Talisman of El (4 page)

The party guests had vanished.

‘It’s here!’ Charlie ran over and embraced his dad. ‘I won’t let it take you.’ Pressing his face against the fabric of his clothes, he inhaled the wintergreen scent. At that moment, everything seemed to stop. And then the house trembled.

‘We have to go.’ Charlie tried to move, but his legs wouldn’t budge; it was as if his feet had moulded into the floor. He locked eyes with his dad. ‘Don’t leave me.’

‘I’ll never leave you,’ his dad said, as he caressed Charlie’s cheek, wiping away his tears. ‘It’s okay to be afraid. Just don’t give up. Don’t you dare give up. Promise me that.’

Charlie didn’t respond straight away. He didn’t want to say the words because of what it meant:
make a promise, keep a promise
. The first words his dad had taught him as soon as he could talk. He thought for a second and then shook his head. He could never lie to his dad; he was all he had. Staring into his dad’s tear-filled eyes, he said, ‘I promise.’

He heard a sound like a crushing can and looked up. Huge cracks appeared and widened across the hallway wall, tearing through the floral charcoal wallpaper. He dug his fingers into his dad, grabbing hold of his clothes. Within seconds, the roof and the front walls of the house ripped off. Dust and debris permeated the air as a huge tornado funnel hovered outside the house.

‘Dad,’ Charlie cried.

‘It’s all right, son,’ his dad said. ‘Everything is going to be okay.’

His dad started to drift away.

‘Dad!’ Charlie grabbed his hands, holding onto him so tight his fingers started to go numb.

‘I love you, Hoot!’ his dad yelled. The wind gusts picked up, and he started to slip out of Charlie’s grip. ‘You’re not alone. Don’t give up.’

‘Dad, don’t let go.’ The tighter Charlie held on, the sweatier his hands grew, the looser his grip became. Then his dad slipped away.

‘Dad!’ Charlie watched as he vanished into the vortex of the tornado –

A loud racket shocked Charlie out of his dream, and he jerked upright. He threw the quilt off himself and swung his legs out of bed. Wrapping his arms around his trembling body, he felt his pyjamas damp with sweat. He took his pyjama top off and began wiping his face in it when a cold breeze brushed against his bare torso. It wasn’t until he heard a flapping sound that he looked at the window and saw the curtains fluttering like wings.

A chill that had nothing to do with the cold ran down his spine. He was almost certain he hadn’t opened the window. He got up and was about to close the window when a movement outside caught his eye.

It had always amazed him how well his eyes could adjust to the dark. It was his night vision that had earned him the nickname “Hoot”. ‘My own private owl,’ his dad used to say.

Inching forward, he peered out into the dark, and his heart stopped.

A tall figure was standing on top of the garden shed.

Charlie stumbled backwards, falling onto the floor. Staggering to his feet, he rushed out of the room and dashed across the landing to Jacob’s bedroom. When he opened the door and turned the light on, he froze.

The bed was empty.

‘Earth to Charlie,’ said Alex. Charlie looked at her, her eyebrows raised in anticipation.

‘Sorry, what?’ he asked.

Alex rolled her eyes. ‘You really know how to make a girl feel wanted, don’t you?’

They were standing by the lockers in the hall. It had been a week since Charlie had seen the figure on the garden shed. He hadn’t said a word to Jacob about it, nor had he confronted him about where he had run off to in the middle of the night. He had accepted that Jacob’s job meant he was on call twentyfour hours a day, but what concerned him was that Jacob still hadn’t mentioned anything about that night.

Charlie’s gaze shifted to Carla Shu and Rebecca James, the two girls he had sat behind on the school bus on his first day, who were walking towards him. Carla waved, and he smiled, nodding his head in greeting. The girls stopped a few lockers away from where he and Alex were standing.

‘All I’m saying is that he’s just a little too creepy for my liking,’ Alex said, as she rifled through her locker. ‘Maybe Killjoy’s hiding something.’

‘Who’s Killjoy?’ he asked.

Alex’s nostrils flared, and she breathed a heavy sigh. ‘Seriously, have you been ignoring me all day? I’m talking about Jacob.’

Charlie eyed her with curiosity. ‘Why do you call him Killjoy?’

Alex hesitated a second and then said, ‘You’ll laugh.’

‘Tell me. I promise I won’t laugh.’

She glanced around the hall and then looked back at him. ‘Okay, but you promised.’

Charlie held his hands up, crossing his middle and index fingers.

‘Two years ago, on Halloween,’ Alex went on, ‘some friends and I knocked on his door, and he chased us away with a frying pan.’

‘He chased you with a frying pan.’ Charlie pressed his lips together to keep from laughing.

Alex slapped him across the arm. ‘It’s the truth. See, if I had a mobile phone, I could have had proof. But I can’t have a phone.’

‘Why not?’

‘My mum’s a technophobe – a total anti-technology freak. I’m not talking about being eco-friendly, either. I wish that were the case. She hates technology because she thinks it’s the devil’s means of controlling us. You ever read Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell?’

Charlie shook his head.

‘It’s like her bible,’ Alex said. ‘If it weren’t for my dad, I swear I’d be living in a jungle. I’d be Mrs. Mowgli.’

Charlie started to laugh but stopped when he realised she was serious.

Carla and Rebecca approached them. ‘Hi, Charlie,’ Carla greeted him.

Charlie stood up straight. ‘Hey.’ He avoided Rebecca’s gaze. Carla he didn’t mind, but Rebecca always had this look in her eyes, as if she was angry with him, and he didn’t know why. ‘What’s up?’

Rebecca nudged Carla, who handed him a blue envelope with his name glittered on the front.

Charlie opened the envelope and saw an invitation card to Carla’s fifteenth birthday party.

‘I hope you can make it,’ Carla said, her cheeks flushed. She narrowed her eyes at Alex then turned and walked off.

‘Well, that now leaves me and – nope, just me who’s not invited,’ Alex muttered.

Charlie saw the hurt look on her face. ‘I bet if you apologised for hitting her she’d invite you.’

‘I told you, the locker broke. It wasn’t my fault the door rebounded. Besides, I already apologised.’

‘Did you mean it?’

‘Does it matter?’ Alex slammed her locker door shut, and then she and Charlie headed off. ‘The only reason she didn’t invite me is because she thinks we’re –’ She broke off and glanced sideways at him. ‘I don’t care. I don’t want to go to her stupid party, anyway.’

When they entered the science lab, the room was buzzing with conversation. They walked past Mr. Puttman, who was staring at a blank TV screen, slapping the remote control against his palm, his glasses sitting askew on his long, crooked nose. He tapped the screen and scratched his balding head, grunting in frustration.

As Charlie headed down the aisle behind Alex, he spotted Josh, who looked at him with contempt.

Alex nudged Charlie in the ribs and whispered, ‘He loves you really.’

‘Shut up,’ he hissed, as they sat at a black top, wood framed table two rows behind Josh. Sensing someone’s gaze on him, Charlie glanced at the table across the aisle and locked eyes with Carla, who swiftly looked away and dropped her head, her shoulder-length brown hair falling to conceal her face. His eyes met Rebecca’s for a brief moment, long enough to leave him feeling uncomfortable by her frustrated expression.

‘So, what are you going to do about Killjoy?’ Alex asked.

Charlie looked at her. ‘Nothing. So he hates Halloween. Big deal.’

‘Bet that was what Patricia thought.’

Charlie paused. Patricia was Jacob’s late wife. ‘Did you know her – Patricia, I mean?’

‘Not really. I saw her in town a few times. She seemed nice enough.’

‘Jacob said she died three years ago, but do you know what she died of ?’

Alex looked surprised. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘He doesn’t like to talk about her.’

A strange look came into Alex’s eyes, and she looked away.

‘What?’ Charlie asked. ‘Alex, what is it?’

She looked back at him. ‘She broke her neck, Charlie.’

He stared at her in shock.

‘She fell down the stairs,’ Alex said. ‘He was there when it happened. They said it was an accident, but …’ Her eyes were intense. ‘Just … be careful.’

‘Why? Wait, you don’t think he –’

‘I didn’t say he did it,’ Alex cut in.

‘You didn’t have to. It’s obvious what you were thinking.’

‘Oh, yeah, because you’re psychic, right? Look, just forget I said anything. I’m just babbling. You know me.’ She half smiled and leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table.

Charlie looked away. He tried not to show it, but Alex’s revelation had unnerved him.

Ms. Trent, Charlie’s social worker, arrived at Spring Drive at two in the afternoon. She was a stick-thin woman who always wore the strangest selection of hats. Today she wore a peacock feather hat, which Charlie considered an improvement to the plastic fruits she had on the last time they had met.

Ms. Trent had spent the last hour in Jacob’s company, and it didn’t seem as though she was in any hurry to see Charlie. He lay on his bed, listening to the raucous laughter emanating from the living room. It was the first time he had heard her laugh; the woman hardly ever smiled.

When Jacob finally called him down, Charlie found his social worker sitting in the armchair by the original stone wall, the fireplace crackling beside her. She had her shoes off, holding a miniature mirror up to her face. When she noticed him, she blushed and lowered the mirror.

‘Charlie, how lovely to see you,’ she said.

‘Yeah, you, too,’ he said, sitting in the sofa opposite her. The living room was his least favourite area in the house. It was like entering a time machine that transported him from the present to some distant past only his grandparents could have recalled. Amid the antique furnishers, the Skybox was the only object that belonged to the twenty-first century. The moss green walls held only one object: a black-and-white photo of Jacob’s mother, who had an uncanny likeness to Marilyn Monroe. All Charlie knew about her was that she died of cancer when Jacob was thirteen. Jacob had also told him that he had never met his father. It was no wonder he didn’t like to talk about family.

Apart from Ms. Trent, there had been no visitors to the house in the four weeks Charlie had been living there. With the nearest house over three hundred yards away, however, it wasn’t surprising. The more time Charlie spent with Jacob, the more he realised why the adoption agency had paired them together. They were the same: two lonely souls in a big world.

Jacob entered the room carrying a tray with three mugs. Charlie noticed the glow on Ms. Trent’s face as she watched him set the tray down on the table between them.

‘Here you go, Celia,’ said Jacob, handing Ms. Trent a mug.

‘Thank you.’ She took the mug and had a sip. ‘Why, this is the loveliest tea I’ve tasted in years.’

Jacob blushed and planted himself beside Charlie, who covered his smirk with a cough.

When Ms. Trent managed to pull her gaze away from Jacob, she looked at Charlie and said, ‘I hear you’re getting on great.’ It wasn’t a question, so he just nodded. ‘Marvellous. Jacob, would you mind if I had a moment alone with Charlie?’

‘Of course not. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.’ Jacob got up and left the room.

‘You know, you’re a lucky child to have found such a good home,’ Ms. Trent said. ‘You won’t believe how many kids would love to trade places with you.’ She took another sip of her tea. ‘Jacob tells me you’re getting on well at school. I bet you’ve made many friends.’

Charlie took a sip of his tea. Why spoil her excitement? he thought. He sat back in the sofa. When it came to Ms. Trent, there wasn’t much to say. It was a one-woman show. She seldom asked questions; she often made assumptions. Still, he didn’t intend to protest, for she was right. He did feel lucky.

‘I’m glad you and Jacob are getting on well,’ Ms. Trent went on. ‘It seems like fate that you found each other. I know you’ve been waiting a long time to find a home, so I’m glad everything’s working out for you.’ With a fleeting glance at the door, she lowered her voice. ‘You are happy, aren’t you?’

Charlie nodded. ‘I like it here.’

She gave him a tentative smile. ‘Good. If there are any problems … If you’ve had any confrontations at school, it’s best I know now rather than when it’s too late.’

Charlie’s pulse quickened. ‘No, no problems.’

‘Good.’ She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I don’t want anything messing this up.’

‘By anything, you mean me.’ Charlie lowered his head.

‘That’s not what I meant. We’ve come far, and yes, it has been a rough four years, but things are starting to look up. Look at me.’

Charlie raised his head. Her expression was sympathetic, which made him feel worse. The two previous adoptions had failed because of him – because of his strangeness and his inability to stay out of trouble. He knew it and Ms. Trent knew it.

‘Anyone would be lucky to have you,’ Ms. Trent said. ‘You remember that.’ She smiled. ‘Now, is there anything you would like to ask me?’

‘What happens now? Do I get to stay here?’

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘There’s still a way to go before Jacob can file for adoption, so we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves just yet. You two seem to have hit it off. I’m not making any promises, but, between you and me, things are looking good.’

Charlie smiled. ‘I don’t have to move?’

‘No, but let’s just take things one step at a time, okay. Today is a good day.’ Ms. Trent started putting her shoes on. ‘If there’s anything you need or just want to talk, you know how to reach me. I’ll be back to visit you in three months. Until then, I hope all continues to go well. Can you tell that wonderful guardian of yours I’m leaving?’

Charlie was about to get up when Jacob entered the room. He was either psychic or an eavesdropper. Either way, he always had great timing.