Tiger Moth (15 page)

We went back to Culver Manor along the path and even though I’m not really scared of heights or anything like that I felt really dizzy when I looked down the waterfall. When I saw the
ledge that Alice had had to jump over every time she came down, I was really impressed that she’d made it. Alice might not have wanted to get too close to the seals, but she was brave enough
to do that scary jump every time.

At the door Dr Richardson stopped. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?’ he asked me again. ‘I won’t be cross.’

I shook my head. I felt myself get nervous.
Maybe I should tell him
, I thought.
Perhaps it won’t matter
. But then I remembered that I had promised Alice, and Dad always
said you should never, ever break your promises.

We walked through the garden side by side, but I wasn’t really paying attention to anything, and when we got to the driveway Dr Richardson put the little rucksack down and sighed.
‘Zack, you’re not in any trouble, but there’s something you should know. It’s about Alice.’

I listened quietly and looked down at the ground. Poor Alice. I didn’t dare look up in case I blurted it out. I was bound to get the blame. If they knew that Alice had followed me, if they
knew she’d copied me, I’d be in more trouble than I’d ever been in my whole entire life. As I listened to what had happened to Alice the night she’d been rescued, I felt
worse than ever. I stared at the tops of my trainers and bit down hard on my lip. I stood like that for ages and when I didn’t say a word Dr Richardson looked down at me hopefully.

‘Well, you’d best get home, Zack,’ he said. But as I turned to leave he shouted, ‘Say hi to your mum, won’t you?’

Mum got home about five minutes after me and I came downstairs slowly to say hello. I don’t know why, but I felt like the only thing I wanted was a hug from her or
something.

‘Well, that’s a lovely way to be greeted,’ she said as I squeezed her tightly. ‘It’s like having old Zack back again.’ I looked at her face and noticed a red
mark across her cheek.

‘What’s that?’ I asked, touching the red mark which felt swollen under my fingers.

‘Oh, that’s your mother trying to do everything in time for yesterday as usual. I was standing on a chair to get some art supplies down from a cupboard and managed to knock a plastic
storage box on top of me. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt. It was more embarrassing than anything because the whole of the staffroom saw,’ she said, laughing, and I squeezed her even
more tightly.

That night I got my guitar out from under my bed and we did something we hadn’t done since Dad died. I sat on the sofa next to Mum and I played and played as she sang one
of her favourite songs. That’s the weird thing about my mum. She’s short and sort of spiky, but she has the softest, loveliest singing voice that you ever heard. It made me think of
what Dad had told me.

‘The first time I saw your mum she was sitting cross-legged and playing the guitar. Every girl in the room disappeared when I saw her. All my worries stopped being worries when I heard her
sing.’

And he was right. All my worries stopped feeling horrid for a while. I forgot the sad news about Alice I had heard from Dr Richardson. There was a happy, warm feeling in the house until the
phone rang. Mum took the call and when she was finished she looked at me with angry, scary eyes that were filled with tears.

‘What the hell have you been up to?’ she shouted.

Everything was fine until it wasn’t.

‘You’ve got some explaining to do!’ she said, but I didn’t look up. ‘That was David Richardson on the phone. I knew something funny was going on
with you. Well? What have you got to say for yourself?’ Her voice got louder and louder, but I didn’t know what to say. ‘I told you about staying away from that beach. I
specifically told you not to go there. I made it absolutely clear, didn’t I?’

That’s when I realised she was actually upset. She wasn’t just angry; she had eyes that were filled with tears too.

‘Poor Alice,’ she kept saying over and over again. ‘Poor David.’ She sighed and looked at me. ‘Zack? Why?’

I didn’t say a thing, but as she closed the curtains above the television I noticed the blue flashing lights of a police car by the Boathouse Café.

‘Zack, will you just answer me, please?’ She sounded angrier now and when I did finally look up at her she was shaking with rage. I didn’t dare say a word; all I could think
about was Alice. She’d seemed fine when I last saw her. She looked perfectly OK as I watched her running down the driveway and when David had told me what had happened I was hoping it would
all just go away. Why had he telephoned my mum? My mind drifted back to Alice’s lifeless body as I’d dragged it up the beach. I remembered the relief I’d felt when she came back
to life.
Poor Alice
, that’s what Mum had said . . . what if?

I think Mum had been shouting some more, but I’d been so busy thinking about Alice that I hadn’t heard her. She came round the coffee table so that she was standing in front of
me.

‘Zack!’ she bellowed. ‘Are you listening to me at all? Do you know how lucky you are to still be alive? Have I not been through enough without you risking your life just to go
for a stupid swim?’

I thought about Dad and his jumping-out-of-planes job. I thought of how Dad was always risking his life until he risked it a bit too much and I felt angry.

‘Dad did!’ I shouted back. ‘That’s what he did every day, wasn’t it?’ I said, feeling my throat get tight and doing my best to stop myself from crying.
‘How can you have a go at me for just going to some stupid beach when Dad did crazy things all the time?’ I screamed at her. I almost spat the words out and the anger started to rise up
in me until I was screaming terrible things at her, until I was shouting the worst and most horrid words back at her, until I was shaking as much as she had been. Until I lifted the guitar up into
the air and, without thinking, I smashed it down hard over the television.

Splinters of wood flew across the room and the strings twanged backwards at my face. I felt one scratch my left cheek, but I wasn’t finished yet. I threw what was left of the guitar across
the room and then I kicked the table over.

‘Zack! Stop!’ Mum shouted, but with my left hand I swept all the photographs off the mantelpiece.

‘Zack! Please stop!’ she cried out, but I picked up a mug and threw that against the wall. I couldn’t hear anything any more, just a sort of humming, buzzing sound, but as I
kicked the log basket over Mum had to leap out of the way, falling backwards over the kicked-over table. With my hand, I grabbed the vase from the window sill and I was just about to throw it at
the kitchen door when there was a loud knock at our front door.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Mum lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. I stopped shouting, the vase still raised above my head.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I felt my chest rise and fall with each breath.

‘Open the door!’ a man’s deep voice called out. ‘Open the door now! It’s the police!’

I saw Mum wipe the tears from her cheeks and the shock of what I’d done began to creep upwards from my feet. Upwards and upwards, like dark shadowy fingers that moved higher towards my
chest. Tighter and tighter I felt them grip my shoulders until the door was flung open and two policemen came barging into our little cottage.

Mum didn’t move and neither did I. I watched the policemen’s faces as they looked around at the room. I saw them eye the broken furniture, the shattered glass, the smashed-up bit of
guitar and the look of fear on Mum’s face.

‘You!’ said the smaller of the two policemen, pointing at me. ‘You stay right there.’

I felt my heart thumping in my chest; the buzzing, humming noise began to fade. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my mum get to her feet and I wanted to die. But when the younger policeman saw
the red mark on her face he turned to me.

‘Did you do that?’ he asked, looking disgusted. I looked over at Mum and then back at the policeman.

I saw him reach for his handcuffs and I panicked. I heard Mum say, ‘No, no, he didn’t do that.’ She said angrily, ‘Don’t be crazy! He didn’t touch me. I had
an accident at work. Really, we’re fine.’

I could see they didn’t believe her. The smaller policeman shook his head and they both moved closer.

‘We heard the noise coming from this house. It seems like we got here just in time,’ he said, stepping over the shards of glass towards me.

I saw the open door and didn’t think. I just ran. I ran out of the door and over the bridge, up the lane and past the café. I ran until I felt the sweat dripping down my back and a
stitch in my side, but the sound of police sirens got louder. I ran through the churchyard where my grandfather was buried and I didn’t stop. I leapt over the wall to the lane, grazing the
backs of my legs as I fell forward. I made a dash through someone’s garden and a security light flashed on as I collided with a bin. I jumped over a rose bush, taking half the petals with me
and catching the thorns against my arms. I ran until my legs were almost falling forward by themselves and my lungs burned so much I thought I couldn’t take it any more.

I turned left in the village at a sign I recognised, but the streetlights disappeared and darkness surrounded me. I ran further and further, the sirens seemed to fade and I had only moonlight to
guide my way. The road became a lane, the lane became a track and the track became a scramble. I was running and then I wasn’t. I was scrambling up a track and then I wasn’t. I stood at
the beacon on Porlock Hill, where I’d been with my mother on that first day and I looked down the moonlit vale and out towards the blackened sea.

Everything was fine until it wasn’t, and I knew right then that I couldn’t run any more.

I waited until I got my breath back and felt my racing heartbeat become normal again. Then, with shaking legs and aching arms, I turned round to face the journey home. But which way? In front of
me were two paths. Which one was the way back down? I didn’t know, so I just guessed and headed left along a path, hoping that I’d picked correctly.

I was wrong. I think I must have been slowly walking for twenty minutes or so when I realised it wasn’t right, but something told me to keep going. Even though I knew in my heart it was
the wrong way, I kept going and going until the sweat on my skin made me feel cold and shivery. I think I was almost sleepwalking when I saw a building in the distance. A sort of house that seem to
shine. Was it made of glass? I couldn’t be sure. Did I see my face reflected in the walls? I was too tired to think or care and I stumbled round the building to ask for help. I cried out, but
no one came.

My teeth were chattering so much I could feel the vibration in my head, but there was no sign of life in the house. I wandered round the back of the shiny building until I saw what looked like a
barn or was it bigger? It could have been stables, but I didn’t hear any horses and I sighed with such relief when I saw a door was open. I stepped inside.

I reached up on the wall and felt for a light switch which clicked loudly as I turned it on. The lights flickered slowly on and off; a strange humming noise echoed off the walls. The lights
continued to flicker as though they couldn’t decide whether to work or not and then suddenly the room was lit up. I expected sleeping cows or horses. I imagined the smell of hay or the sight
of riding boots lined up against a wall. I thought there’d be a rusting tractor, a sleeping sheep-dog or a lawnmower. I expected all of these, but that’s not what I saw.

I blinked once. I blinked twice and I almost pinched my arm to make sure I wasn’t imagining it. I was in a huge room which contained a collection of the most amazing things. An old
motorbike and sidecar, a shiny red Ferrari, its bonnet freshly polished, two Aston Martins and my favourite ever car, a 1957 Mercedes-Benz Gullwing. How had Dad described it? A thing of beauty? And
in the middle of the room was a plane. I smiled. It was the little blue plane that I kept seeing. It had to be the same one.

I felt myself being sort of pulled over to it and before I knew what I was doing I was staring at my own reflection in the door. Was it open? I reached up with my left hand.
Click,
click
. It was locked. I walked round the plane and sighed. It was the same one as Dad’s. A Tiger Moth. I felt my eyes start to close. I was so tired. I looked around for somewhere to
rest my aching body, but the concrete floor was uninviting. I tried the Gullwing first, but it was locked, then the Ferrari, but it was as well. I tried both the Astons and then a little silver
Porsche and in the end I spied a dark green car I didn’t need to worry about locks for because it didn’t have a roof.

I ran back to the door to switch off the lights and crept back to the corner of the room. A Rolls-Royce. It had to be one of the oldest cars I’d ever seen, and I took my shoes off before I
carefully climbed over the door and on to the springiest leather seats I’d ever sat on. I felt my eyelids closing and I lay back on the creamy white seats and fell fast asleep.

I woke up slowly and a woollen blanket tickled my nose. I tried to move. Everything hurt. I turned my head and my neck felt stiff and painful. Something wasn’t right.
This wasn’t my bed and I suddenly remembered the night before.
The night before. Oh God
, I thought.
What have I done?

I looked up at the ceiling. A tiny bird flew up into the roof and, as I turned my head to watch it disappear into a nest, I saw a man standing by the car. His hair was almost white; it curled
upwards and outwards in a way that made me think that the red baseball cap he was wearing was there to keep it from springing away. He leaned against the bonnet of the Rolls-Royce and looked back
at the little plane. I watched him take a puff of his pipe; a plume of bluish smoke hovered round his face and then he turned to me and smiled.

‘Well, I guess if I had to pick a car to fall asleep in I’d have chosen the Roller too.’ He rested a hand on the door of the car and looked right at me. I peered back at him
over the woollen blanket. His face was tanned and papery-looking and there were long creases along his forehead, and around his mouth and eyes. He wore a greenish shirt with the collar turned right
up and I noticed that there were tiny holes and rips and stains all over it. He looked down at his shirt. ‘I hate wearing overalls to work in. I think I’ve had this polo shirt since
little Nelly died.’