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Back The Lightning Catcher Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
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  45. Acknowledgements

But I didn’t hear what Mum replied because I’d leaped off my bed and I was off down the stairs and out into the garden, where Dad, talking to Sid next door at the garden gate, only just managed to stop me by pressing both hands flat against my chest.

4.30 p.m.

Tomorrow, Dad says – that’s when we can go and see Mr Clemm at Mrs Gillespie’s house. ‘Let the poor man settle in,’ Mum said. ‘He’ll probably need to top up his nebuliser when he sees you, Alfie.’

Sam’s coming too. Then we’re going to the new skate park in Newton Moorby, because his grandad gets home the day after. Sam’s voice sounded wobbly on the phone. Can’t wait to get everything back to normal. He says even people we don’t really know from the year above us at school want to see me. I’m an adventurer now; everyone wants a piece.

And Lily’s heard a rumour: someone in the old people’s bungalows has been leaving food out for a big strange bird.

‘Don’t get your hopes up though, Alfie,’ she said. ‘Every-one’s yakking about your story. People mix things up.’

I’ve just shown Mum and Dad and Lily the spot where Whizzy disappeared. You can even see it from the road – part of Mr Clemm’s hedge is scorched and blackened.

We talked about how lucky we are. We pretended we were joking, we covered it up in laughter, but we meant it. Lily and I looked at each other, one on either side of Mum and Dad.

On the way home, I rescued a biggish spider from a puddle and put it on the tarmac of Halfway Lane. It stretched all its legs out and skittered away, and that’s when Lily saw it. She screamed her head off.

Acknowledgements

As Alfie would put it, the most colossal and ginormous thanks go to Salma Begum; this book would not exist if Salma hadn’t discovered Alfie, or if Peter Kalu hadn’t given him a chance back when Commonword launched their Children’s Diversity Writing Prize.

Huge thanks go to my wonderful agent and miracle-worker, Abi Fellows; and to my fantastic editor and alchemist Lucy Mackay-Sim at Bloomsbury Children’s; and everyone else on that brilliant team, especially Jessica Bellman, Sarah Baldwin, Beatrice Cross and Jade Westwood; and to Paddy Donnelly for the beautiful cover illustration.