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

Thought maybe I could be a militant conservationist one day, but that was before I looked it up. It’s nothing to do with the army.

My turn came last, but Mum had ruined it. The order I’d planned to say everything in just collapsed.

‘Hey,’ Dad said. ‘Lily’s full of cute geese and a bird that walks like a little man!’

‘It’s a hornbill.’

‘With the brain of a ten-year-old human, Lily says.’

‘She’s exaggerating,’ I said. ‘But yeah. I was mostly busy talking.’

‘To the big man?’

‘Yep.’

‘Proper zoo, he’s got,’ Dad said. ‘Do you think it cheered Lily up?’

‘Probably.’

So neither of the others have told Dad about the diamond thing. Good thing I held off, then. Sometimes it’s hard to get it right.

And Dad hasn’t even noticed that I’ve stopped sending him bits of my journal.

27

How to Ruin Your Life

14th August

I’m getting ready for Sports Camp on the recreation field. Don’t want to go, but Mum says I have to, and I need to go early to help the coach set up.

‘It’ll go towards your bank of good turns,’ she said. ‘Of which you need plenty more—’

‘More? How many sorriments do I have to make?’

‘Sam should be there,’ she said. ‘You might get a chance to build bridges.’

That’s if Sam even turns up.

5.30 p.m.

Something really stupid and frightening and accidental just happened. Mum’s stunned. She’s upstairs now, and I think she might be having a lie-down. It started on the recreation field.

Sam did turn up for the Sports Camp. He didn’t look at me all morning, and his whole body said back off. During the first penalty shoot-out, my stomach tightened and twisted. It was like trying to play football with open warfare going on in my guts. After lunch, we got pushed together in the pavilion, supposedly to bring out the equipment for the ball-control session.

We hadn’t been in the same room together for two weeks, and the silence stretched between us like a sheet of something filthy.

Couldn’t stand it for long. I had to speak. ‘How’s your grandad?’

For a few horrible seconds I thought he wasn’t going to answer. But then he said, ‘Same.’

I nodded. ‘What did you think of all the intel I got from Mr Clemm?’

He shrugged, turned away and went outside carrying two cones, leaving me completely flattened. That was my best shot. I followed him outside with more cones, but every time I tried to get near him, he walked away. I had to stop. I looked like a stalker.

And then a piece of total intergalactic amazement happened – my heart’s still doing a quadrillion extra beats because of it. Whizzy joined us. Right in the middle of the tackling-skills session!