Raggy Maggie (7 page)

I
could hear screaming as I threw myself into the spinning tangle of rope, head down, arms pulled into my chest. The screams bounced around in the corridor, girly and annoyingly high-pitched.

It took me a few seconds to realise they were coming from me.

I was in the middle of the blur now, frantically jumping over and over as the length of cord
clacked
off the linoleum beneath me. My feet were dancing and my eyes were streaming and all around me was the
whum-whum-whum
of the rope.

Blinking didn’t help. I was too close for the trick to work. Too close to freeze-frame the spinning streak of speed that guillotined the air above and below me.

My legs were tiring already. Any second now I’d misjudge a leap. Even the slightest mistake would cost me a foot, if not my life. I had to move.

Clack.
I hopped over the rope and began to count.

Clack.
A second. That was all I had. One sec—

Clack.
I braced myself. This time.

Clack.
I ducked sharply as I touched down on the floor, and fell, twisting my body to the right.

The edge of the rope brushed the back of my leg as I tumbled sideways, beyond its reach. I felt the ripple it made in the air even through my trousers.

‘I did it!’ I cried, springing upright next to Ameena. It was a huge relief, and I bounced up and down excitedly for a few moments, punching the air with joy.

‘You did
one,’
she reminded me. ‘Five left.’

My bouncing slowed to a gradual, slightly embarrassed stop. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘It’s just, you know? I did the first one.’

‘Yay for you,’ she said, clicking her tongue against the back of her teeth. ‘Ready to go on?’

I glanced back at the clock and groaned. There were only ten minutes left until three o’clock. Ten minutes, five ropes and possibly another set of stairs to go. Even if Billy was right at the top of the steps, we’d be cutting it close.

‘We’re not going to make it,’ I announced. ‘There’s not enough time.’

Ameena followed my gaze to the clock, then looked at the ropes spinning all along the length of the corridor. The next one was less than three metres away.

‘Can’t you do something?’ she asked.

‘Like what?’

‘Blow them up or something, I don’t know. Use your super—’

‘Don’t say it,’ I snapped.

‘We both know what you can do, Kyle,’ Ameena said. The sentence stopped me in my tracks. I didn’t remember her ever using my name before. It sounded strange coming out of her mouth. ‘You turned a water pistol into a gun. You made
lightning.’

‘It was a thunderstorm,’ I protested weakly. ‘There was lightning anyway.’

‘Not like that,’ she replied, shaking her head. ‘You made it happen.
You.’

Stark images of Mr Mumbles leering at me from the darkness flashed before my eyes, and I felt my legs go weak. ‘Can we not talk about that?’ I murmured. ‘I can’t do anything. I told you, it’s the rules.’

‘Screw the rules!’

Whumwhumwhumwhum.
The ropes seemed to be spinning faster. The six sounds combined to form a low whine that was steadily increasing in pitch, like a car engine accelerating. It made a knot of pain form just above my eyes.

‘Caddie said something bad would happen if I used them.’

‘Something worse than this?’

I hesitated. ‘I…I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t want to use them unless there’s no other choice. Only if it’s, like, life or death.’

She thought for a moment, then gave a slight, barely noticeable nod of her head. ‘Life or death, eh?’ She glanced along the corridor to where the next rope was dicing the air. I saw her straighten up. I saw her fists clench.

I saw the next five seconds unfold before they’d even happened.

‘No!’ I cried, lunging, grabbing for her, my fingers finding only air. She was off and running, charging straight for the next rope. It accelerated further, as if somehow sensing her coming.

The
clacks
on the floor were just fractions of a second apart, and she was still running. The rope was going to
slice her to ribbons
and she was still running.

I couldn’t have stopped the sparks flashing through my brain if I’d tried. They rushed upwards from the base of my skull, flooding my senses, more powerful than I’d ever felt them before.

I threw up a hand, focusing all my concentration on the closest rope, willing it to slow down. It whipped on, faster and faster. Ameena was almost on it.
Whip. Whip. Whip.
Another few steps and—

‘STOP.’ The word rolled from my mouth all by itself. I felt a surge of electricity crackle through me, and then the corridor was plunged suddenly into silence.

The ropes disintegrated into a soggy white mush. They sprayed outwards as they spun, showering the floor, ceiling and walls in thick blobs of goo.

Ameena skidded to a stop, sliding on the suddenly slippery floor. She turned, and I could see that she hadn’t escaped the explosion of…
stuff,
either. Large dollops of it
stuck to her face and hair. Without a word she scooped some off her cheek, sniffed it, then touched it with her tongue.

‘It’s cream,’ she told me. ‘Whipped cream.’

I dipped a finger into a blob on the wall and gave it an experimental taste. She was right. It was cream.

‘This might sound ungrateful, what with you just saving my life,’ she frowned. ‘But
whipped cream?’

‘I…um…I don’t know,’ I shrugged, wiping the end of my finger clean on my jumper. ‘I was trying to make the ropes stop, but…’ I looked around at the mess. Even the teddy bears had been covered, although none of them were showing any reaction. ‘…I turned them to cream.’

She scooped a fat blob of white from her hair. ‘That’s just stupid.’

‘Not as stupid as running at them head first,’ I scolded. ‘You could have been killed.’

‘That was kind of the point,’ she smirked. ‘Life or death,
you said. I knew you wouldn’t let me die.’

‘And what if I couldn’t do anything?’ I demanded. ‘Did you think of that?’

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘Suppose I must have more faith in you than you do.’ She glanced around at the streaks of white. They had begun to drip down from the ceiling and walls. ‘Or I
did
have, anyway.’

I hurried past her along the corridor. ‘Well, don’t do anything like that again. I shouldn’t be using this…this…whatever it is. I’ve broken the rules now. Something bad could happen.’

Ameena was at my heels, hurrying to catch up. I didn’t look back, and instead kept my eyes locked on the stairs up ahead, trying to make it obvious how annoyed I was.

‘But it hasn’t, though,’ she chirped. ‘You used your magic mojo and nothing bad has happened.’

Something cut me off before I could reply.

Something bad.

A thunderous
boom
ripped through the school, shaking the building beneath us. The floor shuddered and lurched. I staggered, fighting to keep my balance, but a sudden onrushing wind smashed into me like an invisible battering ram, sending me sprawling backwards through the air.

With a grunt, I landed on my back between two of the teddy bears. They wailed and screeched, clawing furiously at the nails in their bellies, desperate to be free. From the way they moved I could tell it wasn’t anger driving their frenzy, though.

It was fear.

Ameena was on the floor just in front of me. Her face was dirty and grey. She was screaming something, but my ears were still ringing from the blast and I couldn’t make out a word.

And then she was on me, pushing me to the ground, shielding me. For a split second before she blocked my view I saw a billowing grey shape rushing up fast behind her.

Her hands felt warm on my face. She covered my eyes and blocked my mouth, protecting me from the cloud of choking grey dust that swept swiftly along the corridor.

When it found us, the swirling dust was hot and dry and rough as sandpaper. It lashed against me, stinging my skin as it howled over us, rushing to consume anything that stood in its way.

In a few seconds it had passed. Ameena lifted her hands away and I forced open my eyes. For a moment I thought an old woman was lying on top of me, until I realised it was the dust that had turned Ameena’s hair grey.

‘Um…thanks,’ I said. My voice sounded faint and distant – drowned out by the tinny echo in my ears.

She nodded, but didn’t speak. Her usual grin was gone from her face, and I could feel her whole body trembling.

We blinked wildly again as we stood up, this time in an attempt to keep the dust from our eyes. It hung in the air like a thick fog. It covered the floor and windowsills like dirty
snow. Wherever I looked there was nothing but grey.

‘Does that count as bad?’ I coughed, swallowing the dryness at the back of my throat.

Ameena didn’t seem to be listening. She was wringing her hands together, more frightened than I’d ever seen her before. ‘She could have killed me,’ she muttered, her voice a shocked whisper. ‘That little psycho could have killed me.’

‘Both of us,’ I pointed out.

‘What?’ Ameena shook her head, as if clearing dust from her brain. I saw something flash across her face, as if she was remembering something she’d forgotten to do. ‘Oh, yeah, that’s what I meant.’ She looked in the direction the cloud had come from, but the air was still too thick to see much. ‘A bomb, you think?’

‘I’m not…maybe,’ was the only answer I could give. We made our way through the fog, still blinking away tiny particles of plaster and stone.

It was a good job the caretaker wasn’t there to see the mess. He went mental if a window got broken, so there was no saying how he’d react to the English corridor being blown to bits. Probably not well.

‘We need to move,’ I said, painfully aware that Billy had virtually no time left. ‘Can you see another arrow anywhere?’

‘I can hardly see
you.’

She had a point. The dust was so bad I was forced to feel my way along the wall. Lumps of stone and twisted fragments of metal were littering the floor. I kicked through the smaller chunks of debris, picked my way over the larger bits. All the while a steady
tick-tick-tick
in my head kept reminding me that if we didn’t hurry, Billy would be putting the
dead
into
deadline.

If he hadn’t already.

My fingers brushed through a patch of wet on the wall. I took my hand away and found my fingertips stained with
a thick red paste that crumbled and broke apart at my touch. It had a vaguely familiar coppery scent to it, as I held it to my nose and sniffed.

Ameena bumped into my back, jolting my hand into my face. The red sludge smeared across the bottom of my nose and on to my top lip. I tried spitting it out, but the dust had made my mouth dry.

‘Sorry,’ Ameena winced, realising what she’d done. ‘What is that, anyway?’

Still spitting, I put my fingers back to the wall. The paste was smeared in a long, thin line. It went diagonally up at a forty-five degree angle. I couldn’t reach the top, but I didn’t have to. I knew what I’d find there. Two more lines sticking out from this one, forming the head of an arrow.

I looked at the wound on the back of my hand. The little red zigzags had turned into the same thick gunge.

‘It’s blood,’ I said. ‘It’s blood mixed with dust.’

‘Another arrow?’

‘Pointing up,’ I frowned. ‘But I don’t understand why it’s here. The stairs don’t start for another six or seven metres.’

I stepped away, wiping the crud off my face with the back of my sleeve. There was no time to worry about that now. We had to keep moving; had to reach Billy before it was too late.

I took a pace forward. Suddenly, a cool rush of air hit me from below. It fluttered up my trouser leg and I realised too late that there was no floor beneath me.

I had just stepped off into empty space.

I
yanked my leg back. My arms flailed and flapped like some demented bird, but it wasn’t enough. I was falling.

The fog of dust was thinner down below, and as I toppled forward I could see all the way to the ground floor. How long would it take me to hit it? Three seconds? Five? Would I feel my bones break as I landed, or would I be dead before then? I’d find out soon enough.

Ameena casually caught me by the back of the jumper, steadying me. As the panic subsided, I realised I’d barely moved at all. I was standing at the edge of the drop,
leaning over it only slightly. One step backwards and I’d have been safe. I took three steps, just to be sure.

‘The stairs,’ I gasped. ‘She’s demolished the stairs.’

‘Looks like it,’ Ameena nodded. She shook her head, almost smiling. ‘Give her credit – for a five-year-old she’s pretty resourceful.’

‘She’s also crazy,’ I reminded her. ‘And if we don’t get to the next floor soon then Billy’s going to find out just
how
crazy she is.’

The dust was slowly settling now, and I could see Ameena more clearly. She was coated from head to toe in the same powdery greyish-white as I was. Her dark eyes stood out, like two tiny lumps of coal on a snowman.

‘Well then, we’d better get going,’ she suggested.

‘How? She blew up the stairs.’

‘We climb.’

‘Climb?’ I gasped. ‘What, up the walls?’

Ameena stepped closer to the edge. ‘If you want,’ she
shrugged. ‘But I’ll take the ladder.’

My eyes followed her as she reached into the fog and caught hold of a rope ladder that dangled down from somewhere out of sight above us.

‘It’s a trap,’ I said suspiciously. ‘It’s got to be.’

‘Course it is,’ Ameena nodded. ‘But unless you can magic us up a jetpack or something, I don’t see any other way up.’

She stood there, one foot on the ladder, waiting for me to respond. When I didn’t she began to climb.

‘Come on,’ she barked. ‘It doesn’t look far.’

Hesitantly, I took hold of one of the rungs. I tried to put my foot on to another, but the whole ladder swung away from me and I pulled back.

‘I’m nearly there, come on,’ Ameena called out. I craned my neck and peered through the settling dust. Sure enough, she was only eight or nine rungs away from the next floor.

I swung a leg out again, this time hooking it behind the
ladder so my heel rested on the rung. The rope didn’t swing, and I managed to get my other foot up on to the next rung. I clung on, eyes fixed straight ahead, not daring to look down.

Somewhere above me was Caddie. Below me was a three-storey plummet to a messy death. I didn’t know which one was worse.

Slowly, keeping my eyes locked dead ahead at all times, I lifted my lower foot from the ladder and moved it to the next rung. The ropes wobbled, and I held on so tight my knuckles turned white.

‘Doesn’t this seem weird?’ I shouted, my voice shaking as badly as the ropes.

‘Escaping flesh-eating teddy bears by climbing a rope ladder up to a five-year-old psychopath who doesn’t really exist?’ Ameena said. ‘I don’t know, is that weird, you think?’

‘I mean…’ I wasn’t sure what I meant. Since escaping
the shadows, though, I’d had a nagging suspicion that Caddie somehow knew everything I was going to do. Like all this was part of her plan, and I was playing right into her hands. ‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘You there yet?’

‘Just about. Just a few more—’ A panicked gasp cut her short. ‘NO!’ she screamed. ‘No, don’t! DON’T!’

I heard a childish giggle, and then in an instant I was falling. Dropping. Plunging towards the ground. The rungs of the ladder were still in my hands, but the ladder itself was plummeting with me.

I felt my heart speed up and my breath go short. She cut the ropes.
She cut the ropes.

A buzz of electricity sliced across my scalp, but I was panicking too much to focus and it quickly slipped away. The ropes.
She cut the damn ropes.

As I drew level with the first floor, the ladder suddenly went tight. The sharp stop made my feet slip from the rungs, sending my legs kicking frantically into thin air.

Something in my left shoulder went
pop
and exploded in pain. The arm went dead, and I could only watch as it slipped from the rung and dangled limply by my side, leaving me holding on with just one hand.

Above me I heard Ameena cry out in shock, and fight to hold on. Above
her
I heard that soft, high-pitched snigger again.

‘You OK?’ Ameena’s voice was an urgent squeak. The dust was thin in the air, and I could see her without any problems. She was eleven or twelve rungs above me, hands and feet all still holding on. I’d managed to work my feet back into position, but my hand was sweating and becoming worryingly slippery.

‘My shoulder,’ I winced. ‘I think I dislocated it.’

‘Can you climb?’

I tried to lift my arm, but the pain was too much. I shook my head, defeated. ‘No way.’

There was a pause, and then the ladder began to shake
gently, as Ameena climbed back down.

Just before she reached me, she curled a leg round and switched to the opposite side of the ladder. I was amazed at how easily she could move around on the rungs. It was like she’d done this a thousand times before.

She clambered down a few more steps until our feet shared the same rung. With all the weight now near the bottom, the ladder began swinging back and forth like an enormous, slow-moving pendulum.

‘I need you to hold on to me,’ she instructed.

I hesitated, and felt my cheeks go red. Luckily the thick layer of grime on my face covered up my embarrassment. ‘Um…what?’

She put one arm round me and grabbed me by the back of the jumper, pulling me in against the ladder. ‘Like that,’ she said. ‘Tight.’

Her grip held me up as I cautiously let go of the ladder. When I was sure I wasn’t about to fall, I reached round
behind her and caught hold of the back of her jacket. There wasn’t a lot of material to grab on to, but I found a strap and buckle and wrapped my fingers around that.

‘You got me?’ she asked. When I nodded she said, ‘Good.’

My arm took her weight as she let go of me. For one terrifying moment I thought I would fall, until I realised her weight was holding me up, just as I was holding her.

The tip of her tongue poked out in concentration as she rested her left hand on my left shoulder. Her right hand took hold of my upper arm. She held it firmly, and I had to bite my own tongue to stop myself whimpering in pain.

She peered at me through the curtain of her straggly hair. Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes were not.

‘Whatever you do,’ she said, ‘don’t let go.’

‘I won’t,’ I promised. ‘Why would I let go?’

The pain stole my words away. It tore through my shoulder and across my back. A howl burst from my lips
and tears sprang to my eyes. The fire burned along my arm and the world whirled and spun until my head went light. I was going to be sick.

‘Don’t let go
!’ The urgency in Ameena’s voice cut through the pain. I hadn’t noticed my grip slipping on her back, but I tightened it just in time to stop us falling in opposite directions.

I tried to speak, but the words came out as a blubbering mess of sobs. ‘What…what…did you do?’

‘Shoulder’s not dislocated any more,’ she said, so matter-of-factly I almost wanted to punch her. She took her hands away from me and caught hold of the ladder again. ‘How does it feel?’

‘How do you think it feels?’ I snapped. ‘Bloody sore.’

Her whole face grinned at me. ‘Yeah, but not
as
sore, I bet.’

I moved the arm around slowly, testing it out. The initial burst of pain had faded, and I was now left with just a dull,
throbbing ache. ‘It still hurts,’ I grunted, not wanting to admit she was right.

‘So
now
can you climb?’

I looked up. I could see the top of the ladder, but it was a long way away.

‘Ladies first,’ I nodded.

‘OK,’ Ameena said, still smiling. ‘Off you go then.’

‘Hilarious,’ I sneered. Arm aching, I reached to the next rung and began to climb up the shaky rope ladder.

Having Ameena beneath me made climbing easier. Her weight stopped the ladder swinging, and despite my sore shoulder we were halfway to the top in no time.

At every step I expected the ladder to fall again, but even by the three-quarter point it hadn’t moved. Despite that, I couldn’t work up the nerve to look down at the floor, so dizzyingly far away.

‘You know what I don’t understand?’ Ameena didn’t even sound out of breath.

‘What?’

‘Why change the theme?’

I let the sentence roll around inside my head for a few moments, to see if it would start to make some kind of sense. It didn’t.

‘Change what theme?’

‘Well, think about it,’ she said. ‘We had evil shadow puppets, right?’

‘Don’t remind me.’ Both my arms were aching now, but I pushed on. Fourteen rungs to go.

‘OK. So then it was teddy bears and skipping ropes.’

‘And an explosion,’ I added.

‘Forget the explosion for now,’ she said.

‘It’s not an easy thing to forget.’ Thirteen rungs.

‘Shut up and listen. Shadow puppets. Teddy bears. Skipping ropes. It’s all kiddie stuff. It’s all for little kids.’

‘She
is
a little kid,’ I pointed out.

‘Exactly.’

I dragged myself up another rung. Twelve left. It was taking all my strength to hang on. I didn’t have the energy for this conversation.

‘What’s your point?’ I asked.

‘So why a ladder? Why not a trampoline or…like…a giant catapult or something?’

‘Because that would be stupid.’ Eleven.

‘OK, fine, but why blow up the stairs if it didn’t fit in with the other stuff?’

‘Not sure,’ I spat. ‘Maybe because she’s a psycho?’

‘No doubt,’ Ameena agreed. ‘But she’s a psycho with a
theme.
Toys and games. There’s no such game as
Ladder.’

My hand found the next hold. Ten to go.

‘Not that I know of,’ I admitted. ‘But so what?’

‘I dunno,’ Ameena sighed. ‘Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe I’m wrong. It’s just…
Oh my God!’

‘What?’ I cried, startled by her panicked tone. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s a snake. A giant snake. Move, move,
move
!’

A sharp
hiss
rose up from somewhere below me.
Snakes and ladders.
Of course. I should have guessed.

Terror lent my limbs an unexpected burst of energy, and I virtually leapt the next few rungs.

‘It’s coming,’ Ameena wailed. ‘Faster, move faster.’

Four rungs left. Another hiss. Something brushed against the back of my leg, and I let out an involuntary cry of fright.

‘Move, Kyle, it’s right behind you!’

Muscles burning, I caught hold of the broken edge of the third floor and flung myself up. I rolled clumsily, and jumped upright, eyes fixed on the spot where the floor fell away, ready to face whatever rose above it.

It was Ameena’s head that appeared. Tears cut through the grey dust on her cheeks. She was shaking as she pulled herself up.

Shaking with laughter.

‘Man, you fall for that every time,’ she gasped, lying on
her back on the floor, barely able to get breath through her giggles. ‘You should see your face.’

‘You idiot! I nearly had a heart attack,’ I snapped, but that only made her worse.

It wasn’t until a few seconds later, when she stood up, that she stopped laughing. She stared past me, eyes wide, pretending to be shocked by something at my back.

‘Behind you. Turn round,’ she said. Her voice was a stark whisper. It was an Oscar-worthy performance, but I wasn’t buying it.

‘I’m not falling for that again,’ I said, crossing my arms across my chest.

She swallowed. ‘I’m not kidding this time. Promise.’

‘You’re not fooling me again,’ I sniffed. ‘
But
I’m going to turn round anyway, because we need to go. We’re almost out of time. That’s why I’m turning round, not because of your stupid trick.’ Feeling pleased with myself, I turned away from her.

Caddie stood blocking the entrance to the corridor. Her hands were on her hips and her bottom lip stuck out.

‘You’re late,’ she sulked, stamping her foot down. The flat heel of her shoe barely made a sound against the dusty floor.

The doll was still in her dress pocket. Still staring at me. For a moment I could have sworn a smile played at the corners of its painted mouth. ‘And people who are late,’ seethed Caddie, ‘make Raggy Maggie
very
cross indeed.’