I pushed the bottom part of the door, and it moved a little — but it was jamming on something. Crouching down on the ground, I pressed my body against the door and heaved as hard as I could. Finally, it swung open, just enough for me to crawl through.
I crept through the opening on my hands and knees — and came face-to-face with an enormous dog with its jaws wide open, ready to eat me!
Clapping a hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming, I told myself what I’d been repeating over and over again since we’d been doing this: It’s not going to harm you. It can’t move. You’re not in the middle of a zombie film. There’s nothing to be scared of.
Without taking my eyes off the dog, I squeezed past it and stood up. Once I’d done that, I realized it wasn’t actually all that big. Still, I got through the back room as quickly as I could, and just to be on the safe side, I shut the door behind me.
I was in a kitchen. A woman was sitting at the table next to a baby in a high chair. The baby was looking up in the air with its mouth wide open; the woman was poised with her hand in the air holding a teaspoon as if it were an airplane about to come to land in the baby’s mouth. I paused for a moment, remembering Dad telling me about doing the same thing with me. Only he would fly the airplane all around the room, and sometimes all over the house, before finally bringing it down to land in my mouth.
I opened the kitchen door and went out into the hallway.
And that was when the second different thing happened. I heard a noise.
My blood went as cold as if it had been taken out, replaced with some new blood straight out of the freezer, and siphoned back in again. Terror rooted my feet to the spot as firmly as if I had been frozen in time myself.
I tried to repeat my there’s nothing to be scared of mantra, but it wouldn’t work this time. Something about this house was different — I was sure of it.
I stood in my statue position in the hall, immobilized by indecision as much as fear. Should I go and get Daisy? Was it safe to tackle the thief on my own? If Robyn was right, he was only a twelve-year-old boy. But still, he could be a violent criminal. He could be a massive, burly, scary twelve-year-old boy.
I couldn’t go and get Daisy. By the time I’d run across the road and back again, he’d probably have escaped — and then we’d have nothing.
I had to do this on my own.
I took a deep breath, clenched and unclenched my hands a few times, and crept up the stairs.
What was that?
It was the first sound I’d heard in over a week. Nothing except me had moved, let alone made a sound, since I’d been trapped in this awful place.
I crept over to my bedroom door and listened through the crack. There it was again! It sounded like the floorboards at the bottom of the stairs. I knew those creaks inside and out from all the times I’d crept downstairs to sneak a cookie when I was supposed to be in bed.
Someone was in the house!
I looked around the room, desperately searching for a place to hide. Under the bed? No, too many smelly shoes and abandoned board games down there for me to fit.
Behind the curtains? No, too obvious.
Under my desk? Too exposed. I’d be seen right away.
“Hello?”
A voice! Someone was on the landing! My eyes felt as though they were about to pop out of their sockets, and my teeth started chattering so loudly I was convinced they’d give me away, no matter where I hid.
I heard the floorboard squeak right outside my door. That’s the one I always have to do a big stretch to get over when I’m supposed to be in bed.
Too late to try and find a hiding place now. They’d be in my room in a second. I grabbed my bathrobe off the hook on the back of the door, pulled it over myself, and, for want of any better ideas, crouched down in a ball behind the door.
“Hello?” I called again. Strange. I was sure I’d heard a noise earlier, but I’d been in almost every room and hadn’t found anything, or anyone, yet.
I was at the last room. I’d have a quick check in here and then move on to the next house. I must have been mistaken about the noise. There was no one in the house. I’d probably imagined it because I’d been so freaked out by the dog.
I reached for the handle and pushed the door open.
And that was when the third different thing happened. Someone said, “Ouch.”
I craned my neck around the door to see where the voice had come from. As far as I could tell, it had come from a bundle of clothes on the floor with a bathrobe on the top of it.
Taking a deep breath, I reached out with a shaking hand and lifted the bathrobe up.
“Don’t hurt me! I’m sorry! Please don’t hurt me!”
A boy was crouched on the floor, his hands over his head, his knees knocking together, and his words coming out in a terrified yelp.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said as gently as I could.
“I haven’t done anything; I don’t know anything!” he yelped again. It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t been expecting him to be even more frightened than I was. The only problem now was how to calm him down enough to try and get some sense out of him.
I crouched down next to him. “Look, it’s OK. You’re not in any trouble,” I said in the most reassuring voice I could manage. I mean, I still didn’t know exactly what trouble he might be in. I just knew I needed to calm him down and get him to help me find out what had happened to the stone fairy. Or, as far as he was concerned, to the piece of amber that he’d taken from the stone circle.
The boy lowered his hands from over his head. “Who are you?” he asked. “How did you get here? How come you’re not frozen like everything else?”
“My name’s Philippa,” I said, trying to figure out how to answer the other questions and deciding that one out of three would have to do for now. “What’s yours?”
“Tommy,” he said. Tommy! He was the boy from the paper!
“How long have you been here, Tommy?” I asked.
“A — a week or two?” he said. “I don’t know. Nothing works; nothing changes — you can’t tell if it’s day or night.” His bottom lip began to tremble as he spoke. I could tell he was embarrassed; he turned his face away. I pretended I hadn’t noticed. “It’s been awful,” he said, looking down into his lap. “It’s like I’m the last person in the world. I don’t know what happened; I don’t know how I got here. I feel like I’m in one of those films where the world’s been hit by an asteroid and there are only a few survivors. Except in my case, there’s just me.”
“And me,” I said with a smile.
He looked at me. “Yeah, and you,” he said. “Unless I’m just imagining you. I think I’m going crazy here. I’ve even started talking to myself. I keep thinking it must all be a bad dream. I keep going to sleep thinking that I’ll wake up and things will be back to normal, but then I do wake up, and I’m still here on my own on this post-asteroid planet.”
“What have you been eating?” I asked.
Tommy shrugged. “Canned food, cereal, lots of sandwiches. I’m starting to get sick of cold beans, to be honest.”
“What about to drink?”
“I can get drinks out of bottles, but nothing comes out of the faucet. And no electricity or gas for cooking. No lights. No heating. Haven’t you noticed it’s freezing? Look!” He pointed to his bed. It had about five blankets piled up on it. “That’s the only way I keep warm,” he said. “I’ve taken them off all the other beds in the house.” He turned to me. “What about you?” he asked. “How have you been surviving? Where did you come from? How did you find me, anyway?”
I took a breath. How was I going to explain it all to him?
“Listen, Tommy,” I said. “I haven’t been here as long as you. I knew you were here, and I’ve come to help you get back to your normal life.”
“Really?” he breathed. “Can you do that? But how?”
“Well, I’ve got a friend with me. She’s across the street at the
moment. She’s been looking for you, too. She’ll help us,” I said. “Listen, why don’t you and I go and find her, and we’ll take it from there?”
Tommy stood up. “OK,” he said shakily. But he stopped at the door. “This isn’t a trap, is it?” he asked. “You’re not the bad guys, are you?” His face colored instantly, and I could tell he was ashamed to be sounding like such a scaredy cat — especially in front of a girl.
“I’m not bad at all,” I reassured him. “And neither is Daisy.”
We left the room and were halfway across the landing when I suddenly remembered the stone fairy.
“Oh, by the way, Tommy,” I said, stopping and nodding my head back at his bedroom. I had to be careful how I handled this. He had stolen the stone fairy after all, and I didn’t want him to try denying it just because he was too afraid of getting into trouble. “If you brought anything with you, you’ll need to take it back again for this to work,” I said as casually as I could.
“Brought anything with me? What do you mean?” Tommy asked, his face starting to color again — a tiny hint of pink at the top of his cheeks.
“Well, you know. If you picked anything up along the way.”
“Like what?” he asked. His eyes met mine, and I knew he was challenging me. There was no other way around this. I had to tell the truth.
“Like a piece of amber,” I said carefully. “We just need it to go back again so that you can get back to normal.”
Tommy stared at me, his jaw wide open. “How do you know about the amber?” he asked.
“I —” I what? What could I possibly say that could make sense to him? I’m on a mission from a place above the clouds where fairies are given assignments, and this one is part of saving the entire world from disaster? Yeah, that would go over really well.
Then I remembered that I wasn’t the one who had to prove myself here! “Look, we just know about it, that’s all. And we need it to go back with you. So I’m just making sure you don’t forget it.”
Tommy looked down at the floor, shuffling his feet from side to side.
“Tommy?”
He stared at the carpet.
“Tommy, what is it?” I asked.
Eventually he looked up at me. “It’s the amber,” he said. “It’s gone.”
I stared at Tommy. He stared back. Neither of us knew what to say next.
“What do you mean, it’s gone?” I asked eventually.
“I mean it’s gone. I —” But before he finished whatever he was about to say, a noise downstairs made both of us jump so suddenly, we practically head-butted each other.
“What was that?” Tommy asked, white-faced and halfway back to his bedroom.
“That’s Daisy,” I said.
A moment later, a voice called up the stairs. “Philippa?”
I smiled at Tommy. “Told you,” I said. “We’re up here!” I called down the stairs.
“We?” Daisy charged up the stairs. “I knew it!” she said, coming up to join us on the landing. “I saw you come in here a while ago. I had a feeling something was going on.”
Tommy was staring at Daisy, looking like a scared little boy, even though he wasn’t that much younger than me. “Daisy, this is Tommy; Tommy, this is Daisy,” I said, feeling only slightly ridiculous giving formal introductions at a time like this.
“Well done!” Daisy said, checking the time on her MagiCell. “Ten to eight. We’re still ahead of schedule. Let’s get going.” She punched a few buttons as she started to walk along the landing. “I’m going to give ATC a quick update,” she said.
Tommy was still staring at Daisy. He hadn’t moved.
“Daisy, wait,” I said. “We’ve got a bit of a problem.” I turned to Tommy. “Do you want to tell her, or shall I?”
Tommy was pointing at Daisy. “She had one of those things, too,” he said.
I looked at Daisy. “One of what?”
“That phone in her hand. She had one just like it.”
Daisy turned around and took a couple of steps toward Tommy. “This?” she said, holding her MagiCell in front of her.
Tommy nodded.
Daisy looked at me. I looked at Tommy. Tommy looked at the floor.
“Tommy,” I said. “I think you need to tell us what happened.”
They were both staring at me, waiting for me to explain. But how could I? How could I tell them what had happened? I’d spent my life being the butt of everyone else’s jokes, and now I’d be the same with them — and I’d only just met them.
Daisy took another step closer to me. There was something about her. I don’t know what it was, but she reminded me a bit of — of the —
“OK, I’ll tell you,” I said. “But on one condition.”
“Go on,” Daisy said.
“You don’t laugh.”
“Of course we won’t laugh,” Philippa said.
“There’s nothing remotely funny about this,” Daisy said in a way that made a chill sneak up my spine.
“And you have to believe me,” I added. “Because everything I’m going to tell you is absolutely true.”
“We believe you,” Daisy said. Philippa nodded her agreement.
“OK. Well, this is what happened,” I said. And then I told them everything. I told them what happened on Tuesday, when we’d done the climbing ropes as a special end-of-semester treat.
“So it was my turn to climb up the rope,” I said. “And it’s not my fault that I wear glasses, or that they slipped off my nose when I looked down. And it’s not my fault that the laughing below made me so nervous, my hands became too sweaty to hold on to the rope.”
“OK, we hear you,” Daisy said.
“So then Danny picks my glasses up off the floor. ‘Tiny Tommy strikes again!’ he shouts, holding his arms out and waving my glasses in front of my face. I kept reaching out for them, and he kept pulling them away. Then I swung for them too hard and fell over. And that was when even the teacher started laughing.”
“The teacher was laughing at you?” Philippa asked.
I nodded. “He tried to hide it — but I heard him. I wanted to curl up and die right there.”
“What did you do?” Daisy asked.
“What could I do? I just waited for it to stop, like I always do. Eventually Mr. Petrie said something totally lame like, ‘OK, that’s enough now.’ No punishment. Not even a scolding. Even he doesn’t stand up to Danny Slater. No one stands up to Danny Slater.”
“So what happened next?” Daisy asked.
“Apart from being tripped in the hallway and being called Wimpy Williams all day, you mean?” I said bitterly.
Daisy nodded.
“After school,” Philippa said gently.
So I told them about the walk home through the woods, climbing up the rocks, finding the amber.
“And then, the moment I walked out of the circle with it, something really weird happened. It was like everything was exactly the same, but completely different, too.”
Daisy nodded. “Because time had frozen,” she said. She understood!
“Yes. Everything around me just stopped. Birds froze in the air, the trees didn’t rustle, no wind, no nothing. And it’s been like that for over a week now. At least, I think it’s been that long. It’s hard to tell.”
“And what about the amber?” Philippa asked. “What happened to it?”
“That was the weirdest thing of all,” I said. “One moment it was in my hand. The next . . .” I glanced at them both to make sure they weren’t laughing. “You promise you’ll believe me?”
“We promise,” Daisy replied. “Honestly.”
“OK. Well — the amber kind of changed. One minute, it was like a cold jagged piece of stone in my hand. The next — well, first it felt kind of fluttery, like it was tickling my hand. Then the stone disappeared completely, and all these colors burst out of it. It was like a rainbow-filled bomb had gone off in my hand!”
I glanced at them again. They were both looking seriously a
t me. No laughing.
“What happened next?” Daisy asked.
“The colors started making a shape. I thought it was a bird at first — but it wasn’t.”
“What was it?” Philippa prompted me.
“It was a —” I stopped. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t say it out loud, in front of a pair of girls!
“Was it a fairy?” Philippa asked gently.
She knew! She knew!
I looked down at the floor and nodded.
Daisy let out a breath. “She transformed,” she said. I wanted to ask what she meant, but she went on before I had the chance. “That’s why she wasn’t at the stone circle.”
“Did she say anything?”
“No,” I replied. “She just took off running.”
“So she could be anywhere?” Philippa asked.
Daisy was pressing buttons on her weird-looking phone. “But it doesn’t make sense,” she said. “I’ve tried to locate her on her MagiCell but I couldn’t get a reading. It should have worked if she transformed.”
“Um . . .” I said.
“Maybe try again?” Philippa suggested. “The connection with Robyn wasn’t great, but perhaps it’ll work this time.”
“Er . . .” I tried again.
“I’ll try it,” Daisy said. “You never know.”
I cleared my throat. They both looked at me. “What?” Daisy asked impatiently.
“I don’t think it’s going to work,” I said.
“Why not?” Philippa asked. “How would you know if it’ll work or not? You don’t know anything about MagiCells.”
“About what?” I pointed to Daisy’s phone. “You mean that?”
“That’s right,” Daisy said.
I reached into my pocket and felt for the thing that had fallen away from the piece of amber after it turned into a fairy. The thing she’d dropped on the ground and left behind because she was so startled when she saw me that all she seemed to want to do was run away and hide. The thing that looked exactly the same as Daisy’s strange phone — apart from the broken parts and cracks across the screen. I pulled it out of my pocket.