The Land of Roar. Jenny McLachlan

the meal commonly known as dinner so Rose and I heat up a pizza we find at the bottom of the freezer then put ourselves to bed. We have to. It’s midnight and Grandad is out in the garden, dancing round a bonfire he’s made out of old newspapers and egg boxes.

      The pizza and trampolining have put Rose in a good mood because she starts kicking the bottom of my bunk bed, distracting me from the book I’m reading. The only downside to staying at Grandad’s is having to share a room with Rose.

      Eventually the kicking stops and I try to get into my book. Clearing out the attic has left me feeling a bit weird and on edge, but soon I find myself pulled into the story. It’s about a girl who discovers she’s descended from a Samurai warrior and can defeat any enemy by summoning the ghost of her ancestor. I wouldn’t be worried about starting secondary school if I had a Samurai ghost on my side.

      Rose’s voice drifts up from the bottom bunk. ‘Arthur . . . Mazen says you’re going to be eaten alive at Langton Academy.’

      Some people believe that twins can read each other’s minds. I can’t read Rose’s mind, but sometimes she can read mine.

      ‘Mazen says, because you can’t play football and you got a telescope instead of a phone for your birthday, everyone will think you’re weird.’

      I really don’t like Mazen Bailey.

      ‘Oh, and Mazen says you should use product on your hair. To make it, you know, less big or people will laugh at you.’

      Actually I think I might hate Mazen Bailey.

      ‘Arthur? Can you hear me?’ Rose gives the bottom of the bed an extra big kick. ‘Mazen was only trying to help. She’s in Year Eight so she knows.’

      ‘Mazen Bailey,’ I say, after a moment of dignified silence, ‘believes that The Force Awakens is the first Star Wars film, so obviously her opinion counts for nothing.’

      Rose goes quiet and all I can hear is tap, tap, tap, tap.

      ‘Rose, are you sending her a message?’

      ‘Shh,’ she says. ‘Did you just say obviously her opinion counts for nothing, or clearly her opinion counts for nothing?’

      I throw myself over the side of the bunk bed and make a grab for Rose’s phone, but she just pushes me away and keeps typing. ‘Rose, if you press send I’ll –’

      She looks up, interested. ‘Yes? What will you do?’

      ‘I’ll . . . I’ll . . .’ What can I do? What power do I have over Rose these days? She doesn’t want to hang out with me. I don’t make her laugh any more. Everything about me annoys her. ‘I won’t sleep in here!’ I shout.

      She bursts out laughing. ‘So? That would be great!’ Then she presses her finger down. ‘Ooops . . . I just pressed send!’

      Rage surges through me and I badly want to hit Rose, but I can’t, because she’s my sister and hitting my sister when I was six might have been just about OK, but hitting my sister when I’m eleven is wrong.

      Rose laughs. ‘You look funny, Arthur. Are you going to cry?’

      Over my dead body, I think, but I do have a painful lump in my throat because what Rose just did was so disloyal. Rose and I are twins. We’re supposed to stick together!

      The lump in my throat gets bigger and I have to squeeze my eyes shut to make it go away.

      ‘You are,’ Rose says confidently. ‘You’re going to cry.’

      But I don’t cry. Instead I do the thing I always do when there’s a chance I might cry. ‘ARRRGHHHH!’ I scream in her face. Then I grab my duvet and stomp out of the room, slamming the door behind me.

      No way am I sleeping in the same room as my disloyal, evil, mocking sister. No way am I ever speaking to her again. No way am I even going to breathe the same air that she breathes . . .

      There’s just one problem.

      Where can I sleep?

      Grandad’s house is big, but it’s also full. There are two spare bedrooms, but neither of them has beds. One of them has got Grandad’s drum kit in it, and the other’s full of books and Nani’s old things. Then I remember where there’s a perfectly good bed. One that folds in the middle and has a mattress covered in orange and brown flowers and ‘Entur heer for the laned of ROAR!!!’ scratched into the headboard.

      A bed that I’m ninety-nine per cent certain I didn’t wee in.

      It turns out attics are extremely creepy at night, especially empty ones.

      Moonlight streams in through the single window, lighting up the camp bed and making Prosecco look extra glittery. I step inside, my duvet trailing behind me, and flick on the light switch.

      Nothing happens.

      It takes several more pushes before I realise the bulb must have gone. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to sleep. I don’t need a light to open up a camp bed and fall asleep.

      And yet . . . it is very shadowy up here, and quiet, and Prosecco’s silver eyeballs are staring right at me. I take a step to the left. Prosecco’s still staring at me. Step to the right. He’s still staring. This is stupid. Prosecco can’t stare. He’s made of wood and doesn’t have functioning eyeballs, and Prosecco is not a he: Prosecco is an it, an inanimate object!

      That for some reason is rocking ever so slightly.

      I’m about to step forward when I have the uncanny feeling that someone, or something, is up here in the attic with me. Immediately I think of the shadow I saw at the window, the wizard, and for a second I actually feel weak at the knees. So I decide to do what Dad says he does whenever he feels scared. I laugh out loud.

      ‘Ha ha ha ha!’

      Wow. Dad is so wrong about that.

      I tell myself that it’s my mind playing tricks on me again, then I put my shoulders back and walk towards the camp bed. I’m a step away when I hear a tiny fluttering sound. I freeze and hold my breath and listen. I hear it again. It sounds like wings brushing against something, and wings remind me of the map, and of the wild-looking face grinning at me from the window of the Crow’s Nest.

      Crowky.

      I’ve thought a lot about Crowky since I found the map. It was Rose who invented him out of the two things I hated most in the world: scarecrows and crows.

      My scarecrow fear began when I once got lost in a maize maze. I’d run on ahead of my family and suddenly realised I was all on my own. Except for the scarecrows, and they were everywhere. I ran round a corner and saw a policeman scarecrow; I ran left and saw a Father Christmas scarecrow. I was about to start screaming when I spotted Mum on the next path. ‘Mum!’ I shouted, forcing my way towards to her and grabbing the sleeve of her denim jacket. Then her arm fell off.

      It wasn’t Mum. It was an Elvis scarecrow, and that’s when I started screaming.

      I swear to this day that their jackets were identical.

      I’d have probably got over the scarecrow thing if, later in the day, Rose hadn’t thought it would be funny to feed some birds by sprinkling crumbs in my hair. A crow landed on my head and got a bit stuck, and the next time we were in Grandad’s attic Rose came up with Crowky. She could do his voice really well, all scratchy and wicked. ‘I’m going to get you, Arthur Trout! ’ she’d rasp, filling me with dread. ‘I’m going to get yoooou! ’

      And it’s exactly that dread I’m feeling