Charlotte Says

by Alex Bell

  “What is it?”

  “Would you take the towpath tonight? Please?”

  Jay usually cycled back home using the shortest route, which meant several busy roads. He did it all the time and nothing ever happened to him. I knew I was being silly. But if he went the other way, via the towpath, it would mean he’d miss all the major traffic and would only add five minutes to his journey.

  I was afraid that he’d refuse, or make a joke of it, or tease me again. But instead he just nodded.

  “All right, Sophie. I’ll take the towpath.” Then he grinned, blew me a mock kiss and said, “Anything for you.”

  I got into the front seat of Mum’s car and waved at Jay as we drove past, keeping my eyes on him until the car turned the corner and I lost him from sight.

  I didn’t really want to talk to Mum about what had happened at the café so when we got home I went straight upstairs and had a bath. Before going to bed I sent Jay a text to say goodnight. It wasn’t something I’d normally do, but I just wanted to reassure myself that he’d got home OK. He sent me a one-word answer: Goodbye.

  I guessed he’d meant to say goodnight but that his autocorrect had changed it and he hadn’t noticed. He’d replied, though, so at least I knew he was home. I got into bed and went to sleep.

  I didn’t remember until the next day that when Jay had shown me his phone at the café, it had been broken.

  My dreams were filled with Ouija boards and burning hair and little girls holding my hand in the dark. And Jay inside a coffin. I tossed and turned all night. It was so bad that it was a relief to wake up, and I got out of bed in the morning without Mum having to drag me for a change.

  With the sun shining in through the windows, the events of the night before started to seem less terrible. So the lights had gone out and someone had hurt themselves. It was horrible for that poor waitress but it had just been an accident, plain and simple. In the light of day, there didn’t seem to be anything that strange about it.

  I dressed quickly, for once actually looking forward to school. Jay would be outside soon and we’d walk there together, like we always did.

  As I got ready I was vaguely aware of the phone ringing downstairs and the sound of Mum’s voice as she answered it, but I didn’t really pay it too much attention. By the time I went downstairs for breakfast, Mum was just hanging up.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer straight away, and when I looked at her and saw her face I knew instantly that something was very wrong.

  “What is it?” I said. “Who was that on the phone?”

  “Sophie,” Mum said, her voice all strained and weird-sounding. “I don’t… I don’t know how to tell you this… Sweetheart, you need to brace yourself—”

  “Mum, what? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Jay. That was his dad on the phone. Something’s happened. He… He never made it home last night.”

  “Yes, he did,” I said at once. “He texted me.”

  But at that very second I remembered that Jay’s phone was broken. I pulled my mobile out of my pocket and started scrolling through, looking for his text, but it wasn’t there.

  “I don’t understand. He sent me a text last night. I saw it.”

  “Sophie, he didn’t send you a text. Oh, sweetheart, I’m so, so sorry, but… On the way home he had an accident. They think… They think that perhaps the brakes on his bike failed. He went into the canal. By the time they pulled him out it was too late.”

  “What do you mean too late?” I said, clenching my hands so tight that I felt my nails tear the skin of my palms. “Jay’s a strong swimmer. He won almost all the swimming contests at school last year. If he’d fallen into the canal, he would have just swum to the side and climbed out.”

  But Mum was shaking her head. “They think he must have hit his head when he fell in. Sophie, he drowned.”

  It could not possibly be true. And yet, it was.

  Jay was gone.

  Where It All Started

  “What would you do if you won a million pounds?”

  There was something important behind Lizzie’s question, I could tell by the way she kept twisting her short dark hair into knots as she showed us into her room. She was a ball of condensed energy, all excitement.

  “You bring us up here for a quiz, Lizzie?” Grady asked as he dumped himself into a beanbag. He grinned at her as his knees almost hit his ears. Grady could be a bit … odd, but his smile was infectious; when he grinned, you grinned back.

  I took a Coke from the six-pack I’d bought and passed the rest around. Carmen, who had already made herself at home and was lying on the bed, drank half of hers before Lizzie had the chance to open a can. My brother, Will, eyed his before taking it, as if wondering what I’d want from him later if he accepted.

  I glanced at Lizzie as I put the spare can on her desk. “I thought we were heading into town?”

  “This first. Take a seat.” She switched on her computer, but didn’t sit down, fidgeting on her feet.

  As the monitor flickered into life I looked around. I hadn’t been in Lizzie’s room for years. When we were kids I was always here playing Legend of Zelda on her Wii. I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed it.

  “What happened to the ‘no boys’ rule?” Will slid into the chair by the desk and cocked his head, flicking his hair to the side. His pale brown hair looked almost grey in some lights, but Will prided himself on it. The way it was always hanging over his eye would drive me insane, but the girls liked it. Apparently.

  “Seeing as I’ll be at uni in a few months, Mum got reasonable.” Lizzie smiled at me.

  Her room hadn’t changed a lot since I was last inside. The walls had been repainted, they were no longer baby pink but a light blue-grey; much more ‘Lizzie’. The posters on the wall had morphed from Justin Bieber and Jonas Brothers into Nina Simone and Dean Martin – the old music she was always humming. But it was the same desk, I noticed as I ran my finger over our initials carved into the right-hand side, the same bed with the white ironwork, the same rug and even ... I looked harder … yes, the same old red blanket that she used to wrap around her in the cold, folded neatly at the bottom of the bed.

  I pushed Carmen’s legs to one side and sat on the bed, one leg folded under me, just like I always used to.

  “I’m so glad it’s summer.” Grady cracked open his can. “You guys are too, right? I mean, those exams!” He took a long drink. “Hey, you know Coke is the main cause of the US obesity epidemic? These cans contain, like, over forty milligrams of sodium. That makes you even thirstier, so you drink more. It’s why there’s so much sugar in it – to hide the salt.”

  I stared at him for a moment. “So, you don’t want it?”

  In answer Grady chugged the can. “It’s about going into it with my eyes open. I can have a glass of water after.” He burped and patted his belly.

  Lizzie’s eyes narrowed, but Carmen laughed. “You are too funny, Grady.” I’d noticed that Will couldn’t take his eyes off Carmen – she was wearing a tight T-shirt that said Angel across it.

  “Do you guys want to see this or what?” Lizzie turned her monitor so the rest of us could see the display.

  Grady squinted at the old screen. “Why don’t you get a decent system?” He frowned. “You know anyone could break through security on that dinosaur. They could be watching us right n—”

  “Because we’re so interesting?” I cut Grady off and ignored the way he folded his arms in response. I was trying to see what it was about the website on-screen that had Lizzie bouncing on her toes.

  She pointed to a spinning logo.

  Carmen glanced at her. “What’s the Gold Foundation?”

  “You know,” Grady said, his irritation forgotten. “Marcus Gold – multi-billionaire. Owns half of Silicon Valley, runs all those charities, has that airline – Goldstar.” He took a deep breath and carried on. “Rumoured to be part of Yale’s Skull and Bones society. He’s definitely
a Freemason and probably one of the guys behind 9/11, he—”

  Lizzie reached over Will and grabbed her mouse. “The only people behind 9/11 were the terrorists.”

  Will stayed quiet, but I noticed that he tilted his head to one side, watching curiously.

  Grady sagged. “If you’d even look at the information I sent you—”

  I rubbed my eyes. “Grady, David Icke thought he was the son of God. Why would you take anything he says seriously? We like you, but stop clogging up our inboxes with conspiracy-theory articles!”

  Carmen peered at the screen. “What’s Marcus Gold got to do with winning a million pounds?”

  “Wait and you’ll see.” Lizzie moved the cursor. Under the Gold Foundation logo was another icon – Iron Teen, it read.

  She clicked on it, leaned back and pressed her hands together. “Read that.”

  • Are you the best? Are you driven to succeed? Are you in top physical shape?

  • Will you be between sixteen and twenty years old on 15th August 2017?

  • Can you get a team together of five to six friends?

  • Do you want to win £1 million pounds … each? Under-eighteens need permission from a parent or guardian to apply.

  Grady rolled off the beanbag and moved closer to the screen. “A million pounds each!”

  I peered over his shoulder. “That’s a six-million-pound prize!”

  “That’s what it says.” Lizzie nodded excitedly.

  Will frowned as if the text held a puzzle. “Why is Gold offering so much money?”

  “He’s a philanthropist,” Lizzie said. Grady snorted loudly, but she ignored him. “Look, it says he wants to give bright, proactive teens a big push in life. Anyone can enter and it says the winners will receive investment advice to help them make the best of their prize money.”

  “Well, we don’t have to take the advice,” Grady said thoughtfully. “There’s a lot I could do with that money.”

  Carmen began to skim read. “It says we have to fill in a load of assessment forms.”

  “But what’s the competition?” Will put his hands behind his head and leaned back. “What do we have to do?”

  Lizzie bounded forwards again. “We have to complete an assessment. The teams that qualify will go in a lottery to choose ten for the competition. The final ten teams will be flown out to a remote island that Gold owns, where there’ll be tests of endurance and intelligence.” She could barely supress her excitement. “It sounds like orienteering and puzzle-solving along with a bit of geo-caching, rock climbing … that kind of thing.”

  “That sounds great!” I said. I’d been failing to come up with anything to occupy me and Will over the shapeless summer ahead. “We’d enter even without the prize money, right Will?”

  Will shrugged.

  “There’s nothing in here we can’t do.” Lizzie was almost dancing now. “If we pass the assessment and get through the lottery, then we could totally win this.” She looked sideways at Carmen. “What do you think, Car?”

  “I don’t know, tía.” Carmen frowned. “I’d have to take time off work.”

  “You enjoyed Duke of Edinburgh in the end.” Lizzie’s eyes sparkled with challenge.

  “Huh. I liked helping at the animal shelter. But you promised we’d have a fun summer. This does not sound like fun.”

  “But a million pounds, Car.” Will pushed his hair out of his eyes. “It would pay for vet school.”

  “That was private,” she hissed, narrowing her eyes at him. “A stupid dream.”

  “Only because you can’t afford six years of uni,” Will insisted.

  “I can’t afford one year of university, estúpido,” Carmen snapped. “Why do you think I’m sweeping floors in a hairdresser?”

  “We can’t do it without you, Car.” Lizzie sat on the bed next to me and put an arm around Carmen’s shoulders. “We’ve got a team right here.”

  “Fine.” She threw up her hands. “I can always get another floor-sweeping job if I lose this one.”

  “What about you, Grady?” Lizzie asked.

  “I’m in if you guys are.”

  I felt a twinge of pity. Grady was lonely. We’d only let him join our Duke of Edinburgh squad because my mate Liam had dropped out at the last minute and Grady’s dad, Doctor Jackson, had badgered my mum. He didn’t yet trust that we were still hanging out with him because we wanted to. Plus Will seemed to like him, which was a definite bonus.

  “So we’re entering then?” I looked around.

  Lizzie leaped to her feet. “This is going to be amazing, you guys.” She clicked on the link to download the entry forms.

  My phone blinked and started to vibrate. I checked the screen and bit my thumbnail. “Will –

  Mum’s calling.”

  “She’s calling you.” Will didn’t even look up.

  I put down my drink, picked up the phone and went out to the landing. There was no telling what mood she’d be in. I took a deep breath, let the phone ring for as long as I dared and then accepted the call.

  “Where are you?” she snapped.

  “At Lizzie’s.”

  “Will’s with you?”

  “Where else?”

  “Don’t take that tone with me.” I could picture her sitting on the chair in the hall,. Her pale brown hair would be hanging half over her face – hers was more grey than Will’s, but still, like his. Mine was ginger, like Dad’s. “Are you watching him?”

  “He’s almost seventeen, Mum.”

  “He’s … delicate.”

  Delicate my ass. I pulled the phone away from my mouth, sighed and returned it. “Yes, I’m watching him.”

  “You have to be there for him, Ben.”

  “Yes, Mum.”

  “He was the worst affected when your father left.”

  “OK, Mum.”

  Her tone changed. “You’d better not be eating anything over there. I’ve got your dinner on.”

  “Yes, Mum.”

  Will and I were only allowed to eat what she put on the table. This month we were ‘doing Atkins’. I never thought I’d be nostalgic for carrots.

  “Yes, Mum. Yes, Mum. Just like your father, you make promises then you go and do whatever you want.” She was working herself up; probably standing now, pacing.

  “Sorry.”

  I held the phone away from my ear as she began to yell at me. “… your responsibility, since your father left, don’t you go thinking you’re too good …”

  I stopped listening and waited until her tone evened out again.

  “Everything’s fine here, Mum, honestly. No problems. We’ll be back for dinner.”

  “Promise?”

  “Why don’t you make a cup of tea and have a lie-down. We’ll let ourselves in.”

  “That’s a good idea, Bennie.” Her voice had softened; she wanted to be looked after too.

  Would she worry more when we left home in a few months, or less? She was the one who had allowed Will to do all his exams early and apply to Oxford at sixteen. She wanted to be able to boast about it. Selfish.

  “I’ll see you later, Mum.”

  Will looked up as I walked back in. “The usual?”

  I tossed the phone on to the bed. “The usual.”

  The forms had to be filled in by hand and then posted, so Lizzie had printed them out. They’d all got started while I’d been on the phone. Carmen was humming tunelessly as she worked on hers. Clearly it wasn’t just me who found it annoying, as Lizzie reached up from where she sat on her rug and switched on some music. Adele’s honeyed voice filled the room and Will groaned.

  “Do you think your mum’ll let you come with us, Will?” Lizzie’s fingers went back to her hair.

  I wanted to catch her hand, to calm her. I gripped my pen tighter instead.

  From his place at Lizzie’s desk, where he was sharing the workspace with a kneeling Grady, Will looked up. “She’ll be fine with it.”

  I snorted. “She won’t be ‘fine with
it’. But Will should be able to talk her round. It would be easier if we could tell the papers we were applying – she’d love that. But the possibility of two million pounds should go a long way towards persuading her.”

  “I don’t understand this dumb confidentiality clause – why can’t we tell the papers?” Grady frowned. “It seems suspicious to me. If this was all above-board it would be everywhere.”

  “It’s on the internet, Grady.” Lizzie tapped her pencil impatiently. “It is everywhere.”

  “It’s not a bad thing,” I reminded him. “The fewer people know about the competition, the more chance we have of getting through the lottery.”

  “Do you really want to be in the papers saying ‘we’re entering this competition’ then have to say ‘but we lost’ when the reporters follow up? Carmen looked up from her paperwork. “Or even worse, ‘and we won’! If everyone found out, we’d be hounded for the money – it happened to my Uncle Javi.”

  “You have a millionaire uncle?” I gaped.

  Carmen let out a laugh. “Tío! No! He won a year’s supply of ham at the local festival. All he had, day and night, were calls from people wanting free ham.”

  She rolled off the bed. “I don’t know my blood type, I need to call Mami. Can I use someone’s phone?”

  “Out of credit again?” Lizzie tossed hers over.

  Carmen grinned. “Always.” She danced into the hall and down the stairs. “Buenos días, Mrs Bellamy, you look lovely today,” she called.

  I started my own form while Carmen was out of the room, looking up when she flounced back and jumped on to the bed. “I’m O negative, by the way.” She pulled her pages towards her and scribbled quickly.

  “That’s unusual, isn’t it?” Lizzie adjusted her glasses.

  “I am Spanish, remember?” Carmen said, as if that explained it.

  “Actually,” Grady said, “it means you’re descended from the nephilm … or aliens. Opinion is divided on which it is. I’ll send you a link.”

  Carmen grinned. “OK, tío, that sounds good.”

  Lizzie smiled behind her hand, then reached up and poked me. “Ben, have you got to Part Two? These questions are insane – listen to this. Success is based on survival of the fittest; I don’t care about the losers.”