The Amazing Mind of Alice Makin

From The Chicken House

I've always loved those old films where children run wild in the city all day, making friends and lives of their own in secret places. In this story the secret places are inside the kids' heads, and the things that happen there are more strange than anything that happens on the streets of their home in old war-torn London. Stand by to be puzzled and amazed!

Alan Shea beautifully fuses the real and the imagined like no one else – perhaps you'll think more carefully about what you wish for in future…!

Barry Cunningham
Publisher

Contents

1. Beginnings

2. Me and Reggie

3. Stepdad or demon?

4. Up the stairs

5. Norman's knitted underwear

6. Bonfires, bother and . . .

7. . . . bad feelings

8. Fireworks

9. Missing evidence

10. Lolly sticks and the law of averages

11. Picksmeup and dropsy

12. Getting wet

13. Challenges

14. Truth and lies

15. Shakespeare, scientists and Geronimo

16. Nursery rhymes and breaking ice

17. Nan

18. Finding out

19. If ifs and ands were pots and pans

20. Flash

21. Flowers

22. Talking

23. A fair time

24. Birthdays of a different kind

25. Passwords and parcels

26. Facing fears

27. Girl on a biscuit tin lid

28. Awake

29. The letter

30. There comes a time

31. Acting out of character

32. The last bow

Copyright

For Margaret, who'll always be my Alice.
For my mum and dad.
For John and Patrick, my sons and best friends.
For Cerys, Alice Theresa and Steve.
For Barry, Imogen and Anna.

I
see it like I'm a camera: distant, apart. I'm in class. It's break. I look down on to the playground. Focus on Reggie, the new boy. He doesn't fit in. He's different somehow, and the others know it. I feel sorry for him.

He's watching wasps that have nested in a wall. They come and go, in and out of the tiny hole, in an endless rhythm. A procession of life. He watches them. I watch him. Zoom in . . . snap.

The playground backs on to a canal. Its surface shimmers. The sun burnishes the water gold. The glare blinds my eyes. September sings a song only it knows; summer's swansong. Soon be over. Days grow shorter, nights grow longer.

I'm twelve. It's my first year at senior school. Miss Druce, our teacher, is leaving, going to look after her dad. Don't think of teachers as having dads. I help her take her life out of the cupboards and pack it into boxes. Dismantle her years here. Take things off walls that look as if they've been there for ever.

Soon the room is bare, a tattered tree in autumn. Miss Druce doesn't say much, but every now and then she stops
and lingers too long over some old photo. Wipes her eyes on the hanky she keeps up her sleeve.

Outside, Reggie's still watching. The wasps are his world. A moment in time: frozen. He's wrapped up, oblivious to everything else. I'm not. The Spicer twins have seen him. They walk towards him. Not directly – slow and sly. Winding like snakes. I push open the window and Denis's voice drifts up.

‘Cor, look who's here, it's s-s-stuttering Stanley.' He twists his lips. A dark smile.

Gary Spicer laughs. Worms his hands deep into his pockets, ‘Or is it r-r-r-rattling Reggie?'

Denis moves closer. ‘Read any g-g-g-good b-b-b-books lately, R-Reggie?'

He exaggerates the stutter, machine-guns the words. They both laugh.

‘Or had any good bloody noses?' Gary shoves his fist under Reggie's nose. ‘What you lookin' at there?'

Reggie stands in front of the wall, tries to shield the nest. Too late.

‘Ah, look. It's a lovely little wasps' nest.'

Denis Spicer takes out an elastic band from his pocket, loops it over his index finger and thumb and pulls back the elastic. He aims at a wasp, lets go. ‘Oops. Me hand slipped.'

The elastic band dissects the wasp. It oozes life. Crawls crippled. Gary Spicer takes chewing gum from his mouth and sticks it over the hole – locking the door on the nest.
Other wasps return; they maze, confused. Exposed. Denis snaps the band wickedly, snapping bodies. Reggie looks down on the floor at the dead wasps and tries to understand. He can't. He turns to walk away.

Gary blocks him. ‘Where d'you think you're goin', Titch?'

Reggie's answer sticks in his throat. Judders to his lips. Spurts out. ‘N-n-n-nowhere.'

‘Yeah, good place for you, mate.'

Laughing, they grab him. Pick him up like he's a baby. He doesn't struggle, just lies still. The high wire fence that keeps us from the canal is broken in the corner. It comes away easily. They carry him towards the hole.

I say to myself, ‘Don't let them push you around, Reggie. Stand up for yourself.'

Gary has him around the neck, hitting him on top of the head with the palm of his hand as if he's not worth hitting properly. They pull back the fence and make a bigger hole. Reggie's glasses fall off. Denis treads on them. Crunches the glass.

I clench my teeth. Grit out the words, ‘Hit him, Reggie. Give him something to remember you by.'

‘What did you say, Alice?'

‘Nothing, Miss.'

I know he won't fight. My words die in the dusty classroom. Laughing, they push him through the hole. Pull the wire back. Shut him out. Close the door.

Reggie gets up. Brushes the dirt off. Looks back
through the wire. He says something. Denis doesn't like it. His face changes, the smile is wiped off. He pulls open the wire again, and starts to climb through. Reggie sees him coming: freezes.

I can almost hear his brain working. This is a problem. Behind him is a deep, dirty canal; in front of him, Denis. To his right there's a long towpath that leads to the bridge. I'm not sure if he knows it, but if he takes the towpath he can get to the bridge, then up the steps to the main road.

I screw up my mind. Concentrate. Try to send him the message. Go right, Reggie. Go right. Luckily, that's the way he goes. I decide to try and help him.

I walk quickly past Miss Druce. She looks up.

‘Where are you off to, Alice?'

‘Nowhere, Miss. Won't be long.'

‘Don't be. The bell's going soon.'

As I get to the door she goes to the window to see what I've been looking at. I go quickly down the stairs and out of the main gate, head up Copenhagen Place and turn left into Salmon Lane, going towards Commercial Road. This will lead me straight to the bridge. I run as fast as I can. The streets are fairly quiet, so no one gets in my way. By the time I get to the bridge, my heart is pounding. I stand there catching my breath. I've got a stitch in my side.

I can see Reggie in the distance running down the tow-path towards me. He's managed to keep ahead of Denis, but only just. Every now and then Reggie looks back. Denis is gaining on him.

I take a deep breath and start to go down the steps that lead off the side of the bridge and down to the towpath. I take them two at a time, wondering as I go if I'm really doing the right thing here. Maybe I should let him fight his own battles. After all, I've not known him that long. Anyway, what's the worst Denis can do? Thoughts dance through my mind in time to my feet as I fly down the steps. If this was the Olympics and there was such a thing as step dancing, I'd have just won a gold medal!

I reach the bottom. Stand with my hands on my hips, my head down, panting, trying to suck in air. My heart has turned into a sledgehammer trying to knock its way out of my chest.

They're a few hundred yards away; they haven't seen me. Reggie's concentrating on not getting caught, Denis on catching him. The canal towpath used to be concrete but it's been neglected. Now it's a ragged mess of stones and mud. Reggie's foot goes into a pothole. He stumbles but doesn't fall. Denis shouts something, just as a lorry thunders by on the bridge. I don't hear what he says. Reggie's legs are pumping, but he's slowing down. It's like he's gone into slow motion. His brain's saying, ‘
Run
', but legs don't have ears.

Denis is almost on him now. I start to go towards them. I once had a fight with Denis – he won, but I gave him a bloody nose. I'm not scared of him and he knows it. Mind you, he's tough as old boots. The trouble is, so is his brain. He's getting closer. Reggie seems to put on a spurt, pulls
away a bit. Denis shouts again, and this time I hear him.

‘You're gonna go in that canal when I catch you, you little freak!'

Reggie stumbles. His legs wobble. They're stuttering, just like his words. Caught up in themselves. He falls. Denis is almost on him. I bite my lip. I'm never going to reach him before Denis. He'll make mincemeat out of Reggie.

Why is it the good people always get it? Wouldn't it be great if, just for once, things evened up a bit in life? Like it was the Spicers who were being chased for a change. A cross between a dragon and your worst nightmare snapping at Denis, growling, baring its teeth.

Then this strange thing happens. Denis stops. He's just standing there. He's not even looking at Reggie, he's looking at something else. He's staring up at the sky behind me. His mouth is open, his eyes wide. He looks scared: his face ghost-white. Reggie is still on the ground. He sits up. Looks across to where Denis is looking, then his eyes slowly go to me.

Denis begins to back away, almost stumbles. Then he turns and runs, heading back towards school like the devil's after him. Must be the first time Denis Spicer has ever run to school in his life.

Reggie gets up, and rubs at some blood on his elbow. Then he looks at me again with a strange expression. Makes me shiver.