The Deviants. C.J. Skuse

      C.J. SKUSE is the author of the YA novels PRETTY BAD THINGS, ROCKOHOLIC and DEAD ROMANTIC. She was born in 1980 in Weston-super-Mare, England. She has First Class degrees in Creative Writing and Writing for Children and, aside from writing novels, lectures in Writing for Children at Bath Spa University where she is planning to do her PhD. THE DEVIANTS is her fifth novel.

      For my Auntie Margaret and Uncle Roy Snead,

      Thank you for the days, those sacred days you gave me.

      Contents

       Cover

       About the Author

       Title Page

       Dedication

1. A Day at the Beach

2. Moonlight Adventure Saturday, 1 August

3. Thumping Good Fun

4. The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat

5. An Old Friend One month earlier – 9 July

6. An Adventure Beckons

7. Back at Whitehouse Farm

8. Jolly Good Fun

       9. A Little Upset

       10. A Horrid Shock

       11. A Smashing Time and a Piece of Advice

       12. Ella Thinks Up a Plan

       13. Up To Mischief Tuesday, 4 August

       14. A Shock for Max

       15. A Rather Unpleasant Meeting

       16. Junior Springs a Surprise!

       17. Five Go Adventuring

       18. Curious Discoveries

       19. A Rather Splendid Party Friday night, 21st August

       20. A Mystery is Solved

       21. Mostly About Ella

       22. Back to the Island

       23. A Nasty Surprise

       24. Discoveries at the Witch’s Pool

       25. Several Things Happen

       26. One Goes Down to the Sea

       27. A Shock for All

       28. Away on Their Own

       29. Five Have a Wonderful Time

       Acknowledgments

       Copyright

1

       A Day at the Beach

      I’m sitting beside the café window when I see the man running up the beach and I instantly know it’s washed ashore. The sand flicks up behind him as he sprints. And he’s screaming.

      His face is alive with fear. He’s running so hard to get away from it, what he’s found. In those brief moments, I am the only person in the café to see him. But, within seconds, the quiet crumbles into chaos.

      ‘Somebody! Help!’

      ‘What’s he saying?’

      ‘Did he say a body?’

      Someone calls my name, but I don’t turn around. I keep walking, out of the café, into the morning air, along the Esplanade, down the steps and onto the wet sand, like the sea is a magnet and I am metal.

      People overtake me. Someone shouts, ‘Call the police.’ Thudding footsteps, snatches of breath. The sand’s covered in a billion worm hills and tiny white shells. A group of crows squawks nearby. They’re all clustered around an object, pecking at it.

      ‘Let the police handle it.’

      ‘Don’t look. Don’t look.’

      I keep walking towards the mound, until I can see for myself what the man was running from. Until I can see for myself what I have done.

       ‘Tell me everything. Start with what was happening between you and Max.’

2

       Moonlight Adventure Saturday, 1 August

      It’s like those really old paintings you see in art galleries – if you look at them from a distance, they’re beautiful. A quick glance, it’s a masterpiece. But as you get closer, you start to see all the cracks. We were a masterpiece, me and Max. We’d known each other for ever. We had the same taste in music. We finished each other’s sentences. We ate Carte d’Or watching Botched Up Bodies and he’d pretend not to wince. We watched romantic comedies and he’d pretend not to cry. And he had these marvellous arms and always wore sleeveless hoodies in summer.

      But close up, there were problems. And these problems were becoming harder to ignore. I was snipping at him more