The bedroom door swings open and Summer comes in, her hair still pinned up from dance class, her ballet bag swinging.
‘Mum says tea’s ready in ten minutes,’ she says, then stops short as she sees me properly.
Suddenly, I don’t feel like a beautiful 1920s girl any more, just a little kid caught doing something she shouldn’t.
‘What is all that, Skye?’ she asks. ‘Why are you wearing those creepy old clothes?’
Just as it did earlier when Mum mentioned the possibility of selling Clara’s things, a strong feeling surfaces inside me.
‘They’re not creepy, just old,’ I say, and my eyes light on the old powder-blue birdcage with the twisty wire bars that now sits in the corner behind Summer’s bed. ‘Like your birdcage. Vintage chic, right?’
‘It’s different,’ Summer insists. ‘The birdcage is one thing, but don’t you think it’s a bit weird, actually wearing Clara’s things? I mean … she’s dead. It’s just too spooky.’
I laugh. ‘I love vintage clothes. I wear old stuff all the time …’
Summer raises an eyebrow. ‘That’s different. Clara Travers killed herself,’ she huffs. ‘Please, Skye, take her things off. I don’t like it.’
I pull off the cloche hat, and as I do I catch a glimpse of my reflection. For a moment I look defiant, determined – not like me at all. I blink, and the illusion is gone. The mirror just shows a smiley girl with wavy blonde hair, wearing a dress from long ago.
I pull the crimson flapper dress over my head and fold it carefully back into the trunk, but I leave the white cotton petticoat, the bracelets. I pull on a jumper, twirl round in front of the mirror.
It looks good, but Summer still seems troubled.
‘What?’ I say to her, trying to laugh it off. ‘You think Clara’s going to haunt me? Come on! I mean … seriously?’
‘No, of course not,’ Summer says. ‘But … well, maybe the stories are right, and her spirit does roam around Tanglewood? Looking for her lost love?’ I mean, don’t you think it was strange that last night we’d just been talking about Clara Travers, and then a few minutes later we went inside and all her things had turned up after almost a hundred years of being lost? On Halloween, as well!’
‘Hey, hey,’ I whisper. ‘That stuff was never lost, it was in the attic the whole time. It’s just coincidence that Paddy started to clear the attic on Halloween. It doesn’t mean anything, Summer!’
Summer sighs. ‘I don’t know. I don’t like it …’
I try to shrug away her concern. There’s no way that anything genuinely spooky is going on.
Like I said, I don’t believe in ghosts …
5
I step outside, closing the door behind me softly, and the grass beneath my feet is studded with daisies and the air smells marshmallow sweet. I am wearing a blue velvet dress and little shoes with a button strap, and my wrists jangle with silver bracelets – shiny bright, like new.
I slip out through the little picket gate with the mallow flowers arched on either side, and run into the woods, with the sun shining down through a canopy of green.
I walk down through the trees, my heart beating fast, a soft flutter of excitement bubbling up inside. And then I smell woodsmoke, and looking down through the branches of the twisty hazel trees I can see four bow-top gypsy wagons in the clearing below.
A woodfire smoulders nearby, a blackened kettle hanging above it, and half a dozen horses, big and patterned with variations of black and white, are grazing nearby. Two small girls in raggedy dresses play a hiding game among the trees, and a couple of dark-haired men are mending pots and pans beside the fire.
There’s the sound of twigs breaking softly behind me, and a skinny, dishevelled dog that looks like a tawny-coloured toilet brush rushes up and nudges my hand. I stroke the dog and scratch its ears, and turn round slowly. Suddenly, my heart does a backflip inside my chest and my cheeks flush.
The boy walking towards me through the trees is a stranger, but it feels like I have known him forever. He is tall and tanned, with dark hair that flops down across his face and eyes so blue they take my breath away. His clothes are strange, old-fashioned, a white shirt with no collar and the sleeves rolled up, a threadbare waistcoat and cord trousers the colour of bracken. At his neck is a red scarf, knotted carelessly.
Just then, a bird flies up from a nearby branch, a flash of red and brown, a flurry of wings.
Finch, I think. The boy’s name is Finch.
‘Hey,’ he says, and his face breaks into a grin. His hand reaches out to catch mine, holding tight.
I sit up, pushing the hair back from my face, my heart racing. I wonder where I am for a moment, but in the half-light of dawn I can see I’m in the room I share with my twin. I remember trying on Clara’s clothes last night, before supper, then squabbling with Summer about it. I remember Summer, Cherry and Coco choosing a DVD and curling up on the sofas to watch, but I was tired and sloped off to my room, flaking out early.
‘That,’ I say out loud, ‘was the weirdest dream ever.’
‘Huh?’ Summer murmurs from under her duvet. ‘What dream?’
‘It seemed so real,’ I frown. ‘Like it was actually happening. But I wasn’t really me. Or if I was, then everything else was just kind of muddled and wrong … I don’t know. Weird.’
Summer doesn’t reply, but she blinks at me with sleepy, troubled eyes, her brows slanting into a frown.
That’s when I realize I am still wearing the white cotton petticoat that once belonged to Clara Travers …
6
I don’t say any more to Summer about my dream, although I’m still thinking about it all the way to school. First period is history. Mr Wolfe is new at Exmoor Park Middle School, and everyone thinks he is wired to the moon. He wears tweed jackets with elbow patches and corduroy trousers in beige or mustard yellow, and he always smells faintly of toast. He looks like he might be better suited to a career at Hogwarts, or perhaps as an extra in a horror movie featuring werewolves. No wonder Alfie Anderson likes to tease him.
I think history is cool. It’s all about stories, about how the past shapes the present and the future, and I’ve loved it ever since I can remember. Back in Year Four I got a gold star for my Egyptian project, which involved trying to mummify a Barbie doll with lengths of toilet roll in front of the entire class. ‘Awesome, Skye,’ Alfie said. I think he liked the bit where I told the class how those ancient Egyptians used to remove the mummy’s brains by dragging them out through the nostrils with a hook. Boys are kind of bloodthirsty for stories like that.
I think I prefer the Clara Travers kind of history – doomed love stories and amazing clothes. But even though I love history, I am not at all sure about Mr Wolfe. I can’t help feeling a little bit sorry for him, though.
Today he is late coming to class, and Alfie has set up a practical joke. As the new history teacher walks into the room, a wastepaper basket balanced on top of the slightly open door topples down on him, showering him with scrunched-up paper.
He peers at us through his horn-rimmed glasses. ‘Amusing,’ he says. ‘Do you know something, class? History is full of unpredictable events, but we can learn from them. They teach us to expect the unexpected –’
Mr Wolfe whips the chair out from under his desk suddenly, as if expecting to see a Whoopee cushion or a drawing pin Blu-tacked to the seat. Nothing. He checks under the table, sifts through the papers on his desk and squints at the whiteboard as if checking for traps.
‘See?’ he proclaims. ‘History teaches us to be prepared!’
Not quite prepared enough, alas. Mr Wolfe is forgetting one very important lesson – history repeats itself.
I cannot bear to watch.
‘Sir!’ I say, waving my hand in the air, but Mr Wolfe just smiles and tells me to wait a moment.
He steps into the stock cupboard to fetch our textbooks, and that’s when Alfie Anderson’s rucksack, balanced all that time on the top of the stock-cupboard door,
crashes down on top of him, knocking his glasses to the floor.
The whole class just about fall off their chairs laughing.
‘History didn’t teach you to expect that, Sir,’ Alfie snorts.
Mr Wolfe turns a strange shade of crimson. He picks up the rucksack, which is extra heavy because Alfie has stuffed it with history textbooks to give it more oomph. His hands shake a little as he does this, and so does his voice.
‘Alfie Anderson, is this your rucksack?’ he asks.
‘Yes, Sir!’ Alfie says. ‘I wonder how it got over there?’
I think what happens next is partly Alfie’s fault, for pushing Mr Wolfe too far. It is also partly Mr Wolfe’s fault for losing his temper and not pausing to pick up his glasses from the floor. You could even say a part of the blame rests with Mr King, the head teacher, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That is how history works, though. It is all about cause and effect, but there is a lot of luck involved.
Mr Wolfe hurls the rucksack through the air at Alfie, and it misses completely and flies right through the window, shattering glass all over the classroom. There’s a squeal of brakes from outside and an outraged yell.
‘What the devil is going on up there?’ a familiar voice roars.
It is very unlucky indeed that the head teacher happened to be parking his car beneath the window at that exact moment. A few of us sitting near the window watch as the rucksack bounces off the roof of Mr King’s new Skoda Fabia, denting it slightly, then slides to the ground, knocking off a wing mirror on the way.
‘Whoa,’ Alfie says. ‘Nice shot, Sir!’
But Mr Wolfe sinks down on to his chair and puts his head in his hands, and this time nobody laughs at all.
‘Alfie!’ I hiss. ‘What have you done?’
‘What have I done?’ Alfie echoes, all innocent. ‘I didn’t break the window!’
‘Alfie!’ I growl. ‘This is not funny. He could lose his job over this! Do something, or –’
‘Or you’re history,’ Summer says crisply, from across the aisle.
A few moments later, the classroom door bursts open and Mr King storms in, carrying the rucksack. He is purple with fury.
‘Mr Wolfe!’ he roars. ‘What is going on? How did this happen?’
The history teacher stands up, squaring his shoulders and raking a hand through his hair, but it is Alfie who speaks.
‘It was me, Sir,’ he says, calmly and clearly. ‘I was messing around and Mr Wolfe told me to stop, and … it was an accident, Sir, but I was to blame.’
He hangs his head, and for the first time in living memory, I feel the tiniest bit of sympathy for Alfie Anderson.
‘My office, now, Alfie,’ Mr King says. ‘I will send the janitor over to clean up the broken glass. Mr Wolfe, take your class down to the library until this mess has been cleared up.’
The door closes, and Mr Wolfe faces the class, slightly shell-shocked.
‘Is … is anybody hurt?’ he asks.
‘No, Sir.’
‘That’s something at least,’ he says. ‘Well … as you can see, history is happening all around us, all the time. Some events stay in our minds and memories forever, and I have a feeling that was one of them.’
‘Too right,’ Millie mutters, beside me.
‘Sometimes, though, you don’t always get the full picture,’ Mr Wolfe frowns. ‘History isn’t always what it seems, and it’s all too easy to get the wrong idea. You have to piece together the clues to make sense of it all …’
I blink. Suddenly, Mr Wolfe is not so much werewolf as a wise history guru whose words make me catch my breath – what he says about clues makes me think about Clara Travers. Maybe I could find out more about her, piece together her story, if I can just find some more clues. The dream is still vivid in my mind, as if I actually did slip back in time and see the world through Clara’s eyes for a moment. My heart beats hard at the thought of it. Does that make it not so much a dream, but more … a kind of haunting?
I frown, shaking the idea out of my head.
‘I’d better set the record straight,’ Mr Wolfe sighs. ‘History likes a hero, but I can’t let Alfie take the blame for this. Go along to the library, Year Eight. I will see the head and get this sorted out.’
So, yeah … history. It is never boring, or at least not for long.
7
‘He’s not as bad as I thought,’ Summer says as we pile on to the bus for Kitnor.
‘Who, Mr Wolfe?’ I ask. ‘Or Alfie?’
Summer rolls her eyes. ‘Mr Wolfe, of course,’ she says. ‘There is no hope whatsoever for Alfie.’
In some ways, you cannot blame Alfie Anderson for being slightly unhinged, because he has a very strange family. His parents are ageing hippies who run the village health-food store and wander around wearing tie-dye T-shirts and smelling of patchouli oil, which is a little bit like the smell of a cat litter tray in my opinion. His two little sisters wear lots of handknitted sweaters and skirts that jingle when they walk. I guess Alfie is just trying to be different, and you can’t blame him for that.
I think there might be hope for him, actually. A glimmer.
And then I change my mind, because the minute I sit down he legs it along the aisle and flops down beside me in the seat I was saving for Millie.
‘Old Wolfie was a legend, back there,’ he tells me. ‘Mr King was about to ring my parents … I could have been kicked out. And then Wolfie waded in and I am off the hook, except for a week’s worth of lunchtime detentions. Y’know, I think I could get to like history lessons, although I am more interested in actually making history than writing about it …’
Alfie’s brown hair is gelled into three or four different directions, which makes him look a little like he has just crawled out of a wind tunnel. I don’t think he is likely to be making history with his charm, good looks or personal style, at least not any time soon.
Millie gets on the bus and tries to nudge Alfie out of the way with her schoolbag, but he will not move. He seems to be settling in for the day.
‘Millie, Millie,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘You are a lovely girl, but Skye and I would like a bit of privacy right now. We have important matters to discuss.’
‘Weirdo,’ my friend says, flopping down into a seat across the aisle. The bus lurches into action, and I am stranded with the most annoying boy in the whole of Year Eight. Great.
‘What are you playing at, Alfie?’ I huff. ‘I will not do your history homework for you, if that’s what you’re thinking!’
‘As if!’ he protests, holding his hands up in surrender. ‘Although it would probably be fun for you, Skye, because you love history. You wear all that freaky vintage stuff and everything …’
He flicks my stripy scarf and shoots a meaningful look at my navy blazer and matching beret. OK, I admit I am the only person on the bus wearing a school blazer. I admit I found it in a jumble sale, and added in the scarf and beret because I’d seen them in an ancient kid’s book about a boarding school. I admit I am probably the only kid at Exmoor Park Middle School who sometimes gets told off for actually wearing school uniform.
Is it my fault it’s fifty years out of date? I happen to have a special interest in the history of fashion.
‘So anyway,’ Alfie ploughs on. ‘I need some advice. It’s serious.’ He lowers his voice and looks around the bus, anxiously. ‘I’m in love. Can you meet me in the Mad Hatter on Saturday to talk about it?’
My tummy flips over … and not in a good way. More in a queasy, please-don’t-let-this-be-happening way.
I remember Alfie jumping out on us by the graveyard at Halloween, almost as if he had been waiting for us. I remember the way he stopped clowning around and took the blame in the classroom earlier on after I glared at him. This is bad … very, very bad.
‘No!’ I squeak, horrified. ‘I mean, I am very … um … flattered. Of course. But … I just don’t feel the same. At all!’
Alfie looks conf
used. ‘Flattered?’ he echoes. ‘Huh? What are you talking about?’
‘You,’ I say patiently. ‘And … well, me.’
Alfie Anderson laughs so hard then I think he might do himself an injury. ‘No, no, NO!’ he says, once he has recovered the power of speech. ‘I am not in love with you, Skye, obviously!’
I am torn between a deep sense of relief and feeling slightly offended that the idea of being in love with me should be quite so hysterically funny.
Alfie notices my frown.
‘Not that there’s any reason why someone wouldn’t fancy you,’ he says quickly. ‘It’s just that you’re a mate, y’know? Not that you are actually hideous or anything.’
‘Thank you,’ I say huffily. ‘I think.’
‘No worries,’ Alfie shrugs. ‘But anyway, I need some advice, and obviously, we can’t talk properly here on the bus, so I thought if we met up this Saturday –’
‘I’m busy,’ I tell him. Which is true because we are having a beach bonfire on Saturday, and there is no way on earth I am asking Alfie along to that.
When I was little, we used to have a bonfire in the garden every fifth of November. We’d dress up warmly in woolly hats and scarves and eat sausage and mash from tin plates. We’d write our names in the air with sizzling sparklers and Dad would stress and growl as he set up flashy rockets and fireworks brought down from London.
Then Dad left, and everything changed. We started going down into Kitnor for the annual firework display instead, and it was still cool, but not as cool as the bonfire days had been.
This year, Mum and Paddy have decided to have a DIY bonfire again, but down on the beach instead of in the garden – a new tradition, a new beginning.
‘So … Sunday?’ Alfie Anderson persists.
‘Homework,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’
‘Next Saturday then?’
I sigh. Alfie is not about to give up, I can see that, and to be honest he could do with a few lessons in how to behave around girls. Around anyone, in fact.
2: Chocolate Box Girls: Marshmallow Skye Page 3
