Another Me

Chapter One


‘Here comes Fay Delussey, always got her nose in a book!’

I jumped when I heard my name, and bumped into my friends, Kaylie and Dawn, as they ran up to me. Dawn snatched the book from my hands.

‘What are you reading anyway? Must be good.’ Her face crumpled when she read the title on the spine. ‘All Quiet on the Western Front.’ She giggled. ‘Sounds so interesting . . . NOT!’

As you can tell Dawn wasn’t much of a reader and she thought she was funny.

‘It’s about the First World War,’ I told her. ‘I’m trying to get it finished before I hand it back to the library. Don’t want to have to pay a fine for it being late.’

Kaylie sighed. ‘Reading about a war. Honestly, Fay. Why don’t you read something good for a change . . .’ Her voice became a whisper. ‘Like Stephen King.’

‘Don’t like ghost stories,’ I reminded her, ‘or anything scary.’

Dawn rolled her eyes. ‘We know ghost stories don’t happen in real life, Fay. That’s why we enjoy them. Whereas war—’ She pushed my book back at me as if it was contaminated. ‘Now that’s real, and that is scary.’

I knew she was right, of course. Ghosts aren’t real. Ghost stories don’t happen. Not in real life. But they scare me anyway.

‘Better hurry if you’re going to the library.’ Kaylie gave me a push. ‘Or you’ll be late for drama.’

‘Does Daft Donald still want us to put on a play?’ I groaned at the thought of it. Donald Moffat was one of our English teachers and was always trying to get our class interested in play acting. That’s what made him so daft.

Kaylie and Dawn groaned too. ‘Shakespeare.’ They said it through gritted teeth.

‘Shakespeare?’ I couldn’t believe it. ‘Is he off his chump?’ We all pretended to be sick in the corridor. ‘I hate Shakespeare. People talking funny and being mistaken for other people. Who’d ever believe that?’

‘At least we’ll get to dress up,’ Dawn said.

‘Unless he decides we’ve to play it in the nude.’ Kaylie shrieked at the thought of that and sent Dawn and I into another fit of the giggles.

‘Hope it’s Romeo and Juliet,’ Kaylie said. Her eyes moved beyond my shoulder. ‘And here comes Romeo.’

I turned to look, though I knew exactly who she was talking about. Drew Fraser. Most of the girls in our year fancied him. Though not half as much as Drew fancied himself. I was not one of his admirers. I knew him too well. Always had done. He lived on the second floor of our high block of flats. Eleven floors below me, and beneath me in every way.

I had grown up with Drew, been to every one of his birthday parties and he was always invited to mine. Our mums were friends from way back. I’ve found it’s very difficult to fancy someone when he’s bashed you with a fire engine (his third birthday), tried to stuff a chicken on your head (his fifth), and sunk his teeth into your arm and drawn blood (his sixth, if I remember correctly).

He’s still a bit of a vampire even now. He loves reading about the occult, and any kind of psychic phenomena. He’s a weirdo if you ask me. If my friends could see his room, hung with skeletons and masks and monsters, they would think he was a weirdo too. Of course, seeing his room counted as a lifetime ambition for Kaylie and Dawn.

However, it seemed mine was the minority view. Drew Fraser had grown from a knock-kneed boy into a weirdo who was tall and handsome. He was long and thin, with floppy dark hair and a lopsided grin. His green eyes sent most of the girls into orbit. He flashed them now in our direction.

‘Hello, girls.’ He threw the words at us as if he had scattered precious jewels among his harem. Then he swaggered past us. Dawn watched him with her mouth hanging open.

‘He is gorgeous, by the way,’ she said.

I hurried off and left them both mooning after him.

Actually, hurried is the wrong word. I was too busy reading to hurry. Too anxious to finish my book to even look where I was going. So I didn’t notice the someone I brushed against as I went into the library. I muttered an apology and was vaguely aware of a green sweater, just like mine, going out as I went in.

Yet, in that second, something ice cold shivered down my spine, as if someone had just walked over my grave. That’s what they say, isn’t it? Someone walking over your grave?

At the desk, Mrs Watt, the school librarian, was busy pinning up another poster. I had to tap the desk to make her turn round and notice me.

‘Hello, Fay. Did you forget something?’

She must have noticed my puzzled frown. ‘I’ve only just come in,’ I said.