Troubletwisters (7 page)

‘Still, there’s lots to do in here,’ their grandmother said. ‘Come into the drawing room. I’ve got a bunch of . . . interesting objects . . . in there that you might like to see.’

Puzzled, the twins followed her into the drawing room and watched as she unlocked the desk and rolled back the cover to reveal all manner of contraptions. There was a spark gap generator that sent a bright blue jolt of electricity shooting between two metal points, especially when Jaide pulled the trigger. An old compass spun wildly as they passed it from hand to hand, pointing every direction other than north. There was a small box that Grandma X assured them was an old camera, with no LED screen and a shutter that clicked solidly behind the lens’s glass eye. When Jack clicked the button, he saw people and places from long ago, but all Jaide saw was her brother in the drawing room, pulling faces.

Grandma X watched them as they played their way through the odd collection. Sometimes she wrote in a pink leather notebook she had produced from a drawer. Once she even took a magnifying glass out of her pocket and studied the top of Jack’s and Jaide’s scalps, as though looking for head lice, but she didn’t seem to find what she was looking for. She put the magnifying glass away and lit some old lanterns that stank of kerosene and cast a lovely warm glow over the room.

As the last lantern wick flared, Kleo returned, and her eyes caught and reflected the flame. She meowed and jumped up to sit like a sphinx on a straight-backed chair, as if waiting for something interesting to happen.

‘What’s this, Grandma?’ Jaide asked, pulling a strange contraption from behind the desk.

‘A pogo stick, dear. Have you never seen one before?’

Both twins shook their heads, then gasped with surprise as Grandma X demonstrated it for them. The floor and the furniture shook as the elderly woman in her silver-tipped cowboy boots climbed onto the crossbars and took two spring-fuelled bounces across the drawing room. A cloud of dust rose up, Kleo fled again, and Grandma X climbed off and hurriedly opened the windows to let some fresh air in.

‘They were all the rage when I was a girl,’ she said, looking slightly pink in the face. ‘Why don’t you have a go?’

‘Really?’ asked Jack. ‘In here?’

‘Outside isn’t an option with all that rain coming down.’

‘All right.’ He took the device from her and pointed it spring down toward the floor, glancing around at all the fragile-looking things in the room. ‘Mum would never let us do this.’

‘Guess we’d better not tell her about it, then,’ said Grandma X with a wink. ‘Go on. Let’s see who can bounce the highest.’

That was all the encouragement the twins needed. Jaide took the pogo stick from her brother and immediately mastered it. She laughed and felt as light as a feather, bouncing around the room. Vases danced and books swayed on their shelves, but she bounced with total control and only reluctantly handed it back to let Jack have a go.

Jack lacked his sister’s easy grasp of the art of pogoing, and distantly, distractedly, he was sure this wasn’t the first time that day he had missed out on something fun, although he couldn’t quite remember what else there had been. He watched himself in the mirror above the mantelpiece in the drawing room trying to do everything Jaide had done, exactly as she had done it. The daylight from the window, although greyer than it normally would have been, cast a dazzling silver halo around him, and he bounced to his right in order to see himself better. But the moment he was away from the window it seemed that he faded into the heavy folds of the curtain and his reflection disappeared from the mirror entirely.

Suddenly disoriented by his lack of reflection, Jack mistimed his next bounce, careened into the desk, ricocheted off it, and fell over, smacking his temple on the cushioned front of a chair as he went down.

For an instant, the world went black. He hadn’t knocked himself out. He hadn’t even hurt himself very badly, apart from feeling as though all the air had been sucked out of him. But somehow all the light around him vanished, and he was falling through an empty void. Empty, that was, apart from distant white points that looked at first like stars, but soon revealed themselves as eyes, rushing rapidly closer —

‘Jack!’ Jaide was crying out as she knelt down next to the fallen pogo stick. ‘Jack! Where are you . . . oh!’

‘I’m here,’ answered Jack crossly. ‘Where else would I be?’

Jaide shook her head in bewilderment. She was sure that Jack hadn’t been there, that he’d disappeared as he hit the floor, vanishing into the shadow of a chair. The fear that he somehow might have gone for good slowly ebbed, but the memory of that sharp stab of fear remained. He was her
brother
. Sure, he annoyed her sometimes – but what would she do without him?

A sudden gust of wind made the window rattle like a drum, and both twins twisted around, startled by the noise.

‘I think that’s enough bouncing for now,’ said Grandma X, helping Jack up.

‘Are you sure you’re all right, Jack?’ asked Jaide.

Jack glanced at the mirror and saw himself, perfectly visible again, as he should have been. But he was distracted by a sound from outside, something rising above the sounds of the rain and wind.

‘What’s that noise?’ he asked. ‘Is that someone shouting?’

Jaide squinted through the rainswept glass and gasped. There was a man being blown like a leaf up the drive, his feet never quite touching the ground, his mouth open and bellowing.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Grandma X. ‘That isn’t right.’

T
HE TWINS FOLLOWED GRANDMA
X as she rushed to the front door, threw it open, and ran outside. The wind howled and roared almost loudly enough to drown out the shouts of the man who was caught in its grip. He was in his fifties, heavily moustachioed. He wore jeans and cowboy boots very similar to Grandma X’s, and was waving an umbrella around and around his head.

He spun and tumbled toward them, somehow managing to always get back upright despite the intensity of the wind around him. It swept him right up to the front door, spun him around in a tight circle, and dumped him in the gravel by the steps. He landed on his bottom with his legs in the air, but he was still waving his umbrella.

‘Yee-ha!’ yelled the man, and only then did the twins realise that his shouts were of excitement, not fear.

The small tornado rushed back toward him, whipping up a cloud of wet gravel as it came. But before it could get hold of the man again, Grandma X stepped out and raised an admonishing finger.

‘Stop this at once!’ she commanded.

The hair on the backs of both the twins’ necks stood up at the whipcrack of her voice, and they felt a strong compulsion to stay completely still.

The wind must have felt it, too, for the tornado fell apart. The gravel dropped straight down, and the air was suddenly quiet and still, apart from the rain, which continued to fall in a steady stream.

The man picked up a handful of stones and threw them over his head like confetti.

‘That was great!’ he cried. ‘Just delightful!’

‘Are you okay?’ Jack asked, hesitating only slightly before rushing forward to help him up, with Jaide a step behind him.

‘Better than all right, young fellow, young lady – why, thank you. I feel quite enthused, as a matter of fact. That doesn’t happen every day.’

‘It shouldn’t happen at all,’ said Grandma X in a warning tone, coming up beside the twins with her arms folded. ‘How did it start?’

‘Well, I’d just ducked out of the shop to see where Kleo had got to when the wind snatched me up. I’ve never felt anything quite like it. A most amazing ride!’

‘Weren’t you frightened?’ asked Jaide, gazing up at his ruddy, beaming face.

‘Not at all. Why would I be?’

Because it isn’t normal
, she wanted to say, but the words died on her lips. Very little about Grandma X, her home, and now her friends struck Jaide as remotely normal. That they seemed to like it that way only made them weirder.

The man thrust out his hand to her.

‘David Smeaton’s the name, but you can call me Rodeo Dave.’

He shook hands with both of the twins as they introduced themselves in turn. His hand was calloused and very strong, and his good mood infectious. Jack, who was normally reticent around strangers, found himself laughing at a slightly off-colour joke about wind.

‘You’re obviously all right, then, David,’ said Grandma X, not quite smiling. ‘Kleo is here, so the wind brought you to exactly the right place. Shall I call her?’

‘She’ll come home when she wants to, I expect. I’m just glad she’s found a safe port in all this weather, and some new friends to play with, to boot. Better get inside before you’re soaked right through,’ he added, his moustache dripping. ‘Come and visit any time you want, young Jack and Jaide. Adieu!’

With that and a brisk wave over his head, Rodeo Dave walked back along the drive to Watchward Lane. A steady chuckle was audible in his wake.

Despite her earlier misgivings, Jaide found herself wishing that she had been caught up in the wind, too. It did look like fun, and a lot easier than walking everywhere.

That reminded her of something from the night before – something about flying . . . or something
like
flying – which in turn reminded her that there was something else she had been trying to remember, something important . . .

‘Why is he called Rodeo Dave?’ asked Jack. ‘I thought you said Kleo’s owner ran a bookshop.’

‘I did. He does. But he didn’t always run a bookshop.’

‘Was he a cowboy before that?’ asked Jack, his imagination full of wild horses and lassoes.

‘I’ll let him tell the story when he’s ready,’ she said. ‘Now, I must confess I am curious to visit your school. I don’t believe I have been inside since your father was a student there.’

Grandma X turned to Kleo, who was peering warily out from the drawing room. ‘As for you,’ she said, ‘make yourself useful and catch me a mouse.’

The schoolteacher, Mr Carver, was a towering beanpole of a man, with a kindly smile and just a fringe of hair around his otherwise bald head. He smelled faintly of incense, wore his linen shirt untucked, and had plastic sandals on his feet.

‘Call me Heath,’ he told the twins, shaking each of their hands enthusiastically in turn. ‘I’m sure we’re going to be marvellous friends.’

‘Uh, thanks,’ said Jack. At the twins’ old school, the teachers wore suits and ties and were called ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ – the concept of teachers and students being friends would have been met with more than surprise on both sides. Jaide was struck dumb by the man’s overbearing good nature. She simply didn’t know what to say to this kind of adult.

Grandma X had done her hair up in a tight grey bun before leaving the house, and it had made her look quite severe – even before she saw the changes at the school, like the cushions on the floor instead of desks, and a motto on the blackboard in rainbow chalk that read
Harmony, Sharing, Discovery
.

‘My daughter-in-law would like to know what materials Jackaran and Jaidith will need for their first day, Mr Carver,’ said Grandma X.

‘Oh, do please call me Heath!’ exclaimed the schoolteacher. ‘And, of course, Mrs Shield, if you —’

‘I’m not Mrs Shield,’ said Grandma X.

‘Oh, I do apologise, I presumed . . . your son being one of our past top pupils, his name on the old honour board . . .’

‘My name is —’ said Grandma X, but whatever word she said was simply incomprehensible to the children’s minds, and obviously to Mr Carver’s, too, because he goggled at her for a moment before resuming what seemed to be his trademark half smile.

‘Indeed, Mrs Xantho . . . er . . . Xeno . . . Xerxes . . . that is . . . ma’am . . . regarding materials, there’s no need to worry about anything like that. Here at the Stormhaven Innovative School of Portland, we help students through the educative process by encouraging them to study at their own pace, in their own special way.’

‘What exactly does that mean?’ asked Grandma X. Her lips had become surprisingly thin and her eyes had narrowed.

‘That we don’t treat our children like battery hens,’ explained Mr Carver. He clasped his hands together and leaned down to look directly into the twins’ faces. ‘Bring as much or as little as you want, Jack and Jaide, and we’ll make of you what you will.’

The jelly baby that Jaide had been chewing dissolved in her mouth, forgotten. ‘We don’t have to bring any books?’

‘Not unless you want to.’ Mr Carver beamed as though he’d won a debate with Albert Einstein. ‘Would you like a run around the playground while you’re here?’

‘Good idea,’ said Grandma X, surprising the twins. ‘Run along now while I talk to Mr Carver.’

The twins bolted through the classroom and out the school’s back door. For such a small school, it had a very large oval with some play equipment tacked onto one side, almost as an afterthought. Presumably the playing field was shared with the town for sporting events and fairs. Jack raced Jaide right around the oval, winning by a comfortable margin despite the sludginess of the grassy ground beneath their feet. The rain was holding off for the moment, although the clouds, if anything, had thickened.

‘Stop!’ called a woman’s voice as Jaide rushed up the ladder of a slippery dip and prepared to whoosh down the other side. ‘Hold it right there!’

Jaide froze, poised between standing and sliding with both feet out in front of her. The voice had come from inside a wooden fort. A tall woman in overalls crawled out of the fort’s child-size gate and pointed emphatically with a wrench.

‘It’s broken! Get down or you’ll hurt yourself!’

Jaide’s face flushed, partly from embarrassment at being yelled at by a stranger and partly out of annoyance. She could see nothing remotely wrong with the slippery dip.

‘How do you know?’ she asked.

‘Because I’m here to fix it,’ said the woman. She stood up and indicated the base of the slippery dip, where Jack was standing. ‘I was going to work on the slide next.’

‘She’s right, Jaide,’ said Jack, pointing. The slippery dip’s legs had rusted right through and would have collapsed under Jaide’s weight. From where he was standing he could see it clearly. ‘You’re lucky she saw you in time.’

Slightly mollified, Jaide retracted her legs and climbed back down the ladder. The woman came around to meet her, her expression less severe now that she saw Jaide was safe. She reminded Jaide of her mother whenever one of the twins had a close call, going from terror to telling-off to apologies in a matter of seconds.

‘Sorry I gave you a fright,’ the woman said, slipping the wrench into a pocket and wiping her greasy hands on her overalls. ‘You’re all right?’

‘Yes,’ said Jaide, coming around the slippery dip to find solidarity next to her brother. ‘Thanks.’

‘Oh, no bother.’ The woman waved cheerfully, although there was a sadness to her eyes that Jack couldn’t decipher. ‘I’ll have it shipshape by the time you come back tomorrow. Wouldn’t want to let the little ones down.’

She took a step closer, as though she wanted to keep talking, but the twins said thanks again and hurried back inside, made nervous by the presence of yet another stranger. There had been so many in the last twenty-four hours that they were beginning to feel overwhelmed.

Mr Carver and Grandma X were engaged in a lively discussion on the proper education of children.

‘The mind of a child is the most precious thing in the universe,’ Mr Carver was saying. ‘It’s our job to encourage them to grow!’

‘It’s a teacher’s job to make sure they grow
in the right way
. How does letting something run wild achieve that?’

They broke off on seeing the twins, Mr Carver with visible relief.

‘Ah, yes, here you are. Did you meet Rennie? She’s the town’s odd-job woman. If you ever need anything done up at your house, she’s the one to call.’

If Mr Carver was trying to make amends, he failed in the face of Grandma X’s determined disapproval.

‘My house looks after itself perfectly well,’ she said. ‘And rest assured that we will continue this conversation another time. For now, we’re going to take a walk through the park.’

‘Be at one with nature, yes, that’s a lovely idea, good. Well, it’s been nice meeting you both.’ Mr Carver shook the twins’ hands again, meeting their eyes meaningfully and sincerely. They both noticed the dampness of his palm. ‘I’ll look forward to getting to know you better tomorrow.’

‘Uh, sure,’ said Jack. Grandma X’s grip on his shoulder was tight as she led them out the front of the school’s sole building. From the direction of the sea came the smell of fish. They had passed the fishing co-op during the short trip from Watchward Lane, and a trawler was offloading a big catch of something.

‘I suppose the school is at least
convenient
,’ said Grandma X, screwing up her nose at yet another apparition of rainbow paint, this time along the fence, a mural of many children holding hands and smiling exaggerated smiles.