Caddy Ever After by Hilary McKay

Author:Hilary McKay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-05T00:00:00+00:00

The Lightning in the Shed

(Part 1)

When I was in bed I tried very hard not to think about what happened to me in the Reading Corner, and about Kiran’s cousin’s pink jacket, and the dark unreal hand over her shoulder, and the way she looked back once and would not tell Kiran what she saw. And how Kiran’s quiet voice sounded when she said, ‘I don’t want that revolting jacket.’

It was very hard not to think of these things. So I concentrated on what I could hear – and there were sounds in the walls. Scrabbly sounds, like giant spiders would make. I got up and made Indigo turn his music off and come and listen.

‘Nope,’ said Indigo. ‘I can’t hear a thing. Not a single spider. Not a leg. Go back to bed, Rosy Pose.’

I went back to bed, and to stop myself listening I felt my neck to see if I had any lumps growing there.

Kiran’s cousin once had a lump on her neck. Not the cousin with the jacket, another cousin with very long hair. She got the lump when she went on holiday to a very hot place where she bought Kiran a bracelet made of shells and silver beads and string which Kiran used to wear to school until the string got dirty. And then she washed it and all the silver came off the beads and they were plastic underneath.

At first Kiran’s cousin’s lump was little, but it got bigger. It grew. I know exactly where. On the back of her neck, just where her head joins on. I have a little mole in the same place. And the lump grew and it itched, but Kiran’s cousin’s hair covered it up and she did not tell anyone, and it grew bigger. And then one day when Kiran’s cousin was brushing her hair she banged the lump with her hairbrush and it opened. And Kiran’s cousin screamed and screamed and out poured spiders. Dozens and dozens of black spiders.

I got out of bed again and went to Indigo’s room and asked Indigo to check my neck for spider lumps.

He checked very carefully and patiently and he said there were none at all, and he said the sounds I could hear were probably hamsters in the walls.

‘Maybe it is Joseph,’ said Indigo. Joseph was a hamster with fur which was all different colours (which was why he was called Joseph). ‘Or Blossom,’ said Indigo. (Blossom had a white flower-shaped mark in the middle of her back.)

But Joseph and Blossom escaped long ago, and hamsters do not live very long. They would have died by now. We have a Hamster Book which explains this. And if they had not died they would have killed each other because that is what hamsters do. They fight to the death. The Hamster Book says that too. So.

I told Indigo this and he said, ‘But Joseph and Blossom have not read the Hamster Book. So you never know. Go back to bed, Rosy Pose.

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