Hiya!
A little while ago, I was at a craft fair and fell in love with a cool mirror decorated with pale, twisty bits of driftwood. I kept wondering about what it’d be like to live by the sea and make fab things. Who would do that kind of thing? What kind of house would they have?
Before long, I had created a whole bunch of characters, and those characters had a story to tell. Driftwood is a story about friendship, fitting in and falling in love, all mixed in with a little bit of magic and a trio of crazy kittens (based on my three thuggish mogs!). It’s for everyone out there who feels different from the crowd, who doesn’t fit in – and anyone who has ever been bullied.
I got to mooch around a lot of windswept beaches while researching the book, and I collected vast piles of driftwood along the way! I loved writing about Joey, Hannah, Kit and Paul – I hope you’ll love reading about them too.
Best wishes,
Cathy Cassidy
xxxx
cathycassidy.com
Books by Cathy Cassidy
DIZZY
DRIFTWOOD
INDIGO BLUE
SCARLETT
SUNDAE GIRL
LUCKY STAR
PUFFIN
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
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Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
puffinbooks.com
First published 2005
13
Copyright © Cathy Cassidy, 2005
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author/illustrator has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-141-92470-0
Thanks!
As ever, to Liam and Calum for their love, hugs and endless support, and Gaitlin, who gave me the idea for Joey in the book! Thanks also to Mum, Dad, Andy, Lori, Joan and my whole fab family. Special thanks to my first readers, Catriona, Fiona and Mary-Jane, and also Helen, Sheena, Zarah and all my lovely friends – whether it’s swimming, climbing hills, eating cake or just talking, you’re always there for me.
Thanks to Paul for knitting me such a cool website, and Martyn for doing the adding-up bits. Thanks to Darley and his angels, Julia, Lucy and all at the agency, and to Rebecca, Francesca, Adele, Tania, Shannon, Kirsten, Jo and all at Puffin HQ for believing in me.
To the kids who email the website or write to me, a huge thank you – your enthusiasm and encouragement is the best. Last, but not least, thanks to the fab and talented pupils at Kells, Carsphairn, Springholm, St Peters, Crossmichael and Gelston schools for your knack of putting a smile on my face every time I’m teaching. I’m gonna miss you! (Sniff!)
CHAPTER 1
My best friend, Joey Donovan, is weird. She is clever, she is kind, she is seriously cool, but still, she’s weird, in a take-it-or-leave-it kind of way.
She always has been, ever since she marched into my classroom seven years ago, wearing pink wellies, reindeer antlers and a don’t-mess-with-me look in her big blue eyes. She pitched up in Kirklaggan like a small tornado, and she’s been like that ever since.
It’s Monday morning, and Joey stomps down the aisle of the school bus, a vision in freckles and black lipstick.
She’s wearing a grey school skirt with the hem chopped off so it’s all frayed and ratty, and long stripy socks that reach up over her skinny knees. One sock is black and white, the other black and red. On her feet are clumpy black biker boots with shiny silver buckles, and her jacket is a huge, drooping school blazer like something your great-grandad might have worn in 1947. Where the school badge once was, she has stitched on a Good Charlotte patch, slightly squint.
She is on a one-woman mission to overthrow school uniform, or redesign it as her own version of punk/goth/scarecrow chic. She is twelve years old.
‘Like the socks,’ my brother, Kit, calls down from the back seat of the bus. A few kids snigger, and Joey sticks her tongue out at him, but hey, my brother probably does like the socks. He is thirteen years old and lately I have seen a moonstruck, fuzzy expression seep over his face whenever Joey is around.
I haven’t mentioned this to Joey yet. I don’t want to scare her.
She slides into the seat beside me. Her hair, ash blonde with random stripes of pink and green, is bundled into two stubby plaits that stick out alarmingly above her collar.
‘Major news!’ she says, eyes sparkling with excitement. ‘I mean, seriously major, Hannah! You will never guess what happened yesterday!’
Yesterday, Joey was meant to come round to my place to hang out, use my PC for her English homework and get her usual fix of The Simpsons. Jed and Eva don’t have a computer or a telly in their house, and Joey gets withdrawal symptoms sometimes. At the last minute, she rang to cancel.
I didn’t mind too much, but Kit was crushed, all dressed up in his best jeans and hoodie, hair gelled into hedgehog spikes and trailing a cloud of toxic aftershave. He’s got it bad.
‘So,’ I say now, tugging at Joey’s plait, ‘what was it all about? Tell!’
She settles into her seat, breaking a stick of gum in half so we can share. ‘Guess what? Jed and Eva are only going to foster a new kid! After all this time!’
Joey and her little brother, Mikey, started out being fostered, but their family, Jed and Eva, got the legal bits sorted and adopted them for keeps a few years back. If you saw the Donovan family all together you’d never guess they weren’t related. They are a perfect fit – the whole bunch of them are seriously flaky.
‘No way!’ I grin. ‘A new kid? Is that good or bad?’
‘Oh, good, definitely,’ Joey laughs. ‘Paul, his name is. Paul Slater. The social workers said he’s from a troubled background, whatever that is, but they reckon he’ll settle in great with Jed and Eva. They brought him down from Glasgow yesterday Cool or what?’
‘Cool. How old is he? Will he be a friend for Mikey?’
‘Nah,’ Joey says. ‘Paul’s older than us – thirteen. He’ll be in S2. Maybe Kit can look out for him?’
My brother, Kit, is a pain in the bum, but he’s funny and streetwise and popular with the other kids. And, in spite of the teasing, he’d do anything for Joey.
‘Why don’t you ask him?’ I suggest. ‘I think he’d do it.’
‘I will. Paul’s starting school today, but Eva drove him in early to get the paperwork done, and to talk to Mr McKenzie and the guidance teachers and everyone.’
; The bus lurches to a halt and a sea of rackety teenagers rolls down the aisle. Joey and I take our time. It’s January. It’s only just light out there, and definitely sub-zero, so what’s the hurry? When Joey stands up, my brother, Kit, just happens to be in the aisle behind her.
‘Fancy seeing you girls,’ he says carelessly, as if he hasn’t spent a whole week planning this exact moment. ‘After you, Josephine.’
‘Why, thank you, Christopher,’ Joey says sweetly.
Kit moves smoothly along behind her, bashing me in the arm with his rucksack, so I know this sudden attack of good manners doesn’t extend to me.
Joey is telling Kit about the new foster-kid, and by the time we spill out, shivering, on to the frosty pavements, she’s got him to promise he’ll keep an eye on Paul Slater.
Just until he finds his feet, y’know,’ Joey is saying. ‘He’s quite shy, I think, but he is from Glasgow. He must have a bit of street sense somewhere.’
‘Leave it to me,’ Kit replies. ‘I’ll look after him.’
‘Oh, Kit, thanks,’ Joey says, fluttering her eyelashes and laying it on thick. ‘I knew I could count on you.’
By the time she turns away from him, my brother is bright pink and grinning like a madman. No change there, then.
We link arms and mooch up towards the school gates, giggling.
‘Your brother blushed,’ Joey tells me, although just about everyone south of Aberdeen must have spotted the beacon that is Kit’s face. ‘D’you think he likes me?’
‘Just a bit.’
‘Whoa.’ Joey laughs. ‘Don’t know if I can handle that’.
‘Don’t know if I can!’
Then we spot Mr McKenzie, the Head, patrolling the school gates. We stop dead in our tracks. Mr McKenzie and Joey Donovan do not see eye to eye. His aim in life is to stamp out all signs of rebellion, disorder and individuality. School uniform offences are punishable by death, or week-long detentions, anyhow. Joey does not stand a chance.
‘We’ll sneak in through the staff car park,’ I decide, dragging Joey along the pavement, away from the main gates.
Joey looks glum, because she enjoys arguing about uniform with Mr McKenzie. Since she started at Kirklaggan High School last August, he’s had to write two new clauses into the school uniform list. The first outlaws black PVC miniskirts, the second declares that dog collars and studded wristbands may not be worn on school premises.
‘Freak,’ spits out an S3 lad as we dodge past him.
‘Loser,’ Joey responds automatically.
When I look over my shoulder, I can see Kit giving the S3 kid a row for picking on Joey, and I have to smile.
We sneak through the teachers’ car park and skirt round the back of the dinner halls. A heady aroma of boiled cabbage and custard assaults us from the kitchens, even though it’s barely ten to nine.
‘What’s that noise?’ Joey demands suddenly, frowning.
‘Can’t hear anything. C’mon, Joey, we can’t be late.’
Joey is standing still, her face anxious, eyes scanning the kitchen yard with its skip full of cardboard, the piles of plastic crates and the trio of dustbins huddled together near the wall.
‘I heard something,’ she insists.
‘I didn’t,’ I huff. It’s so cold the words seem to gather in the air before me; a small white cloud, like dragon’s breath. Joey, it’s freezing. Can we just go now?’
She shakes her head, putting a finger to her lips. Exasperated, I shiver inside my duffel coat.
‘What kind of a noise?’ I ask. In the stillness I can hear the sound of kids shouting in the distance, and someone scraping a pan inside the kitchen. Behind us, Miss Quinn’s clapped-out VW Beetle wheezes across the car park and shudders to a halt.
‘Shhh.’
The school bell clatters out then, and Miss Quinn rushes past us, pink scarf flapping, on her way to the art block. ‘Hurry up, girls,’ she grins. ‘You’ll be late. Later than me, even!’ She disappears round the corner, but Joey still won’t budge.
And then I hear it: a thin, mewling cry that’s coming from the dustbins.
Joey’s there in a flash, tipping up the lids, rooting through the rubbish. Scrunched-up kitchen roll and long strips of cellophane flutter down on to the concrete.
‘Hannah,’ she breathes. ‘Look, Hannah, just look what I’ve found.’
Together we peer inside the third bin. They’re in among the vegetable peelings and the cold baked beans, curled in a squashed-up cardboard box, chucked out in the freezing cold January morning like so much rubbish.
Three tiny, shivering, blue-eyed kittens.
CHAPTER 2
Joey has a kitten in each pocket of her outsize school blazer, and I cradle a wriggling scrap of tortoiseshell fur inside my woolly hat.
‘Oh, Hannah, who would do such a thing?’ Joey demands, outraged. ‘They could have been there all night, for all we know. It’s barbaric!’
‘They could have died,’ I whisper, gazing down at the tiny kitten in my hands. ‘They still could, Joey. We have to get them warm and safe and fed. Fast!’
‘What shall we do?’
I chew my lip. ‘They need food now. We need somewhere safe, somewhere warm. We need someone who’ll understand.’
‘Miss Quinn,’ we say together.
If any teacher in the school will help, it has to be Miss Quinn. She’s cool and kind and she doesn’t tell Joey off for wearing funny clothes or having stripy hair. She lets us listen to music in class and gives us sweets at the end of term.
The art room is where we hang out on rainy days, along with a whole raft of other kids who take refuge there, finishing off work or doing extra stuff of their own. Miss Quinn doesn’t mind as long as we’re working, as long as it’s art. She just smiles and nibbles ginger biscuits, and sips milky coffee that she makes with a plug-in kettle she keeps in the stock cupboard. She’s OK, Miss Quinn. You know she’s on your side.
The bell that signals the end of registration has just rung, so we leg it round to the front of the school. Joey and I melt into the crowds and pass unnoticed. Joey keeps her hands in her pockets, and I hide the hat under my duffel coat.
Outside the first-floor art room, I take a deep breath, rap on the door and go in.
Amazingly, Miss Quinn has a free lesson. She is alone in an empty classroom, listening to a classical music CD, spreading out screen-prints for a class discussion after break. I spot Kit’s design – a skateboarder silhouetted against a rainbow background – so I know that the next class is his.
‘Girls?’ Miss Quinn looks up, confused. ‘I don’t see your class until Friday afternoon, do I? Is there a problem?’
‘Kind of,’ Joey begins, scooping the kittens out of her pockets and on to the tabletop, where they stand on wobbly legs.
‘You have to help us, Miss,’ I add, bringing out the fur-filled hat from under my coat. The littlest kitten scratches and mews and blinks a few times under the electric lights.
‘Joey, Hannah!’ Miss Quinn gasps. ‘Where on earth did you find them? They’re only a few weeks old. They shouldn’t even be away from their mother!’
‘They’ve been abandoned,’ I whisper. ‘They were in the bins round the back of the kitchens, just stuffed in with all the rubbish. They’re cold and starving, but we have to save them, Miss. Will you help? Please?’
She looks at us, stricken. ‘Of course I’ll help,’ she says. ‘The stock cupboard’s the warmest place; the pipes for the central heating run right through it. We’ll put them in there.’
Miss Quinn empties a cardboard box full of S1 clay tiles and lines it with her own pink mohair scarf. We lift the kittens in, one by one, and wedge the box beneath the warm pipes in the stockroom, in between crates of paint and baskets of torn tissue paper. Miss Quinn pours milk into a jam jar, and puts the kettle on to boil while she fishes around in a drawer for the ink-droppers we used last term to drip marbling ink on to water as part of our print project. When the kettle’s hot, she stir
s a little water into the cold milk and fills an ink-dropper.
‘I don’t know if this is the right thing,’ Miss Quinn admits. ‘I don’t know if they’ll take it. But it’s milk, and it’s warm. We can try.’
The liveliest kitten, tabby with white paws, takes the dropper in its mouth. Miss Quinn squeezes the top and a bubble of milk appears. The other two kittens start yowling. Joey and I fill an ink-dropper each.
‘We’ll need to ring the animal shelter,’ Miss Quinn says. ‘They’ll know what to do, how to look after them. They’ll be able to find homes for these little guys once they’re old enough.’
I look down at the scrap of tortoiseshell fur, button eyes gazing at me full of trust. My heart plummets.
‘No way,’ Joey says firmly. ‘They’re not going to any old animal shelter. These kittens have a home – with me. Jed and Eva will be fine with it, and Hannah can have the tortoiseshell one as soon as it’s old enough to be separated.’
‘Oh, yes, Miss,’ I cry. ‘Please? We can manage, really we can.’
Miss Quinn looks doubtful.
‘These kittens can’t be more than three or four weeks old. They need to be fed every few hours, through the night as well as the daytime.’
‘We can do it,’ I insist.
‘We found them, Miss,’ Joey points out. ‘We saved them. Please don’t make us give them away.’
‘They’re crawling with fleas,’ Miss Quinn says, wrinkling up her nose as the trio start scratching. ‘Poor little things. The little tortoiseshell one’s got scabs in its fur too. They’ll need to see a vet.’
‘We can sort that,’ Joey promises. ‘Please?’
‘I must be crazy,’ Miss Quinn says. ‘OK, give it a go. You can stay with them till the end of break – I’ll write you a couple of late passes so you don’t get into trouble. If you come in again at lunchtime to feed them, they might just sleep all afternoon…’
Joey grins. ‘Thanks, Miss – you’re the coolest!’
‘Keep this quiet, you two,’ Miss Quinn warns. ‘I don’t want half the school trooping in to admire these little wretches.’
Driftwood Page 1
