Seth and Jude - synopsis and sample chapter

There's nothing strange or unusual about Jude. In every respect he's a perfectly normal, and typical, adolescent. Until he begins to hear voices. Or rather, just one voice; eerie and disembodied, but calling him by name.

At first, Jude suspects a practical joke - and Katie, his best friend, is exactly the kind of person who you'd expect to play a trick like that. But it isn't Katie. When Jude finally answers the voice, it marks the beginning of a strange relationship that threatens to take over his whole existence.

Seth is dead, but he wants his old life back; and if he can't have it, the life of Jude will do just as well. All it takes is a little manipulation, and Jude seems a willing subject. Before long, Jude realises that it's difficult to resist the whispering stranger. And Seth has a darker motive behind his desire for life: revenge...


The following comprises the first three chapters of Seth & Jude. The text has been reformatted from the original for ease of reading on screen.


SETH AND JUDE


The Voice

It had happened again. Someone had called his name. And there was no one there.
“Jude!”

The voice seemed to come from just over his shoulder. He turned quickly, expecting to see someone, but he was quite alone. It was just like all the other times. And it was happening more often.

It had happened that morning in class. “Jude!” called the voice, soft and low, like it always did. Jude turned round to look at his best friend Katie, sitting at the desk behind him.
“Katie!” he hissed. “Was that you?”
Katie looked up from her writing. “Was what me?”
“Someone called to me. They called my name.”
“Not me, sorry.”
“Someone called me! They said ‘Jude’.”
“Maybe you imagined it.”

“Jude!” This time the voice came from a different direction, and it belonged to Ms Cope, the teacher: “Jude, please stop annoying Katie and get on with your own work.”
Jude looked apologetic. “Sorry, miss. I thought I heard someone calling me.”
“You did. It was me. Now please settle down and get on with your work.”

Jude stared at his exercise book. He couldn’t understand it. Someone had definitely called to him, and it kept on happening. On the street, at home, in the park. It had happened ten times at least, in the last week. That was too often to be a coincidence.

At first, he’d thought the voice must have been calling out to another Jude, or maybe it had called out ‘dude’. So the first few times, it had been easy to ignore. It was when the voice kept on calling that Jude began to wonder what it was all about. It couldn’t be someone playing a trick on him, because it had happened when he’d been standing in the middle of a playing field and there had been no one near enough to have made themselves heard. Anyway, the voice always seemed to come from right behind him; and it would have required a brilliant ventriloquist or a concealed speaker to do that. It was the same voice every time, a young voice, a boy’s voice. And all it said was his name: “Jude!”

No one else knew about the voice, not even Katie, his best friend and co-founder of the ‘V-Dub-Club’ (meetings every evening after school in the old camper van). Jude knew that he would have to tell someone about it soon, and Katie was the obvious choice. Would she believe him? He’d heard about people who claimed to hear voices. There was a special name for them: schizophrenics. Some of them heard voices telling them to kill people. But Jude’s voice said only the same thing, time after time. It called him by name. There had to be an explanation for it, and Jude knew he wasn’t going to find it on his own.

Jude lived with his mother in a small, white terraced cottage on the main road out of town. It was a nice spot, once you got used to the traffic. The speed limit was 30, but Jude knew what a car going at 30 miles per hour looked like and the cars he saw flashing past were clearly going much faster. There was no point in keeping a cat in a place like that. They’d had the old cat, Jerry, with them when they moved in. He was dead in a week. Jude’s mum laid him to rest beneath the twisted old apple tree at the end of the long, walled garden.

The garden was one of the good things about the house. The other good thing was the view. There was an open field across the road, and from Jude’s attic window you could see clear across to the moors. When they’d been looking round at houses, it was the only one Jude wanted. The others had been too dark, or too small, or on dingy backstreets. His mum could only just afford it with the money from the divorce settlement, but his gran gave them a few thousand pounds because she liked the house and there was a spare room for her in case she wanted to visit.

One of the other good things about the house was Katie. She lived just two doors down the road. Jude and Katie had been friends before he moved in, and now they were almost inseparable. Katie was fun, and a bit mad. Jude’s mum said she was ‘giddy’ but Jude rather liked giddy. She did strange drawings of made-up animals, and had even invented her own language, ‘Katie-ese.’ No one other than Katie could speak it, because she changed the words every other day. One day, the phrase ‘how do you do’ would translate as ‘loo-boo-loo-goo’. The next day it would be something different like “ki-ni-ki-koo’. The only thing Jude understood about Katie-ese was that the words always had the same number of syllables as their English equivalents.

Katie’s dad had bought an old Volkswagen camper van, many years ago, with the intention of doing it up and using it for family holidays. It had seemed a good idea at the time, but Katie’s dad was never very good at turning ideas into reality. It wasn’t long before he realised that the project was too much for him. He couldn’t fix the engine, or any of the many mechanical problems, and on top of all that there was rust everywhere, the sink leaked and there was mould growing on the awning.

There was a back entry into the gardens, and the camper van had been parked there for ever, so it seemed, gathering a little more moss with every passing year. Sometimes Katie’s dad talked about selling it, putting it on ebay or sticking a card in the newsagents’ window; but somehow he never quite got round to it.

Katie’s mum would have been glad to see the back of the old wreck; but Katie loved it. She had turned it into a sort of play room, filling the dusty interior with paintings, books and toys. It became the V-Dub-Club when Jude moved in. The name was Katie’s idea, naturally. She’d painted a signpost with a club logo and hung it from one of the door mirrors. On summer evenings, Jude and Katie would sit in the van for hours, making up word games, or drawing cartoons of each other. If it rained they stayed in there, listening to the soft, steady drumming on the roof. The van leaked, of course, but that was all part of the fun. Katie made up a ‘dodge-the-leak’game where they tried to push each other under the dripping water and scored points if you managed to get a drip to land on your opponent’s head. Other times, they would hold ‘evening class’, where Katie would try to teach Jude the basics of Katie-ese – assuming she could remember them herself.

It was on an evening in the van that Jude told Katie about the voice. They were sitting on the floor, in a heap of old cushions that Katie’s mum had thrown out of the house, and had just finished a game of ‘I spy with my mind’s eye’. It was like the normal version of I spy, only you had to spy things that weren’t really there. It usually ended in an argument, or a cushion fight, and today it had been both. Jude had brought a bottle of coke with him, and as they lay back exhausted among the cushions, he opened the cap and in the best V-Dub-Club tradition (founder drinks first), passed it to Katie. As usual she took a huge gulp, far too much to get in her mouth, and the coke sloshed down her Gap T-shirt.

She laughed and Jude made a grab at the bottle. “Founder first!”cried Katie, rolling sideways and holding the bottle away from him. More coke spilled onto the cushions. “Oh good heavens, the best soft furnishings!” exclaimed Katie in her posh-middle-class-lady voice. Jude gave a snort of laughter. The posh lady voice always cracked him up. When Jude laughed, Katie laughed too. They just seemed to set each other off, and for a few moments they were helpless.
Then Katie sobered up and passed the coke bottle over to Jude. “Day-gloo-o-Bood,”she said, in Katie-ese.

Jude translated. “There you go Jude?”
Katie giggled. “Pevee sud.”
“Very good?”
“Oh go to the top of the class, you girly swot!”

They sat in silence for a minute, Katie fiddling with her toes and Jude watching her, wondering if now might be the time to tell her about the voice. He was afraid of spoling everything. The evenings with Katie were too much fun to let anything serious get in the way. But he had to tell someone.

Katie lolled back in the cushions and ran a hand through her messy dark blonde hair. She glanced at the Barbie watch that she wore just because it was, in Katie’s words, ‘so totally the wrong thing.’
“God, is that the time?”
“Is what the time?”
“Ten to nine. And it’s still light.”
“It’s what happens. Summer comes, you get longer evenings.”
“I know, stupid.” Katie rolled onto her side and gazed at one of the paintings that was sellotaped under the sink unit. “God, I wish we could have a thunderstorm.”
“Are you asking him?”
“Who?”
“God.”
“There’s no such person.” Katie took down the picture and examined it as if she were an art critic. “Would you say this piece of art showed signs of having been produced by a talented genius or a complete moron?”
“Depends whose name is on it.”
“No name, just initials. K.T. That’s genius in any language. Of course I could do better now. This is from my rubbish period, but it’s still better than anything you could do. You paint like a monkey. And you paint real things. Why do you do that? The whole point of painting is to make stuff up. It’s the same with writing. Who wants to read a diary or a biography? It’s just real life, and we get that all the time. I’d much rather read some mad fantastic nonsense than a lot of boring stuff about some sad person’s life.”

There was a moment’s silence while Katie continued to gaze at the painting. When Jude didn’t reply, she put it down and prodded his knee with her toe. “Excuse me, fellow club member. The chair has addressed you. Or should I say the cushions have addressed you.”
“Sorry. I was just thinking of something.”
Katie pulled a mock stern face. “Club rule number six hundred and eighty twelve: thinking not allowed, unless it’s aloud.”
Jude grinned at her. Katie loved that kind of word play. He reached for the coke bottle, but Katie got to it first and snatched it away from him.
“Before you drink, speak your think.” She gave him a long, steady look. “What is on your mind, tiny feeble thing that it is?”

Jude leaned back against the cushions. He didn’t want to start talking about serious stuff; but he just couldn’t stop thinking about the voice.
Suddenly, it was there again. “Jude!”
He looked round at Katie. “Was that you?”
Katie ran a hand over her dungarees. “This is always me.”
“I mean that voice. Did you just say my name?”
Katie shook her head and Jude looked round. “Well someone did. I heard it, clearly.”
Katie made patterns with her fingers. “I didn’t hear anything.” She looked up at Jude. “You did this in class the other day.”
Jude nodded. “I know. I didn’t want to tell you about all this, but I suppose I’m going to have to.”
“Club rule – no secrets. What didn’t you want to tell me?”
Jude looked awkward. “It’s a bit weird. I didn’t want to mention it, but it just keeps on happening.”

Katie leaned forward, her eyes shining. “I like weird. I can do weird. What is it? Are you secretly an alien, or a time traveller from another era?”
“Not that weird,” said Jude. “Then again, maybe it is. You know what happened just now? About the voice?” Katie nodded. “And you know how it happened before, in school? Well, there have been other times. Lots of times.”
Katie pulled a peculiar face. “You’re telling me you hear voices?”
“Not voices. A voice. The same voice.”
Katie pulled her knees up in front of her.“And what does it tell you, this voice?”
“It doesn’t tell me anything. All it says is my name, Jude, like someone’s calling out to me.”
“And how long have you been able to hear it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even think I was aware of it at first. Probably a few months. But it’s been happening more often just lately.”
“Have you tried answering it?”
“Answering it?”
Katie nodded. “Of course. If someone calls you, they’re expecting you to answer. So answer the voice. Ask it what it wants.”
“But that’s mad. You can’t talk to someone who isn’t there.”
“But someone who isn’t there is talking to you.”
Jude sat back and thought for a moment. He looked round at Katie. “You don’t think I’m mad do you?”
“You wouldn’t be here if I thought anything else.” Katie rolled back and kicked a cushion in the air. “Of course you’re mad. You’re mad, I’m mad, club rule – no sane people admitted.”
“Be serious for a minute. I’ve heard about people who hear voices. They get put away.”
“I am serious. Answer the voice. Ask it what it wants.” Katie gave him a nudge. “Go on, do it now.”
“But I can’t hear it now.”
“Answer it anyway.”
Jude looked embarrassed. He cleared his throat, then spoke: “Who’s there? What do you want?”
Katie nudged him with her elbow. “That’s not right. You don’t speak like that to a disembodied voice. You have to sound more impressive.”
“How do you mean?”
“Like this.” Katie took a deep breath and raised her hands in the air. “O voice that speaks the name of Jude! Answer please and be not rude.”
Jude snorted with laughter. “That’s stupid! This is supposed to be serious.”
“Go on then, ask it what it wants.”
“Okay, okay.” Jude threw up his hands. “Voice!” he cried. “Speak to me! Tell me who you are, tell me what you want! Speak, I command you!”
They both sat in silence for a moment. A blackbird whistled in the boughs of the old apple tree. Katie looked at Jude. “Well? Did it answer you?” Jude shook his head.
“Maybe it didn’t hear you.”
“Or maybe it can’t. What is it anyway? You can’t have a voice without a person.”
“What about radio? Or Cds?”
“That’s different. I can understand radio.”
“Voices coming through the air? Not so long ago that would have been called witchcraft. Maybe you’ve discovered something new, a kind of personal radio wave that only you can tune into.”
Jude grinned. That was a typically Katie idea. “I’ll have to think about that one,” he replied. “But why doesn’t the voice say anything else? All it does is call out to me.”
“Well, you know what to do now, don’t you. The next time you hear the voice, you must answer it at once. Then maybe it will hear you.”
“You definitely don’t think there’s something the matter with me?”
Katie grinned. “Oh, there are loads of things the matter with you. What difference does one little voice make?” She rolled towards Jude and tugged his sleeve and whispered: “Can I tell you a secret? I’m jealous!”
“Jealous?”
“Mmm. I want a voice too. You must ask your voice to find a voice for me.” Katie gazed at Jude with her big, chocolate brown eyes.
“I’ll see what I can do.”

Seth

Jude was sleeping when the voice came again. At first he thought he’d dreamed it, but the voice was so loud and clear it had woken him up. For a few seconds, he imagined he was back in the old house, and the sight of the attic room surprised him. The moon was bright through the uncurtained dormer window, its cool white light casting long shadows across the shelves and the old computer table his mum had salvaged from a skip.

He remembered what Katie had said: “Answer the voice. Ask it what it wants.”
It was the first time the voice had come during the night, and Jude felt a shiver of fear pass through him. What if there really was someone there? What would he say if the voice answered him? Pushing himself up on one elbow, he turned back the duvet and switched on the wall lamp beside the bed. Now the moment had come, he wasn’t sure what he should say to the voice. If he didn’t say something quickly, it would be lost again.

Then he heard it. Clearly, and no mistaking, just behind him, as though it was there with him in the bed: “Jude…Jude!”
His own voice trembling with nerves, Jude said: “Is there someone there? Are you talking to me?”
“Jude! Jude!”

Had the voice heard him? Or was it just repeating itself over and over again, trying for whatever reason to attract his attention?
Jude spoke again, more confidently this time; though he kept his voice low for fear of waking his mum in the room below: “Who is that? Why do you keep calling out to me? What do you want?”

There was a moment’s silence. A car hissed past outside, doing over sixty from the sound of it.
Then the voice came again. “Jude! Is that you, Jude? You can really hear me?”
“Of course I can hear you. I’ve been hearing you for ages.”
“You never answered me, Jude.”
“Well, I mean, it’s not exactly normal is it? Talking to a voice that isn’t there. Where are you anyway? How are you doing this?”
“Patience, Jude. All I needed was for you to answer me. Now we can talk to each other at last. I’ve waited so long for this, Jude.”
“I wish you’d tell me what this is all about. Where are you speaking from? Have you got some sort of device for throwing your voice?”

The voice chuckled. “No device, Jude. I’m here, with you. I’ve been with you for ages, but I didn’t think you could hear me. All those times I called out to you and you didn’t answer.”
Jude climbed out of bed and walked over to the window. It had to be a trick of some kind. Like a bugging device, only in reverse. But how had the voice been able to speak to him in so many different places? Jude looked outside, checking to see if there might be some strange car parked in the road. But there was only the familiar row of cars: next door’s Renault, his mum’s Nissan Micra, Katie’s dad’s BMW. “I need you to explain this to me,” said Jude. “How can I hear your voice when you’re not here? Where are you?” He looked up at the ceiling, and the big oblong block of the chimneybreast. “Are you up on the roof, is that it?”
“I’m not on the roof, Jude. I’m here with you.”

The voice still seemed to come from directly behind him. Jude turned round. Of course there was nothing there. The voice laughed again. “It’s no use looking for me, Jude. You won’t see me. All you can do is hear me.”
“You sound like you’re standing right behind me.”
“I suppose I am. It’s like I said. I’m right here with you.”
Jude went back to the bed and climbed in. He shook his head. “This is not possible. I’m still dreaming.”
“It’s not a dream, Jude.”
“Then what is it? Tell me! Who are you?”
Silence. Then the voice spoke again:“I’m Seth.”
Jude crawled further into the bed. “Okay, Seth. I can’t say it’s nice to meet you because I haven’t exactly met you.”
“But we have, Jude. This is the only way we can meet. My voice, your voice. Only for you, it’s different. You’re more than a voice. That’s why I need you.”
Jude pulled a face. “What are you talking about? What do you need me for?”
“Patience, Jude. I’ll explain everything if you’ll give me a chance.”
Jude nodded. “Okay. I just need a few minutes to get used to this.” He climbed out of bed again and walked towards the stairs. “Don’t go away. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Jude went downstairs. The voice went with him. “Where are you going?”
“I want a drink,” Jude hissed. “And don’t talk so loud. You’ll wake my mum.”
The voice laughed. “She can’t hear me! Don’t you understand?”
“Would it surprise you if I said no?”

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Jude went along the narrow passageway into the kitchen and opened the tall American style fridge. Taking out a carton of orange juice, he picked a glass off the shelf and poured himself a drink.
“Don’t you have any grapefruit juice?” asked the voice. “I prefer grapefruit to orange.”
“What’s it to you anyway?” Jude paused with the glass half way to his lips. “Just a minute…you can see me, can’t you? You can see what I’m doing…”
“I can see everything, Jude.”
Jude shivered and put down the glass. “This is freaky, It’s just too weird…”
“I know it must seem strange to you, Jude. It was strange to me at first. But I’ve got used to it. I can see, I can hear, I can speak. But that’s all. And I can only speak to you.”
Jude nodded nervously. He put down the glass and took hold of one of the kitchen stools. “I think I’m beginning to understand. You’re not real are you? You’re…you’re a…”
“A ghost? Is that what you were going to say?”
“Don’t be stupid. There’s no such thing as a ghost. Anyway, I can’t see you.”
“What were you expecting, a white sheet floating around with eye holes in it?”
Jude took a step backwards, still holding onto the stool. “You are a ghost aren’t you? Whatever you are, you’re not real.”
“Not real in the way you are, Jude. But I’m real in the only way that’s left to me.”
Jude stared wide eyed across the empty kitchen. Something was in there with him. But what on earth was it? Was it anything on earth? A spirit of some kind? Or was Katie’s radio wave idea closer to the mark? He turned around, looking for a sign of some kind; maybe a patch of moving shadow, or a tiny pinprick of light hovering in the air. “Seth…” he called, softly. “Seth, are you still there?”
“Still here Jude. I’ll always be here.”
“There’s something I’ve got to ask you. Are you…are you dead?”
There was a pause before the voice answered. “I suppose so. At least that’s what you’d call it. I don’t really know what I am. All I know is that you and I are in tune. That’s why I can talk to you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m here in the air, all around you, like a signal. All this time I’ve been trying to reach you. Now you’ve finally tuned me in.”
Jude nodded to himself. It was like Katie had suggested – the invisible voice was like a form of radio wave, one that only he could receive. Turning again – he wasn’t sure which way he should face when addressing the voice – he said: “Seth…why are you here? Is this house haunted? Is that what this is all about?”
The voice laughed softly. “No Jude, the house isn’t haunted. But you’re right. I am dead. That’s why I need you, Jude…”

Jude suddenly felt a cold draught pass through the kitchen. He stepped back in alarm and collided with the table, sending the glass of orange juice spinning onto the floor where it shattered with a loud crash. A few seconds later, he could hear his mum moving around upstairs. She called down the staircase: “Jude? Is that you down there?”
“It’s all right, mum. I was getting a drink. I broke the glass. Sorry.”
His mum made a huffing noise. “Christ almighty, I thought we had burglars. What are you doing down there at this time of night? Get to bed, will you! Now!”
“Okay. Sorry mum.” Stepping carefully around the glass fragments on the floor, Jude walked out of the kitchen. In the hallway he paused to turn off the light, then looked into the darkened kitchen and whispered: “Seth? Are you still there?”
There was no answer.


Saturday

It all seemed like a dream. Only the broken glass in the kitchen bin the next morning told Jude otherwise. But there could be an explanation for that. Maybe he had been sleepwalking. Perhaps that’s what the voice was; a sort of waking dream. After all, Jude could hear voices in his dreams. He often dreamed he was having conversations with Katie, then would be surprised when she didn’t remember them later. Maybe that’s all the voice was: part of a dream that had got stuck with him, like a faulty CD that keeps repeating the same piece of music over and over.

“What the hell were you up to last night?” asked his mum as she set out the breakfast things.
“I’m sorry. I came down to get a drink and I broke the glass.”
“And who cleared it away, I wonder?” His mum threw a heap of cutlery down on the table. “Was it the kitchen fairy? Did she just wave her magic wand and make everything all right?” She picked up a spoon and waved it in the air for effect.

Jude slid down in his chair and mashed the cornflakes in his dish with the back of his spoon. “Okay, okay, I said I’m sorry.” He scooped up a spoonful of the cereal and stared at it. What would he do if Seth spoke to him now? He couldn’t possibly answer in front of his mum: she’d think he was losing his mind; either that or he’d made himself an imaginary friend. Jude had never been the type for imaginary friends; with a real friend like Katie, he had no need for them. But he knew that’s what his mum would think if he started talking to Seth in front of her.
Only one other person could know about Seth, and that was Katie. Jude was aching to tell her about the events of the previous night, but he would have to be patient. It was a Saturday, so there would be no point going round to see her in the morning. Katie did what she called her ‘activities’ on Saturday mornings: swimming, dance class, piano lessons. She wouldn’t be free til the afternoon.

After breakfast, Jude got out his bike and cycled down to the shops. He rode on the pavement; it was too dangerous to go in the road. He remembered Katie telling him about some of the accidents she’d seen in the years she’d been living there; cyclists, motorcyclists, pedestrians. Everyone drove too fast past the houses. Half a mile further on, the speed limit changed from 30 to 60, but everyone drove as if it was 60 all the way. Sometimes you saw cars going past at what looked like 80 or 90; and always the same kind of cars – flash, sleek, powerful, their drivers eager to be somewhere else, whatever the cost.

There had been campaigns for speed cameras, or humps, but nothing had been done apart from the council installing a sign that flashed at the cars as they went by, reminding drivers that the limit was still 30mph. It had taken three deaths on the road in the space of a year to get that much. Small bouquets of flowers marked the spots where these tragedies had taken place. One of them was fastened to the lamp post directly opposite the house where Jude and his mum lived. He noticed it that morning as he pushed his bike down the entry between the houses. The flowers were fresh; someone had renewed them just recently.

At the shops he saw some of his friends from school. There was Sam, and Ashley and Grace and Nathan. He wanted to tell someone about his strange experience of last night. Maybe one of his friends would know who Seth was, or who he used to be. But Jude said nothing. Only Katie would understand.

He was waiting at the steps in front of her house when her dad’s car pulled up at ten past twelve. Katie exploded onto the pavement from the passenger door, all wet hair and damp towels and bags and ballet shoes. “Jude, dude!” she exclaimed. It was her usual form of greeting. “It’s a bit early for you isn’t it?”

Jude shrugged and glanced up at the cloudless blue sky above the houses. “It’s a nice day. I just wondered if you were doing anything this afternoon.”

Katie paused to think, while her dad bustled past her, gathering up bags and other items she’d dropped on the pavement. Katie’s dad was all right; slim, quiet and friendly. He nodded a greeting at Jude and hauled a handful of baggage up the steep steps to the front door.
Jude leaned against the brick wall at the end of the small terraced garden and watched Katie’s dad open up the porch and enter the house. Katie said nothing; the look in her eye suggested she knew what was coming next. Jude leaned forward and lowered his voice to a whisper: “I’ve got something awesome to tell you.”

Katie’s eyes glistened. A knowing smile was forming on her lips. “I knew it,” she nodded. “As soon as I saw you waiting here, I knew why you’d come.” She looked round to check there was no one listening. “It’s the voice, isn’t it?” Jude nodded excitedly, and Katie gave a gasp of delight. “Oh my God! You’ve spoken to it, haven’t you!”
“I did what you suggested. I answered it.”

Katie’s eyes were wide with astonishment. She put a hand to her mouth, and Jude noticed the pink varnish on her fingernails. “This is just amazing. When did it happen?”
“Last night. It must have been two or three o’clock. It woke me up.”
Katie’s face fell. “Oh. I was so hoping this might be real.”
“What do you mean?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Katie brushed a strand of wet hair out of her eyes. “It happened last night, about two or three o’clock. It’s obvious enough to me. You must have dreamed it.” She sounded angry. Turning, she made to go up the steps, but Jude caught at her sleeve.
“It wasn’t a dream. I broke a glass. The fragments were still there this morning. Honestly, Katie, ask my mum.”
Katie turned towards him, her eyes flaring angrily. “You’ve told your mum?”
“Of course not! All she knows about is the broken glass.”

They were interrupted by Katie’s dad coming back down the steps. Katie watched him open the boot of the car and begin removing bags of shopping, then she turned back to Jude with a serious look on her face. “Come back here after dinner. I want to hear the whole story and it had better be good. If this is just your imagination, I’ll never forgive you.” She turned as if to go, then stopped herself and swivelled round to face Jude, jabbing him in the chest with a finger. “And I’ll tell you something else. No one else must know about this. Promise?”
“I promise.” Jude climbed on his bike. “See you after lunch then? About one thirty?”
“Make it two. I’ll be out in the van.” Katie blew him a kiss and skipped up the steps into the house.

© 2008 Martin Cater