The 1,000-year-old Boy. Ross Welford

times. ‘Not until you are grown, Alve. You must be patient.’

      But I could not wait.

      On the third evening in the cave, while Mam was out looking for fresh water, I opened the little clay pot and took out the livperler. Although they were old, the glass marbles shone in the half-twilight from outside, the thick liquid within seeming to glow amber when I held one near the fire.

      Biffa sat up on a little rocky shelf on the opposite side of the fire, her yellow eyes shining like the glass balls. Did she know? She mewled: the little cat-growl that made us think she was talking to us. Biffa often seemed to know things.

      Crouching on my hunkers, I took the knife, the little steel one that had belonged to Da, with the blade that hinged into the wooden handle, and held it to the flame. I glanced at the mouth of the cave to check I was alone, and swallowed hard.

      When I drew the hot blade twice across my upper arm, the blood seeped out. Two short slashes, like the scars Mam had. Like Da had had. I do not know if doing it twice made any difference; probably not. It was just the way.

      It did not hurt until I used my thumbs to pull the wounds apart. I bit down on the life-pearl and the glass cracked. The yellowish syrup oozed out like the blood from my cuts. I gathered it on my fingertips and rubbed it into the wounds. Then I did it again, and again, until there was none left. It stung, like a fresh nettle in the spring.

      What happened next was an accident. I have played it over and over in my mind, like people play ‘videotapes’ today. Could I have done anything differently?

      I do not know.

      I think Biffa was just curious. She cannot have known – but, as I said, she was a very knowing cat. Suddenly she gave another little growl and leapt at me, right across the low flames of the fire. The knife was still in my hand and, without thinking, I raised it: a defensive reflex. It nicked her front paw slightly, but she did not mewl again. When she landed, I spun round and, in that action, my tunic dislodged another life-pearl from the low rock shelf where I had placed them. I was unbalanced, and my bare foot came down on it, hard, and it cracked open.

      I stared at it, horrified, for a few seconds.

      It was bad enough that I had disobeyed Mam’s orders. But I had now wasted another precious life-pearl.

      The thick amber liquid began to drip out of the rock. Thinking only that it should not be wasted, I grasped Biffa by the long skin of her neck and rubbed the liquid into her cut paw.

      (It was not mischief, as I said to Mam again and again over the years. I was just trying not to waste it.)

      Then I wrapped up my arm with a long strip of clean cloth, and tied another round Biffa’s leg. She did not even seem to mind. She licked her whiskers, yawned and curled up again. I could see Mam’s shape against the blue twilight sky as she came back to the cave with a bucket of water, and I was overwhelmed with shame.

      I sometimes think I still am.

      By then, I had seen eleven winters.

      I was to stay eleven years old for more than a thousand years.

      

      All of that happened ages ago.

      I have tried telling my story before, but I soon learnt that people do not want to know. I have to leave out crucial details like the life-pearls, and so people think I am teasing them (at best) or that I am dangerously mad (at worst).

      So I stay schtum, as you say.

      I sometimes wonder if people’s reactions would be different if I looked old? That is, if I were wrinkled and stooped and bald, with a quavery voice, and huge, veiny ears and badly fitting clothes. Then again, people would not bother with the ‘teasing’ bit, would they? They would immediately assume that age had sent me mad.

      ‘Bless ’im, old Alf,’ they would say. ‘He was on about the Vikings again today.’

      ‘Was ’e? Aww. It was Charles Dickens yesterday. Reckoned he’d met him!’

      ‘Really? Poor old soul. Mind, he’s harmless, in’t he? Away with the mixer, like, but harmless.’

      As it is, I do not look old at all: I look about eleven.

      At the point I stopped ageing, the Vikings had more or less completed their occupation of north-eastern England. It was the Scots that Mam and I were fleeing. It was to be another fifty or more years before the south of the country was invaded: 1066, by the Normans (who were basically Vikings who had learnt French, if you ask me, but nobody does. Nor-man, north-man – you can see the link).

      And, in case you are interested, I did meet Charles Dickens, but not until many, many years later.

      See? You do not believe me, do you? I cannot really blame you, seeing as I am the last remaining Neverdead on earth. And, now that Mam has gone, living forever is no life at all.

      The trouble is, if you do not believe me, what chance do I have of convincing Aidan Linklater and Roxy Minto? I will need their help if I am to lift the curse of my endless life.

      And if they do not believe me then I am, as you say these days, stuffed.

      

      I should probably start by telling you why I’m hacked off. Get it out of the way. Then we can get onto how I came to meet Alfie, and my life changed forever.

      

       Whitley Bay, present day

      For a start, we’ve moved house. That’s bad enough. But get this:

      1. It’s a smaller house. Much smaller, with hardly any back garden – just a scruffy yard that’s way too small to kick a ball in. Mum has reminded me (more than once) that I’m lucky to live in a house with any outside space at all and, when she says that, I feel guilty, and sorry that I even mentioned it because I know why we’ve moved. Thing is, my friend Mo, who lives in a flat, used to come round to our old house because he had no garden, but now there’s no point, is there?

      2. If people come to stay, I will now have to share a room with Libby who’s a pain at the best of times. She’s seven and likes My Little Pony.

      3. Inigo Delombra, who’s in my year at school, now lives in my old house. I think he even has my old room. He smirks at me every time I see him, as if to say, ‘You sad loser.’

      At least I haven’t had to move school, but, with the way things are going with Spatch and Mo, I might as well have.

      Another thing: Mum and Dad are arguing all the time. They’ve always argued – ‘bickering’ they call it – but lately it’s become louder, and they think I don’t notice. It’s money – always money. I don’t know the details. All I know is that they made a ‘bad investment’, and Mum says it was Dad’s fault. Mum now works in a call centre and hates it. I found Libby listening at the top of the stairs the other night.

      She said, ‘Are they going to get divorced, Aidan?’

      I had to say, ‘No, of course not.’ Her chin wobbled but she didn’t cry. Not in front of me, anyway, which is just as well because it would probably have set me off too.

      So with that