Shadow Breakers Read online

  “Um, I’ve come to see Jade,” I say nervously.

  “Oh, have you, now?” She folds her arms and looks me up and down. “Well, you seem like a nice girl. Maybe you’ll help her settle down a bit.” She ushers me in. “I’m Mrs. Armitage. Probably told you all sorts about me, hasn’t she?”

  I smile nervously, not wanting to say that Jade and I actually haven’t talked about this place at all, because I don’t officially know that she lives here.

  “Settle down?” I repeat as I step into the hall.

  Mrs. Armitage taps her nose. “Bit of a wild child, our Jade.”

  I grin. “Yeah, I know.”

  “She’s in the back somewhere, I think.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  I’m being normal today. Denim jacket, black jeans, sneakers. I’m just Miranda the Mundane, come to see my friend. Wow, but I have a headache coming on, though. Too little sleep again. And I thought I was feeling a bit better when I woke up.

  I go through the hallway, past a room where three boys are playing pool. One of them recognizes me from school and nods in a sort of half-polite, too-cool-for-you sort of way.

  “I’m, ah, looking for Jade?” I say, hands in my pockets, trying to be nonchalant.

  The boy nods again. “Out back,” he says, pointing toward the yard.

  “Thanks.”

  The trees are what give the Copper Beeches its name. There are at least ten of them, tall and purple-leafed, rising above the jungle of the garden. It’s a sunny, breezy day and the wind is rustling the leaves. There’s nobody else in sight. Frowning, I lean back against a tree that is gnarlier than the beeches. Not sure what it is, but it has low, spreading branches.

  “Oi!”

  I look around, startled. I can’t see anyone behind me. Who spoke?

  “Here, you idiot!”

  I look up. Jade is sitting on a sort of wooden platform — a bit too rickety to be called a tree house — in the lower branches.

  “How did you get up there?” I ask, and instantly realize what a stupid question that is.

  “I flew, babe,” says Jade sarcastically. “What do you think?” She narrows her eyes. “So, you found me, then.”

  “Um . . . yes. Sorry.”

  “Can’t keep a secret round here, can we? Oh, unless you’re Miss Miranda May, of course. She’s full of them.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me the truth about where you live?”

  She gives a hollow laugh. “Oh, yeah. Like I’m gonna do that straightaway.”

  “I’m not judging you. How shallow do you think I am?”

  “Sorry. It’s just . . .” She clears her throat. “My parents . . . well, they split up. Me dad went back to Italy and nobody can find him. And Mum . . . she drinks.”

  “Drinks?” I say, confused. “Presumably she eats as well?”

  Jade gives me the narrow-eyed treatment again. “Drinks alcohol, you idiot. As in, has a problem with it. As in, ain’t fit to look after her own kid. Okay?” She sighs. “Come up, so we can talk.”

  I look for handholds on the trunk, and find one or two knobbly bits that I think I can hold on to. “Right. Hang on.”

  I haul myself up surprisingly easily and sit beside her.

  “Sorry.” I feel myself going red. “I’m —”

  “A bit dim sometimes. I know.”

  “You told me your mum and dad worked from home. Running their own business, you said.”

  “Yeah, well, I lied, babe.” Jade looks shifty. “My mum couldn’t run a bath, let alone a business. I don’t . . . like to tell too many people, y’know?”

  “Okay. Yeah.”

  “I like it in this tree,” says Jade. “I can spend hours up here and nobody ever finds me. Good, innit?”

  I smile. “Everybody needs their own space.” I pause. “So what’s it like living here?”

  She shrugs. “Not bad. Old Armitage is a bit of a dragon, but she’s basically fair. What about you?”

  “I’m okay.” I smile weakly.

  She prods me. “You eating all right? You look like you could do with some pies in you. You’re not doing that stupid size-zero thing, are you?”

  I wrinkle my nose. “Don’t be daft. I just haven’t been well.”

  She nods, looking away. I can’t read her eyes.

  We sit for a few minutes in silence. It feels comfortable not talking. It’s almost like summer. We can hear gentle birdsong, and the faint sounds of the boys playing pool inside the house — the click of the balls, the occasional raised voice.

  “Your dad died, didn’t he?” she says softly.

  I’ve not told her this yet. I was waiting for the right moment. I would ask her how she knows, but Jade’s no fool. She keeps her ear to the ground, and it’s not that hard to find out. As she said, you can’t keep a secret around here.

  “Yeah. He died last year.”

  “I used to quite like his show,” she says.

  “Thanks.”

  “I suppose you’ve got loads of them on DVD? So you can watch him over and over?”

  “No . . . no, I wouldn’t do that.” It’s funny how many people ask me this. “I mean, that was his work. He had a TV personality, you know? He put it on for work. Three-piece suit, and all the fake jokes. He wasn’t like that at all. Not at home. He was . . . quiet, and kind, and gentle. And he loved my mum. Really loved her.”

  Now there’s a silence that seems awkward.

  “I’ve been in six schools before I came here,” says Jade at last. She grins at me. “Kicked out of four, one closed, one burned down. And that weren’t nothing to do with me,” she adds hastily. “Nobody really seems to know what they wanna do with me, know what I mean?”

  “Well, you’re a handful.”

  “So they tell me.”

  “I expect they were glad to see the back of you,” I say.

  “Yeah, thanks for that.” We smile at each other; she knows I’m only teasing. “It’s . . . kind of hard to make friends,” she says. “When you keep getting moved on.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “People don’t easily trust me,” she admits.

  “Hey, I trust you.”

  “Do you?” She looks almost surprised.

  “’Course I do.”

  But not enough to tell her what we’re really doing, running after shadows, and not enough to tell her about my disturbing experience last night.

  Jade jumps up and slithers down the trunk to the ground. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

  Inside, she takes me back through the games room and we wander into the back room where there are a couple of computers. Jade clicks the mouse, and a second later the Image-Ination software logo comes on the screen.

  My eyes widen. “How did you get this?”

  “Nicked it off school.”

  “Jade!” I look around, shocked, hoping nobody heard her.

  “Chill out! It’s not like anybody cares about some lame computer program, babe. Now . . . how about this?”

  Jade clicks on to our school website, finds the smiling picture of the principal, Mr. Roseby, standing proudly in front of the school. She opens the Image-Ination window, imports the picture, and plays around with the settings for a minute or two.

  “What shall we do?” she says. “I know.”

  She flips the picture back in. Instead of Mr. Roseby, there’s now a picture of Jed Rock, lead singer of the JumpJets, standing in front of our school with his arms folded and a big grin on his face. All the shadows and the photo texture and everything are perfect — like he’s really there.

  I can’t help laughing. “That is so cool!”

  “Mr. Rock,” she says. “Our new headmaster.”

  “If only.
Can you imagine?”

  Jade grins. “I reckon Miss Bellini would get on with him.”

  “Yeah.” I look away, clear my throat, thinking that maybe I shouldn’t talk about Miss Bellini in front of Jade. I might give stuff away.

  She doesn’t seem to notice. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s deface some more websites.”

  SEAVIEW HOTEL: WEDNESDAY 17:12

  A cold wind batters the Esplanade as I skateboard along. The surface is good, not too many bumps or cracks, so I’m getting a smooth roll. Opposite the Seaview Hotel, I stop, kick the board up, and swing it from my fingers as I cross the road.

  I can’t help feeling I’m being watched.

  Looking up and down the Esplanade, I can see a few people — families, kids, retirees — all doing their own thing, but not really paying me any attention. The sea is lashing the beach, cold and unfriendly, and there’s a salty bite in the air today, along with the moldering smell of seaweed.

  I take out the special pass Miss Bellini has given me — slim, matte black, the size of a bank card — and swipe it in the reader, a little white box at about waist-height. The light on the white box goes from red to green, there’s a beep, and the door clicks open.

  I hurry inside, and the door closes behind me as I pick my way across the dusty, cobwebby hall, down the old stairs, into the underground parking lot and the Datacore. Everyone is there except Miss Bellini.

  “You’re late,” says Cal, looking up from her computer as I clang down the metal staircase. She sounds tense.

  I chuck my skateboard on the table. “Sorry. I had netball.”

  “It’s Wednesday,” says Cal, pausing with her plastic coffee cup halfway to her lips. “Netball is Tuesday.”

  I glower at her. “Extra netball. I need the practice.”

  Why do I lie? I don’t know. Something about liking Jade, I guess, and feeling protective of my “normal” life with my friend. Not wanting them even to know about it, so they can’t make fun of me for it.

  “Can you please move that?” says Cal, pointing at my skateboard.

  “A girl has to park her transport somewhere.”

  “Yes, well, not on the table, please. This isn’t some tawdry little seaside café for Mundanes, you know.”

  “Sorr-eee,” I say, sitting in the nearest chair and sticking my board underneath it.

  Josh is standing by the illuminated map of Firecroft Bay, a notepad in his hand. He flashes me a grin. “Nice of you to join us.”

  “Okay,” says Cal, swinging her hair. “Update, team?”

  “I’ve isolated that Terminal Thirteen computer,” says Ollie from his seat, “and cross-matched it with the user data.” He holds up a strip of printouts and they fall to the floor like an enormous roll of toilet paper. “Want the short version, or the long version?”

  Cal holds up her hand. “Brevity is a virtue.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Short and sweet, Ollie. Minimum geek-speak.”

  Lyssa giggles. “She means she wants it in English!”

  Ollie says, “That computer was being used by a readily identifiable log-in ID.” He stabs at a button on the keyboard, and a face springs up on the monitor, picked out clearly in black and white.

  I jump. I recognize the face immediately.

  “So it was Jade’s computer,” I say, puzzled.

  This is disturbing. I’ve just been talking to her, and now here we are, looking at her photo as if we’re spying on her.

  Josh waves a pencil at me. “Well done, Miranda. You have to get up early to get one past you.”

  Ignoring him, I peer at the screen. It looks like Jade’s official school photo, date-stamped with the day she joined.

  “Where did you get that?” I ask Ollie.

  “Local authority records,” he says. “We’re all stamped, filed, and indexed these days, you know. In case any of us turns out to be, you know, a bit of a wacko.”

  I frown. “Nice thought. I take it the Civil Liberties people don’t know about this?”

  “They know nothing about anything,” says Cal dismissively. She sits down, gnawing the end of her pen. “So. We need to think about all this.” She points at me suddenly. “Was Jade on the bus? That first morning?”

  “Er . . .” I think hard, trying to remember. “Not sure.”

  Lyssa closes her eyes, as if trying to picture the scene. “No, I don’t think she was.”

  “She wasn’t,” says Josh calmly. “I’d have remembered.”

  I can’t help thinking there is something wrong about this conversation. It sounds rehearsed, like it’s being put on for my benefit.

  “She was definitely in the computer lab when the big zap happened,” says Ollie.

  For a moment there is silence.

  “These energy surges,” says Lyssa. “Interesting stuff.”

  “So . . . we keep an eye on her,” says Josh. “Ollie’s the surveillance expert. Why don’t you go along with him, Miranda? Might learn a bit.”

  Ollie and I look at each other.

  “I’m not very happy about it,” I say uncertainly. “She’s my friend.”

  It feels as if the world is tilting. Where do my loyalties truly lie?

  Nobody says anything. Four pairs of eyes are fixed on me.

  I shrug, helplessly. I’m still the new girl, and it seems I have to do as I’m told. For now.

  THE PIER: THURSDAY 15:43

  “She hasn’t moved for twenty-seven minutes.”

  I put down my teacup. “What?”

  Ollie and I have been talking about this and that and the other for a bit, about computer games and TV and books, here in the Pier Café — and it’s a surprise when he brings me back to business.

  He flips his phone around to face me. “Jade Verdicchio,” he says. “We’re supposed to be watching her. Remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. That.” I look, uneasily, at the phone screen, which is showing a grainy image of Jade on a bench on the end of the pier, nibbling at a fluffy, pink stick of cotton candy. She is literally just around the corner from us — beyond the tacky shops and the bumper cars — but we’re not watching her directly. “Ollie, how are you doing that?”

  “Just tapping into the security camera feed,” he says. “Easy when you’ve got a few hack codes.”

  “And you get those how, exactly?”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised what a couple of upperclassmen geeks will swap for the rarest StarBreaker Gold Cards. The ones with the limited-edition watermark featuring their favorite babe, Angelica Dupree, playing Space Commander Nikki Tempest.”

  I smile. “Ah, and you think, because I’m not a geek, I’ll be bamboozled by that. But I know enough about StarBreaker to know that the Gold Cards with the limited-edition watermark featuring Space Commander Nikki Thingy —”

  “Tempest.”

  “Whatever . . . they were never actually made, were they? Or at least, only one ever was and it’s in a sealed glass block in a safe in some famous comic store in New York. Am I right?”

  Ollie grins. “They don’t know that,” he says.

  I like talking to Ollie. He’s the most normal of the Weirdos — sorry, my new friends. He isn’t slinky and threatening like Cal, or a robot superbrain like Lyssa, or cool and superior like Josh. He’s just a really smart, nerdy guy with a fantastic memory.

  “So what are you actually giving these techno-geeks?”

  “Well, they’re Commander Nikki Tempest cards all right. Just . . . not exactly with a watermark. All right, all right. With a fake watermark.” He leans back in his chair, as I pretend to be shocked. “C’mon, Miranda, it’s so easy to fool these dudes. Seriously.”

  He glances at his phone. “Still not moved,” he says with a sigh, and sips his Coke. “Where does yo
ur mum think you are tonight?”

  “Philosophy Club.”

  “You are kidding me. She thinks King Eddie’s has a Philosophy Club?”

  “Seriously! My mum thinks I’m in the French Club, the Chess Club, the Astronomy Club . . . I’m running out of clubs!” I take a reassuring sip of tea. “I’ve got to go home and read something to make it look convincing.”

  “Cogito ergo sum,” Ollie intones.

  “If you say so.” I smile. “So, what brought you into this, Ollie?”

  He smiles, not looking as if he doesn’t want to answer, exactly, but not quite meeting my gaze. “Aaaah, y’know . . . this and that.”

  I shake my head. “What and what?”

  He shrugs. “I moved here three years ago,” he says. “Me and my mum and dad. Perfectly normal family. Except for the fact that my big sister had disappeared.”

  I’m stunned. “Ollie, I’m so sorry. Are the police following it up?”

  “Oh, the police did what they could. But when I say Bex disappeared, I mean literally disappeared. I don’t mean she went missing on the way home from school or on a camping trip or anything like that. I mean she popped out of existence.”

  There’s a new look on his face, one I haven’t seen before. He’s keeping it under control, but I can see the sadness there.

  “How?”

  “It was Bonfire Night. I was, what, nine. She was eleven. I was standing on one side of the village bonfire, burning hot, seeing how close I could get with a marshmallow on a stick.”

  “As is the Bonfire Night tradition,” I encourage him.

  “Yeah. And I looked up, and I could see Bex, just around the corner of the fire from me, partly hidden by the smoke. And then . . .” Ollie shakes his head. “I’ve gone through this a thousand times in my head, and it still doesn’t seem quite real.”

  “Go on,” I say gently.

  “Miranda, I swear I saw Bex vanish. One second she was standing there, the next she was gone. Like someone had flicked a switch and turned her off. Pop.”