Midnight (19 page)

Will opened it – and then he put his arms round me and hugged me hard.

‘I thought you'd never come back. I didn't know what to do. I even thought about phoning Mum and Dad. I was so
worried
. I thought you'd be back in a few minutes. So did Jasmine. She waited for hours but then
she had to go home. She feels terrible. She thinks it's all her fault. But it's my fault, I know. It's always my fault. I don't know why I'm so mean to you. Something just makes me. Maybe the old granny bat is right, it's bad blood.'

‘That's rubbish,' I said, hugging him back. ‘Look, I know why Mum and Dad have always been so weird with you, why they sometimes act like you're the wrong boy, the changeling. There was another William once, their first baby. He died when he was little. They shouldn't have adopted you – it wasn't fair, trying to replace him like that, but I'm so glad they did because you're my brother now.'

‘How do you know all this stuff?' Will asked, still holding me.

‘Come up to the loft and I'll show you.'

We climbed up there and looked at the baby things together. Will was silent when he saw the photos.

‘I wonder if I looked like him when I was a baby? Maybe the dark hair?' Will peered at the last photo of the little dead baby and shuddered. ‘Let's put all these baby things back in the box.'

‘It's awful, it's like poor little baby Will's coffin.'

‘Maybe we'll find a little blue pot of his ashes somewhere?'

‘Shut
up
, Will!'

But we were fine together in the attic. It only started to get awkward when we came down the stairs. We both glanced involuntarily along the landing to Will's bedroom.

‘So is Jasmine your girlfriend now?' I asked.

‘I – I don't know. She wants to be
your
friend. Come on, give her a ring to let her know you're back safely.'

‘I don't want to.'

‘Violet, she's desperately worried.'

‘Then you ring her.'

Will dialled the number, but then he held the phone out to me, pressing it against my ear.

‘Hello? Violet? Is that you? Oh please, please let it be you!' Jasmine said, her voice thick, as if she was crying.

‘It's me,' I whispered.

‘Are you all right? Are you back home? Oh Violet, please say we're still friends.'

‘You don't really want to be my friend. You just wanted to get to know Will,' I said.

‘That's not true. Well, I
did
want to get to know Will, but I wanted to be your friend before that. Don't you remember? In the classroom, that first day? I practically begged you to be my friend and I didn't even know you had a brother then.'

I thought back.

‘I'm right, aren't I?' Jasmine persisted. ‘I wanted you to be my friend because you looked so different from the others, and you were so sweet to me, and we just kind of clicked, as if we'd known each other for always. And now I've mucked it all up, haven't I?'

I took a deep breath. ‘No you haven't. We're still friends,' I said.

‘Best friends?'

‘Best friends, no matter what,' I said, and then I put the phone down.

Will had gone into the kitchen and was wolfing down the remains of the picnic. I stuffed cheese and prawns and bread and grapes into my mouth too, suddenly ravenous.

When we'd eaten every morsel and were feeling so stuffed we couldn't move we heard the car draw up outside. Mum and Dad came in, looking pink and windswept. They'd walked for miles along the seafront after visiting Gran. Mum was lugging a huge carrier of Chinese takeaway food.

‘I felt so bad about leaving you two without a proper cooked meal,' she said.

‘I told you they'd be fine,' said Dad. ‘You
are
fine, aren't you, you awkward little tykes?' He looked at us both. ‘Look, those things I said. Forget it. I got a bit worked up. We'll let bygones be bygones. Come on, let's all start noshing.'

Will managed a plateful but I couldn't eat more than a mouthful.

‘There's seaweed and prawns, your favourites, Violet. Why aren't you eating?' said Mum. ‘Is there something wrong, dear?'

‘Well . . .' I hesitated. And then I couldn't stop myself. ‘Yes, there
is
something wrong. I was looking in the attic for something—'

‘Don't!' said Will.

‘You're not allowed in the attic, you know that,' Dad said.

‘Yes, but the thing is, I found . . . I found all the stuff about baby Will.'

Mum and Dad stopped eating. It was just like magic, as if I'd turned them into statues. Their hands were holding their knives and forks, their mouths were open. Will rocked on his chair, his face screwed up.

‘Shut up, Violet,' he muttered.

‘No. We've all shut up for far too long. Why can't we talk about him?'

‘Because it'll upset your mother,' said Dad furiously, throwing his cutlery down on his plate with a clatter.

Mum shook her head, as if she was coming out of a trance. ‘It's all right,' she said softly, although tears started rolling down her cheeks. ‘We should have told you, I know we should. I just couldn't bear to think back to when he died. It was my fault—'

‘Of course it wasn't your fault! It was a cot death,' said Dad, and he reached out and took Mum's hand. ‘You
know
that.'

‘I should have stayed up watching over him. He wasn't well—'

‘He had a little cold, that's all. And we had his baby alarm on, so we could hear his little snuffles,' said Dad.

‘But when we woke up we couldn't hear anything,' Mum said, weeping.

‘And when we went to look, we knew he was gone, we knew straight away, even though I tried to give him the kiss of life, poor little lamb,' said Dad, and there were tears in his eyes too. He was looking at me, explaining. ‘And then we went through such a bad time, and I was off work with compassionate leave, and then the very day I went back, almost as if it was fate, I was involved
in this sad case – young mum, drug overdose, little baby going through withdrawals. We went to see the baby – and it was the weirdest thing, he had blue eyes and a mop of black curls, just like our William. So we had to have him, even though it took months of paperwork and his health was pretty dodgy for a while. But eventually we got him and he was ours.'

‘Will's eyes are green,' I said.

‘All babies have blue eyes at first. But then they change,' said Mum, wiping her cheeks with the back of her free hand.

‘I changed all right,' said Will.

‘I'm so sorry we didn't tell you sooner,' said Mum, looking at him. ‘I just wanted to pretend but it was so wrong of me not to tell you about our first little Will.'

‘I'm the second,' said Will. ‘Second best,' he added bitterly.

Mum stood up, letting go of Dad. She went round the table to Will, putting her hands on his shoulders. He tried to duck away from her but she hung on tightly.

‘You come first now,' she said. ‘You're still our boy, no matter what. Isn't he?' She was looking over at Dad now.

He missed a couple of beats, maybe making it plain what he really felt. Or maybe he was simply too tense and embarrassed to react at first. But after a few seconds he suddenly nodded.

‘Of course you're our son,' he said.

I clasped my hands tight in my lap and prayed that Will wouldn't say the wrong thing. In the end he didn't
say anything at all. He just nodded and then walked slowly out of the room.

‘Should I go after him?' said Mum.

‘No, leave the lad alone for now,' said Dad.

I wanted to be on my own too. I went up to my room, saying I had to get some homework finished. I looked up at my ceiling. The fairies weren't there any more. There was no trace of them, not a wing, a limb, a lock of hair. It was as if they'd simply flown away.

I got out all my materials and started sifting them around. I sketched a few outlines on the back of an envelope. Then I took a large piece of brown paper for a pattern. I drew baby shapes on it, small at first, but then I turned the paper over and drew bigger, bolder, fashioning my own pattern, a lifesize newborn baby.

I cut it out and started looking for the right material for the skin. Not pink, not white. I had a pale-green silky shirt. It would make perfect flesh for a fairy changeling.

I worked hard all evening, pinning, cutting and sewing. I couldn't find my favourite needle and some of my thread seemed to have gone missing, but I made do as best I could.

Mum came knocking on my door to say goodnight.

‘Don't come in, Mum, I'm working on a secret,' I said.

‘That's funny. I've just said goodnight outside Will's door and he says
he's
working on something. You're a strange pair,' said Mum. ‘What on earth did you get up to all day? I was worried about you.'

‘We were fine, Mum, honestly. Goodnight.'

‘Don't keep that light on too long, will you?' Dad
called. ‘'Night, Violet. 'Night, Will.'

I called goodnight back. I couldn't hear whether Will did or not. I put my main light out but went on working by my bedside lamp, wanting my baby to start taking shape. The house was still and silent. I watched the clock, waiting for midnight. Then I heard Will creeping across the landing, sliding a note under my door. I opened it up.

Look out of your window in ten minutes. Will.

I heard the faint scrape of the back door opening downstairs. Will was going out into the garden. I wondered what he was doing, but decided to wait the ten minutes so as not to spoil his surprise.

I sewed my baby's face, choosing eyes as green as grass with long black lashes. Then I went to the window and looked out. Our own garden was in darkness but there was an eerie light next door in the wilderness. I saw a dark shadow. It was Will with a torch, lighting up Miss Lang's old apple tree.

I leaned forward, my head against the cold glass. The branches were bearing strange fruit. I opened my window and leaned right out into the night. It wasn't fruit – it was fairies. Will had stitched my poor torn fairies back together. There they were, hanging from the tree by threads, spinning in the wind.

Will moved the torch, showing me all of them. A bat flew in the golden light above his head, then another, and another, like flying goblins. I heard a clock chime far away. It was striking midnight.

I looked out into the night and made my wish.

Dear Violet,

I very much enjoyed meeting you the other day. I think I owe you a letter! It means so much to me that you like my work and know it so well! I shall send you an early copy of the thirteenth book. I think I shall call it Magical Encounters. It's going to be dedicated to somebody special . . .

With very best wishes

Casper Dream

Jacqueline Wilson is an extremely well-known and hugely popular author who served as Children's Laureate from 2005-7. She has been awarded a number of prestigious awards, including the British Children's Book of the Year and the Guardian Children's Fiction Award (for
The Illustrated Mum
), the Smarties Prize and the Children's Book Award (for
Double Act
, for which she was also highly commended for the Carnegie Medal). In 2002 Jacqueline was given an OBE for services to literacy in schools and in 2008 she was appointed a Dame. She has sold over thirty-five million books and was the author most borrowed from British libraries in the last decade.

NICK SHARRATT knew from an early age that he wanted to use his drawing skills as his career, so He went to Manchester Polytechnic to do an Art Foundation course. He followed this up with a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design at St Martin's School of Art in London from 1981-1884.

Since graduating, Nick has been working full-time as an illustrator for children's books, publishers and a wide range of magazines. His brilliant illustrations have brought to life many books, most notably the titles by Jacqueline Wilson.

Nick also writes books as well as illustrating them.