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Authors: Robert Swindells

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BOOK: Inside the Worm
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Fliss observed all of this with apprehension, praying that time would run out before Sarah-Jane decided enough villagers had perished and called upon Ceridwen to confront the worm. She'd promised Mr Hepworth she'd try, but her classmates' dexterity inside that awful disguise disturbed her even here, and she was far from happy. It must have been her lucky day, because the buzzer went as the beast prepared to bear away its sixth victim.

‘OK.' Sarah-Jane slid down from her perch. ‘Wrap it up, everybody.' She smiled. ‘That wasn't bad, but I want all costumes in school tomorrow.' She turned to Trot, who was struggling out of his disguise like a moth from a chrysalis. ‘Don't forget, Trot – the worm needs to be able to grab its prey.'

Trot nodded. ‘I'll think of something.'

Sarah-Jane turned to speak to Fliss, and was mildly irritated to find she was no longer in the room.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

SHE WAS PASSING
the Deputy Head's office on her way out when the door opened. ‘Ah, Felicity, come in a minute, will you?' Mr Hepworth stepped to one side and she went in. He closed the door and stood with his back to it. ‘Now – how did the rehearsal go?'

‘All right, Sir.'

‘No trouble from our friend Mr Bazzard?'

‘No, Sir.'

‘Good. I had a word with him and it seems to have worked. So, are you feeling a bit happier about things now, Felicity? We wouldn't want to lose your talents, you know.'

Happier? Fliss would have laughed out loud if she'd dared. Mr Hepworth had had a word with
Gary, which meant Gary knew she'd complained. He'd have her marked down as a sneak. He'd tell the others. Her name would be mud.

‘I – dunno, Sir. We didn't get to my part. I'll try.'

‘Good girl.' He opened the door. ‘Off you go, then. And let me know if you have any more hassle.'

‘Yessir. G'night, Sir.'

‘Goodbye, Felicity.'

‘Let me know if you have any more hassle.' That's a laugh for a start, she thought. I can tell you now there'll be hassle, but there's no way I'm gonna let you know. No way.

The drive was thick with pupils going home. Fliss dodged between them, hurrying, looking for Lisa. Lisa knows how these things happen, she thought. She'll understand. I'll tell her I didn't mean to get anybody into trouble. It just came out.

She was through the gateway and well along the road before she spotted her friend. Lisa was walking with Ellie-May Sunderland. They were dawdling, deep in conversation. Fliss put on a spurt and caught up. ‘Hi, Lisa, Ellie-May.'

The two girls regarded her coldly. ‘What do you want?' asked Lisa.

‘I've got something to tell you.'

‘We're talking. See you tomorrow, OK?'

‘What's up – what have I done?'

‘You know.'

‘No I don't.'

‘You split on us to old Hepworth.'

‘No I didn't. Not on purpose. That's what I wanted to talk to you about.'

‘We're not interested in excuses, Fliss. You split on us. That's all that matters.'

‘Yes, but—'

‘No buts.'

‘Are you out tonight, then? We could—'

‘No. We're busy tonight, working on the worm.'

‘I'll come to Trot's then, shall I?'

Lisa laughed. ‘I wouldn't if I were you, Fliss.'

‘What d'you mean?'

‘What d'you think I mean? Gary's after you, dummy. He'd love you to show up at Trot's. You'd come on foot and leave in an ambulance.'

‘But what about you, Lisa? You're not Gary. You don't have to do everything he does. We're friends, aren't we?'

‘No, Fliss, we're not, since you ask. Why don't you get lost and leave us in peace?'

‘I—' Fliss realized with horror that she was about to cry. Biting her lip she turned away and crossed the road, half-blind with tears. There was an entry – a narrow walkway between two buildings which led on to waste ground. She turned into it, away from the stream of chattering kids, and when she was alone, she wept.

That night, Fliss dreamed again. She'd grown since her bridesmaid day. The long white dress no longer covered her ankles, so Mum had let down the hem to lengthen it. Now she wanted Fliss to try it on, but the alteration had transformed the dress. Mum couldn't see it – she was holding the thing out for her to slip into – but it wasn't a dress any more. It was a—

‘A shroud!' She was screaming, shaking her head. ‘Can't you see, Mum? It's a shroud.'

‘Don't be silly, dear. Come – try it on.' Mum advanced on her, smiling.

‘No.' Backing away, hands out to ward off the loathsome garment. Bitter tang of tears in her mouth. Backing towards the door, which opened. Mr Hepworth came in, smiling. ‘Try, Fliss,' he crooned. ‘Try it on. It is like a shroud, but life is full of coincidences.'

‘No, I don't want to. Leave me alone.'

‘Typically idiotic antic.'

They rushed, seized her. She struggled, but the Deputy Head was holding her from behind and Mum had the cold fabric over her head. It clung, reeking of sodden clay, smothering her. She jerked herself this way and that. Couldn't breathe. Dark rising. Can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe —

She woke with her face pressed in the pillow and the bedclothes on the floor.

CHAPTER TWENTY

RONNIE MILLHOUSE WAS
the town drunk. Everybody knew him by sight – he was what is known as a ‘character' – but nobody knew the trouble he'd seen. Like all drunks he'd once had an ordinary life, but then the trouble had struck and he'd taken to the lotion in a big way. Now he spent his days on the street, cadging ten and twenty pence pieces from passers-by. ‘Have you got any spare change?' he'd ask. ‘A few pence for a cup of tea?' People either brushed past him looking angry, or fished in their pockets looking embarrassed, and most days there were enough of the latter sort to provide poor Ronnie with the price of several cups of tea. He didn't waste it on tea, of course. Ronnie's refreshment usually came in a fat brown bottle with
a picture of a woodpecker on it. At night, when the wind blew chill and the stream of passers-by dried to a trickle, Ronnie would make his way to the derelict bandstand in the park, where he had a cardboard box for an hotel and a drift of old newspapers for his bed.

At eleven-thirty that Tuesday night, while Fliss lay dreaming, Ronnie was shuffling unsteadily along the footpath which led to the bandstand. A fine drizzle was falling. On his left was the kiddies' playground where the swings hung motionless on dripping chains and the slide gleamed wetly in the light from a distant streetlamp. To his right, the ground fell away in a long slope, thickly planted with trees and shrubs. At the foot of this slope, hidden even in daylight by the trees, was a stretch of level grassland on which, from time to time in the summer months, funfairs and circuses would pitch their camps. Now, as he headed for his bed at the end of a better-than-average day, Ronnie thought he heard voices on the slope. Now Ronnie was a cautious man even when drunk, and he knew there was a better-than-even chance that anybody you'd meet in a public park late at night would be up to no good, so he swerved off the path and pressed himself up against the wet trunk of a thickish tree to see who might appear.

There was a scraping, crackling sound like something big in the shrubbery. Whatever it was, was coming up the slope pretty fast. Ronnie pressed
himself more closely to his tree and peeped round, and it was then he saw the dragon. He screwed up his eyes and shook his head and looked again but it was still there, coming off the slope on to the footpath. Its teeth gleamed white and its eyes blazed red. He couldn't make out its colour in the dark, but as it crossed the path and headed for the playground he saw that it was incredibly long. He stood absolutely still and held his breath as the monster's whiplike tail hissed across the tarmac. He hugged his tree while the great shape crossed the playground, nor did he stir for some time after darkness swallowed the beast and all was quiet.

When Ronnie finally let go of the tree and resumed his journey it was twenty minutes before midnight. Half a mile away, Fliss had just woken from her nightmare. It was still drizzling.

Ronnie reached the bandstand and got into bed. He lay on the dusty boards and thought about the dragon. For a while he told himself he'd report what he'd seen. He'd tell the police or the local paper. His fuddled brain created a fantasy in which for once, people were interested in him. A fantasy in which he was somebody because of what he had seen.

It soon faded though. He'd had a good day. A two-bottle day. Who needs fame when there are bottles waiting to be drained? And what's a dragon, compared to some of the creatures Ronnie
Millhouse had seen? Pink lizards. That kangaroo in pinstripe suit and bowler who'd tipped him a fiver. The bright green ants who sometimes ate his hands. No. He'd not tell. Why should he? Waste of time.

Drizzle fell endlessly. Wind lifted a corner of his paper blanket. Ronnie Millhouse slept.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

‘MORNING, MUM, DAD.'

Lisa sat down, reached for the packet and sprinkled cornflakes in her bowl. She'd overslept. Dad was halfway down his second cup of coffee and Mum had had to call her twice. She avoided their eyes, hoping they'd say nothing, but it was a forlorn hope.

‘Tired, are we?' her father enquired.

‘She ought to be,' said her mother, ‘coming in at midnight, bold as brass, saying she's been busy. I'll give her busy if it ever happens again.'

Her husband nodded. ‘Where was she, that's what I'd like to know.'

Lisa sighed. She hated it when her parents discussed her as if she wasn't there and besides, they'd been over
all this last night. ‘I told you,' she mumbled. ‘I was at David Trotter's, working on the worm.'

‘Till midnight?'

‘Yes, Mum. It was a big job.'

‘It must have been. I'm surprised at the Trotters, letting kids your age stay out till that time. Didn't they realize we'd worry?'

Lisa shook her head. ‘They were out, Mum. I told you.'

‘We know what you told us, young woman,' rapped her father, ‘and now I'll tell
you
something. If anything of this sort happens again I'll be along to school to see Mr Hepworth, and we'll have you out of that play. I'm not having a daughter of mine staying out all night at thirteen years of age, no matter how busy she is. Do you understand?'

‘Yes, Dad.'

‘Well, I certainly hope so. And I hope you can attend to your lessons today without falling asleep at your desk.'

It was nearly ten to nine when Lisa finally got out of the house. It was still raining, and she wasn't surprised to find no Fliss waiting at the end of the road. She wasn't surprised, and she didn't care. She didn't want to talk to Fliss. It would be no use talking to her. Fliss didn't know. She hadn't been there. You had to have been there to know
how it felt, running through the dark. The dark in the park. She smiled briefly at the unintentional rhyme. The park after dark, where you'd hardly dare venture in ordinary circumstances because of the hooligans and the glue-sniffers and the funny men Mum was always on about. You'd stay away if you'd any sense, unless you were part of the worm.

BOOK: Inside the Worm
2.42Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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