by Mike Revell
His mouth opened and closed wordlessly. He frowned, then rubbed his short black hair and shook his head in confusion.
“But . . . that’s impossible,” he said, and the words came out so quiet.
“I know. But you have to believe me. It’s true. Whenever he writes, I wake up in his story. Like I’ve teleported. Like I’ve been dragged inside the pages. I get sucked out of this world and into his one. Danny, it’s horrible. There’s this storm called the Darkness, and it’s alive. You can hear it screeching in the sky. Everyone thinks they’re saving the City, but they’re not. There’s this man called the Marshal, and he’s covering it all up. But if he finds out I know . . .”
I trailed off, shuddering at the thought of what might happen.
Danny was still shaking his head.
I needed him to believe me. I needed him to see.
“Come round again after school,” I said. “I’ll . . . I’ll show you.”
Now all I had to do was make sure Dad started writing.
When the bus dropped us off at the end of the road, we walked quickly back to my house, thinking up a plan.
“I’ll hide the TV remote,” I said.
“And we can cut the Internet off too,” Danny said, his lips twitching. I felt a flutter of excitement. Even if he didn’t completely believe me, for now at least, he was back on my side.
We hurried up the drive, and slipped into the house as quietly as possible. In the hallway, I listened out for any sound of movement inside the house.
There—
In the kitchen. The fridge opening. The clink of glass bottles.
“Quickly,” I whispered.
We moved into the living room as fast as we dared, trying to keep quiet. Our socks were silent on the wooden floor. I grabbed the remote and shoved it into the inside pocket of my school jacket. Danny went to the corner of the room and unplugged the Internet cable, then slotted it back in just enough so it still looked connected.
“Come on!” I urged him, rushing back to the hall now just as the kitchen door opened.
I chucked my bag down, pretending we’d just arrived. Dad appeared in the doorway, holding a beer. He blinked.
“All right, lads? Didn’t hear you come in.”
“Hi, Mr. Smith,” Danny said.
“Good day at school?” he asked, moving past the study and through to the living room.
“It was okay,” we said together.
We waited round the corner as Dad sat down. He glanced around for the remote, then scratched his head. I looked at Danny. He winked back at me. When I turned back to the living room, Dad was feeling down the sides of the sofa.
“Where the hell did I put it?” he muttered.
Then he sighed heavily, and stood up—
This was it!
Please start writing, I thought desperately.
But Dad was going over to the TV. He crouched beside it, moving his fingers along the side of the screen. Of course! How could I forget? He didn’t need the remote. The TV flashed on.
Dad slouched back to the sofa and flopped down.
I turned to Danny, thinking quickly. Then I dug inside my jacket pocket and pulled out the remote. Pointing it at the TV, I pressed the power button, and the screen went off. Trying not to laugh, I ducked back around the corner.
Dad muttered something about technology being rubbish these days, and got up to turn the TV on again, but as soon as he did, I switched it off. Trying to keep a straight face, I led Danny through and sat down.
“Blinking thing must be on the way out,” Dad said.
“Maybe it’s a sign,” I said. “Less TV, more writing.”
Dad chuckled. “You sound like my counselor,” he said.
He gave up trying to get the TV to turn on and stood up, walking in the direction of his study. Danny and I sat there for a few moments longer, then went upstairs to my room.
“Do you think it’ll work?” he said.
“It has to.”
I told him all about the story as quickly as I could, from the Darkness to the creepy Dreamless living out in the storm, to the plane crash. I told him about the Marshal, how I suspected him of covering up the death of the City, but that I didn’t know why. I told him how I thought the writing was helping Dad to get better, but that didn’t mean I wanted to miss the football.
“I can do both,” I said. “Help Dad, and get through to the next stage of the championship.”
“Let’s just say you are telling the truth,” Danny went on, although he sounded as if he still thought it was the craziest thing he’d ever heard. “How . . . how does it even happen?”
“I don’t know, I just—”
That was when I felt it.
The tug in my gut, the twisting and churning.
“It’s happening,” I said suddenly, standing up and gripping the bed frame as the world whirled around me. “It’s happening right now. He must be writing me in!”
Danny’s mouth moved as if he was talking, but no sound came out. The blood rushed in my ears and all I could hear was whooshing—a constant whipping roar.
“It’s happening!” I yelled above the noise. “Can you see it?”
In a second I was going to be back there, I could feel it.
“I don’t want to go!” I called, but my voice got snatched away by the roaring wind.
My stomach flipped and churned, but I tried to fight it. I had to fight it. I knew I was the one who wanted Dad to write, but only to show Danny. I didn’t think about actually going back. If I didn’t fight it, who knew when I’d be me again? I’d miss the next match too and then Danny would never forgive me.
My eyes streamed with the effort. I threw my hands up, trying to find Danny in the chaos. But he was already turning away. It was as if he’d lost sight of me altogether.
No.
I clenched my teeth, desperate to fight it, to prevent the jump . . .
And then it stopped. The whirling, the rushing, the noise. The only sound was the blood pumping in my ears and Danny rummaging through my collection of video games.
“Did you see?” I asked, breathing heavily.
He jolted in surprise. “Owen!” he said. “What’s . . . what’s going on?”
“You were watching. You were looking right at me.”
His face scrunched up the way it did in Science when Mr. Herring asked a difficult question.
“What?” he said. “No. No . . .”
He shook his head. His eyes dropped to the floor, to the TV, to the collection of games.
“What do you remember?” I asked, thinking back to the way Dad looked so lost when I talked to him about the missing days. Could Danny really have forgotten already?
“I . . .”
“We were just here, talking.”
“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Yeah. It’s like . . . it’s there in my head, but it’s not. The last thing I remember is talking to you, and then it’s just blurry.”
Something yanked my stomach. “It’s happening again!”
“Yeah,” Danny whispered slowly. “Your whole body’s sort of . . . electric.”
The tug got worse and Danny’s voice was lost in a swirl of color. It was like when you went bodyboarding and you were riding a wave, getting faster and faster, and then it pulled you under. For a second you’d be gulping air with bubbles exploding around you and everything so bright.
The other Cambridge crept into my mind, the dirt and the dust and the damp air, but I shoved it back. Jack’s voice rose up, but I ignored it.
I’m Owen Smith.
I pictured my room and held it there, refusing to let go.
And then there was quiet. There was quiet and Danny just standing there.
“Owen,” he said, looking confused.
“I’m here,” I panted. Fighting the jump had left my legs weak. I fell into my gaming chair, breathing way too fast.
He chewed his lips. He stepped back, shaking his head.
; “You did it again, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
That explained why Dad and the teachers at school never remembered anything when I got back. It was like something blurred their thoughts, muddling them up and hiding them.
“But—I mean, where did you go? You’re still here. I thought you said—”
“I fought it. I didn’t go anywhere. I almost did, but I . . . I stopped it.”
Danny was still staring at me as if I was an alien, but I couldn’t really blame him. It wasn’t every day your friend disappeared before your eyes. I clutched my stomach, where the tug started. There was an echo of it there—a slight twinge where my hand touched the skin.
“That’s so cool.” Danny’s face relaxed for the first time. He was still shaking his head slowly, but he was smiling broadly now. “It’s like . . . like you’re a superhero or something.”
I laughed, but inside I wasn’t laughing. I wasn’t like a superhero at all. Superheroes saved hundreds of people every day. And they didn’t get scared. But I didn’t know how to save the people in Dad’s story. And I was scared now . . .
Scared of jumping back into the story and missing more of my own life.
And, now that I thought about it, scared that something might happen because I didn’t.
28
The next day, I fought the jump again.
It was easier this time.
I found I just had to focus on something so much that it was all I could see, even when I closed my eyes. Like the work on the board at school, or Chris Matthews flicking ink over Bradley White’s shirt, or the way a potato chip bag drifted across the courtyard when the wind picked up.
I stared and stared and clenched all the muscles in my stomach and focused the whole time, and the tug stopped.
At breakfast, Dad had mentioned how hard it had been to write last night. I kept expecting him to barge into a lesson today yelling, “I NEED TO WRITE!” But he didn’t know about me getting written in and there was no way he could know about me fighting it.
Part of me felt bad, because the writing was helping. I knew it was. I’d seen it in so many different ways. But with the game tomorrow, I wanted to stick around, just for one more day. I wanted to be me—Owen Smith—not inside Jack’s head in the wasteland.
All through school the guilt got worse. I barely talked on the bus, and even though I tried to listen as Danny told me about Westfield’s tactics, I kept zoning out.
When I got back, I hesitated outside the front door.
That’s weird, I thought. There were no lights on. I opened the door and called out, but there was no answer. Quiet—the whole house was so quiet. I even checked out in the shed, but Dad wasn’t there either. Where was he? I flicked on my phone, but there weren’t any messages. There were no notes left round the house. Something squirmed inside my stomach now, but it wasn’t the tug of Dad’s writing. What if something bad had happened and it was all my fault?
When I was sure the house was empty, I chucked my bag down and went upstairs, loading up FIFA to take my mind off it. But I kept the volume low, so I would know if Dad came back.
Before long, I heard the crunch-crunch-crunch of footsteps on the drive.
I dropped the controller and rushed across the landing to the window.
He was walking up the driveway slowly, like his legs couldn’t be bothered to work. When he finally unlocked the door, he just stood there cast in shadow by the light from the house.
In Art we’d started doing pen-and-ink drawings, where you used white paper and the darkest ink and nothing else. You couldn’t see any features, but that was what made it look so good.
That was what Dad looked like now. A pen-and-ink drawing.
I tried to imagine what was going through his head. I wondered if he pictured Mum like I did, pictured her smiling face in his mind. Maybe she was fading for him too.
Finally Dad walked inside. I heard his footsteps trailing into the living room. I didn’t know whether to go downstairs or not. He might not have been in the mood to talk. But I couldn’t just leave him.
Taking a deep breath, I walked down to the living room, and curled up next to him on the sofa. We sat there in silence, not saying anything at all. He stroked my hair and hugged me close. He smelled of beer and that stale smell you got in pubs sometimes, but I didn’t mind.
The starlight twinkled on Mum’s urn, and as I watched it, I had to talk about her.
“Dad?” I said. “What is something you loved about Mum?”
He cleared his throat and I thought he was going to speak, but he didn’t reply.
“I loved her smile,” I said, the words bubbling over now. “When she saw me, no matter how bad her day had been, when she saw me she smiled and—”
“That’s enough,” Dad said. His eyes were red and rimmed with tears. When he blinked, one trickled down the side of his face. He swiped at it with his hand. “I can’t do this. Not now.”
“I just thought—”
“I can’t, Owen. Not yet.” He sighed, and took a deep, shuddering breath.
I sat back on the sofa, listening to the occasional drone of traffic outside the house, and the steady breathing of Dad, beside me. A sharp snort told me he’d fallen asleep.
A few days ago, he’d said he would come to watch our second game. But the game was tomorrow, and I got the impression he wouldn’t be on the sideline again.
“One more day,” I said. “Just give me this match, and then I’ll finish the story.”
It was amazing how easy it was to tell him about it when I knew he couldn’t hear me.
After school the next day, I waited for Danny outside the sports center.
It was the day of the big match, and . . . I crossed my fingers just in case, for extra good luck—I was actually going to get to play in it! I hadn’t felt the tug all day.
I swatted away the guilty feeling that twisted its way among the nerves. Dad had been so quiet last night, and it was all my fault, wasn’t it? If I hadn’t fought the jump, if I’d let him get on and write, he’d still be smiling.
I hoped he was okay—but I forced myself to focus, just for now. Just a few more hours.
The scout was already here.
Bradley White had seen him arrive and the news spread round school in minutes.
All that talk of the quarter finals had been a bluff. Maybe he’d wanted to catch us out, to see how we played naturally.
Normally when 3:15 hit, kids couldn’t wait to get home, but now they crowded the courtyards, kicking footballs around, and marching in groups onto the field.
It was going to be the biggest crowd we’d had all season. And because I fought the jump, I was going to get to play. As long as I could keep it under control.
I closed my eyes, trying not to think about what would happen if Dad wrote me into the story in the middle of a game. No one had noticed so far. Danny forgot even when he watched me vanish. But I’d never had a crowd see me disappear before.
“All right?” Danny said, striding toward me.
“All right,” I said.
Now that the bell had gone, my stomach bubbled with nerves. Everyone called them butterflies, but they didn’t feel like butterflies. Butterflies were light and airy and they didn’t flap their wings very fast. This felt more like a nest full of hummingbirds waking up and flapping their wings at the speed of light.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Danny said, pulling me to one side.
“What do you mean?”
“The story,” he said, leaning in so no one could hear us. “You know, getting in contact with that other camp. You can’t do it in front of the others, so that rules out the radio. But maybe you don’t need to use the radio anyway.”
We were at the changing room door now, and Mr. Matthews was beckoning us in. Normally around a game Danny was focused on nothing but the match. Even away from the game, he barely talked about anything else.
“The plane,” he said, as if that expla
ined everything. “It’ll have one of those things, won’t it? Those black boxes. Whatever it is they use to track it. Maybe if you find it, you could get them to contact you.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” I said, smiling widely.
I thought back to Quinn, telling me not to go looking for the wreck. But I had to, didn’t I? If I got the black box, I could take it to the hill when we went out Hunting. Take it right up to the highest point, where the radio tower was.
Mr. Matthews waved at us again, blasting his whistle. We jogged inside and joined the rest of the team in the dressing room. Music played from someone’s phone, and the clattering of studs filled the room as we changed into our uniforms and slipped our cleats on.
“You know the drill,” Mr. Matthews said. “They’re a good team, these lot. They hammered us last time, but it’s a brand-new game. It’s 0–0. And we’ve got the home advantage now. Don’t think about the aggregate, and definitely don’t think about the academy scout on the sideline. Just think about getting that ball in the back of the net.”
He went through the starting eleven, and everyone clapped as the names got read out. Most games, we played a 4-4-1-1 formation. I was the number ten, behind Danny up front.
Mr. Matthews read through the defenders and the midfielders, then—
Danny stared at me. The whole team was staring at me. Mr. Matthews’s voice rang in my ears, but it wasn’t my name. He didn’t call my name.
“Sorry, Owen,” he said, clanking over to the door in his cleats. “I’m not sure when it was, but I’ve got down here that you missed training. You know the rules. No training, no start. Even for you.”
No . . . I had to play!
A ball of fire formed inside my chest, burning and burning and getting so hot I thought it might explode. He didn’t call my name. He always called my name, and now I was on the bench for the biggest game of my life. It wasn’t just the academy scout I was worried about.
Dad had said he’d come too.
I scanned the crowd as we headed onto the field, but I couldn’t see him anywhere.
