Ministry of Pandemonium by Chris Westwood

Author:Chris Westwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Published: 2011-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

15

BLUE GRANDMA AND THE TRAIN WRECK

ecky’s gang were already heading up the street on the bus when I came outside. Becky was waiting at the roadside to cross.

‘Déjà vu,’ she said, seeing me.

‘Can you still see it?’ I said, prodding my cheek.

‘Yeah, but I don’t know what it means. How’d you get it?’

‘Long story. Doesn’t matter. But I’ve been thinking. . .’

‘Oh, have you?’

‘You were right about the kids, Becky. I did see them, clear as I’m seeing you.’

She all but shrieked with delight, clapping her hands together. Then, suddenly serious, she dropped her voice to a whisper.

‘At that desk near the back of class,’ she said. ‘The one where no one ever sits.’

‘Yes.’

‘They weren’t there today, though.’

‘No, not today.’

‘Last week,’ she confided, ‘I noticed something too, but I dismissed it, thought I was imagining it. But then you threw a wobbly and I knew.’

‘You saw something too?’

She thought about it. ‘Not exactly. I felt something there, though, and the light seemed unusual in that side of the room, you know the way it reflects through a prism? And I could’ve sworn I smelt something too. Something burning.’

She has it too, I thought. If not the same gift, then something like it. Unlike me, though, Becky seemed happy, even eager to talk about it.

‘Do your mates know?’ I asked.

‘I can’t tell them. They don’t believe in this kind of thing. Matthew likes ghost stories but that’s all they are to him – made-up stories. I don’t have anyone to talk to about this.’

‘Me neither.’

‘So what did the kids do? Did they say anything? And why were they there in the first place?’

‘They didn’t say much, but I knew they needed help. They’re trapped somewhere. Lost. But I haven’t seen them since and I don’t know where to start looking.’

‘Maybe they’ll come to you,’ she said. ‘They did once before, so maybe they will again.’

I hadn’t thought of it that way until now. ‘Yeah. In their own time.’

‘What’s up with him?’ she said suddenly, staring past me.

Raymond Blight was coming our way up Mercy Road, his face screwed into a rictus of pain. As soon as he saw us he stepped aside into the road, skirting around us at a safe distance. By the looks of it he’d come straight from the nurses’s office and his finger was wrapped in clean gauze. He scowled but didn’t speak as he passed.

Becky turned to me, puzzled, after he’d gone. ‘Funny, he looked afraid of you. What was that look for?’

‘Nothing. He trapped his finger in a door or something and he thinks it’s my fault.’

‘Typical Raymond!’ She hitched her bag on her shoulder. ‘Are you going my way? Race you to the nearest caff. I think I can manage a hot chocolate now the anaesthetic’s worn off.’

I hesitated. I’d be expected at headquarters soon, but now it seemed more important to be at home for Mum.

‘Got a phone I can borrow?’ I asked. ‘I’m supposed to be somewhere but I’d better call home first.

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