Skinned by Adam Slater

Author:Adam Slater
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Egmont
Published: 2011-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

A few days passed, and nothing out of the ordinary happened. No more clues about Black Annis or the coven. Callum thought it was a bit ironic that he was so desperate to hear what would essentially be bad news, but all the waiting and not knowing was really starting to get to him.

School seemed even more mundane than usual, given what he was facing, other than teachers warning the students to be careful given the spate of young people going missing from Leicester. But as Callum was stuffing his maths book into his bag after class, he noticed the two boys near him had their heads bent together while they gathered up pencils and paper.

‘Yeah, it was dead weird,’ one said. ‘We were just coming along the Stockport Road, you know by the industrial estate, at the big roundabout? Well, Dad slowed up to wait for the traffic, and these two little girls in long grey dresses ran right across the road in front of us. They didn’t look, just ran right across the road. Dad slammed on the brakes and honked his horn but they still didn’t look. It was like they couldn’t see or hear us at all. Like they didn’t even know there were any cars around them.’

‘Travellers, maybe?’

‘Traveller kids don’t dress like nuns! And the other weird thing was that when I looked up the drive they’d just vanished. There isn’t really anywhere to hide there. It was like they’d completely disappeared.’

‘Ghosts!’

Both boys laughed nervously.

If only they knew, Callum thought. So Melissa really wasn’t the only ordinary person who was starting to see apparitions. The Shadowing was starting to affect everybody. Even without the threat of the coven and Black Annis, things were stirring in the Netherworld, and Callum would need to fight them – not just in Marlock and Leicester but everywhere. Probably all over the world. Callum swallowed, trying not to let his thoughts overwhelm him. Pushing his seat back as the second bell went, he quickly made his way to his English class.

He was late anyway, and as he sat down next to Melissa, she mouthed, ‘You OK?’

Callum nodded, but was interrupted by Mrs Higgins at the front of the class.

‘Nice of you to join us, Mr Scott,’ she said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Now, if you’d all like to open your textbooks to page fifteen. In fact, Mark, Richard, why don’t you two come up here and act it out for us?’

The two boys made their way to the front of the classroom and began to struggle through the Shakespearean text. After a few minutes, Callum saw Melissa reach over and pass him a note.

You look knackered. Like that leathery demon thing from the chime child books yesterday!

She’d written with a smiley face, underneath five lines of notes on Much Ado About Nothing. Callum chuckled, but then tried to cover as the teacher looked over, pretending to be amused by the scene his classmates were enacting. He hoped it was meant to be from a comedy.

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