As soon as December started, Sandy got into the habit of counting all the Christmas trees she could see on her walk home from school.  For the first couple of days, there would only be one or two (“probably had theirs up since September,” Gran would say), but as the month wore on, they’d double and triple until you lost count.  Every house you passed would have at least one window full of glowing lights, red or gold or multicoloured.

When Sandy got to her own house, there was a set of warm, flashing lights in the living room window there, too.  But for the last few days, that hadn’t been the first thing she’d looked at.

The plant sat in her window, a striking purple against the yellow curtains.  When you looked up at it from street level, its branches almost looked as if they were waving.

(To be continued)

After the fourth time Sandy tried and failed to thread the sewing machine, Anastasia moved her chair sideways and did it herself.  “Thanks,” said Sandy gloomily.

“Well, it was starting to depress me,” she replied with a shrug, “Sandy versus Machines, coming soon to a cinema near you.”

“If it acts up again, I’m throwing it in the river.”  The sewing machines were all on tales around the edge of the room, which meant that, when you were using one, you had your back to the rest of the room.  This had its advantages and disadvantages.  On the one hand, it meant that you didn’t have to look at Mrs Ingram all lesson.  On the other, it meant that she could sneak up on you whenever you least expected it.

No-one in Year Eight knew exactly how old Mrs Ingram was.  She couldn’t have been much more than sixty (“otherwise she’d have retired by now, right?”), but she looked as if she’d been around for centuries, like a bog mummy preserved in the mud for future generations.  Her face had shrivelled into a permanent scowl, and she looked at every pupil in the class as if they’d just thrown litter into her garden.  Sandy glanced around, just in case, and saw her behind the desk, flicking through some paperwork.  They were safe for now.

Sandy looked up at the display on the walls, about a foot above the sewing machines.  They’d spent most of this term making tea towels with their own personal designs.  Actually, they’d spent most of this term writing about how they were going to make the tea towels, then writing about how they had made the tea towels, with the actual making bit kind of a rush job in between.  Anyway, Sandy could see hers from here, and she wasn’t totally satisfied with it.  “I don’t think you can tell that they’re supposed to be bananas,” she said, pointing at the yellow shapes sewn onto the material, “They look more like moons.”

Anastasia stretched up for a better look.  Sandy noticed that she was wearing a kind of glittery blue eyeliner today, and wondered if she’d deliberately picked it because it matched the jewels in her earrings, or if it had just been a coincidence.  “Nothing wrong with moons,” she told Sandy.

“Yeah, but if I’d been doing moons, I’d have picked a dark blue background, not a green one.”  Her eyes wandered over to some of the other projects.  “Yours is meant to be like a ladybird pattern, right?”

“Yeah.”  A genuine grin came to Anastasia’s face when she looked at it.  “The giant ladybird tea towel, that’s me.”

“It looks good.”

“Thanks.”

If they’d been listening to the sound of flickering paper from Mrs Ingram’s desk, then they might have heard the decisive thump as she dropped all of it onto the desk, all done with.  Then it might not have been such a surprise when Mrs Ingram called out, “Anastasia Dunn.  Come here.”

Anastasia came here.  Sandy turned around on her chair, so she could have one eye on her sewing and one eye on what was happening at the desk.  She couldn’t risk turning any further.  Mrs Ingram looked ready to skin someone alive.

She waited for Anastasia to walk all the way to her desk (about two and a half metres, give or take), before demanding, “Where is your evaluation essay?”

“Um…” mumbled Anastasia, “I handed it into the marking cupboard on Monday…”

“No.”  Mrs Ingram didn’t yell it, exactly, but she managed to stretch the word out so that it sounded like it had four or five extra vowels in it.  “If you had, it would have been in this pile with the others.”  She tapped the pile with her whole hand, as if she was smacking it on the nose for misbehaving.  She stared expectantly at Anastasia for a few seconds, then added, “Can’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth, can we?”

Anastasia didn’t seem sure of how to answer that.  Sandy wasn’t sure who “we” were.

All of a sudden, Mrs Ingram blinked, and said in a voice that could have shattered glass, “What on earth is that on your face?”

Anastasia touched her sparkly blue eyeliner, as if she’d forgotten that she had it on until right this second.  “It’s… um…”

“How dare you wear that to school?”

“Um…  I’m sorry…”

Mrs Ingram pointed to the door with a trembling hand.  “Go straight to the toilets and wash it off.  This minute.” 

She seemed to be wavering over the next bit, taking a breath and then thinking better of it, pressing her lips together as if her whole mouth was having an argument with itself.  But finally, just as Anastasia was halfway out the door, she added, “You can plaster yourself with as much makeup and you want, but we can all see what you are.”

Mrs Ingram was old, Sandy reminded herself.  She said strange things sometimes, and only she knew what they meant.  There was no reason to get upset.

(To be continued)

It was the last Saturday before the end of term, and Sandy’s Aunt Bernie had come to visit, bringing along her cousins.  What this meant was that Gran and Aunt Bernie sat in the kitchen complaining about other family members (and Sandy’s dad’s family in particular), while Grandad sat in the living room with the kids, watching an old episode of Only Fools and Horses.  The only problem with that was that Grandad had seen this episode before, years ago, and he kept talking over the dialogue as he tried to remember what happened next.  Sandy and her cousins had long since given up trying to follow the plot, and started playing with the Cluedo board instead.

“Sandy, have you ever actually played Cluedo with this board?” asked Roma.  Currently, they were pretending that Miss Scarlet and Miss Peacock were on an Atlantic cruise that had got horribly lost and resorted to cannibalism.

“We tried once,” said Sandy, “The rules didn’t make much sense.  And then I dropped the dagger through the floorboards upstairs, so…”

“Oh, I know this one!” said Grandad, his eyes still trained on the screen, “It looks like he’s going to take the gun, but then he grabs hold of the cigarettes instead.”

The girls listened politely, then went back to their conversation.  “Don’t feel too bad about the dagger,” said Keeley, “When we were younger, we had a massive collection of Sylvanian Family stuff, but then Roma swallowed about half of it.”

“I swallowed one thing!” snapped Roma, the colour rising in her cheeks, “It was a little cocktail glass, and it was an accident!”

“Yeah, but you were eleven.  You should have known better.”

Afterwards, Sandy was never sure why she spoke up just then.  Maybe she just wanted to stop this conversation before Roma went off in a sulk.  “You guys didn’t buy me a plant for Christmas, did you?”

Roma frowned.  “No?”

“A plant?” asked Keeley.

That was about what Sandy had expected, but she felt that she ought to be sure.  “Someone left it on the doorstep a week ago.  It’s addressed to me, but it doesn’t say who it’s from.”

“Well, it’s either your secret admirer or somebody trying to poison you,” said Keeley cheerfully.

Sandy grinned.  Granddad had said that thing about secret admirers, too.  It was like it was a hereditary joke.  “There are a few funny-coloured thorns on it.”

“Well, there you go.  You watch- prick your finger on one of them, your hand’ll swell up and explode.”

“Oh, just ignore her, Sandy,” said Roma, but without much rancour.  She’d gone back to fiddling about with the Cluedo figures again.

(To be continued)

The music block was always a little warmer than the main building.  Something to do with the thick carpets everywhere, and the windows always being closed to keep the music in.  It looked a lot nicer than the main building, too, and had a kind of warm, polished smell to it.  Music wasn’t Sandy’s favourite subject, but she always liked being here.

For the last two weeks, they’d been doing nothing in Music but rehearse for the Year Eight Carol Concert at the end of term.  Sandy had never heard of half the hymns they were supposed to sing.  The other half she vaguely remembered singing in primary school, but had turned out to have strange, confusing extra verses.  Like ‘Once in Royal David’s City,’ which spent a whole verse describing how great a son Jesus was, and ended it with, ‘Christian children all must be / Mild, obedient, good as He.’

“I bet that’s the whole reason they chose it for us to sing,” she whispered to her friend Anastasia, “Subliminal messages.”

“It’s like that bit in ‘Away in a Manger’ about ‘no crying he makes.’  I bet he cried loads.  He was a baby.  I bet there’s nothing in the Bible to say he didn’t.”

 “There’s copies of the Bible in the library.  We could go there at lunch and check.”

A loud, commanding voice rose over theirs.  “Anastasia and Alexandra, the Russian tsar’s two beautiful daughters!” said Mr Finch, “Concentrate!”

Sandy and Anastasia looked dutifully back at their lyric sheets.  Mr Finch was one of the more reasonable teachers, but his voice was intimidating enough when he was in a good mood.  No-one wanted to find out what it sounded like when he really decided to yell.

After a minute or two, Anastasia whispered, “Wasn’t it the tsar’s wife who was called Alexandra?”

“Yeah.  And their son was called Alexei, I think.”  Sandy also didn’t like the closing lines of the song much.  ‘And like stars His children crowned / All in white shall wait around.’  White was her least favourite colour.  It wasn’t so much that she was worried about getting to Heaven and being made to wear a colour she hated; it was more that it made her worry about what else God liked that she didn’t.

Anastasia had skipped head to the next song.  “‘Angels help us to adore Him’?  Why would you need help to adore someone?  You either do or you don’t.”

Sandy shrugged.

(To be continued)

Being a sequel to “What Sandy Did at Half-Term,” a story I wrote on here in 2017!

*

It can be quite difficult to buy Christmas presents for a twelve-year-old, but Sandy’s family did their best.

Her Grandma Shirley knew what to get her pretty early on- a basic make-up kit, nothing too fancy, but enough for her to experiment a bit ‘til she got things right.  Countless times, Shirley had seen Sandy come back from her cousins’ house done up like a clown (her cousins were fifteen and seventeen, but they were like little girls with a Barbie doll sometimes), and decided that now was the time to counteract a few bad habits.  The only reason shopping for it took as long as it did was that most of the make-up kits for girls Sandy’s age looked ridiculous- covered in cartoon characters or colourful little hearts and flowers.  It was enough to turn your stomach.  Eventually, Shirley found a modest little black box with a couple of eyeliners and lipsticks, and decided that would have to do.  Sandy was a bright girl- she could work out what to do with those.

Sandy’s Cousin Keeley found a copy of Blazing Saddles at HMV, and instantly decided that it was her duty to introduce her baby cousin to the classics.  She was doubly delighted to see that it was rated 12, which meant that she didn’t have to ask her mum to take it to the counter for her, which would probably have got her a lecture on what was and wasn’t an appropriate film for a little kid.  In Keeley’s view, there wasn’t any point having older cousins if they couldn’t show you an inappropriate film or two.

Sandy’s Aunt Caroline found it hard to think of what to get, until she spotted a particular piece of jewellery at one of the shops just off the high street.  It was a necklace of alternating blue and black stones, and it was almost identical to one Caroline’s own mother (who would have been Sandy’s other grandma) had worn nearly every day of her life.  Caroline thought of giving it to Sandy with an explanation of why, telling her about her mother’s ability to keep everything running even when it should have been falling to pieces, about how much she wished Sandy could have known her, about Caroline’s hope that the necklace would represent a small piece of Sandy’s family history, and remind her that she, too, had the ability to endure when life was hard. 

Sandy’s Aunt Joanie, who was Caroline’s younger sister, suspected that Caroline was going to get Sandy something weird that didn’t make any sense, and decided to mitigate that with some good music.  She knew that Sandy was always interested in hearing old 60s and 70s albums (which was just as well, since Joanie had a whole lot of them), and so Joanie spent a long time thinking about something Sandy would like but hadn’t heard yet.  Graceland?  After the Gold Rush?  Blood on the Tracks?  In the end, though, she decided that Sandy hadn’t heard nearly enough Tamla Motown yet, and got her a compilation.  She’d probably appreciate getting something she could dance to.

Sandy’s Uncle Nicky (youngest son of Grandma Shirley) was also thinking about music.  Every kid should know how to play the guitar, that was his motto, so he got her an acoustic Yamaha from a second-hand music store.  It cost a little bit more than he could really afford to spend, but that was OK.  You couldn’t put a price on a life skill.

Sandy’s Uncle Simon, who was snowed under with gift-buying this year (and, if he was honest, every other year since he’d been about ten), saw an advert for a charity that would buy a goat for a Third World family in your name.  Sandy had a big heart, Simon decided, and she’d be happy to know that a poor family were going to get the chance to improve their lives because of her.  Simon signed up to get the goat, and breathed a sigh of relief.  Another person he could cross off the list.

And then there was that other present.

Sandy found it on the doorstep when she came home from school one day.  It was an ordinary-looking flowerpot, the brown plastic kind Sandy had seen a million times before, with a gift tag attached to the side.  To Sandy Buckland- Season’s greetings.

Inside the flowerpot, set in a bed of soft black earth, was a little purple plant.

“Same colour as red cabbage,” said Gran when she got back from work, “Could probably use it to dye the spare pillowcases.”  She looked at the gift tag again.  “Are you sure you don’t know who sent it?  You must have some idea.”

Sandy shrugged.  “It’s not Keeley or Roma.  They said they’re giving me their presents on Christmas Day, right?”

“So you’ve got a secret admirer, then?” called Grandad from the living room, cheerful as anything in spite of the glare Gran gave him at that.

Sandy took the plant upstairs and put it on her windowsill.  Every so often, she’d look over at it, and wonder where it came from.  But the plant gave her no clues.

(To be continued)

Sunday Night (Halloween)

Nan and Granddad said that Sandy didn’t have to go back to school tomorrow if she wasn’t feeling up to it, but, much as Sandy could have used another day to get all her homework done, she thought she’d be relieved to get back and see her friends.  The sooner this half-term was well and truly in the past, the better.

As Sandy sat in the dining room, finishing off her last bit of Geography homework (a tourist brochure advertising the town of Cheddar, which Sandy’s teacher was pretty sure would soon replace Ibiza as the hottest holiday destination in Europe), it occurred to her that today was Halloween.  Most years, she’d have regretted not taking the time to invite her friends round to watch scary films and eat candy vampire teeth, but this year she was OK with sitting it out.  She’d had about enough of spooky things for now.

Sandy packed her books away in her bag for tomorrow morning, sand went to the living room.  With any luck, she’d be able to persuade Nan to change the channel to The Simpsons.

When she got to the living room, Nan was on the sofa, watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.  Except, as Sandy found out when she went up to her to ask for the remote, she wasn’t watching it at all.  She’d fallen asleep, with her head thrown back against the top of the sofa cushions.  Sandy frowned.  It was only six o’clock.  This wasn’t like her at all.

She touched Nan’s hand.  It was cold.

Sandy didn’t give herself any time to panic.  She didn’t even give herself a second to think about what might have happened.  She just placed her hands a centimetre or two above her nan’s ribcage, roughly where she thought her heart might be, and began to hum.

After about a minute, Nan’s eyes opened.  “Hm?  What are you up to?”

Sandy might not have given herself any time to panic, but some of it must have got in anyway, because she practically felt like wilting in relief.  “You were asleep.  I was trying to…”

“Oh God, was I?”  Nan sat up and rubbed her eyes.  “Teach me to try and pull double shifts down at the pub.  I suppose I’ve missed most of this, haven’t I?” she asked, nodding at the TV.

Sandy shrugged.

“Well, here.”  She handed Sandy the remote.  “You might as well watch whatever you like- I’ve no hope of following this at this point.”  She sighed.  “Falling asleep in the afternoon.  Just like an old woman in a deckchair on the beach.  Whatever you do, don’t let your grandfather hear about this- I’d never hear the end of it.”

“OK,” said Sandy, “My lips are sealed.”  And she changed the channel.

The End

Sandy ran through the rain, trying to keep her eye on the tree while dodging… whatever it was she had to dodge.  Every so often, she’d feel something swipe through the air beside her, just missing her.  The storm seemed to be throwing it off, but not completely.  Sandy raced ahead, shoes splashing through the mud, and she thought, Find out what her limits are.  She’s got to have limits.

But why was she assuming that?  It wasn’t as if Sandy had any.

She’d had a plan for the tree, but now Mrs Jaeger had thrown her off.  She wasn’t even sure if she’d have been able to do it, anyway.  All she’d been able to manage last time was a few wriggling branches.  That wasn’t enough.  Nowhere near.

Sandy hit a large puddle, and felt her foot sink into the mud below.  Struggling for balance, she put her other foot down, but the same thing happened.  Before she worked out what was going on, she was in up to her knees.  She was sinking into the puddle.

Sandy grasped for something solid, but there wasn’t anything.  Even the ground had gone soft and muddy with the rain.  She was up to her stomach now, grasping at grass that came away in her hand.  Mrs Jaeger stood over her and laughed.  “You’re going to have to turn the weather off now!”

Sandy thought about it, just for a second.  If she made it stop raining, there was no guarantee that she’d be able to get out of the puddle, especially with Mrs Jaeger standing right over her.  And if she turned off the weather, Mrs Jaeger would know that she’d managed to scare her, and go in for the kill.

Instead, Sandy reached to the side and grabbed a longer clump of grass.  It began to snap in her hand, but before it fully came away, she’d managed to hoist herself far enough up the grass bank for the tree to be within reach.  With her free hand, she reached out and slapped the tree with her palm, as if she was in a relay race.

And her palm stuck to the bark.

Sandy tried to flex her fingers, and the branches flexed instead.  They reached out to Mrs Jaeger, who tried to run.  The muddy ground slowed her down, and the branches found her wrists and ankles and wrapped as tight as they could.

She struggled.  Little fires kept breaking out among the branches, but they didn’t last long in the rain.  Every so often Mrs Jaeger would jerk upwards, as if she was trying to shoot into the sky like a rocket, but the branches kept their grip.

After a couple of minutes, when Sandy had managed to hoist herself out of the puddle and watch Mrs Jaeger slowly give up, the branches finally lowered the old woman to Sandy’s level.

Sandy looked at Mrs Jaeger, trapped in the branches, and sighed.  Part of her wanted to tell the tree to squeeze tighter and tighter, until the old woman was safely dead and would never bother her again.  But she was cold and wet and covered in bruises, and mostly she just wanted to sit down for a minute.  “If I let you go, do you promise to leave me alone?”

Mrs Jaeger grinned, a little sheepishly.  “Doesn’t look like I’ve got much of a choice, does it?”

*

Sandy spent most of that evening in the police station, telling them about the strange woman who’d beckoned her outside, beaten her up, and run off.  Sandy was pretty sure the police would never track down Mrs Jaeger in a million years, but she’d needed to tell Grandpa Buckland something to explain why she’d come back to the table with a split lip and clothes covered in mud, and she’d been too exhausted to make anything up.

She was sitting on one of the plastic chairs in the hallway, waiting for the next person to come along and ask her questions, when Grandpa Buckland handed her a plastic cup of tea.  “Not exactly Earl Grey,” he told her, “but it should settle your nerves.”

Sandy took the cup, and smiled back at him.

“I’ve called Shirley and Arnold.  They’ll be her to pick you up soon.”  He sat down and sighed heavily.  “Not much fun, having to explain to them that their granddaughter got beaten to within an inch of her life on my watch.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” said Sandy.

“It happened less than ten yards away from where I was sitting.  I should have been at least that observant.”  He sipped his tea.

“You thought I was just going to the Ladies’.  You didn’t know that was going to happen.”

Grandpa Buckland smiled at her.  “Still.”

A policewoman, one of the ones Sandy had spoken to earlier, came over to them.  “You’re free to go now.  We’ll circulate a description, make sure everybody knows who to watch out for.  She can’t have gone far.”

Grandpa Buckland nodded.  “Have you checked the restaurant’s CCTV?”

Sandy frowned.  She hadn’t thought of that.  If there was any tape of what had happened, that could definitely lead to some awkward questions.

“They’ve said they’ll give us what they can, but they only really film the inside of the building.  It’s not likely to be too helpful, I’m afraid.”

Sandy relaxed.

The policewoman bent down a little so that she was more on Sandy’s level.  “Now, Sandy, I don’t think you’re likely to see this woman again, but if you do, tell an adult and they can report it to us.”

Sandy nodded.

“But don’t be afraid.  Don’t let this stop you from enjoying your life.”  She nodded towards Grandpa Buckland.  “Remember, there are people in your life who’ll protect you no matter what.  That’s the great thing about being a kid- if you’re worried about anything, you can just tell an adult and let them deal with it.  Take advantage of that while you still can.”

Sandy nodded.  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

(I’ve decided to put up the ninth part in two sections, as a reassurance that it’s actually getting written.  I’ve had the tenth part finished for a while now- it’s just this one that’s causing me problems.  Part 9b will be up soon.  A lot sooner than this was, anyway.)

Saturday Night- Grandpa Buckland

When they’d got to the restaurant, Sandy had seen a little patch of grass around the side of the building, with a sickly, spindly oak tree near the edge.  That was good.  She could use that.

Grandpa Buckland was admiring his glass of wine from underneath, as if he wanted to see how the restaurant would look if it was yellow and covered in bubbles.  “This is rare stuff,” he told her, “I don’t think there’s anywhere in a hundred miles that makes a blend as soft as this.”

Sandy forced a laugh.  “Grandpa, I don’t know what half those words mean.”  For the nineteenth or twentieth time, she glanced out of the windows at the stony white courtyard in front.  Still empty.  It wouldn’t be for long.

Grandpa Buckland laughed.  He was permanently jolly, all thick grey hair, expensive sunglasses, an aftershave that you could smell three metres away.  “Sorry.  I keep forgetting that not everyone’s an old drunk like me.”  He looked at the glass again, then added, “Would you like a sip?”

“No thanks.  You enjoy it.”  She glanced outside again.  Still empty.  She thought she knew what she had to do tonight, but she’d have to be careful.  You always did, when people like Mrs Jaeger were involved.

Grandpa Buckland shrugged, and took her advice.  “Probably just as well.  I remember when I took your father out for his thirteenth birthday.  I ordered Grey Goose, but I didn’t notice how often he was filling his glass until it was too late.  He spent the next morning in bed with a pounding headache.  Your grandmother hit the roof.”

“God, really?” asked Sandy.  Grandma Faith had died before she was born, but she and Grandpa Buckland had been divorced for a long time before that.  Sandy thought she could probably see why.

“Really.  I tell you, Sandy, there’s nothing as scary as an angry Irishwoman when she’s got you in her sights.  She almost…”

And Grandpa Buckland’s words faded away, because Sandy had just seen a small figure waiting out in the courtyard.  An old woman with straggly hair and sharp yellow fingernails.

Sandy swallowed, choking down any hint of a scream, and turned back to her grandfather.  “Is it OK if I use the loo?” she asked. 

Grandpa Buckland chuckled.  “OK, but hurry up.  Starters will be here in a minute, and your plate is probably going to look pretty tempting to me if you’re not here.”

At that moment, Sandy couldn’t even remember what she’d ordered.  She couldn’t imagine eating anything ever again.  “OK.  I’ll be quick.”  She got up and headed to the entrance.

It hadn’t been that loud in the restaurant, but in the courtyard, it seemed as if all the sound had suddenly died off.  No cars on the road nearby.  No birds in the trees and bushes.  No wind to disturb anything.  Just Mrs Jaeger, standing there with her hands in her pockets, waiting for Sandy. 

“You ready?” she asked.

Sandy nodded.  Her head felt as if it weighed ten tonnes.  “But not here.  Not where people can see.”

Mrs Jaeger scratched her chin.  “Then where do you suggest?”

Sandy looked around for the patch of grass with the oak tree.  For one crazy moment, she was convinced that it would have disappeared and left her with nothing to back her up, but there it was, right where she remembered.  “Round the side, there?”

Mrs Jaeger took a long, careful look at it, then nodded.  “Alright, then.  Round the side.”

She didn’t move, so Sandy turned and walked towards the patch of grass.  She glanced behind her, and saw Mrs Jaeger gradually begin to gather herself up and follow her.  Sandy turned back to the tree.  Maybe if she could get it to move, she could have.

Something hit Sandy in the back of the head, and she fell to her knees.

“Shouldn’t have turned your back on me, should you?” Mrs Jaeger cried out in glee.  She was still three or four yards behind Sandy, which shouldn’t have been surprising.  Somebody like her didn’t need her actual fists to hit you.

Sandy barely had time to scramble onto the grass before it happened again- something rose up from the ground and hit her on the chin, slamming her jaw shut with a painful scraping of teeth against teeth.  She looked around for the tree, and something else gripped the hair on the back of her head and pulled sharply.  For an instant, Sandy found herself looking up at the clouds…

…but an instant was all it took, because thunder rumbled and the clouds burst with rain.  A flash of lightening lit up the sky, and Mrs Jaeger cried out in alarm and ran away just in time.  Whatever had been pulling Sandy’s hair loosened its grip, and she scrambled to her feet.

(To be concluded.)

Friday Night- Uncle Nicky

“How are you doing that?” asked Uncle Nicky, “I can’t even do that trick with the invisible ball and the paper bag.”

Sandy shrugged, and looked back at the card.  It was the Queen of Spades, kind of dog-eared at the corners and with a weird brown stain where tea or beer had splashed on it once, and Sandy had just made it move clockwise around Uncle Nicky’s kitchen table without touching it.

She was brainstorming, in a way.  The old lady- Mrs Jaeger, if that really was her name- would be back at some point, and Sandy wouldn’t be able to catch her off-guard a third time.  Part of her hoped that she wouldn’t even need to, that maybe the old lady was bluffing.  It wasn’t as if Sandy had ever seen her doing anything supernatural.  Maybe she couldn’t.  But then Sandy would remember the way Sonny had growled when he’d seen her, and the way she’d known exactly who’d caused that bloke’s voice to go away at the fete, and decide that she couldn’t take that chance.  She needed to come up with a plan.

“Are you blowing on it?” asked Uncle Nicky, “You have to tell me if you are.”  He put his bottle of John Smith’s down on the table, considerately away from the card’s path.  “I saw this clip on telly once with that James Randi bloke…”

“No,” said Sandy, “I’m not blowing on it.”  Which was the truth.  But she wasn’t going to tell him how she was doing it, and she wasn’t going to do anything that she wouldn’t be able to explain away if it all got too freaky.  Otherwise it would be Amy’s sister and the tree all over again.

“I’d like to see you try this with a Ouija board,” said Uncle Nicky, “You could be one of them fake mediums.  Make a killing.”  Ever since Sandy was a toddler, Uncle Nicky had been fascinating to look at.  He had so many tattoos and piercings that you felt as if you’d never be able to count them all.  There was always one that you’d never noticed before, like the spider just behind his ear or the name “Debbie” on his calf.  It was as if he was a human Where’s Wally puzzle.  “I’ll be your agent, if you like.  We’d be partners in crime.”

Sandy laughed, and looked back at the card.

The thing with the tree hadn’t been something she’d done because she was angry, or because she wanted to do someone a favour.  It had happened because Sandy had looked at a tree and let her mind wander.  That was all it took, apparently.

She’d been walking through the park with her friend Amy and Amy’s little sister Chloe, and she’d found herself staring at a willow tree and thinking of how much it reminded her of a film she’d seen once, a cartoon where the trees had suddenly grown cruel, scowling faces and grabbed the heroes with their branches.  And just as she’d been thinking that, the tree had moved.

Sandy hadn’t even been shocked, at first.  She found herself moving her hands, and watching the branches mirroring her, moving to the left and the right, and then towards the three of them as she beckoned them in…

And then Chloe had screamed.

Sandy shifted the card to the middle of the table, and let it lie still.  “OK, that’s enough of that,” she said, stretching out her arms as a warm-down exercise.

Uncle Nicky chuckled.  “The old inner eye getting tired, is that it?”

“Yeah,” said Sandy, who wasn’t completely sure what he meant but got the basic idea.

“Well, we can’t have it getting Repetitive Strain Injury.  Last thing you need.”  He pointed to the living room door, across the hallway.  “Want to take a break and watch some crap telly?”

“Sure,” said Sandy, getting up from her chair and leaving the card on the table.

Amy, who hadn’t seen it properly, had told Chloe that the tree had just been moving funny in the wind.  Sandy had backed her up, but it had taken a long time for them to convince Chloe, and even then, she’d looked pretty pale and shaken.  After that, Sandy hadn’t been able to kid herself that she was imagining things, or that everything she did was basically harmless.  She hadn’t done anything as big and unmistakable as that since then.  Even the thing with the hailstones on Sunday was the kind of thing that could be explained away- weather changed quickly sometimes, no big deal.  But doing something as blatant as the tree was too much of a risk.  People might see, and not be able to explain it to themselves.

But whatever she did when she saw the old lady again, it was probably going to have to be even bigger and more blatant than that.  It would have to be, if she wanted to scare her away.  Otherwise she’d never get rid of her.

Sandy sat down on Uncle Nicky’s sofa, and thought.

Thursday Night- Cousin Jacob

There had been a bit of an argument over whether or not Sandy should spend the night at Cousin Jacob’s.  Gran had said that, if he wanted to see her, he was perfectly capable of staying round Caroline and Anthony’s on the same night she was there.  Sandy didn’t know what Aunt Caroline had said about that, but she had overheard Grandad say, “If it’s because you think it’s unseemly for a twelve-year-old girl to stay with a single bloke…”

“It’s nothing like that, Arnold Copstick,” Gran had said sharply, “He’s the last person I’d…  I’m just not sure I’d trust him in an emergency.  That’s all.”

“You don’t need to trust him in an emergency as long as you trust Sandy,” Grandad had pointed out.

Sandy thought she knew why Gran was worried.  Jacob hadn’t lived on his own for that long.  He was going to be twenty-eight in December, but sometimes Sandy found it hard to believe he was that much older than her.  It wasn’t a bad thing, at least not from Sandy’s point of view.  When you were twelve years old, it was hard to find adults who you could trust to take everything you said seriously.

They sat cross-legged on either side of the weird little table that was basically just a cushion with a board on top, drinking herbal tea.  “There’s an old superstition,” said Cousin Jacob, “They used to say that red-haired people would automatically become vampires when they died.”

Sandy thought about this.  “Cool,” she said with a nod.

“I just thought you’d like to know.”  Jacob picked up the little yellow teapot and refreshed their cups.  He was the only person she knew who used a teapot as an everyday thing.  He was also the only person she knew who didn’t have a TV or a computer (he had a mobile phone, but only at Aunt Caroline’s insistence).  “Also, if you were born with a caul- you know, a bit of dead skin across your face- or if you were born on Christmas Day, you’d be able to see ghosts.”

“Well, that’s me out.  My birthday’s in February.”  She sipped her tea.  It was like getting a mouthful of perfume.  “Unless, wait, would that cancel it out?  If I had red hair and a birthday on Christmas?  I mean, you couldn’t be a vampire and see ghosts, could you?  It’d be too over-the-top.”

“I don’t think it cancels out,” said Jacob thoughtfully.  He took a couple of pistachios from the bowl, then pushed it towards Sandy.  “If anything, it would double it up.  Your connection to the supernatural.”

“Is that how folklore works, then?  All mathematical?”

Jacob laughed, eyes screwed up and looking down at the floor.  He did that a lot, when Sandy was around.

They’d had a good afternoon.  Jacob had taken her to a craft fair round the back of St  David’s, stopping at each stall and having fascinated conversations with the people running them.  He hadn’t gone there for Sandy’s benefit- that was just the sort of thing Cousin Jacob did with his days off.  That was probably why his flat was full of odd-looking things- old records (instead of CDs), paintings of unicorns and dragons, a wall of cactuses, a stuffed ferret in a glass case.  It was as if Jacob had turned his flat into a big cocoon by padding the walls with stuff he liked.

“I heard,” said Sandy, “that they used to say that babies would grow up to act like the first person who kissed them.”

“But, wait, wouldn’t that just be their parents?  They’d be the one with the earliest opportunity…”

“Dunno.”  Sandy thought about it.  “Maybe if a woman died in childbirth and her husband wasn’t there, the midwives would have to have a debate over which one of them was most qualified.  Maybe that’s where the fairies giving gifts in Sleeping Beauty come from.”

Jacob went quiet.  Sandy wondered if he was thinking about her parents.  Caroline said he’d always got on well with her mum.  He hadn’t known her dad for as long, even though he was Caroline’s brother, because Anthony and Caroline had only adopted Jacob a year and a half before her dad had died.

Sandy waited for as long as she could, then broke the silence.  “OK, if you could give magical gifts to a baby, what would they be? Say, three things?”

Jacob laughed.  “OK…  Um, three things?”  He stared at the wall opposite him, and thought.  “Well, not beauty.  I don’t think that helps as much as people think.”

“It helps Ewan McGregor,” said Sandy with a grin, “He’s gorgeous.”

“He’d probably be just as happy if he wasn’t.”

“I wouldn’t!”

Jacob laughed again, leaning back in his chair and looking up at the ceiling, as if asking the heavens what on earth he was going to do with Sandy.  “I don’t know,” he said, “What would you pick?”

&&&

They’d just finished dinner (pizza delivery) when Jacob realised that the pottery snail was missing.  It had been the first thing he’d bought at the craft fair- a chunky, ten-times-life-size snail statue painted in glistening green and brown- and it had been packed in a white paper bag that Jacob had been carrying around for most of the afternoon.  Except that now, neither Jacob nor Sandy could remember where he’d had it last.

“You definitely had it when we left the fair,” she told him, when he’d paused for a moment in between looking through the cupboards, “I remember asking you if you wanted me to carry the bag.”

“Yeah…” said Jacob, gently biting one of his knuckles.  Sandy had seen him do that a few times before.

“And we walked here, so you definitely wouldn’t have put it down anywhere.  It’s definitely somewhere in the flat.”

“Yeah…” said Jacob.  He didn’t sound as if he believed it.

Sandy wanted to help him look, but she didn’t know where to start.  If she just started pulling at the nearest pile of things, she’d probably end up breaking something without meaning to.  All she could do was stand around and try to say encouraging things.

Jacob was still biting his knuckle.  It made Sandy think of the time she’d broken her glasses and got stuck in the tunnel during the Adventure Weekend her Year Five class had gone on- wanting to scream or cry, but knowing that it would make everyone think she was a stupid little kid and wouldn’t even get her rescued any quicker.  Maybe he was asking himself why he cared so much about a snail statue that had only cost five pounds.  But asking that didn’t stop him caring.  It had been his.  He’d bought it because he liked it.  And he hadn’t even been able to keep it for an hour before it disappeared.

“Maybe I put it over here,” said Jacob, turning round to look down the side of the table.  As he did that, Sandy closed her eyes.

She thought about the pottery snail, the way its horns went up at a funny angle, the way its scales had felt when Jacob had handed it to her, the little white chip on its tail.  She thought about it, and the world moved and shifted around it, as if it was the only real thing falling through a black vacuum.  It was somewhere open.  Somewhere quiet and grey.

“Hey, Jacob?”  Sandy opened her eyes.  “I think you might have left it down by the front door.”

That’s where it was, alright, down in the foyer, just where they’d come into the building, halfway between the front door and the steps.  If Jacob had left it any closer to the door, it would have been smashed the next time someone had opened it, and if he’d left it outside instead of inside, there was no telling what might have happened to it.  But here it was, down on the speckled grey lino, still in its paper bag and still in one piece.

“I think you put it down when you opened the door,” said Sandy, as Jacob took the snail out of its bag and sighed with relief, “Then you must have picked all the other bags up, but left that one behind.”

“Yeah.”  Jacob put the snail back in the bag, and smiled at Sandy.  “Sorry for scaring you.  I know I freaked out a bit.”

“Nah.  I’m just glad we found it.”  Jacob started up the stairs back to the flat, and Sandy followed him.

As Jacob opened the door to his flat, he paused and looked at Sandy.  “Hey, when you closed your eyes just then…  When you were trying to work out where it was…”

Sandy felt as if she’d been caught doing something shameful.  “Yeah?” she replied, not meeting his eyes.

“Were you…  Um…”  Jacob fidgeted with the door handle.  “Well, my mother…  Not Caroline, the other one…  When she lost something, she used to pray to Saint Anthony to help her find it.  Is that what you were doing?”

Sandy had never heard Jacob talk about his biological parents before, and the surprise chased away her embarrassment.  She didn’t know if he’d never talked about them before, or just not while she’d been around.  She’d have to talk to Caroline about that.  “Something like that, yeah.  Not exactly, but similar.”

Jacob nodded, and unlocked the door.  “Do you want some more tea?  I’ve still got half a box left.”

Sandy shut the door behind her.  “Sounds good to me, yeah.”