BooksBarbecue
Back The Lightning Catcher Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. Acknowledgements

You can see the door to the question room from the dining hall, and it was dinner-time when they let me out. When I sat down at a table, someone drew a square window in the air with their finger and put bars on it, then mimed ‘prison’, pointed at me and nodded. They all started doing it. They all laughed.

At the end of dinner my food was untouched, but the boy carried on doing the mime all the way up the corridor to the games room. I don’t know his name.

‘You’re going down, big-style. You’ll never get out.’

I shook my head at him.

‘Yeah, you are, cos you’re a murderer.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You are. Murderer! Arsonist! Arse!’

Midnight

Something’s just smashed outside my door and woken me up. Tried to snuggle back to sleep, but can’t stop thinking, so might as well write it down, and my heart’s racing.

They think my journal’s just a load of made-up stories, not the truth about Whizzy and her electrical mangles. That’s obvious.

Prison. Going Down. They say I’m only here until the proper court hearing, but after that, will I have to come back here or go somewhere else? The others made it sound like there was somewhere else. Somewhere worse.

Wish I could smash something. A plate. A chair. Or crack a mirror. The doors here can’t easily be slammed because they’re all slow-close fire doors, but it would be good to pick up a table and crash it into a wall.

I know why the others smash and shatter things. I know exactly why.

38

Visitors

2nd September, 5.10 p.m.

I felt sick when I realised the date: everyone at home went back to school today.

Miss Jukes has just knocked on my door and told me to wash my hands and face and change my T-shirt because I’ve got visitors. She wouldn’t say who.

‘A surprise for you, Alfie,’ she said. ‘Come to the visitors’ room when you’re ready.’

7.20 p.m.

I felt wobbly walking down to the visitors’ room. I just had a funny feeling. Miss Jukes’s face was soft and smiley, so it must be somebody good. But when I walked through the door and saw Mum’s hair spilling on to her shoulders as she turned her head, I still couldn’t believe it. A high little laugh came out of my mouth and Mum gasped, opening her arms.

‘Alfie!’

And then I saw Dad!

Solid Dad. Not on a video – real.

They hugged me so tight it almost hurt. First Dad, then Mum, then both together, which doesn’t really work if you need to breathe, but I didn’t care.