Another Me (13 page)

I hadn't thought of it that way, but perhaps he was right.

‘But do you know what really scared me, Fay?' He looked so serious.

‘What?' I asked him.

‘I realised that if you were the other one, how could I really prove you weren't the real Fay?'

I smiled. ‘The code, of course. Hadn't we worked out a code?'

‘But if the other one had taken over as you . . . wouldn't she know your favourite lines? Maybe she'd even know mine.'

‘Don't say that, Drew. Does that mean, you're still not sure?'

He studied me carefully, thinking that over.

I grinned. ‘Drew, it's finished. Trust me.' This time when I touched his arm, he didn't move. In fact, he drew just a fraction closer. ‘I don't think I'm going to have any more problems. I'm the one who is alive. Trust me.'

The Christmas disco was before me, and a holiday in Majorca. And Mum and Dad together. Forever.

And life. Life now lay before me as well. Wonderful, exciting life. I threw back my head and I laughed loudly.

Because
she
was the other one, and I was going to make sure it stayed that way.

Loved
Another Me?

Then turn the page to find out about Cathy MacPhail and her inspiration for this gripping story

A few years ago, I heard on the radio they were looking for a Scottish ghost story for a competition. A Scottish ghost story? I knew I could write one of those, and so I began to think of a misty loch and a ruined castle with a ghostly piper on the battlements. Then I thought, hey wait a minute, I live in Greenock on the west coast of Scotland, with not a ruined castle in sight! But this was still Scotland, and so I wrote something set in my own home town, about something that always scared
me
.

I used to take a shortcut to my school up a long flight of stairs with high walls on either side and trees that hang over them. The stairs were always dark and gloomy and sometimes on a dark winter afternoon on my way home the fog would drift in from the river and it was as if I was in another world. Whenever I heard footsteps coming behind me, I would frighten the life out of myself imagining the scariest things that could come out of the fog . . . and the scariest thing was another me.

In Celtic mythology, there is something called a ‘fetch'. A fetch is your double or your doppelganger and
some people say it is your other self, without a soul. But what scared me most was, it was said, that if you came face to face with your fetch, it meant you were going to die very soon. So I wrote a story about a girl who was being haunted by herself and it won the competition. That's the story that became
Another Me
. The girl in the story is called Fay. I love that name. It's a family name, but if you spell it ‘f-e-y', it means strange or weird, which seemed to fit in well with my story. Fay lives in a tower block on the thirteenth floor. I once lived on the thirteenth floor too – some places don't even have a thirteenth floor. And some people will never sit in the thirteenth row on a plane. Why? Because thirteen is considered to be an unlucky number – that seemed to fit in with my story too. I chose
MacBeth
as the school play, not just because there is murder and magic and witches and ghosts, everything I needed for
Another Me
, but because it is supposed to be an unlucky play. In the theatre, they won't even say ‘MacBeth', they call it
The Scottish Play
.

I love putting things in the story that hopefully make you think. For instance, if you take the ‘A' away from the title, you're left with the words, NOT HER ME, which represents the story perfectly. Everyone always
asks me which Fay survives at the end. I never tell them. That's for the reader to work out, though there is a clue in the story.

So, this is the story of the scariest thing I could imagine coming out of the fog. I wonder what the scariest thing you could imagine is? Here is an exercise that might get you thinking. What are the five spookiest things that could happen when Fay steps into the lift in the tower block, the doors close and the lift begins to move, and all she can see around her is her own reflection in the mirrored steel walls?

Cathy MacPhail was born and brought up in Greenock, Scotland, where she still lives. Before becoming a children's author, she wrote short stories for magazines and comedy programmes for radio. Cathy was inspired to write her first children's book after her daughter was bullied at school.

Cathy writes spooky thrillers for younger readers as well as teen novels. She has won the Royal Mail Book Award twice, along with lots of other awards. She loves to give her readers a ‘rattling good read' and has been called the Scottish Jacqueline Wilson.

One of Cathy's greatest fears would be to meet another version of herself, similar to the young girl in her bestselling novel
Another Me
. She is a big fan of
Doctor Who
and would love to write a scary monster episode for the series.

Cathy loves to hear from her fans, so visit
www.cathymacphail.com
and email her your thoughts.

What are your favourite things to do when you're not writing?

When I'm not writing, I'm usually reading or visiting family – I love spending time with my children, turning up on their doorsteps when they least expect me! I enjoy going on cruises too because it's the perfect way for me to visit new places. Like most people, I also love going to the cinema. I always have done.

What are your favourite films?

Oh, there are so many films I love.
It's a Wonderful Life
is one of them. The hero is an ordinary man with just a few problems that are getting him down. Then he is visited by an angel who shows him how life would have been if he had never been born and he realises that his life is worthwhile after all.

Another fantastic film is
The Searchers
. A story set in America in the mid nineteenth-century about a man's struggle to find his niece who has been kidnapped by the Sioux. It explores issues of racism that were common at the time.

But at the top of my list is
Some Like It Hot
. Two men pretend to be female musicians to escape gangsters and one of them falls in love with Marilyn Monroe! It's so funny and it has the best last line of any film I've ever seen, ‘Oh well, nobody's perfect.'

If you could be a character from a book, who would you be?

I have thought and thought about this because most books I've read have at least one wonderful character that I'd like to be, but I think Elizabeth Bennet has to be my first pick. She is so bright. Then there's Cathy from
Wuthering Heights
. I like her passionate nature, and we share a first name! Also, both of them are admired by fantastic men! When I'm really old, I want to be Miss Marple. I will go around annoying people and solving murders.

What would I do if I met my doppelganger?

This was always a fear for me, even from childhood. I think at first I wouldn't believe it possible. I would think it was someone who looks a bit like me, or perhaps I had a long lost twin – all the things that Fay thinks in the book – because the fact that there might be another
you out there somewhere is so mind-blowing. I would probably run, or faint, or just scream! But I recently discovered that there is a way to get rid of your fetch. It is an old Whitby legend. There the fetch or the doppelganger is called a ‘waft'. You have to confront your ‘waft', challenge it and tell it to bog off! But you have to do it quickly before it steals your soul. Isn't that creepy?

I loved the
Chalet School
books. They are set in a girls' boarding school and these seemed so glamorous when every day I attended my little primary just round the corner from my home. I still love reading books like that.

Cat Among The Pigeons
by Agatha Christie. A murder mystery set in a girls' boarding school. What a treat!

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
, by Muriel Spark, is the story of a wonderful teacher who manipulated her favoured little group of girls. It is only a short novel but I really enjoy it. It is the kind of book you can read again and again.

Read on for a spine-tingling taster of another story by Cathy MacPhail, featuring Tyler Lawless, a brave and feisty sleuth with a very special gift

I saw my teacher in the queue at the supermarket last Christmas. Miss Baxter. I was surprised to see her. She'd been dead for six months.

She saw me. I know she saw me. In fact, I could swear her eyes were searching me out. As if she was watching for me.

As if she'd been waiting for me.

I hurried towards her, pushing people aside, but you know what it's like at Christmas. Queues at all the checkouts, crowds with trolleys piled high with shopping, everything and everyone blocking your way. By the time I got to where I'd seen her, she was gone. No sign of her anywhere.

And when I told them at school no one would believe me. ‘Typical Tyler Lawless,' they all said. ‘You're always making up stories.'

Even my best friend, Annabelle, agreed with them.
She'd sounded annoyed at me. Wanted me to be just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill best friend who didn't cause her any embarrassment.

I had let my imagination run away with me, everyone said. It was just another of my stories. It's true I want to be a writer, and I do look for stories everywhere. You're supposed to do that. But this time I wasn't making it up. I really did see her.

Miss Baxter had died abroad during the summer holidays. A tragic accident, they said. An accident that should never have happened. Her body had been brought back and she was buried somewhere in England.