The Amazing Upside-Down Boy

 

 

I’m too full up with jittery excitement to go back home.

I go to the wood behind the houses, where the youth hostel is. It isn’t a proper forest, like the Forbidden Forest or the wood with the lamp-post in Narnia. It’s not the sort of wood you’d think a god would hide in. It’s full of dead wood and ivy and squelchy patches and nettles and you only have to walk for about ten minutes before you hit an edge.

But I can’t think of anywhere else he might be.

“Boy?” (Very quietly.) “Boy?”

And there he is.

He’s hanging upside down from a tree. He’s got some trousers from somewhere – brown, leafy, Peter-Pan-type trousers. Maybe he’s magicked them for himself. He’s wearing a wreath of ivy leaves, but it doesn’t look girly. It’s all mashed up in his hair, which is wilder than I remember; big, messy curls sticking out in all directions.

“This place is great!” he says.

He’s exactly the same size as me. I think his eyes are the same colour as before, but they’re different. My man’s eyes were gentle – this boy’s look more like Josh’s when he’s excited about something.

“Do you remember me?” I say.

The boy screws up his eyes.

“Of course I do,” he says. “You were there last night, weren’t you? You were hiding, but I saw you – that’s where I know you from.”

I bite my lip. I’m not at all sure this counts as remembering me.

“Where did you come from?”

“Somewhere,” he says. “Somewhere you’ve never been.”

“You were—” I hesitate, not sure how to put it politely. “Do you remember what happened? At Christmas?”

“Of course,” he says. But he looks uncertain. “Why are you asking all these questions?” he says. “Who are you, anyway?”

“I’m Molly. Molly Brooke.”

He still looks puzzled.

“You look like one of the house-people, but you aren’t a house-person, are you?”

“I am,” I say. “But I’m your friend too.”

“Everyone’s my friend.” He laughs at me, upside down. “Look—” He holds out his hand and a green shoot curls out from between his fingers and twists around his hand and up his arm. “Can you do that, Molly Brooke person?” he says.

“No,” I say. “No, I can’t.” I chew on my lip. “You do know not everyone’s your friend, don’t you?” I say. “You do remember about the Holly King?”

“Of course,” he says airily. He flings himself forward off the branch and lands on his hands. “Look!” he says, upside down, balanced on his hands. “Can you do this?”

“Yes,” I say, “I can, actually. But you have to remember about the Holly King. He tried to kill you! And he’s still after you! You have to be careful—”

“Be careful, be careful,” says the boy. “Who’s afraid of the Holly King? I’ve got work to do!”

He walks towards me on his hands, then drops his feet back down to the earth. He crouches in the grass, touching it with his fingertips. Little green sprouts push their way up through the earth. Flowers appear; snowdrops, frail and white.

“Can you do that?” he says.

I don’t answer. I’m looking at his trousers. They’re made of brown planty shoot, all woven together. You can see his legs through them. They’re smooth and brown and strong, but slashed across them are the marks of old scars, deep and white.

The sort of scars you’d get from the bite of a dog.

Or a wolf.

 

I run down the last bit of lane home. There are green shoots under the hedges where daffodils are going to come soon, and a cold blue sky above me. When I burst into the kitchen, Dad’s there. He’s started coming round unexpectedly since Christmas. He’s drinking tea and playing thumb wars with Hannah.

“One, two, three, four, I declare thumb war. Thumb war!”

Thumb wars are a Dad thing – me and Mum are rubbish at them. Hannah’s very good. She kneels up on her chair, twisting Dad’s arm all the way up and round. I’m not sure if she’s really that strong, or if Dad’s letting her win.

“Hey, hey, love, be careful,” he says. He looks up and sees me. “Hey, Moll! Where’ve you been?”

“Up in the woods,” I say. “I saw—” I stop.

“Who’d you see?” says Hannah. Her face is red, strands of hair sticking to her forehead. “Josh?”

I hesitate. Dad’s smiling. He’s come all the way from Newcastle to see us.

“No one,” I say. I sit down on the other side of Dad. “Just trees and stuff. Can I have a go?”

“Let’s pick something we can all play,” says Dad. “Cards, maybe?”