“What have I done?” I said. “Why are you being like that? You always…” I stopped myself just before I said “look out for me” because it would have sounded pathetic. But it was true. He’d always protected me. Ever since we were toddlers in the sandpit; he’d always defended me, and he put up with being teased by the others who would gleefully claim that we were snogging even though we had never done any such thing. Oscar was my friend, and he happened to be a boy. That didn’t make him my boyfriend. Once, one warm afternoon during the summer holidays a long time ago when we were seven or eight years old, we had even sworn a blood oath, with Oscar making a small cut in his arm and in mine, with his grandfather’s old pocket knife. I think Oscar had seen it in a movie somewhere.
Oscar heaved a sigh.
“I just don’t get it,” he said. “You can do all those really cool things. Shanaia says Chimera is afraid of you. But you still won’t help her get Westmark back. And now you’re letting that half-brain Martin and his moronic friends walk all over you. Clara, get a grip. It would be different if you couldn’t defend yourself. But you can.”
“You’re right,” I said. “You don’t get it. If it’s that easy, why don’t you do it?”
I picked up my bag and brushed off the worst of the slush. I couldn’t even look at him and my eyes were stinging. I didn’t want to fall out with him. It was a horrible feeling that tore at my insides, as if I had just swallowed a whole box of thumb tacks. But he’d always known what I was like, and he used to like me just as I was. Why did he now suddenly want me to be someone else?
CHAPTER 8
It Gets Worse
I spent most of the day worrying about what Oscar had said. It still felt unfair. What on earth made him think I could take on Martin the Meanie? He was in Year 10. He was half a head taller than me. And he had a bunch of stupid friends, all of them bigger and stronger than me.
And if I couldn’t stand up to Martin, how could anyone think I’d be able to take on Chimera? I felt sorry for Shanaia. I really did. Only there was nothing I could do about it.
Remember.
The thought crept into my mind halfway through Maths; it was nothing but a whisper. Nothing like Cat’s usual loud and unmistakable messages. That’s why I didn’t notice him straight away.
Remember. Vi.
I rubbed my sore face with both hands. My head felt strange and heavy, and I kept wanting to go to sleep.
Ri.
What? I sat up with a jolt.
“Who let that cat in?”
Ruler-Rita, my scary Maths teacher, was pointing at my backpack on the floor. Or, more accurately, at the creature draping itself across it, like a furry cover.
“Cat!”
He got up, arched his back and dashed my leg with his broad paw.
Di.
And then he disappeared.
And I mean disappeared.
One moment he was there, a black, furry, solid, warm, feline body with gleaming yellow eyes; the next there was only a slowly dispersing cat-sized blob of fog, like a smoke signal disappearing in the sky.
Ruler-Rita stopped in her tracks, still with an accusatory finger pointing at my backpack. I had never seen a teacher quite that gobsmacked before.
“It… it…” she stuttered.
“Cat?” I said, only slightly less flustered. “Eh… what cat?”
She blinked a couple of times. Then she slowly lowered her pointing arm.
“Nothing…” she said feebly. “I… I just thought that…”
Although she wasn’t my favourite teacher, I felt vaguely sorry for her. But I didn’t say anything. I had finally worked out how Cat could come and go as he pleased, even in enclosed spaces. He used the wildways. He seemed to be able to open a passage into the wildways exactly where he wanted to, and to do it within only a second or two. Had he been a wildwitch rather than an animal, he would have been better than Aunt Isa. Or better at turning up and disappearing, at any rate. I couldn’t help shuddering a little. Ever since I was three or four years old, I had wanted a pet – ideally a dog, but Mum had always said that our flat was too small. Then Cat had entered our lives, and she put up with him, though they weren’t exactly bosom pals. So now I had Cat – or more accurately, he had me. And warm and fuzzy notions of him being any sort of pet would be very very foolish indeed.
Remember. Vi. Ri. Di.
REM EMBERVIR IDI AN
Remember Viridian.
Perhaps it wasn’t an urban fox that had left those tracks in the snow. Perhaps it was Cat. But if he wanted me to “remember Viridian”, why didn’t he just say so? Why the mysterious tracks in the snow and this strange, strangled whisper as if he could barely get the syllables out? He’d never had any trouble getting my attention when he wanted it in the past.
“You can start the exercises on pages thirty-two and thirty-three now,” Ruler-Rita said. “Anything you don’t get done in class, you’ll need to finish at home.”
“But I don’t understand the bit about the triangles,” said Louise.
“Oh, do try a little harder, Louise. I’ve already explained it twice!”
Except that she hadn’t. She’d stopped halfway through the second time because of Cat.
Why was Viridian so important? So important that Cat had appeared in the middle of a lesson, something he’d never done before. Neither Shanaia nor Aunt Isa had ever thought it worth mentioning. It seemed almost as if they’d forgotten all about it.
But Chimera had said it. Twice to me and once to Shanaia. So surely it had to mean something?
There was a general stir and shuffle as people found their pencil cases and opened their Maths books.
“Why is she being so weird? I was only asking…” Louise said in a stage whisper, loud enough for everyone to hear. Ruler-Rita was staring into the air and frowning as if sure she’d forgotten something important. She didn’t say another word about Cat.
I waited for Oscar at our usual place by the bike shed, even though we hadn’t cycled to school today. Tiny white snowflakes had started falling from the grey sky, and I got quite cold standing still. At length he appeared with Alex. I’d really hoped that he would be on his own. I’m not a big fan of Alex and I needed to talk to Oscar. The thumb tack sensation was still troubling me, and I desperately wanted things between us to be OK again.
But the first thing that happened was that Alex put on a broad grin and pointed a mitten at me.
“Oscar says you think you’re some sort of witch.”
He might as well have kicked me in the stomach. I felt all the air leaving my lungs in a huge, painful gasp, and I stared at Oscar in disbelief.
“No,” he protested. “That’s not what I said…”
He flapped his hands helplessly as if trying to erase the words. Alex ignored him.
“Do a trick,” Alex said, still with that big grin plastered all over his face; it was clear he thought it was the best joke he had heard in ages. “Come on, Clara. Show us a little magic.”
Three girls from Oscar’s class had stopped on their way out of the school gates.
“I think her magic only works on Oscar,” sniggered one of them, a tall, skinny, dark-haired girl called Caroline. And then they all three giggled and walked on, talking rather loudly to each other.
“My cousin used to think she could make herself invisible by closing her eyes,” one of them said. “But then again she was only four years old at the time.”
Oscar glanced after them desperately.
“I didn’t mean to,” he said. “It just sort of… I did tell him…” Then he suddenly turned to Alex and slammed his fist into his chest. “I told you not to tell anyone…”
“Ouch!” Alex shoved Oscar away. “Don’t you go hitting me!”
I didn’t see what happened next. I heard slaps and thumping muffled by puffer jackets and the scraping of boots on tarmac, so I think they got into a scuffle. But I didn’t turn around or stop, not even when Oscar called out after me.
&
nbsp; “Clara! Wait. Please let me explain…”
My legs felt as if they had been made from wood. Thumb tacks pierced and tore at my stomach and my throat. I had no wish whatsoever to hear him try to explain why he had told most of his class that Clara thought she was a witch.
CHAPTER 9
Bad Dreams
“Dad called,” Mum said as I came through the door. “I think he was a bit upset that you just disappeared last night and never came back.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“What did you say?”
“Sorry!” I said, louder this time. In fact, a little too loud. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry…”
“Mousie! What’s the matter with you?” She appeared in the doorway to her study. “There’s no call for that.”
But I couldn’t handle disappointing any more people right now. Shanaia was upset. Mum was upset. Dad was upset. I’d fallen out with Oscar. And it seemed it was all my fault. Because they all wanted me to be someone else, someone bigger or smaller than I really was. Shanaia and Oscar wanted me to be bigger and more like Aunt Isa, and Mum and Dad would rather that I stopped acting weird and wildwitchy, and went back to being their little Mousie.
I could do neither.
I looked at Mum still standing in the doorway, expecting some sort of response.
“I’m not feeling too good,” I said, which was the truth. “I think I have a fever…”
Oh no. That was clearly the wrong thing to say. I could practically see the fear grow in her eyes. It was less than six months ago that I had been seriously ill with Cat Scratch Disease, so ill that Mum had driven me to Aunt Isa’s, despite having kept me away from her wildwitch big sister for all the twelve years of my life until then.
“Let me see.” She placed her hand on my forehead for a moment. “You don’t feel hot,” she said, looking relieved. “Does it hurt anywhere?”
Only on the inside. But I didn’t say that.
“I just don’t feel too good,” I said again. “I think I’ll go to bed now.”
It was only three o’clock in the afternoon, but all she did was nod.
“All right then, you didn’t get much sleep last night,” she said. “Perhaps that’s all it is.”
I crawled into my bed, fully clothed, and pulled the duvet right up to my ears. The grey winter light coming from the window was so faint that my things, my teddies and books, my computer, the Mickey Mouse alarm clock and the Anglepoise lamp on my desk were reduced to black outlines. I closed my eyes.
I don’t know if I fell asleep properly, but I started dreaming straight away. At first I had a really weird dream where Mum, Dad, Shanaia and Oscar were making gingerbread men with different-sized biscuit cutters, while arguing over how big they should be. And then a more realistic, but far more terrifying dream.
I dreamt that Oscar had taken Woofer for a walk in Jupiter Park, across the road from Jupiter Street. His seagull-scratched face was so glum that he looked almost sad, or as sad as it’s possible to look when you’ve been born with what my mum once called “the cheeriest face on the planet”. Suddenly Woofer started barking like mad. Woof, woof, woof; loud, angry, go-away barking. Oscar looked about him, but could see nothing worth barking at. Dense snow had started falling, and he pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt and hushed Woofer. Then, without warning, Woofer fell silent. He stood rigid and very still for a moment. Then he set off with such determination that Oscar struggled to keep up. I watched Oscar say something to him, but the sound had suddenly disappeared, as if I were watching the telly on mute. Oscar tried to get Woofer to stop. He yanked the leash and dug in his heels, but Woofer simply carried on, and the leash slipped out of Oscar’s hands.
“Woofer! Woofer!!” A tiny, tinny cry. The sound hadn’t disappeared altogether, it was merely very weak.
Woofer accelerated to a doggy gallop. There was something odd and stiff about his movements, very different from his normal, happy labrador clumsiness. The snow whirled up around him and condensed into a pale grey hoary fog, and suddenly, mid-gallop, I lost sight of him.
Oscar stopped in his tracks. He stared at the whirl of snow and fog that had swallowed up his dog. He took a few steps and then he hesitated again.
Don’t go in there, I tried calling out, but of course I wasn’t there, I wasn’t in the dream. I was just the one dreaming it.
Woof. Woof.
A barely audible barking was coming from inside the fog. Oscar started running and after only a few paces vanished into the glittering, snow-dotted wildways fog. There was nothing I could do to stop him.
“Woofer!” he called out. And then he was gone.
My room was almost completely dark when I woke up or came round or whatever it was I did. The luminous hands on the Mickey Mouse clock both pointed in the general direction of the number six, one hand slightly ahead of the other.
I could hear Mum talking on the phone. Perhaps that had woken me up.
“… no, she’s here,” she said. “She’s been here ever since she came home from school. She’s a little under the weather, I think.” There was a pause while she listened to what the caller was saying. “I’ll ask,” she then said. “I’ll ring you back.”
Soon afterwards she knocked lightly on the door to my room and opened it.
“Mousie,” she said. “Oscar’s mum is asking if you know where Oscar is.”
CHAPTER 10
Missing
“I work too much,” said Oscar’s mum in a flat, feeble tone which sounded nothing like her normal voice. “He spends too much time home alone. Why wasn’t I with him? Do you have any idea where he could be?”
She was sitting in our kitchen, one hand permanently clutching her mobile. She was still wearing her work clothes: a smart dark jacket and a skirt, tights and high-heeled shoes. Her blonde hair was scraped away from her face and gathered at the back with a silver clip.
“He’s probably just gone home with a friend, don’t you think?” my mum suggested.
“But what about… the dog…”
Oscar had taken Woofer for a walk as he always did when he came home from school. He’d said hello to old Mrs Percival and her poodle at the entrance to Jupiter Park. No one had seen him since. And now I was left with a leaden feeling that my dream hadn’t been a dream at all. I didn’t think for one minute that Oscar was with a friend. I was convinced that he had followed Woofer into the fog of the wildways. I’d tried calling Aunt Isa six times now, but as usual to no avail.
“Mum…”
“Yes, Mouse?”
“Please may I go to the park to look for him?”
“No, sweetheart. Not now. It’s too dark.”
Oscar’s mum emitted a small sound, a strangled, sniffling sob. “It’s true. I work far too much,” she said again, as if that would explain everything. My mum stroked her back and mumbled something comforting.
They’d called the police. I’d listened while Oscar’s mum explained the situation and described what Oscar looked like. When she needed to tell them what he’d been wearing, she had to ask me because she hadn’t been home when he got dressed that morning. Which was when she had started talking about working too much, as if she believed this was somehow all her fault.
The duty officer had dispatched a police officer who wrote a report and promised to circulate a missing persons notice, but I didn’t think there was much the police could do.
I went to my room and put on some music. Not because I felt like listening to it, but because I needed some noise. A note, I thought. At the very least I should leave a note. “Gone to find Oscar,” I wrote in big felt tip letters on a piece of squared paper from my Maths exercise book. “I think I know where he is. Don’t worry. Clara xxx.” I left the note on my bed, so Mum couldn’t help seeing the message when she eventually realized that I was gone.
Now, it wasn’t that I felt any braver than usual. But Oscar had never gone missing before. And I was convinced that the police could search until the cows came home w
ithout ever finding him. Not unless one of them happened to be a wildwitch…
I tiptoed out into the hallway, got my jacket and waterproofs from the peg and turned the latch as softly as possible. Then I opened and shut the door quietly, and tiptoed down the stairs one cautious step at a time. I’m fairly sure they didn’t hear me leave.
I sat down on the bottom step, put on my puffer jacket and pulled my waterproofs on over my thin leggings. It was cold outside and the slush was starting to freeze. The pavement was covered by a slick, black skin of ice, and my breath turned to frosty puffs of mist in the air in front of me. I walked along the whole block and crossed Saturn Street, which ran along one side of Jupiter Park. There was no traffic and hardly any people around unless you counted the caretaker and his snow-blower.
I opened the gate to the park.
“Oscar?” I called out tentatively. But of course it was never going to be that easy.
The gravel path and the grass glittered with frost, and twigs and branches everywhere gleamed white in the glow of the street lamps. Blades of grass crunched and broke under my feet, so that I left a trail of dark footprints across the grass.
“Oscar!”
I knew perfectly well it wouldn’t be that easy. This called for a completely different kind of search.
I stopped in the middle of the park, as far as possible from the roads and the houses that surrounded it. I closed my eyes. I waited until the distant hum of traffic and the more immediate roar of the snow-blower began to fade away.
“Cat…” I whispered. “You have to help me.”
He turned up almost immediately. Suddenly I could feel his warm head against my leg and a silent question mark in my head. He wanted to know why I’d called him.