The Children of Castle Rock Read online

  THE CHILDREN OF

  CASTLE ROCK

  NATASHA FARRANT

  For Phoebe, most excellent of god-daughters, with thanks for her invaluable help.

  ‘Perhaps I’m mad … and the professor too –

  but I think children must lead big lives …

  if it is in them to do so.’

  From Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part One: Stormy Loch

  Chapter 1: Goodbye, Cherry Grange!

  Chapter 2: The End of the World

  Chapter 3: Fluffy and Soft and Covered in Penguins and Unicorns

  Chapter 4: They Are All Mad

  Chapter 5: Race!

  Chapter 6: The Major

  Chapter 7: I Know What a Pyromaniac Is

  Chapter 8: A Talent for Trouble

  Chapter 9: Humungously, Enormously and Superlatively Sorry

  Chapter 10: We’d Be Mad to Try It

  Chapter 11: Kittens!

  Chapter 12: Ping!

  Chapter 13: We Didn’t Mean to Kill You

  Chapter 14: Like a Swamp, Without the Crocodiles

  Chapter 15: Kings and Queen

  Chapter 16: The Lake Isle of Innisfree

  Chapter 17: Sleeping in Cherry Blossom Like a Princess

  Chapter 18: Stormy Loch

  Chapter 19: Midnight Picnics

  Chapter 20: A Paradise for Seabirds

  Chapter 21: Partners

  Part Two: The Children of Castle Rock

  Chapter 22: The Great Orienteering Challenge

  Chapter 23: Someone Has to Be in Charge

  Chapter 24: Somewhere a Lark

  Chapter 25: The North Star

  Chapter 26: The Great Explorer

  Chapter 27: The Mosquito Woman

  Chapter 28: Oyster!

  Chapter 29: Darkly Lit Against the Sky

  Chapter 30: Mega-Super-Fun

  Chapter 31: Issue a Full Description

  Chapter 32: It’s That Global Warming

  Chapter 33: It Sure Is Different From Oklahoma

  Chapter 34: About the Size of a Plum

  Chapter 35: There Must Be a Castle

  Chapter 36: Knights And Dragons And Witches

  Chapter 37: The Tide Will Go Out

  Chapter 38: On the Bright White Sand

  Chapter 39: The Actor

  Chapter 40: And the Sky Exploded

  Chapter 41: Crime or Maybe Ornithology

  Chapter 42: A Million Euros

  Epilogue

  Post-Script

  Acknowledgements and Disclaimers

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  Copyright

  PART ONE

  STORMY LOCH

  CHAPTER ONE

  Goodbye, Cherry Grange!

  Imagine a house, in a garden.

  The paint is flaking and the chimney is cracked and the uncut grass is wild. But ignore all that. Look here instead, at the giant wisteria with a trunk as thick as your arm, its purple flowers dripping against the old stone wall. Look at the swing hanging from that ancient oak, those cherry trees planted in a circle around the house. One of the trees is so close to a window that in summer, when it fruits, the girl who lives here can reach out to pick the cherries.

  Imagine that – picking cherries from your bedroom window!

  The house, Cherry Grange, was named for the trees. A man called Albert Mistlethwaite built it over a hundred years ago when he came home from a war, and his family have lived here ever since.

  That’s a lot of cherries, and pies, and cakes, and pots of jam …

  We’ll go inside now. Do you see those pale rectangles on the hall floor, those other pale rectangles on the walls? They were made by rugs and pictures, but those have gone now, along with all the furniture. There’s nothing left but dust and sunlight.

  Let’s move on! Here is the kitchen – and here is the family, finishing breakfast. Small, pale eleven-year-old Alice sits cross-legged on the counter with her nose in a book, chewing the end of one of her stiff dark braids. Her father Barney (you may have seen him once on television) stands drinking coffee by the window with his back to the room, while his older sister Patience, in paint-spattered dungarees, dries crockery at the sink.

  The last of the Mistlethwaites, in their natural habitat. Take a good look – you’ll not see this again. For today the house is sold and they are moving out.

  Shh! Listen!

  Something is about to happen.

  *

  A blood-curdling screech broke the silence in the kitchen, followed by a series of thumps. Barney turned away from the window.

  ‘The house,’ he observed, ‘is crying.’

  ‘It’s just the wind in the chimney.’ Patience finished drying and began to stack crockery into a plastic crate. ‘It doesn’t help being all dramatic about it. And hurry up with that mug.’

  A juddering moan – the water pipes – succeeded the thumps.

  ‘Revenge of Cherry Grange,’ rasped Barney in a loud stage whisper. ‘That’s what it would be called if it were a film. The Curse of the Mistlethwaites. The Haunting of the Brown-Watsons.’

  The Brown-Watsons were the happy, bouncy family of six people and two Labradors who had bought Cherry Grange. All the Mistlethwaites loathed them, even Patience, who actually wanted to sell the house.

  ‘Barney, your mug!’ she snapped now.

  ‘All right, all right!’ Barney drank the coffee and handed her the mug. ‘But just so you know, Alice has already written a story about the Brown-Watsons, and they all die except the dogs. It’d make a cracking film, wouldn’t it, Alicat?’

  Alice looked up from her book and blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘We’re talking about your story,’ said Barney. ‘And ghosts.’

  Patience shoved the crate at him. ‘Go and put this in the car,’ she said, then, ‘Alice, where are you going?’

  Alice, at the mention of ghosts, had turned even paler and slid off the kitchen counter. Now, like scores of Mistlethwaites before her, she was opening the garden door with a practised kick.

  ‘Mum,’ she said.

  ‘Your mum? What? Alice! Breakfast!’

  But Alice was already gone.

  It had rained in the night, and the grass was still wet. Uncut since last summer, in some places it reached almost to Alice’s knees, soaking through her jeans. She didn’t notice, and if she had noticed, she wouldn’t have cared. She thumped through the grass and past the ring of cherry trees dropping the last of their blossom, round the weed-choked pond where the heron came every spring to eat the tadpoles when they turned into frogs, past the butterfly bush and the lavender, until she arrived panting at the bench at the end of the garden.

  She couldn’t believe she had forgotten.

  Her father and her aunt had yet to explain properly why they were leaving, but Alice was almost certain that if her mother hadn’t died none of this would be happening. Mum had loved Cherry Grange as if she had been born Clara Mistlethwaite instead of Clara Kaminska, and when she was alive everything – everything! – had been better. The house had been full of noise, because Mum was always laughing and singing and dancing, and it had smelled delicious because she was an amazing cook, and they hadn’t been always broke, because Mum had had a full-time job people actually paid her for, unlike Aunt Patience with her painting or poor Barney with his acting. But she was gone, killed by a fast and horrible illness four years ago when Alice was seven, her ashes scattered in the garden, and a white rosebush planted in her memory right where Alice was standing now, which was the exact spot that they had l
oved to sit together on summer evenings to read bedtime stories. Alice came here often to talk to her mother. The bush was set against a wall, and it was strong and graceful, just like Mum had been, and covered in a riot of little pink buds which, when they opened, turned into big blowsy white roses. It was unthinkable never to see it flower again.

  She picked up a stick and began to dig.

  Patience, arriving on the scene a few minutes later, wondered, yet again, if she had been wrong to sell the house.

  Once a cheerful, outgoing child, since her mother’s death all Alice ever wanted was to stay at home to read and write. She wrote all the time, but most of all when Barney was away, filling the exercise books Patience bought her with stories she would present to him on his return. He was the only person who was allowed to read them. Alice worshipped her father, never questioning his long absences but clinging firmly to the belief that one day he would be a great actor. And they could have carried on like this forever – Alice scribbling away and not going out, and Barney travelling but not saying why, and Patience in the attic painting pictures nobody wanted to buy – except that Patience had snooped, and read some of Alice’s stories.

  The stories were wild and sad and funny and beautiful. Until she read them, all Patience had wanted was to keep Alice safe and fed and well. After reading the stories, it became her secret wish to help Alice live as passionately as she wrote. And the more she thought about it, the clearer it became to her that what was needed was a clean break with the past. And she was sure she was right – most of the time – almost sure – probably right. For weeks now, she had lain awake at night convincing herself … but when she saw her niece do things like try to dig up a rosebush with a stick, she did question if it was – well – kind, to take a child away from the only home she had ever known.

  Alice never talked about her emotions – never talked much at all, in fact, her one-word exit from the kitchen being a typical example – but she was hopeless at hiding them. Her eyes blazed with anger as Patience approached, even as she scrunched her nose to stop herself crying.

  ‘I’m not leaving without her,’ she said.

  Patience sighed, knowing there would be no room in her small car for a rosebush. She looked around for Barney. Barney – as usual when there was something difficult to do – had disappeared. She would just have to tell Alice it wasn’t possible.

  A clean break, Patience thought.

  Then, seeing the determined set of Alice’s chin, sometimes, you just have to make room.

  ‘There are still tools in the shed,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see any point getting rid of them. I’ll get a spade, and we can dig it up properly. We’ll have to cut it back, mind. Then we can put it in a pot.’

  ‘Her,’ Alice corrected, scrabbling away with her stick again. ‘Mum. We can put Mum in a pot.’

  It sounded funny, but neither of them laughed.

  *

  Goodbye! whispered the cherry trees. Goodbye, goodbye, murmured Patience’s art studio in the sprawling attics, and the den where Alice liked to write, from the banisters Mistlethwaite children always slid down and the green-tiled fireplace where they roasted chestnuts in winter. Alice walked silently through every room, and heard the house’s farewell in everything she touched.

  It had nothing to do with pipes and chimneys.

  They finished packing their car. It didn’t take long, because they didn’t have much – a few suitcases of clothes, a crate of crockery, some books, a silver teapot. Pictures, rugs, a vase.

  A rosebush in a pot.

  It wasn’t a lot to show for over a hundred years.

  They took one last look at the dear old house, and squeezed into the car. For a wild, hopeful moment Alice thought it wouldn’t start, but then there was the familiar crunch of gravel beneath the tyres, and they were driving through the wooden gates they would never drive through again, and they were in the lane, and there was the little bridge over the stream in which they had all paddled, and now they were turning on to the main road, and the house was gone, and there was a prick of blood on her arm where the rosebush had scratched her. She sucked the scratch to make the bleeding stop, and thought that if this were one of her stories, she would make the rose or the car or even the blood into a portal to another world, one in which cures were found to keep mothers alive and aunts did not inexplicably sell houses. But this wasn’t a story, just people in a car, driving towards an unknown and terrifying future.

  ‘To new adventures!’ Barney cried, brandishing the silver teapot. ‘This is going to be fun!’

  There would be no room for Barney in her story. There never was. Barney, for Alice, was above stories.

  *

  The Mistlethwaites didn’t see the Brown-Watsons’ removal van when it passed, or the Brown-Watsons’ people carrier that followed, and just as well. They don’t need to know about Brown-Watson children tearing upstairs to fight over bedrooms, or Brown-Watson adults talking about which trees to fell, or Brown-Watson Labradors digging holes in the garden. And neither do we, frankly. Our story is with the Mistlethwaites, and we are going with them to London to put Alice on a train.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The End of the World

  Possibly, when you think of big stations in major cities, you imagine high glass ceilings and giant clocks and everywhere the thrill of adventures about to begin. Jesse Okuyo – currently at London Euston, lugging his orange Stormy Loch Academy rucksack and his empty violin case after his three older brothers down the dark, poky platform of the Scottish sleeper train, which was to take him back to school – would have loved such a station. Another lonely child, just turned twelve, Jesse longed for adventure. One of his favourite things was to stride about the countryside with a map and a compass and binoculars, pretending to be a great explorer. Other favourite things included video games in which he got to destroy lots of monsters, books in which he could choose the ending, and stories about ancient heroes and medieval knights. Sometimes, when he read these – slowly, because he was a little dyslexic – he substituted his name for theirs.

  Jesse Okuyo slayed the dragon!

  Jesse Okuyo charged into battle!

  Reality was different.

  Reality right now was distinctly unheroic. His brother Jared had stolen his violin and was skipping along ahead of him, playing a rowdy Scottish ballad. His brother Jed was dancing, and Jeremy was singing. People were staring. Some were taking photographs. They clearly thought this was very picturesque and charming. Maybe you do too. Jesse just wished his brothers were normal. And also not so good at singing, and dancing, and violin-playing, or so good-looking, or so tall. Jesse was tall too, but next to them he felt like a hobbit.

  His brothers had arrived at his carriage, were surrounding the smiling steward, still playing and singing and dancing.

  ‘What’s the matter, little brother?’ laughed Jed when Jesse caught up. ‘Don’t you like our send-off?’

  ‘You know I don’t,’ Jesse muttered as he pushed past them to climb aboard.

  ‘WHAT?’ cried Jed, leaping on after him.

  ‘HE DOOOOEEEEEESN’T LIKE OUR SEND-OOOOFFFF!’ sang Jeremy, bouncing on next.

  Jared switched from the ballad to a tragic lament.

  They waited until Jesse had struggled out of his rucksack, and then they pounced. Jeremy got him in a headlock. Jed began to tickle him. Jared moved on from the lament to a fast and furious jig. Jesse yelled, and swore, and tried to punch them. They didn’t hear the commotion outside as the Mistlethwaites arrived, Aunt Patience in an apple-green coat waving Alice’s ticket, Barney carrying an orange rucksack just like Jesse’s, Alice herself clutching the battered copy of her favourite book which she had read all the way in the car.

  ‘Are we late?’ cried Aunt Patience to the steward (the Mistlethwaites were always late). ‘We got lost!’ (The Mistlethwaites were always getting lost.)

  The steward informed them they had five minutes.

  On to the train the Mistlethwaites
bundled, straight into the knot of laughing, fiddle-playing, roaring Okuyos.

  ‘Let me go!’ Jesse’s voice was muffled, his face buried in Jeremy’s crotch.

  ‘Not until you wee!’ shouted Jed. ‘He wees when he’s tickled,’ he informed the bewildered Mistlethwaites.

  It was too much. With a final roar, Jesse threw off his captives and flung himself into his berth. For a few brief, appalled seconds before he slammed shut the door, he and Alice stared at each other.

  ‘I think you two are going to the same school,’ murmured Aunt Patience.

  Then, BANG! went the door, and Jesse sank to the ground with his head on his knees.

  Be careful what you wish for, they say.

  Jesse wanted adventure. He had no idea that adventure had just found him.

  *

  Aunt Patience was sending Alice to boarding school.

  Alice, horrified, had tried to resist. She had read hundreds of books about boarding school, she informed her aunt. Even the sunnier ones involved violent sports or people getting murdered or evil wizards luring innocents to the Dark Side.

  Boarding schools, Alice had argued, were dangerous.

  ‘They are nothing of the sort,’ Aunt Patience had responded (and oh, how she would one day regret saying that!). ‘Look, here is the website. It’s a charming place. Like a storybook!’

  ‘It’ll be expensive,’ pleaded Alice, ignoring the website.

  Aunt Patience said it wasn’t as expensive as you might think, and added brightly that all the uniforms were handmade by the students, and that the school had its own farm where they grew their own food, because they believed in being self-sufficient and in what Aunt Patience called a Well Rounded Education.

  ‘Plus, it’s in a castle,’ she said. ‘Called Stormy Loch. In Scotland!’

  ‘Scotland!’