The Castle (2 page)

‘So?' I asked.

She smiled at me. ‘We thought it might be lonely for you
while we were away. So we asked Luke and Sergeant McCrae if they'd stay on here for a few days so Luke can keep you company. Granny's giving them a free room.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes, really.'

‘What about Luke's school?'

‘He says he can do the homework online. He says he'll get more done here than at home.'

‘So he knows about this?'

‘Uh-huh.'

She was still smiling. Me not so much – I don't like secrets. However, this was a good one, no denying it. I gave Mum an extra hug, and felt even guiltier about the whole phone-in-church thing. Although that still wasn't my fault.

After they'd gone to get changed, my eye fell on my phone, on the floor in front of me. I still hadn't listened to that message.

Hope/don't hope/hope/don't hope.

Thinking about Dad was exhausting, especially when I needed him as much as I did today. As I picked the phone up, I said a little prayer. It had no words, but I knew what I wanted.

It wasn't Dad on my voicemail, though. It was hard to hear the message on the thin, crackly line, but it was someone I didn't recognise, with a quiet, musical voice. Young, and possibly Indian. A boy.

‘Peta Jones?' it said. ‘I have a message for you. The bad people are coming to get you. Please believe me. They are on their way. You must hide. Now. Do not call me.'

That was all.

As if the day hadn't been stressful enough already.

THREE

O
n Tuesday, Luke offered to pick me up after school and walk to my counsellor's consulting rooms with me. It was a long trek from Collingwood Academy to the Brightside Centre, and although he was brilliant on his crutches, they tired him out. However, he insisted. Luke was a gentleman that way.

Luke knew how I felt about my Tuesday sessions. I was supposed to ‘open up' about ‘being in denial' about Dad. Dr Benson, my counsellor, had no interest in
why
I didn't believe Dad was dead; he just wanted me to accept that he was. Usually, my time with him consisted of long silences, while he stared at me through his trendy red-rimmed glasses and I
looked at all the pictures of him with his wife, three children and smug, smiling dog.

Luke was waiting at the gates when I came out of school. We set off down the road together, past small red-brick houses on one side and shaggy open fields on the other. As we walked along, he loped beside me with an easy, graceful stride.

‘So you're going to tell Benson about the message?' he asked. Obviously, I'd told Luke all about it straight away on Saturday. He was the only person I'd mentioned it to.

‘Yeah, but now he'll think I'm nutty with sprinkles on top.'

‘A, he's paid to do that, and, B, it's hardly your fault if some sick idiot tried to wind you up.'

This was reassuringly true. In fact, I'd handled Saturday's message pretty well, I thought. It was obviously a hoax, so I'd deleted it from my phone and put it out of my mind. Well, mostly out of my mind. I only thought about it once or twice a day. I could still repeat it word for word, though, in my head. And I still had no idea who'd sent it.

At the bottom of the road, we stopped at the old-fashioned sweet shop where I always popped in to get supplies of Toxic Waste and Haribos, as my reward for after the session.

Sweet Sensations was full of people from Collingwood, despite the notice on the door saying maximum two school kids at a time. As we joined the queue to pay, Jason Ridgeway, a boy from my year, came in behind us. I sighed inwardly and put on my poker face.

‘Hiya, Psycho,' he grinned at me.

I ignored him. Ever since the counselling started, Jason had found me very amusing. Was it him who'd left the voicemail?
It was exactly the kind of thing he'd do – if he could think of it. But thinking up the nickname Psycho had been a major achievement for Jason.

Luke tensed beside me, but said nothing. Like me, he was trained to avoid confrontation. When you have a parent who can kill a man with a single blow, they tend to teach conflict-avoidance. Self-defence, yes, but mostly conflict-avoidance. Less chance of broken bones and jail.

I put our sweets on the counter. ‘These, please.'

‘Off to see the loony doctor then?' Jason did his googly eye impression, not that he had to try very hard. We looked quite similar, but if you wanted to cast a mildly insane-looking fourteen-year-old for a movie, you'd definitely pick him over me.

‘Yeah. I keep getting this strange urge to cut people into tiny pieces,' I said casually, giving him a
what-can-you-do-about-it
shrug.

He took a step back, pretending to be terrified, and tripped over one of Luke's trailing crutches.

‘Oi! Watch out!' he said crossly. ‘Don't want to cause an accident. Kaboom!'

He laughed and winked at me. He did it every time – as if I hadn't got the bit about the bomb in Baghdad. Kaboom. Very funny.

‘And we're the ones getting our heads examined,' I muttered to Luke as we left the shop. ‘Although admittedly –' I gestured at his crutches – ‘you need it.'

Luke was in counselling too, for his own interesting set of issues. When he found out that Sergeant McCrae had lost his legs in a minefield in Afghanistan, Luke had lost the feeling in his own. It still hadn't come back. Some people take bad news
way
too seriously.

‘Whereas you, of course, are perfect,' he said.

‘I'm glad you think so.'

We took a shortcut to Dr Benson's through the car park beside the railway station. It was lined with rows of empty tourist coaches, waiting for their passengers to finish their sightseeing trips in town.

‘So, you know, I thought you'd like to see the real highlights of Rye,' I said, indicating the coaches and the railings beside the track.

He whistled. ‘Wow.'

‘Thank you.'

‘No, look.'

A black Range Rover was drawing up just ahead of us. ‘So?'

‘It's been totally pimped,' Luke said, impressed. ‘Blacked-out windows. Special paint job. Alloy wheels. It must be worth at least a hundred grand.'

‘No way!'

‘Way. At
least
.'

The car stopped and the nearest window rolled down on silent electric motors, to reveal a woman with a pale, oval face framed by long waves of dark hair. I was disappointed. After Luke's intro to the car, I'd been hoping for a pop star or a Manchester United player.

She leant over towards us. ‘Hello? Can you help me?'

Luke went over. ‘Sure.' He flashed the woman a grin. She was very attractive – rather like the Wicked Queen from an old picture book I had of Snow White. I couldn't help smiling when I saw that Luke's tongue was bright blue from the Toxic Waste already. Poor boy – he had no idea.

She looked at me in my crumpled blue blazer.

‘I'm looking for Peta Jones,' she said. ‘He goes to your
school. One of his friends pointed in this direction.'

I opened my mouth to speak. But . . . 
his friends
? She must have meant
Peter
Jones, not Peta. There wasn't a Peter Jones at Collingwood. I shut my mouth again.

She looked at me, polite and hopeful. Luke gave me a quick glance. His eyes asked me if I wanted to make myself known to the nice lady in the very expensive car, who thought I was a boy. I shook my head fractionally. He turned back to her with a disarming, blue-tongued smile.

‘Yeah,' he said, hardly missing a beat. ‘Brown hair? Freckles? Squidgy nose?'

The lady nodded. I glared at Luke.

‘You just missed him,' he said blithely. ‘He's still in the sweet shop back there. He'll be out in a moment. Come on, Penelope.'

He grinned at me and loped off down the car park, while the pretty lady called her thanks. The Range Rover executed a smart turn and headed back the way it had come.

‘Penelope?
Penelope?'

‘It was the first thing I could think of. It suits you, Penny.'

‘It so doesn't. Oh, and squidgy nose?'

‘I like your nose. It's cute as a button. So who d'you think they were?'

‘No idea,' I said. ‘Friends of Grandad's? Maybe I've won the lottery.' But my skin was prickling. ‘You don't think . . .? No. Forget it.'

‘Think what?' Luke asked, glancing round at the departing car.

Something ridiculous was bugging me. Very aware that I was on my way to counselling for being, as Jason so politely put it, psycho, I recited the words from the voicemail.

‘“
The bad people are coming to get you.”
I'm crazy, right?'

‘What? The girl who thinks her dead father gave her a cat?'

‘Yes, crutch boy.'

He shrugged. ‘Yeah, probably. Why don't you call that boy back? Find out what he was on about. I mean, it was a bit weird.'

Yes it was. I still had goosebumps on my arms from the Wicked Queen. I dug my phone out of my bag and checked the list of missed calls. Even though I'd deleted the message, the number was still there, so I rang it. After several seconds, a male voice answered.

‘Uh-huh. Omar.' It was a lazy drawl, quite different from the urgent tones on the voicemail. The voice was deeper and more grown-up.

‘Er, hello. This is, er . . . Did you call this number a few days ago?' I asked.

‘Who, baby? I don't think so.'

‘Are you sure? On Saturday? About two-fifteen.' (The time was etched on my heart. Painfully.)

‘No . . .' he said. ‘Ah, wait. Are you the chick from the party in can?'

‘What?'

‘Cannes, baby! In France? The blonde chick at the Crystal Ball? I thought I got your number wrong. You never called me back.'

He sounded sulky now. He was definitely, absolutely not the boy who'd left the message. Chick? Ball? What about hiding from the ‘bad people'?

‘No, that wasn't me.'

What an idiot. I ended the call. Two seconds later, my phone rang in my hand.

‘Hello?'

‘Hi, baby. So tell me, who are you really?'

His voice was syrup, sweet and flirty, like this was some kind of game. I didn't want this stranger calling me ‘baby'. Or frankly anyone. I'd obviously made a big mistake and I didn't want to make it worse, so I switched the phone off and shoved it in my pocket.

‘So?' Luke said.

‘Wrong number. Don't tell anyone about this.'

Luke nodded without me needing to explain why. He knew there was only so much counselling I could take.

FOUR

L
ater, at the Smugglers' Inn, I popped my head round the bar and casually asked Grandad if he knew anyone with a Range Rover. He looked up from his glass-polishing and thought for a moment.

‘Several people. Why?'

‘Oh, nothing . . . Er, do any of them have a really posh black shiny one?'

Grandad suppressed a shudder. He disapproved of flash cars, flash boats and pretty much flash anything.

‘Possibly. The Carsons who run the Three Bells had a new one last time I looked. Don't remember the colour.'

Then a guest asked him to recommend a pre-dinner
cocktail and he was too distracted to finish our conversation. I left him to it.

Why would the Carsons, or any of Grandad's friends, have remembered my name but forgotten I was a girl, and tried to meet me after school? It still bugged me, but as an explanation, that would have to do.

That night, just after midnight, my phone rang again.

The screen lit up the sloping ceiling above my head with a ghostly glow. When I saw the number I nearly didn't answer. I didn't want to hear that creepy syrup drawl.

‘Peta? Peta Jones?'

But it was the first boy again, the one who had left the message.

‘Ye-es?'

‘It is you! They came, but you are safe!' His voice bubbled with delight. ‘You hid, yes? As I told you?'

There was a long pause while I thought a lot of things.

One: it was late at night – this was a dream.

Two: if it wasn't, it was a seriously complicated wind-up.

Three: if this boy
was
winding me up, could he really have arranged for a Range Rover to stop me after school?

Four: what if it wasn't a wind-up?

Five:
what if it wasn't a wind-up?

Six: Dad?

‘Hello?' the boy said, checking I was still there. ‘Are you safe?'

I looked around at my shadowy bedroom. ‘I think so.'

‘They did not find you!' He sounded gleeful.

I swallowed. The darkness seemed to buzz around me, like it was alive. ‘Do they . . . Does one of them, um, have long, wavy hair?'
This is absurd, Peta! Cray. Zee.

‘That is her. Ingrid. The man is Marco.'

‘They found me,' I whispered. ‘But they thought I was a boy.'

‘Aha!' he exclaimed. ‘Your name . . . yes! They are
so stupid
. All the time they said, “Get the kid! We must get the kid!” And they did not think to check.'

Stupid is good,
I thought. Liking stupid. ‘But why would anybody want me?'

‘It is because of your power.'

‘My power? But I don't
have
any power.'

There was a slight pause. When the boy spoke again, there was a hint of doubt in his voice. ‘But you must have a power. And besides –' he grew more confident – ‘Mr Allud said so too, when he gave me your telephone number. He told me to tell you exactly – and I'm sorry, I forgot before – he said also to tell you “Never forget, you have the power.” So you see, there must be one, no? Hello? Hello?'

‘I'm still here,' I said quietly.

‘I must go now. You must stay hiding. For two more days, I think. Be careful, Peta Jones – even Marco and Ingrid will not be so stupid a second time.'

‘Wait! Who are you? Who is—?'

Click. My head was full of a thousand questions. I called him back instantly. He answered on the first ring.

‘Do not call this number!' This time, he sounded terrified.

‘But who are you? Who is this Mr Allud?'

‘You must not call me, it is dangerous.'

‘Then . . . how about the internet?' I suggested, thinking madly. ‘What about Interface?'

‘Ah. Interface.' I could feel him desperately considering. ‘Yes. Perhaps. How can I find you?'

He knew my name already. I told him my school (the bad
guys knew that anyway) and my town (same story). I didn't know whether to trust him, but I had to talk to him again.

‘I will contact you tomorrow,' he said. ‘About midday.'

The line went dead.