, rising bubbling sound drifts out from the kitchen and everyone pauses to listen.

  ‘Ah ha!’ shouts Tilly. ‘Die, pasta, die – you have met your match – I am the queen of all things spaghetti. Melt in my cauldron and quiver …’

  Briefly I wonder whether the food that Tilly’s making might be nicer than Dad’s.

  Then there’s a crackle and a bang and what sounds like a saucepan hitting the kitchen floor.

  ‘Stop it! Stop it! You stupid thing!’ shouts Tilly. The back door opens with a crash and the faint whiff of burned pasta floats through into the dining room.

  On the other hand …

  7

  Mr Bell’s Cardigan

  At school, Miss Mawes the art teacher has developed this notion that I’m good at art. I’ve been avoiding her since term began but just before registration this morning she caught me.

  ‘Tom, at last I’ve found you. Now, I’ve got the Sculpture on the Beach details here. You really should enter – you’ve got a talent.’

  This is based on a drawing of a badger that I traced last term for a project. Somehow she thought I’d drawn it from scratch and somehow I didn’t tell her the truth. I shouldn’t have done it. I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I was desperate and now she thinks I’m Leonardo.

  I’d copied it from Eric’s Wildlife Fun for Lively Children book, which is now hidden under my bed.

  ‘Well, at the very least, come to Art Club. After school, Tuesday. Shall I put you down?’

  She took my silence as a yes.

  About a foot down the corridor I met Dad, his arms full of cooking ingredients. ‘Give me a hand, Tom, just as far as Rainbow Class.’

  I debated running away, but left it slightly too long and took the butter and flour from Dad’s tottering pile. He pushed the door open with his bum and swung inside. I followed him into the classroom at which point the bag of flour slipped from my hand and exploded on the floor.

  There was an awful silence. Someone at the back giggled. Mrs Hawk glared at me. Every single child in the classroom gaped, and some clapped their hands to their mouths dramatically.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Dad.

  I turned scarlet and fled.

  I’m wondering what I might have done wrong in a former life to deserve Dad, when Eric arrives carrying a copy of the Bywater Times. He points at the headline: FIREMEN ACT IN BUCKET MYSTERY.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Worrying, isn’t it?’

  ‘We need to get this –’ Eric uncurls his hand to reveal the tiny deckchair – ‘under there.’ He points to Mr Bell’s pride and joy. The brand-new XX900 Macrocaster, purchased by the PTA with money raised by a sponsored midnight cliff walk. Since the school bought it we’ve been allowed to look at a fragment of onion skin and the scrapings from under Jacob’s nails, which were more lively than expected.

  The problem is that the XX900 Macrocaster is behind Mr Bell’s desk and takes five minutes to warm up.

  ‘Sooner rather than later,’ I say. ‘Before it starts to grow big again.’

  ‘So,’ says Jacob, appearing behind me. ‘What’s the plan, team?’

  ‘The plan is –’ I say, but I’m interrupted by Mr Bell clapping his hands. I notice he’s wearing what can only be des
cribed as a cardigan. Which is odd because he normally wears a tracksuit. He’s been behaving strangely ever since his wife had a baby.

  ‘Good morning, class,’ he shouts, before modulating his voice to something uncharacteristically soft. ‘How are we this morning? Are we ready to try a little role play?’

  There’s a mumble.

  ‘Because – today – we are going to get in touch with our sensitive side. In fact, the whole school is getting in touch with its sensitive side.’

  ‘What?’ says Jacob.

  Mr Bell sits on the front of his desk and tilts his head towards Jacob in a sympathetic manner. I can’t help feeling that he’s been practising this in front of the mirror. ‘Yes, Jacob. I know that under all that … bravado is a sensitive, feeling, human being.’

  Mr Bell may be sure, but I’m not.

  ‘Why, Mr Bell?’ asks Jacob, scratching his bottom.

  ‘Why what?’ asks Mr Bell.

  ‘Why are we getting in touch with our sensitive sides?’

  ‘Very good question,’ says Mr Bell, reverting to his normal megaphone volume. ‘Does anyone know the answer?’

  There’s a pencil-rolling silence in which lots of people roll pencils.

  ‘Empathy,’ he says in the end. ‘We’re going to study empathy. So, for starters, I’d like you to look it up, find out what it is and we’ll meet again in five minutes with some definitions.’

  ‘“Empathy” and “Mr Bell” are three words that I’d never put in the same sentence,’ mutters Eric, reaching for the huge dictionary that he keeps in his bag.

  ‘What’s empathy?’ says Jacob, taking Eric’s sharpener and sharpening his pencil. ‘Is it good on toast? Is it necessary? Do I have it?’

  ‘No, yes, no,’ says Eric.

  I reach for the dictionary. I’m a bit hazy about empathy. It’s something Mum says as if it’s really important, and which she says Tilly has but keeps hidden.