Stonebird (10 page)

The next time we sit in the story circle, I'm ready.

I want to listen to the other stories, but my head is whirring and I can't focus. I'm just waiting for the egg to get to me.

I take it in my hands and hold it up, thinking of the gargoyle, thinking of Stonebird, but most of all thinking about Mom. The words are on my tongue even before I really know what I'm going to say, and all I have to do is open my mouth.

It was a cold night
, I say,
and the gargoyle was stirring.

It crouched on the church, waiting in the moonlight, listening to the wind and the trees, listening to the sounds that only gargoyles can hear.

The sounds of sorrow.

The sounds of fear.

The sounds of wishes and hopes and dreams.

It was quieter here than in its old home. Notre Dame was loud. There were too many people, too many demons, too many things to fix.

Here it was easier to focus.

The gargoyle spread its wings and leaped from the church to fly over the city.

That was when it heard sadness and tears and really loud terrible music, and it knew that there was one family that needed help more than any other . . .

I don't name any names, and I don't just talk about Mom and Jess, because that wouldn't feel right and would probably sound a bit weird, so I mention some other people in the village, people all the other kids would know about.

Like Wheelbarrow Will, the old man who always takes his wheelbarrow to the post office to collect his groceries and his newspaper. Wherever he goes, he whispers to himself.

And Mrs. Rowden, the lady who stares at you when you go past her house.

You know how some people can seem really weird when you see them, especially if they do strange things like take wheelbarrows to the shops or stare out of the window all the time? I was thinking about it, and what I reckon is this: they're probably no more weird than anyone else, because we're all weird in different ways. And there may be a really sad reason why they do those things, like the way wine o'clock keeps happening in our house
because Mom loves Grandma loads, but Grandma's disappearing more and more every day.

That's why I put them all in my story, so Stonebird can help them.

The rest of the day goes really slowly, because all I want to do is get home and see if the story's worked.

Mrs. Culpepper's telling us about another hero of the War. He's called Oskar Schindler, but that's all I remember because her words are going in one side of my head and out of the other without sticking.

The only thing that does stick is the potato.

At lunch, Matt walks past my table and flicks some mash at me. It lands on my lap with a wet thud. I flick it off onto the floor, but when I look up he's still there.

“When are you going to stop telling stupid stories?” he says.

“When are you going to leave me alone?” I say.

He glares at me, then drops another splotch of potato, and this time it lands on my shoe. “Oops,” he says. Then he saunters off laughing and calls over his shoulder, “Could be a while!”

A couple of other fifth graders see me scraping the potato off my foot and glance away, pretending not to have noticed. Sometimes I think that's more annoying than Matt's being a bully in the first place. I know I should tell someone, but I don't. Maybe that makes me as bad as they are.

I'm not hungry anymore, so I leave the rest of my food and sit in the classroom until the end of lunch.

All through the rest of the day I keep looking up at the clock every few minutes.

Finally home time comes, and I rush off as fast as possible, just in case Matt's planning anything else.

When I get home, there's a note from Mom stuck to the fridge:

Jess gets home ten minutes later and she's got the World's Biggest Scowl on her face. “I got a text from Mom,” she says. “I've got to babysit you. You're ruining my evening, just so you know.”

“I don't need babysitting,” I say.

“That's what I said.”

Daisy bounds up to us, but Jess doesn't even say hello, which isn't very nice because it's not like Daisy's done anything wrong—she doesn't know what's going on; she's just glad to see us.

I go upstairs and lie in bed watching TV. After a while my eyes start to drift closed. I try and fight it, but they're too heavy, and before I know it I'm falling into darkness.

I'm on my back in a river, and the water's pulling me away, pulling me off toward the orange horizon. The sun's melting into the dark, dark ground, and the birds are singing good-bye to the day, and all I know is that I could stay here forever, just stay here and forget about the world—

Something's here.

That's the thought that wakes me up.

Something's here. Something's in my room.

I don't move. I stay right there and look across the room, and even though it's dark I can see it. My heart flips in my chest—

“Stonebird,” I say.

“Liam,” says a voice.

And I'm thinking,
That's weird
. Stonebird doesn't speak.

“My dear Liam,” says the voice again, and now I do sit up. Because it's not the gargoyle standing over me. It's—

“Mom?” I say. “It's okay,” Mom says. “I didn't mean to wake you.”

“I'm sorry about the diary. I should have told you about it.”

“Don't apologize,” she says, stroking my head. “It's me who should be sorry. Of course you want to know more about your grandma. It's only natural. Although, now that you mention it, do you still have the entry from January 16, 1941?”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“It's just it's not there. It's gone. Ripped out.”

What?

I rub my eyes, trying to shake off the foggy feeling.

A torn-out page? How could I have missed that! Surely Grandma wouldn't rip a page out of her diary . . . unless there was something she really wanted to hide . . .

“I never realized,” I say, trying to remember something—anything—about that January in the diary.
But I can't think. Already my eyes are drifting closed again.

“Not to worry, my lovely boy. Sleep well. I'll see you in the morning.”

She goes to draw the curtains, and just before she does, just before the room is plunged into darkness, I'm sure I can see an amber glow through the window.

The first thing I do the next morning is rush to the window.

Actually, that's not true. The first thing I do is turn off the alarm and the second thing I do is yawn and the third thing I do is stretch. But then I remember my story. I remember the orange glow in the night, and I leap up and throw open the window and look out.

The amber light is gone.

Just like that, my insides crumple up.

It must have been too much to ask for. Maybe Stonebird's like the genie in Aladdin and can't change anything to do with the heart. Maybe I made my list and told my story for nothing.

I'm about to close the window when something in the garden catches my eye.

He's there.

Stonebird's out there, on the grass.

“It worked,” I whisper, and I'm shaking my head now because I can't believe it. “It worked!” I say, louder this time, and I don't care if anyone hears me and I don't care if I sound crazy, because it worked it worked it worked!

Stonebird looks up at me, and I stare right back.

I mouth,
Thank you.

Then he turns and leaps up over the bushes and away into the early-morning light.

My stomach fizzes as I skip down the stairs.

There are voices coming from the kitchen. I guess that means Mom and Jess are talking again. In fact, it turns out they're even laughing over Grandma's diary, reading about her first boyfriend.

“Rupert?” says Jess, choking on her Coco Pops. “I didn't think anyone was actually called Rupert.”

Even though I'm bouncing with happiness after seeing Stonebird, I can't take my eyes off the diary. The torn-out page can only mean one thing. But to be sure, I've got to go back to those January entries. And that means getting it away from Mom and Jess.

Before I leave for school, Mom drags me into a hug.

“I really am sorry about yesterday,” she says. “I don't know what came over me.”

“It's okay, Mom.”

“Jess is sorry too, she just doesn't know how to say it. It's going to be a weird time for her at the moment. You know,
hormones
and all.”

I don't know what that means, but I smile and hug her again and head out of the door.

I still can't believe Stonebird came in the night. That's four times now. Four stories I've told, and four times it's acted out my words. That must be why Mom woke me up. She's in a better mood than she has been for ages, and she's talking to Jess too.

And it's all because of Stonebird.

It's all because of—

Because of me.

I'm in such a happy mood that there's only one thing that can ruin it.

So guess who's waiting for me in the courtyard outside school?

Matt, with Cheesy and Joe.

I try to pretend I haven't seen them and walk straight up to the double doors, but Cheesy blocks my way.

“Don't think so,” he says, laughing his fake laugh, sending flecks of spit flying from his mouth.

I turn around to go back the other way, but now Joe's blocking the path.

Slow breaths
, I tell myself.
Just take slow breaths.

But it's hard to breathe when it feels like your lungs are in your throat.

I glance around for any teachers, trying not to look scared. But they'll be inside by now. Maybe there's a window nearby . . . if I can just get into the right position, someone will have to see us. The trouble is, Matt's friends aren't giving me any space to move.

Then I hear another voice and turn to see something that makes me swell with hope—

“Boys,” says Mr. Hill, the third-grade teacher, walking down the path toward reception.

But he's not looking, he's not looking, not properly anyway, he's just striding off and soon I'll be on my own again . . .

“Sir!” I say, trying to move toward him.

“I hope you're on your way to your lessons?” he says.

“Definitely,” Matt says, and his arm's around me now. He's got my shoulders, and he's leading me away, around the corner to the back of the school grounds. “That's exactly where we're going.”

“Good, good,” says the far-off voice of Mr. Hill.

Then he's out of sight.

But worse—so are we.

Matt's voice is loud and harsh in my ear. “You know better than that, Liam.”

“Yeah,” says Joe. “That could have been a problem.”

“Shut up,” Matt spits.

They finally stop dragging me along. I look around, and my first thought is that they've taken me away from school. We're not in the big playground, and we're not in the small playground. But we can't have left the school grounds. We weren't walking for that long. Ahead of us there's a glass door that looks as if it leads to the library. And beside us—

Beside us is a pond.

“What are you doing?” I say. “We're going to be late.”

I know Mrs. Culpepper probably won't mind because she never tells anyone off, not really, but it's the first thing that comes to my mind and I'm hoping it's enough to make them stall. If I can get them to hesitate just for a second, maybe I can escape.

“I didn't lie,” Matt says. He steps back, and the look on his face makes my stomach curl up. “I said we're going to our lessons, and here we are. This is the most important lesson you'll learn all day: always bring a towel to school.”

He grabs my shoulder and leans in close, dropping his voice so the others can't hear him. “Tell your mom to stay away from my dad,” he hisses.

Then he shoves me.

I stumble back. The pond rears up.

It comes at me in slow motion, but there's nothing I can do to stop it—

Splash.

The world vanishes in a rush of bubbles.

I shut my eyes tight as I plunge into the water.

Blindly I reach out as weeds tangle around me. My nose stings, and already my lungs are burning. I need to find the bottom, but I don't dare open my eyes.

Then my legs scrape something hard and I kick off.

My head breaks the surface and I take huge gulps of air, spitting as the muddy water trickles down into my mouth.

There's no laughter anymore, just the steady thumping of blood in my ears.

Matt and his friends have gone.

I swim to the edge and pull myself out of the pond. My shoes squelch as I get to my feet. My clothes are filthy, and so soaked that they stick to my body. I spit but I can't get the muddy taste out of my mouth.

I know it's stupid, but I'm not thinking about Matt or Cheesy or Joe. I'm thinking about Stonebird. I wanted him to stop the bullying. I wanted him to protect me from Matt and his friends. He looked after Mom and he looked after Jess, but he's definitely not looking after me now.

“What happened to you?” Jess says, when I get back that afternoon.

“I fell in the pond.”

The only spare clothes at school were in the lost-property box. I'm wearing rugby shorts that are way too tight and a really baggy blue sweater that almost reaches down to my knees. I look ridiculous.

“You look like you got dressed in a tornado,” she says.

“Thanks.”

As I'm heading up to my room, I notice something on the stairs.

Grandma's diary!

Mom must have put it there this morning. I quickly look around to make sure no one's watching, then pick it up and take it upstairs.

I sit on my bed and open the diary, and Mom was right. There is a missing page.

It's been torn out. You can tell because the edge is all jagged and you can see where words have been ripped in half.

The entry straight after the torn page is much shorter than any of the others I've read:

That seems pretty weird, considering she loved drawing Stonebird so much. Why would she want to avoid it? Unless . . .

I turn back to the earlier entry:

The ritual again. Grandma's sounding really scared, and it looks as if it's all because of this Claire girl. Did she catch her? Did she lock Grandma inside the church?

I flick back through some of the later entries, but there's nothing to say what happened on January 16.

Claire . . .

The name sounds familiar, and not just from Grandma's diary. The date does too. I feel as though I've heard it somewhere before. But where?