by Ross Welford
My sister. My twin. My other half. Her hair is greasy and her cheeks are streaked with dirt and tears. Her expression is as blank as those of the humans around me and she stares out at the crowd, her lips moving slightly, as if she is talking to herself, or praying, or … I don’t know what.
She is still wearing what she left the house in and it is all so familiar that I find myself blinking back tears. She is clutching her bag close to her chest, nervously, with both hands. A low table has been brought on to the stage and Tammy stands next to it. I don’t know what to do – if she sees me in the crowd will she even recognise me? If she does, will she cry out? If she cries out, what will happen to us?
It all reminds me of a scene I saw in a film once when a king, a long time ago, was beheaded in front of a cheering crowd. Even though I am pretty certain that Tammy is not going to be killed, it still sends a chill through me.
I try to keep my head down a bit, but I cannot stop sneaking looks at Tammy, trembling with fear on a platform in front of this weird crowd, who have taken up their chant yet again.
Hoo … hoo … hoo … hoo … hoo … hoo …
I have a sickening feeling that something horrible is about to happen to Tammy when Dark Streak comes to the front again and starts to talk.
Hellyann inclines her head to listen better and says to me, ‘She is saying something about a kift. When humans meet they kiv each other kifts?’
Kift?
I think for a moment.
‘Oh!’ I say. ‘A gift? A present!’
‘Yes. Humans exchange them?’
‘Well, yeah,’ I murmur back. ‘Sometimes. Special occasions, you know …’
‘This is very strange to us. We are going to see this happen.’
I’m baffled. What on earth is she on about, or Dark Streak for that matter?
‘See it happen?’ I say. ‘See what?’
Near us, some people have heard Hellyann and me talking and even though we are talking softly, they must have heard that it was another language. They have started to turn and look and point, and one of them rubs his hairy chin. Hellyann nudges me to keep quiet, for there is further movement at the back of the platform.
Dark Streak has something in her hand which glints in the sun when she holds it aloft. She spreads her bony fingers and I see she is holding Iggy’s glasses by one of the arms, and I swallow hard.
The two guards appear again and between them this time is Iggy, twisting his flat cap in his hands, his deep copper hair seeming to glow in the sunlight against the dried-out trees and the grey-white hair of his captors.
But it’s his face that astonishes me. I was kind of expecting him to be half drugged like Tammy. Instead his green eyes are furious and his mouth is set into the angriest scowl I have ever seen in my life. It doesn’t go unnoticed in the crowd either. A low ripple passes through the Anthallans around me and they look more intently.
One of his guards puts a hand on Iggy’s upper arm; he shakes it off angrily, and he stares out at the crowd, pure rage seeming to seep from every pore. He looks over at Tammy, who returns his gaze, but blankly, and Iggy shakes his head with sorrow and anger.
Then, at a signal from Dark Streak, Tammy reaches into her black school bag and fumbles around for a few seconds. For a moment, I’m thinking, Go, Tammy! Pull out a gun or something, but instead she removes, one by one, the three poorly wrapped presents that she had been taking to Scottish Sheila the night she went missing.
‘Whaat?!’
I think I say it aloud because people turn and look at me again, and I see Hellyann glancing around. She grabs my hand
‘Come,’ she whispers and almost drags me to a different part of the crowd, nearer to the platform this time.
Still, I can feel the crowd’s eyes following me. Anthallans, you will know by now, are pretty inexpressive, but I see one of them look up at Tammy, then at me and then back to Tammy.
I often forget how closely Tammy and I resemble each other, but there is no forgetting now. More people are noticing and pointing.
Meanwhile, on the stage, Tammy has given one of the presents to Iggy, who takes it in both hands and starts to unwrap it. Neither Tammy nor Iggy has noticed me yet: Tammy because of her detached mental state, I guess; Iggy because … well, I don’t know. Perhaps he’s just too upset to concentrate on anything other than what is happening to him at that moment.
Inside the wrapper is a box. Iggy’s shaking his head with puzzlement, because it is a box with a bottle inside: a bottle of vodka.
The crowd seem fascinated, and those who are near me switch their attention from me to the stage as Dark Streak puts down Iggy’s glasses, grabs the bottle from the table and holds it up. I wish I knew what she was saying because it is making the crowd excited.
Dark Streak mimes drinking from the bottle and then allows her tongue to loll out of her mouth and her legs to buckle. I get it: she is pretending to be drunk!
Oh no. I immediately guess what is going to happen.
I turn to Hellyann. ‘Are they going to make them drink it?’
Hellyann nods.
I am horrified. ‘Kids don’t drink alcohol!’ I say, quietly but urgently. ‘It’ll make them sick. It could even kill them!’ In my head, but not out loud, I add, ‘Especially that super-strong stuff that Dad got from the Polish guy …’
‘No!’ I shout and my hand is over my mouth even before the syllable is finished, but it’s too late.
Dark Streak stops and puts the bottle of vodka down on the stage floor. Slowly she comes to the very edge of the platform and looks out, her large, wet eyes scanning the crowd.
It seems as though everybody has turned to look at me. Glancing to the guards at her side, Dark Streak extends a long finger, pointing to me, and in an instant they have leapt down from the stage and are right next to me, grasping my upper arms in their bony hands and breathing their foul breath into my face.
‘Hellyann!’ I cry, but she has melted back into the crowd as I am half-dragged, half-carried on to the stage, where I look out at hundreds of pairs of eyes, all wondering what will happen next.
I try to catch Tammy’s eye, but her expression is blank and empty.
Iggy, though – he is not drugged, or memory-wiped, or whatever it is they have done to Tammy. His eyes are sparkling with …
Could it be mischief?
I cannot be certain, and in my terror about what is to happen next I am not sure I am thinking straight, but it’s a look I have seen on his face before – most recently when we were fishing the night Hellyann appeared. But it’s more than that: it’s the look he had when he showed me his Death Ray that morning on the bus to school.
Something is about to happen and Iggy is to be the cause of it.
He is standing next to me now and, keeping his face turned to the crowd, he murmurs, ‘You took your time, Tait.’
‘What are you up to?’ I whisper.
‘Nothing,’ he says.
But he winks as he says it.
I can’t speak for fear. Iggy, on the other hand, has his shoulders pulled back and his jaw thrust out defiantly. He’s planning something, I just know it.
I look around the stage. Is that a half-smile on Dark Streak’s face? Surely not? I say nothing. Dark Streak has unscrewed the lid of the bottle and given it to Iggy. He takes it and gives it a big, deep sniff. He looks up at the sky, and then behind him to the two other bottles of vodka, now unwrapped, on the low table.
‘You know that Felina song?’ he says out of the side of his mouth. ‘I think we should pretend that it’s a human ritual. Come on!’
Holding the bottle in his hand, he struts up and down the stage like a chicken, going, ‘La la la la, dum dum dum …’ to the tune of the ridiculous Felina song, the one that had been sung so sadly at the candlelit vigil for Tammy, and again by Hellyann in the toilet of the Stargazer. It strikes me again as I watch Iggy: how did she know?
I’m snapped out of my wondering by Iggy.
&nbs
p; ‘Come on!’ he urges. ‘Join in. Tammy as well!’
I have literally no idea where this is going, but it is so mad, so completely crazy that I find myself making chicken noises and flapping my arms, trying not to think of how I will tell Iggy later about Suzy.
If there is a later, of course.
The audience look on, quite bewildered. Meanwhile, Dark Streak has stepped back and folded her arms, nodding – apparently content to let these crazy Earth people entertain the crowd.
‘Do-do-do-do-do the Chicken Hop!
Da-da-da-da-dance like you can’t stop!
Do-do-do the Chicken Hop this Christmas!’
It’s like a little light has come on behind Tammy’s eyes. Slowly she joins in with the do-do-dos and starts to bob and flap.
‘Come on, Tam!’ I encourage her. ‘You remember it!’
As we strut, the crowd start hoo-hoo-ing. I think they are actually enjoying something, possibly for the first time in their lives. As for me, despite my fear, I start to laugh inside at the thought of the crowd believing that this is what humans do every time we exchange gifts.
Over the noise, Iggy says to me, ‘Have you got your old snot rag?’
I reach into my pocket and bring out my hankie. I have noticed that as we’ve been dancing about, Iggy has been spilling quite a bit of the vodka on the stage, and there is now a trail of large droplets and rivulets leading over the back of the platform.
‘Rip your hankie into shreds, Tait. Three long strips. Go on – do it. We can’t keep this up for much longer. Get ready to follow me and run!’
I bite into the hem of the hankie and do as he says, tearing the fabric into strips as I copy his ridiculous steps to the sound of the crowd’s rhythmic hoo-hoo-hoo. Iggy takes one of the strips and waves it over his head like some demented Morris dancer. Tammy and I do the same.
Then he shouts at the crowd, ‘Right, you lot! Who’s for a Goblet of Fire?’
I gasp, remembering my dad shouting the same words as I burst into the Stargazer the night Tammy went missing. Is this heading where I think it is?
Iggy says to me, ‘Don’t do the next bit!’
Iggy takes a huge mouthful of vodka. Honestly, he holds the bottle up for ages, and his cheeks are bulging.
The crowd goes Hoooo! in approval.
Only, I don’t think he actually swallows it …
Still Tammy and I are dancing, and still the crowd are chanting.
Iggy has taken his handkerchief strip and held it against the bottle top, which he inverts, soaking the cloth with super-strength Polish vodka. I still have no idea what he’s doing. He waves it around some more, droplets of vodka going everywhere, and then he discards it and it lands on the floor, before the little table where his glasses are.
‘Are … are you making a …’ I start, and he nods, his cheeks still bulging.
He’s doing a Death Ray!
I know immediately what I must do. I grab the bottle from him and take over the dance, deflecting all of Dark Streak’s attention to me, while Iggy retreats. I hardly dare to look, but he’s really doing it. The sun is strong and almost overhead, and Iggy carefully and casually positions his glasses on the low table, so that the sunlight goes through the clear liquid in the bottles, and the beam is further concentrated through his thick spectacle lenses.
He still hasn’t swallowed his mouthful, and I think Dark Streak has noticed. I can see the pinpoint of burning light on the floor caused by Iggy’s specs, and he gently kicks the vodka-soaked rag into position, right in the beam of the Death Ray.
I can hardly breathe with nerves, for it could catch fire at any time … and then what?
For all their universal intelligence and lifelong learning, Anthallans have never, ever come across a crazy, school-excluded thirteen-year-old with possible behavioural problems who knows how to make fire. My heart is pounding so hard that it almost hurts.
Ten seconds at least have gone by, and the audience are getting restless. I start to hear growls and murmurings. I imagine they’re calling, ‘Oi, Earth Boy – enough of the prancing around!’
Twenty seconds, and I’m desperately trying not to look at the rag on the floor. Iggy has joined me, and he indicates that I take a swig from the bottle as well, if only to buy us some more time.
I tip the bottle up and as I fill my mouth, I see that someone in the crowd is pointing. I look back, and a tiny flame is flickering from my handkerchief.
Seconds later, the whole rag is burning, and the fire has spread a few inches with the drops we have spilled. Dark Streak has not noticed yet, but she soon will.
The chanting of the crowd stops as though a switch has been flicked, and there’s a groan of … I don’t know what it is at first. I look out at the crowd and their eyes have all widened and they are murmuring between themselves.
It is fear.
The primitive fear of fire that no amount of education, no amount of clinical, genetically engineered cloning could eradicate from this strange race of creatures.
Dark Streak has unfolded her arms and is ready to take a step forward, when suddenly the vodka-soaked stage catches fire in a large burst of bluish-orange flame. The crowd start to move, backing away.
I have grabbed Tammy’s hand as I have guessed what is about to happen and I want to be able to get out of there quickly. The Anthallan guards are moving towards us. I spit out the vodka from my mouth on to my strip of hankie, and bend down to dip it in the flames. It catches immediately. One of the guards has taken out his black stick and has raised it up to strike me, but I brandish the burning rag at him and he freezes in fear.
Then, lifting his bottle high above his head, Iggy smashes it on to the stage with all the force he can muster, and as he leaps out of the way the bottle breaks, the vodka catches alight in a burst of flame and a scream erupts from the crowd.
This is too much for Dark Streak, who takes two strides forward and, as she reaches out to grab him, Iggy unloads the contents of his bulging mouth on to her chest in a long, spurting stream. The alcohol ignites immediately and Dark Streak utters a horrible yell as her body hair erupts in flame.
It is chaos on the stage. The guards have retreated, and the flames are licking around our feet.
‘Into the trees!’ yells Iggy. ‘Throw one into the trees!’
I grab a bottle and cast it in a high arc – it smashes against a rock, spilling vodka over a wide area. Next I throw my flaming hankie, which has started to burn my hand, and it immediately ignites the spilled alcohol.
‘Tammy!’ I shout over the noise of the crowd. ‘Stones in the lake! Stones in the lake!’
Tammy remembers our game. She grabs the third bottle and lobs it in the direction of the crowd, where it forms a huge pool of liquid and causes everyone to run in panic, screaming an animal howl of terror as it catches fire.
The flames have spread instantly, following the line of the spills that Iggy made during our crazy dance, and whipped up by the wind. As the three of us leap off the back of the stage in the confusion, more of the tinder-dry undergrowth is sparking and catching fire.
The two guards who were holding us on the stage have run away, their fur blazing. Dark Streak is emitting a hissing growl and frantically beating the flames that have now spread to her head, while the crowd of Anthallans have gone crazy, running away from the spreading fire.
Iggy and I, each holding one of Tammy’s hands, run behind the line of flickering flames and into a wall of smoke.
It has all been so chaotic, so utterly mad, that I have not even paused to acknowledge the fact that I am back with my sister.
(If you were wanting a moment in the midst of the frenzy when I lock eyes with my twin and we fall into each other’s arms and promise never to be parted again and all of that stuff? That bit where I go, ‘Hi, Tam’, and we embrace? Well, let me say that I wanted that too, but it didn’t happen.)
Instead I am running through undergrowth holding Tammy’s hand and still I cannot take time to en
joy that she is back at my side – not when there is a sheet of fire spreading around us that we can only just outrun.
And so we keep running, choking on the smoke, until the three of us come to a clearing in the woods and we stop, coughing and panting hard. Looking back through the smoke, I can see the shapes of two, no three, Anthallans coming in our direction – and if I can see them, they can probably see me.
‘That way!’ I shout through a severe bout of coughing.
In the distance, I can make out the tip of the huge Douglas fir which marked the hole in the force field where I came in.
Iggy doesn’t question me, and seems happy for me to take the lead.
‘It’s our only hope!’ I gasp.
Off we go again, and still Tammy hasn’t said a single word.
On the other side of the clearing we plunge into the woods again, and by now I’m only guessing the direction because the big fir tree is obscured by all the other trees, and we have to keep dodging around bushes and changing direction.
Behind us, the noise of the fire is getting louder, and every minute or so there is a loud whoomph! and a crackling noise as another thicket of dried undergrowth catches alight, fanned by the strong breeze. But at least we are keeping ahead of the flames, and we seem to have lost our pursuers.
I’m beginning to think we might be all right, and I even let go of Tammy’s hand. I can see the massive Douglas fir again, a few metres ahead, which means the force field’s dead zone must be close by. Tammy is running well, and not panting as much as Iggy and I, and then:
CRACK!
She doesn’t even yell in pain. Tammy literally bounces back from a thick branch that she has run straight into at full speed, and lies flat out on the ground.
‘Tammy!’ I shout. ‘Iggy, wait!’
She lies, staring glassily at the smoky sky, deathly still. Her forehead is deeply gashed and bleeding.
Iggy runs back and we both crouch over her.
