The next morning, I have the house to myself and spend it searching. Tilly’s at Milly’s house, Dad’s building things in the garage, Mum’s practising card tricks in the garden. I start with my own room. After I’ve searched the Woodland Friends, I try the soft toys, and finally the sparkly palace. I find mouldy apple cores, and sweet wrappers, but no meteorite. Next, I try Mum and Dad’s room, but there really aren’t many places it can be. The sitting room’s no good, the dining room’s a dead loss.
‘What are you doing, Tom?’ asks Grandma, labelling her jam.
‘Looking for my meteorite. I don’t feel right without it.’
‘I understand,’ says Grandma. ‘It’ll turn up. Don’t you worry.’
I only hope she’s right.
‘I wonder if I have got a power, and just don’t know it yet?’ says Jacob, plunging his hand into a bag of sweets and grabbing a Rainbow Chew. The sweet dissolves on the ends of his fingers and drips back into the bag, running all over the Fizz Pop Bombs, which crackle as they melt. ‘I’ve tried shape-shifting, flying and – I’m not invisible, am I?’
Eric shakes his head.
‘Shame. I really thought I’d be able to fly. Rubbish sweets, these,’ says Jacob, reaching for another handful. ‘Do you want one?’
We’re on the edge of Fairies’ Bottom Woods, at the first girls’ and boys’ co-educational Field Craft camp-out.
Co-educational is Mr Worthy’s word.
‘Perhaps you haven’t got any magic,’ I say, glancing at Eric. We’ve decided that it would be safer for everyone if Jacob didn’t know he had a power, although I suppose he’s bound to find out in the end. I take something round and sticky from the sweets bag. I put it in my mouth. It’s warm and it tastes of … mint and melon?
‘Yuk – this sweet is disgusting,’ I say, spitting into my hand and shoving it into the grass. Eric sprinkles the ground around Jacob’s smouldering feet. Small puddles form and evaporate in the blink of an eye. I take another sweet from Jacob’s bag. This one seems to be full of chilli because I can only keep it in my mouth for a second before I have to run into the woods and spit it out. I’d swear it was bigger too, larger than when I took it from the bag.
‘What’s the matter with the sweets?’ I ask on my way back over the grass.
Jacob shrugs and Eric takes the bag to have a look inside. He raises one eyebrow. ‘They look fine,’ he says. ‘If a little gooey.’
I spit the last speck of chilli onto the grass. ‘Well, they’re not. If I was you, Jacob, I’d take them back.’
‘Good idea,’ says Jacob. ‘I’ll finish the bag, and take it to the sweet shop. Tell them they were rubbish. They’ll give me a lifetime supply of Dancing Mice, you know, the ones that feel like they’re running around on your tongue.’
‘Really?’ says Eric. ‘You’d do that?’
‘’Course,’ says Jacob. ‘Why not?’
‘It wouldn’t be morally wrong to take an empty bag back to a shop and demand replacements? You wouldn’t feel foolish?’
Jacob stares into space for a moment. ‘No. Why would I? Anyway – where are we going to pitch our tent?’
I’d suggested that I go early to Field Craft Camp so that I wasn’t at home. Tilly’s new hamster, Nightstorm, has had to go back to the animal rescue centre. It bites. Dad had to have five stitches. Tilly’s howling, Dad’s yelling and the house is not a happy place.
The hamster also ate the curtains, and Grandma went ballistic. So now Tilly claims she’s getting a crocodile. Mum said maybe a parrot. I don’t personally think she deserves anything. Not until she gives back my meteorite.
Eric had said he’d come with me and he persuaded Jacob on the grounds that leaving Jacob on his own was a recipe for catastrophe. As we were here early, we’ve had to help Mr Worthy set up the activities. Apparently we’re going to do: stargazing, finding medicines in leaves, capture the flag, going for a nature walk and kickboxing, and there will be face painting. Mrs Worthy is practically spinning with excitement and has made a tray of grey biscuits that might, or might not, be cheesy. Mr Worthy keeps saying ‘Yo’ and burbling about ‘gender equality’, whatever that is.
Eric sets up the telescope and fiddles with the tracking motor. He’s the only one that knows how to work it.
He’s also the only one that’s looking forward to the girls coming. Personally, I can’t think of anything less fun than spending an evening with Tilly and Milly and all their friends.
‘Hey, Snot Face! You’re looking the wrong way, and it’s daylight – dur,’ says Jacob, licking the hot sugar from his fingers.
Eric pinches his lips and keeps his eyes pressed against the eyepiece. He’s got the telescope trained on the castle. ‘Jacob, please be quiet. Tom,’ he says, ‘take a look at this.’