Alice Parker's Metamorphosis (Book 1 of the new adventure series for children)

Alice Parker’s

Metamorphosis

Nicola Palmer

Alice Parker’s Metamorphosis

2
^nd
Edition published March 2012

First published December 2011

Copyright © Text Nicola Palmer, 2011

Copyright © Cover Nicola Palmer, 2012

Cover art by creativebakery.eu

The right of Nicola Palmer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.

For Alice, James and Lily

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Chapter 1

A Secret Kidnapping

Alice Parker suddenly looked up from her homework. She leaped to her feet and peered out of the window in front of her desk, searching in the fading light of a December afternoon for what had caught her attention.

Nothing to be seen.

Again.

She sank down on to her chair with a frown and began to wonder if she was going mad. On several occasions recently, she thought she had seen someone passing by her window, which is ridiculous in itself, considering her bedroom is upstairs. But what made these experiences really peculiar was the fact that, when Alice looked carefully, there was no trace of movement in the garden, not even a bird flying past.

As if to check that she was normal, she glanced cautiously in the mirror on her wardrobe. Still wearing her school uniform, she had undone her burgundy and black striped tie and the top button of her shirt. Her woolly, grey tights had an unfortunate hole in the left knee. Long, unruly, blonde hair was at least in some sort of ponytail. Her face seemed the same as usual too, though the dark rings under her eyes were becoming quite prominent for a girl of thirteen. Perhaps it was lack of sleep making her mind play tricks on her. She did feel tired after all.

Nevertheless she decided to go out into the garden just to make sure. She opened her bedroom door and tripped over something very large, landing sprawled out with the stinging sensation of carpet burn on her hands. Groaning with annoyance, Alice picked herself up and saw the dog lying across her doorway.

‘
Stupid dog!’ she grumbled. ‘Why are you waiting here?’

Jack, an Irish Wolfhound the size of a small pony, wagged his tail and grinned.

‘
Come on, you silly old thing,’ said Alice, irritated by his apparent amusement. ‘We’re going outside.’

‘
What’s wrong with you now?’ snapped Alice. ‘Let me out, at least.’ She pushed past him and wandered onto the patio. Just as she expected. The air was perfectly still, the branches of the trees motionless. There seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary in this sparse winter garden. Although, in this mysterious half-light, she felt a little uneasy as her grandad’s words echoed in her mind. A few weeks ago, she had overheard a disturbing telephone conversation at his house.

‘
It’s a dreadful dilemma,’ she had heard him say in a low voice. ‘I can’t stop thinking about the poor fellow. Kidnapped in broad daylight, right under our noses.’

He hadn’t mentioned it since and there had been nothing on the news about a missing person.

A rustling sound in some bushes made her jump. It turned out to be a squirrel digging frantically in leaves. ‘Are you looking for something as well?’ asked Alice, relieved.

The squirrel stopped momentarily to stare at her with its beady eyes, then carried on with its work. Alice could see her breath in the frosty air. Shivering, she turned to go back inside. But Jack had finally ventured out and was sniffing and licking the ground beneath the kitchen window. Crouching down beside him, Alice glimpsed something disappearing into his mouth.

‘
Drop it!’ she shrieked, prizing his immense jaw open to retrieve it with her freezing fingers. It was a small piece of purple fabric, now glistening with slobber. Hardly worth getting excited about, but she put it in her pocket anyway. Disappointed, Alice trudged back up to her bedroom followed by the dog.

It would be pointless asking the creature in the next room if he had seen anything from his window – the curtains were nearly always closed. Festering in his fusty lair, this nocturnal beast rarely emerged in the daytime, unless motivated by hunger or needing a lift back to university when the holidays were coming to an end. Alice suspected that all students of biochemistry were strange and her half-brother, Thomas, was no exception. She was rather envious of him since, although he was odd in every way, from his shoulder-length, curly hair, to the unusual smells that emanated from his room, he was popular. Oxford University suited him perfectly. Surrounded by other scientists who shared his weird interests, Thomas felt very much at home.

He and Alice had the same father. Mike Parker, a paramedic, was a tall man with thick, blonde hair and a kind face. He liked his food, and Alice sometimes wondered how he managed to run in an emergency, after eating the boxful of sandwiches he took to work. Thomas’s mother died from an illness when he was a toddler, leaving his father to bring him up with a lot of help from his parents. Three years later, Mike met Alice’s mum, Caroline, a local funeral director who had taken on her father’s business. Petite with frizzy blonde hair and an equally bubbly personality, this lady had quite an effect on Mike and they married the following year. Alice came along shortly afterwards, providing Thomas with a subject for his pranks and jokes as they grew up.

5 o’clock. Her parents would be home soon and Alice would have to help prepare dinner, which had become quite complicated lately. Her mother had been encouraging the whole family to eat healthily, by which she meant vegetarian, experimenting with recipes involving obscure vegetables. Alice and Thomas didn’t mind too much but their poor father was suffering from dreadful side effects in the evening and often slipped out of the room clutching his stomach. Alice found it hugely entertaining to see the expression on his face when he returned.

The doorbell rang and Jack responded with his usual werewolf howl, followed by frenzied barking. Since nothing stirred in Thomas’s room, Alice went to answer it. Looking out of the window on the landing, she saw Grandad Parker’s ancient burgundy Morris parked outside. When she opened the door, he was standing on the step smiling. He was wearing his long, green oilskin coat which matched the colour of his eyes perfectly. His mop of wavy silver hair was poking out in a comical fashion beneath his flat cap, and he had what appeared to be a porridge oat stuck to his beard.

‘
I won’t stop,’ he announced. ‘Your grandma asked me to drop these off for you.’ He opened a large biscuit tin and showed Alice the homemade flapjacks inside.

‘
Ooh, thanks,’ she said, taking the tin. ‘They smell good!’

‘
Well, she thought you could do with a treat.’

Alice didn’t ask why. She was already munching on a flapjack. ‘Oh, I’m glad you’re here,’ she began with her mouth full.

‘
Is everything alright?’ he asked, looking concerned.

‘
Yes, why wouldn’t it be? Anyway, about that kidnapping you mentioned...’

‘
SHHHHH!’ hissed Grandad, looking all around to make sure they were alone.

Alice shut her mouth, taken aback by his response.

‘
Listen, you weren’t meant to hear that conversation,’ he whispered. ‘So keep it to yourself. If the police get involved, the survival of that poor man as well as many others will be compromised. Understood?’

‘
Um...well, no. If it’s a secret, how come you know all about it?’

Perturbed by her questions, Grandad took a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid I can’t go into that now. It’s complicated.’

Alice was getting frustrated. ‘There must be
someone
who can help,’ she said.

‘
Ah,’ replied Grandad. ‘Someone with a deep-rooted understanding of the situation. Someone unique, who belongs to his social circle as well as that of the kidnapper. Someone with backbone, who is prepared to take risks.’

‘
Well?’

‘
That someone doesn’t exist.’

Alice sighed. She hated feeling helpless.

‘
I must dash,’ said Grandad, looking at his watch. ‘Don’t worry yourself about this, we’ll sort it soon enough.’ He kissed her on the cheek and hurried off down the path.

We? What did he mean,
we
? Alice stared after him. Her grandad had always been an unpredictable character, but she had no idea what he was involved in this time. She closed the door, shrugged her shoulders and helped herself to another flapjack.

*

It was Friday evening and Alice’s friend, Sarah, would be coming to stay the next day. Sarah Wiseman had what Alice considered a very normal life. In fact, if Sarah were not her best friend and a nice person, Alice would have found her irritating for being too perfect. Her family lived in a big house in the countryside and she had two sisters and two cats. They all got on wonderfully well - the three sisters often went clothes shopping together and, although aged thirteen, fifteen and eighteen, they all looked the same, with straight, shiny, chestnut hair and a pale, freckled complexion. Thomas referred to them as the Three Wise Men. At school their uniforms were immaculate. Their father had bought them each a leather briefcase, personalised with gold lettering and he even polished their shoes. Sarah and Sophie had been photographed for the school prospectus, carrying their briefcases and smiling, with their socks pulled up. Their older sister, Susan, had just spent her first term at Oxford but Thomas said he hadn’t seen her there. He was in his second year anyway.

Alice had never thought she was clever enough to go there. She was reasonably intelligent but wasn’t one of those sickening people like Thomas, who could get brilliant marks without even trying. She had to make the effort. That is, until lately. Her marks had suddenly improved in all subjects. Dramatically. The strange part was that she hadn’t been spending more time on her work. Her tiredness
was
due to lack of sleep, but not because she was staying up late.

*

After dinner Alice watched some TV and then went up to bed around 9.30pm. Jack lay down quietly next to her bed and she read a book for a while to try and relax. It wasn’t long before she felt sleepy, since the book that Sarah had lent her was mind-numbingly boring. She had recommended it as ‘fun and romantic’ but Alice had already decided it was rubbish. Was this really what girls of her age enjoyed? She put it down and turned off her lamp.

First she lay on one side, then the other. She just couldn’t get comfortable. After a while she lay on her front with her arms folded under her pillow and opened one eye to glance at her alarm clock. It was four minutes past eleven. This is how it had been for the last few weeks, being unable to get to sleep even though she felt tired. It was as if her body were deliberately trying to annoy her, creating aches and pains when she lay in bed, although she felt fine during the day. Every night she developed a mild headache with a sensation of pins and needles in her back and shoulders. Her father had suggested that she should improve her posture when sitting at her desk at school. Thomas had predicted that she was about to have an outbreak of spots on her back.