Rosemary Wilkie

CHAPTER 1

It was high summer. Heat and humidity lay over the land like a stifling blanket. No birds sang. The small town was sleepy, its old bricks and stones baking in the sun, its gardens limp and still.

A door slammed and a girl ran out scowling. She threw herself into a hammock at the far end of the garden and kicked angrily at the air until she was swinging wildly and the old trees creaked in protest.

Sarah wanted to do something useful to help save the planet, but her parents thought recycling newspapers and bottles was enough. They wanted things to go on the same way for the rest of their lives, forgetting that their daughter had a long time to live. "Do what you like," they said, "we want you to be happy," but they always found a reason to say no to things she was really interested in.

She had been so excited to be offered a job for the summer, helping on an organic farm nearby, but her parents had forbidden it, saying she was much too young.

"I've been old enough to weed your garden for years!" she shouted.

Her father switched on the television and pretended not to hear.

Today they had ganged up on her over lunch - parents, aunt, uncle and boring old cousin - telling her what she had to do to become like them. Like them! The only one who didn't criticise her was Grandmother, but she didn't help either.

Slowly, the hammock came to rest. Sarah pondered quietly, then raised her head and spoke out with resolve. "This is my life and I am going to spend it making the world a better place!" adding under her breath "whether they like it or not!"

Sarah felt calmer, and rummaged in the bag that never left her side for a book to read. Suddenly a small voice called from the laurel hedge at the end of the garden. Twisting round, Sarah was astonished to see a low wooden gate. Two little hands appeared followed by the tousled blonde head of a small girl who hooked her chubby arms over the gate and beckoned solemnly.

Sarah was curious and got out of the hammock. "Where have you come from?"

The child stared back wordlessly, as if she could achieve her purpose better by silence.

As Sarah approached, the child swung the gate open and Sarah pitched forward down a short slope of baked earth. She rolled to a halt on dry grass, her bag spilling its contents nearby. The child stood smiling.

"Now look what you've done!" cried Sarah, rubbing her scratched limbs.

The child's smile faded. Tears welled up in her blue eyes and made white tracks on her cheeks.

Sarah dabbed at the tears with a tissue. She spoke more gently. "What is your name?"

A timid smile. "Emily."

"I'm Sarah. Where do you live?"

She looked around hopefully, but to her surprise they were in a long narrow alley enclosed by dense yew hedges, the sky a strip of harsh light overhead. No houses. No people. No worried mother looking for Emily. Sarah sighed, stood up, brushed the dust off their clothes and picked up her bag. She couldn't leave the little girl here alone. The sensible thing was to go home and let her mother sort it out.

Emily watched as Sarah looked in vain for the way back into her garden. No laurels. No gate. No way back! Sarah dropped down beside Emily and took some deep breaths. It wouldn't do to panic. How her parents would laugh. Wants to save the world, but can't even find her way home with a lost child. She stood up. She would show them!

Before Sarah had decided what to do, Emily jumped up and scrambled through a gap in the hedge. She seemed to know where she was going so Sarah followed along one sombre alley after another. They turned a corner and Emily picked up a small ginger kitten. Sarah's heart sank as she realised they were in the centre of a maze. A sundial, a statue lying on the ground beside its low pedestal, and four girls, one of them lying on a bench in a cream dress, her head hidden under a straw hat from which long tendrils of red-gold hair emerged. The other three were talking.

One turned to greet Sarah. Orange polo shirt, shorts, dark brown curls framing a friendly face damp with perspiration. "I'm Bee," she said. "We are trying to get out but always find ourselves back here. How did Emily get you in? I was helping my sister collect for famine relief. I followed Emily thinking she would lead me to her parents, we went through a hole in a hedge and here I am!"

The other two girls were arguing: a young girl with long fair hair and a boyish figure in jeans and yellow T-shirt, glasses on her nose, sitting on the pedestal.

"That's Louisa on the pedestal. The fair one is Felicity," Bee told Sarah. "Hannah is the one taking up all the bench."

Louisa glared at Felicity. "Shut up, cry baby!"

"I won't shut up. I feel like crying! I've been here the longest and I want to go home, now!"

"How?" said Louisa. "We haven't a mobile phone. We have no pole for a flag, nor do we have a flare or matches to make smoke and in any case fire is dangerous in a drought. We haven't tools to cut through the hedge or tunnel underneath or climb over the top or fly out. We haven't enough clothes between us to spell HELP on the ground, and nothing flies overhead anyway." She smiled condescendingly.

"Why are you here if you're so clever?" Sarah snapped.

Louisa slumped a little on her perch. "I was doing a project for school about life in twenty years' time. They don't tell us the full story - the ozone layer, global warming, the population, pollution, toxins in food. And TV programmes aren't much better. I decided to ask our neighbours for help - they are on the Internet - and found myself here instead."

"Surely Emily knows the way in and out?" said Sarah.

"She says the little people show her," said Louisa scornfully. "Little liar."

Emily stuck out her tongue. "I never tell lies!"

Louisa sat up straight. "There must be a plan to this maze. One left, two right..."

"I would try it if I had some string," said Bee.

With a flourish Sarah produced a ball of wool from her bag. While Bee and Louisa argued where to start, Hannah got up smoothly from the bench, took the wool, fastened one end to the dark hedge and disappeared.

An inquisitive blackbird watched, its head on one side.

Wondering what time it was, Sarah looked at the sundial, but it had lost its gnomon. She scratched the lichen off the letters on the side. "I have been shadow, I have been sun. Now I know these two are one." She shrugged.

Felicity leaned on the sundial, twisting a corner of her droopy pink tee-shirt. She was quite young, her face behind a curtain of fair hair blotchy and red from crying. "My parents were having an awful fight," she whispered, "so I ran away to my grandmother, but I got lost and asked Emily the way..."

Sarah stared gloomily at the enclosing hedges. Why hadn't she stayed safely in her hammock? The glare from the sky was intense and there was no relief in the narrow shade of the tall hedge. She longed for a cool drink. She wished her school friend Alice was there. They argued sometimes, Alice insisting you must take care of people first, whereas Sarah knew that if you didn't save the planet there wouldn't be any people. They imagined themselves grown up, working happily and constructively together, but that was years ahead. The world needed help now. Hugo, the loathsome boy next door, was encouraged to be independent and learn about anything that interested him. Grossly unfair. A small black cloud drifted quickly overhead.

Cheerful shouts from Hannah. "Follow the wool!"

They did so eagerly, heat, tiredness and thirst forgotten. Emily ran ahead and Sarah brought up the rear, winding the wool into a ball. Soon fronds of light green covered the hedges more and more thickly until they turned a corner and spilled happily out of the maze.

They were in a great park. Between the trees they glimpsed a lake and ran forward to explore. The calm waters reflected a rich tapestry of trees, flowering shrubs and sky. To the right, on a rise beyond the lake, stood a beautiful long building, its stone walls glowing warmly in the late afternoon sun. The windows shone so brightly that light seemed to pour from them. The girls stood entranced.

The tranquillity was shattered as a host of birds rose from the trees squalling with fear. To the left the distance was obscured by a dark turbulence like black vapour off hot tarmac. The kitten's hair stood on end, the murkiness loomed larger, and the girls instinctively fell to the ground. As the horror whirred past they had a momentary view of the park grey and denuded of trees, the building distorted into a menacing fortress.

The trail of noxious gases left the girls choking and wiping their smarting eyes. They peered after the apparition, but it was gone.

"What was that?"

"Let's go before it comes back!"

They raced to the maze, but could not find the way in. Down one side, then the other, both ways blocked by tall black railings. Breathless. Fighting panic. Which way now?Better not go deep into the park where the horror came from, so they went the other way, under cover of the trees.

"Psst!" The girls froze as a figure dropped from an ancient oak, a girl all in black with a dragon emblazoned on her T-shirt. Bright eyes peered out from a cloud of long black tousled hair splashed with scarlet. She approached the frightened group then stopped, disappointed. "Oh. Have you seen anyone else?"

The girls shook their heads.

"How do we get out of the park?" said Bee.

"The gates were locked at six and won't be opened till morning," said the girl. "You'd better disappear - the guards will be out patrolling with dogs soon."

"What will happen if they find us?" wailed Felicity.

"They'll lock you up for trespassing I expect," said the girl carelessly, and turned away.

"Just a minute!" cried Sarah, running after her. "You can't leave us here to be mauled by dogs and black horrors!"

The girl shrugged. "Follow me," she said.