Really Weird Removals.com

by Daniela Sacerdoti

  “It looks dreadful, Luca. That… that… rotter.” Adil stares at the caman-shaped bruise on my right cheek.

  “It feels dreadful, I can tell you.” Guess who did it.

  “It’ll look even worse tomorrow.”

  “Thanks Adil, that’s just what I needed to hear.”

  “Are you ok, Luca?” asks Mr MacDonald.

  “Yes, I’m ok.” I manage to sound breezy. “Things happen.”

  “Do they? I mean, I didn’t see it, and everybody swears it was an accident, but you seem to be at the end of Gary’s caman a lot. Is anything going on?”

  “He doesn’t like me much,” I admit reluctantly. Mr MacDonald must be aware of the friction between us.

  “I’ll have a word with him. This can’t go on.”

  “No, seriously, don’t. I’ll sort it myself.” I’ve got a plan now, and Mr MacDonald getting involved could just make things worse.

  Mr MacDonald takes a breath. I can see he’s trying to figure out the best thing to do. “Ok. You try. But if it happens again, I’ll have to step in. Deal?”

  “Deal,” I say. It won’t happen again. I’m sure of that. Because Camilla is in the room with us, floating against the ceiling, with a very, very black look in her eyes. I wonder what she has planned.

  “Valentina’s here,” she says, and flies swiftly away. Since we came back from the McMillan’s, Camilla and Valentina have discovered that they can actually speak to each other in their heads. They can send messages to each other, like some sort of telepathic texting.

  Adil and I make our way back to the changing rooms. Gary is lagging behind, to gloat over my purple-and-blue face.

  “Poor Luca… did they give you a lollipop?” he mocks.

  “No, no lollipops. But I nearly got myself a mobile phone.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “There was a phone out there, on the grass. It looked fancy. I wanted to pick it up and hand it in, but my head was spinning…”

  “I didn’t see it,” intervenes Adil.

  “Did you not?” I feign surprise.

  “We better go get it, someone might be looking for it.” Adil is honest to a fault.

  “No, it’s ok, you go with Luca, I’ll get it and hand it in.” Gary has a sly look in his eyes.

  “Sure.” Of course. As if Gary would ever return it. He’d just put it in his pocket and not think twice.

  “Adil, you go on home, I won’t be long,” I say quickly.

  “I don’t think it’s safe to leave you to walk back alone…” he mutters, puzzled. We always walk home from shinty together.

  “My sister’s coming, I just texted her.”

  “Are you sure?” He is concerned.

  “Positive.”

  He buys it. I make sure I see him leaving the sports centre before slipping out myself, still in my shinty gear. Instead of turning right, I turn left, towards the back of the playing fields. In the distance, I spot Valentina’s blonde hair shining in the pink light of sunset. Camilla’s white dress looks all pink too. They’re hiding behind a concrete pillar.

  I run to them, hoping that Gary won’t spot me. He’s on his hands and knees in the grass, checking every inch for the imaginary mobile phone.

  “What happened to your face?” exclaims Valentina, horrified.

  “Let’s just say it’s another good reason to do this.”

  Camilla touches my face gently, with her transparent cold hands. “I’ll sort it.”

  Her eyes are so empty and dark that I feel my knees giving way. I hesitate, just for a second. Then my face throbs again, and I steel myself.

  “He’s in the playing field. Go.”

  Camilla dissolves before our eyes.

  Gary is about a hundred yards away. Greedy, dishonest, and a real bully, I say to myself. I won’t change my mind. We’re going through with this.

  Camilla starts taking shape, hovering above Gary’s head. I catch a glimpse of her face, and I don’t like what I see. I really don’t like what I see… I hesitate. I’m about to call Camilla back, when…

  “Don’t!” whispers Valentina fiercely, grabbing my shoulder. “We have to do this. There’s no other way to make him stop.”

  Camilla keeps circling him, like a vulture. Her braids have come undone, her eyes are empty pools of darkness, her hands like claws. I can see her thickening, becoming more and more solid in order to make herself visible… I just hope and pray that Mr MacDonald has gone home…

  Gary is still on all fours, scouring the grass.

  “She’s asking him if he found it,” whispers Valentina, reading Camilla’s mind. My sister is excited, elated, I can see it in her face.

  We see Gary looking up, surprised, straight into Camilla’s eyes, and then falling on his knees in terror, his hands covering his face. We can hear his screams from here.

  “She’s asking him if he enjoys tormenting you,” says Valentina, reading Camilla’s mind.

  Gary’s now shaking his head, over and over again. Camilla’s face is the stuff of nightmares, her dress looks ragged, floating in the darkening light… her claw-like hands are poised to touch him…

  “She says that if he ever bothers you again, she’ll take him with her to the land of the dead!” Valentina laughs.

  I’m horrified. What a dreadful thought. I just feel terribly sorry for Gary.

  I watch Camilla circling him again, once, twice. Then she strikes. She falls on him at incredible speed, her black hair streaming behind her like a bat’s wings, her eyes getting bigger and darker…

  Gary screams again, covering his head with his arms. In a heartbeat, Camilla is gone.

  He keeps on screaming for a couple of minutes.

  Somebody must have heard, because staff from the sports centre are running out over the field. Gary’s crumpled up in a heap. I feel awful.

  “So, did I do ok?” Camilla materialises by our side. Her black hair is still flowing around her, and her eyes are still empty, but mainly she looks like herself again.

  “You did great,” I say, but I’m shaking. “Let’s go. Don’t run, just walk.” I pull Valentina back. “A lot of people will wonder what happened. Let’s not look suspicious.”

  Gary is being helped inside. He’s struggling to walk.

  “I want to hear what he says!” cries Camilla, as she floats away.

  Valentina and I head down towards our house.

  “You look terrible, Luca,” laughs Valentina.

  “I know. It’s just that she was so… so scary,” I whisper. “I felt sorry for him.”

  “You felt sorry for him?” she whispers urgently, her brown eyes blazing. “Does he feel sorry for you when he hits you?” She points at my face. “Or when he laughs at Mum and throws your lunch on the floor?”

  “No he doesn’t. That’s the point. I’m not like him. If I were, I wouldn’t feel awful now!”

  “Luca, you drive me crazy… wait! Camilla is talking!” Her eyes focus on the distance for a second.

  I look behind, just to make sure nobody’s listening.

  “Gary said he saw a ghost. A white woman screaming…” Valentina giggles. “They’ve given him some juice but he threw it up!” She laughs. I feel even worse. “He’s as white as a sheet… his mum and dad are coming to get him. He can’t even stand!”

  “Shhhh…” I shush her as two fishermen pass us by, still in their fishing gear.

  “Camilla is coming back to our house now,” Valentina whispers, as soon as it’s safe to speak.

  “Tell her to go to Uncle Alistair’s. We’ll see her there.”

  “Mum will go mental if we’re out too late.” “Just twenty minutes.”

  ***

  “COME IN GUYS! I’M IN THE BACK!”

  It’s pitch dark, except for the orange glow from the lamp-post in front of the house. We make our way in, and venture up the dark corridor that leads to the back rooms. We’ve never seen any other room but the front one. I peek into the
door on the left – a small storeroom. It’s empty but for piles of cardboard boxes, sealed with sellotape and marked “PRIVATE!” and “DO NOT TOUCH!”

  I open the next door quietly, slowly… It’s very dark, but there’s a green light glowing faintly behind a black shape at the opposite end of the room. I blink, trying to make out what it is, and I walk in hesitantly, followed by Valentina.

  “COME ON IN, WHY ARE YOU TIPTOEING LIKE BURGLARS?”

  We jump in fright.

  Uncle Alistair switches on a table lamp. He’s wearing a long white coat and big goggles. The green light is coming from a little bottle in his hands, containing something that looks like liquidised frogs.

  I look around. The room is a cross between a chemistry lab, like the ones you see in films, and a kitchen.

  Beside the door there’s a huge fridge with two little magnets on it: a piper with a tall hat, a kilt and a caption that says “Greetings from Scotland”, and a tiny pizza. There’s a gas stove, a microwave and jars full of strange powders in muted colours. A row of hooks, with an oven glove and a few kitchen towels hanging from them. And a few normal-looking pots, like the ones my mum and Aunt Shuna use to cook in, hung tidily on the far wall. There are three tables, one against each free wall. One has nothing on it; one is covered with the same kind of bottles I saw in the fridge in the front room, some blue, some yellow, some swirling and silvery. And the third…

  Is that a Viking helmet? With two very real-looking horns sticking out? And something else… it’s like a huge saucer, decorated in bright colours. It’s a shield. A Viking shield, with a red-and-white eye painted on it. I try to get a closer look…

  “BLOOMING SINKING SHIP!” Uncle Alistair jumps in between me and the table. “Forgot about those… Nothing to see here. Move on, guys… come through to the living room.” And he shepherds us towards the door, hastily.

  “What was that?” I whisper, knowing he can’t hear me unless he’s reading my lips.

  “No idea!” mouths Valentina. “Another Ikea delivery?”

  “Aaaaanyway. Wanted to show you this.” Uncle Alistair goes to stand beside the computer, pointing to the screen dramatically. “Ta daa! Our new shiny website: reallyweirdremovals.com. This will bring us heaps of business. And it links to the Paranormal Database. You like?”

  “It’s great!” I say, genuinely impressed. A website all for us. It looks so… so professional!

  “That. Is. Cool,” says Valentina.

  “Hello!” Camilla materialises right in front of us, and I jump out of my skin.

  “Camilla! That was INCREDIBLE!” Valentina hugs her.

  “What was?” asks Alistair, screwing a cap onto the green bottle he’s still holding in his hand.

  “Camilla scared Gary. You know, the boy that was hitting Luca and saying horrible things.”

  “Right. I see. Oh, that’s why the black eye.” Uncle Alistair removes his goggles. “Was that him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ask Camilla to do it?”

  “Yes. But then I wasn’t sure…”

  “Why were you not sure?”

  “Because Camilla was terrifying…”

  “Thank you!” chips in Camilla cheerfully.

  “…and I felt sorry for him. It was weird.”

  Valentina rolls her eyes.

  “What do you think?” Uncle Alistair asks Valentina.

  “I think Gary deserved it. Look at Luca’s face!”

  “Mmmm.”

  “What do you think, Uncle Alistair?” I ask hesitantly.

  “I think you should have come to me first.”

  “Sorry, we didn’t put Camilla in any danger…”

  He roars with laughter. “I would have told you how to make the whole experience even worse for him!”

  Valentina and Camilla laugh. I smile too, in spite of myself. I’ll certainly have something exciting to write in my diary tonight.

  “Right, I’ll make us all some beans with sausage 99s – are you hungry?”

  “Oh, sorry, we can’t now. We need to be home by six, or they’ll worry. We promised.”

  “Oh, of course, of course.” He looks a bit deflated.

  “Maybe we could phone and ask to stay for dinner?” Valentina asks me.

  “Dad has promised to be down for dinner tonight…”

  “He won’t,” says Valentina, shrugging. She’s right.

  “I know, but Mum…”

  “It’s ok, another time…” Uncle Alistair looks a bit lost.

  “You’re working. We’d be in your way,” I point out.

  “I know. But I’m lnl,” he mutters and looks away.

  “Pardon?”

  “I’m lnl.”

  No idea what he’s saying.

  “He’s LONELY!” repeats Camilla helpfully.

  “Oh.”

  “I’ve lived on my own for a long time…”

  “Apart from me, but I’m dead and I go out a lot,” says Camilla.

  “Never mind. Now go, you’ll be late,” he says, putting his goggles back on, to indicate that the conversation is over.

  “Uncle Alistair?” I’ve got to ask this.

  “Mmmm?” He doesn’t look up.

  “What was that Viking stuff?”

  “What Viking stuff?” He doesn’t even turn around.

  I know to ask no more.

  As we walk into the darkness, I look back to see Uncle Alistair framed in the window, waving forlornly. Silhouetted against the light is the shape of two horns: the Viking helmet. I smile to myself. I must have the coolest uncle in the whole of Scotland.

  ***

  Valentina, Camilla and I are under my duvet, eating Maltesers. Petsnake is snoring, as usual. There’s that eerie music again, the one I hear in my head. It’s so faint I can barely follow it, but it’s definitely there. I seem to be hearing it quite a lot these days and it’s beginning to freak me out a little.

  “Did Gary mention Luca?” Valentina’s blonde head and Camilla’s dark one are bent over the same book, Tales of Beedle the Bard.

  “Not a word. I think he was too scared,” giggles Camilla.

  I’m writing down everything that happened today. Each night I write in my diary, using a booklight I bought with my pocket money at the Eilean Bookshop.

  Camilla keeps circling him, like a vulture. Her braids have come undone, her eyes are empty pools of darkness, her hands like claws. I can see her thickening, becoming more and more solid. I just hope and pray that Mr MacDonald has gone home…

  I take my diary with me everywhere. One day I’ll show it to my dad, when the time is right. Surely he will have to forgive Uncle Alistair then, when he realises how great he is to Valentina and me, and the incredible things he’s showing us.

  Dad will be well proud of my writing. He’ll see that I’m just like him, a born author.

  Yes, it’s all going to work out, one day soon.

  PART TWO: SUMMER

  10. THE THING IN THE CELLAR

  Alistair Grant’s Scottish Paranormal Database

  Entry Number 542: The singing troll

  Type: Fairy or cryptozoology (disputed)

  Location: Bridge on the river Dee, Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway

  Date: Summer of 1819; summer of 2009

  Details: In the summer of 1819, two gentlemen disappeared, presumably eaten, after their encounter with a troll. The only witness, a passer-by, recounted that the troll sang throughout the attack. 190 years later, in 2009, the singing troll was accidentally recorded by two schoolgirls playing with their mobile phones. The recording eventually became a ringtone that gained a popular notoriety in some Scottish schools.

  The beach looks incredible under the scorching sun. It’s the last day of school. Finally!

  Adil and I are sitting on the rocks, our grey uniform trousers rolled up to the knees, eating ice creams and looking at the bright blue sea.

  A long summer is ahead of me, with games of shinty and football, books and more
books, and, most of all, the RWR.

  I wonder what’s next for us after the stone fairies. Uncle Alistair was brilliant with his portable fold in time. I’ve been thinking about where the fairies could have been sent. Maybe they reappeared in the middle of some ancient battle, or they ended up in the Ice Age, or maybe in some futuristic megacity. The folds in time are also folds in space, so they could have wound up on the other side of the world. Maybe in the middle of Tokyo at rush hour, or among some lost tribe in the Amazon.

  I wonder if fairies are all around us? And how many types of fairies are there? Because the stone fairies were very, very different from baby Ella. The magic world – or the world like it really is, not like it appears – is opening in front of me.

  I know that Uncle Alistair said he would only take us along with him once, but then he did also say, “We’ll take it from there.” I’m sure that when the next case comes in, Valentina and I will convince him to let us be part of it.

  I’m getting all sleepy and floppy and dozy in the bright warmth, when a shadow appears between me and the sun. I open one eye.

  “Hey, Valentina. How’s things.” I close my eye again. Pink and yellow lights dance in front of my eyelids.

  “Hiya,” whispers Adil, sitting up at once and sweeping a hand through his black hair, trying in vain to flatten it. He’s blushing. Well, I can’t see him blushing, but I know he is. In the last few weeks he’s been all tongue-tied and shy around Valentina. Very annoying.

  “Yes, hi. Luca, come with me. Need to speak to you.”

  “But…”

  “Come on, chop chop! Stuff to do! Stuff to discuss! Uncle Alistair sort of stuff…” she whispers dramatically. She has her Bossy Voice on. No point in resisting.

  “Ok, ok.” I get up, dizzy from the sun. We can’t talk in front of Adil, obviously. It feels very strange to keep secrets from my best friend. He and I have been inseparable since nursery, and we know everything about each other. We knew everything about each other. Not anymore. A million times I nearly told him about the RWR – but then I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’m too worried he won’t believe me. After all, he doesn’t have the Sight; he can’t see anything of what we see. Also Adil can’t lie to save his life. He’s completely unable to tell a lie, even a wee white one. If he knew about us and he was asked, he’d probably blurt it out. And we can’t afford for my mum and dad to find out, not until Dad forgives Uncle Alistair. We have to keep pretending it’s just a pest control business.