1st 5 Pages Nov Workshop - Telford Rev 1

Name: Pat Telford

Genre: Young Adult mystery

Title: Sky Lanterns Over Nether Ides : A Redferne Family Mystery

Chapter 1 - Orphans

Higgs

Last year my brother Faraday instantly figured out why that helicopter crashed into the fringe of Nicholson's Woods. He stood there, a little too close to the blazing wreckage and pointed out to Newton and the other police officers what had happened. If only it was that easy to arrive at some conclusions when examining the more recent wreckage of our family. When I get trapped in the maze of thoughts about the deaths of our mother then father, I don't even try to find the way out. That's the best way to survive.

As a result of the crash investigation, Faraday was briefly a minor local celebrity. His hair wafted traces of smoke and he still smelled of aviation fuel when the first reporters and prying neighbours appeared at our house. They were politely turned away by my parents, but in town for the next few weeks Faraday walked quickly and anxiously. It was visibly awkward for him to accept the praise and earnest interest expressed by the people he might encounter. His bedroom became more of a haven than usual. I dread to think what he would have been like if the spotlight of attention shone on him *after*. I still feel the space where my parents should exist, and I know he does too.

He seems to suck in so much information and comes to conclusions so quickly that he often figures things out before anyone else has a chance to get their thinking caps out of their back pockets, let alone put them on. His incessant counting, obsession with detail, and his failure to understand how to speak to people he hasn't known for at least several years are infuriating. But at 17 years old, even though he's a year and a half older than I am, he will always have an inner child that needs guidance.

Because everyone else in the house was snarled up in the aftermath of the helicopter crash in some way, I never found a good chance to talk to my parents about what happened to me that same night. The next morning, I opened my mouth and started to tell my mother a half dozen times, but then cut myself off mid-word. I didn't want to be the baby sister distracting my brother's protectors.

That night, the nightmarish black smoke glowing orange underneath from the still burning helicopter had been visible from my bedroom window. It was cool, but the breeze on my face and hands was not unpleasant. But in the moment immediately before I heard my grandmother's voice whispering from the back yard, every little hair on my body stood on end, as if there was a prize for the straightest-looking strand.

"Higgs!" she whispered dreamily. "Higgs! You are a tree." I could hear her clearly, but she wasn't visible in the yard, even though nobody had bothered to turn off the string of bulbs that ran suspended over its length. And it couldn't be her out there, could it? She was in a medical care home up by the hills, and there was no way she could walk all the way down here, especially not at night.

I dared to call out to her tentatively, even though I did not believe she was there. "Granny?"

There was no direct answer, but her distinctive musical voice spoke one more time, this time at full volume. "A tree."

It wasn't a dream that her voice said nothing more and my hairs settled down. It wasn't a dream that my palms started to itch, and when I turned them over and looked down, tiny shoots of vegetation had started to spring out from them. It wasn't a dream that the shoots turned to leaves, green at first and then crinkling into autumn reds and oranges. I know it wasn't a dream-although my palms had returned to a normal girlish state in the morning, my bed was sprinkled with fallen autumn leaves. It was springtime.

I was in denial, like a polar explorer looking at blackened, frozen toes and figuring they'll feel better after a nice soak in some warm water. Something unseen was forming in the dark recesses of my brain, but I refused to acknowledge it. I decided not to tell anyone, and now my parents will never know.

I had known Dot Pendlethwaite since we were toddling unsteadily around at mothers' group meet-ups. Although we shared the same outlook on life, onlookers would likely only pick out our differences. Dot seemed insubstantial, with her almost reflective dark hair often half-drawn curtains across her pale face. And I was a midget compared to her, with the tufty peaks of my blonde crop barely reaching her chin when we stood close in conspiring conversation.

There was also a newcomer to our circle - Lars Janssen. He arrived at West Ides School only last year and gained admission on a scholarship because he was as clever as anyone at the school. He lived in a small, cluttered apartment in the town centre with his mother who ran the Trove of Wonders consignment shop at the canal end of the high street. His English still had a Swedish lilt to it, and he sprinted his lightweight frame from home to shop to school without much care for the state of his shoes. Friendly and unpretentious, he somehow found Dot and I in his first week and has been a fixture ever since.

I thought of Faraday often when I was at school with my own friends. His general existence was like the world's most pathetic Instagram account. He followed just one person-our brother Newton, who took advantage of that fierce analytical mind, making him an informal helper in his police detective activities. And Faraday had just one follower-our dog Disco. Faraday was ten years old on the afternoon that he and my grandmother found her as a stray, up by the canal tunnel, and they have since been inseparable. She came to us with a little rip in one silky-soft ear and an unregulated eyeball that tends to get bored with what the other eye is observing and rove off to find its own superior view. Maybe Disco, a scrawny whippet with snaggly teeth sees Faraday as a fellow misfit.

Disco

Humans are such idiots sometimes. I'm no steak surgeon, but sheesh. I'm not even the smartest dog in the neighbourhood. There's a French bulldog that lives just around the corner. She looks dumber than a sheep, with her comical underbite. Still, she somehow outsmarts me every time. But dogs are rarely wrong about the basics. We don't overthink things. We never let analysis get in the way of instinct. We protect the pack.

Check out that human that kept coming around with Higgs after school. He was always chatting and getting a bit closer than she seemed to like. I don't know his name. Just like I don't know pretty much everyone else's name. He smelled like raspberry leaves, talcum powder, and faintly of frying bacon. That guy. I knew he was hiding something, from Higgs and from everyone else. I didn't have any reason to think that, but I knew it. It was my mission to find out what he was hiding. If only I could get the kids to take me to the right spots to properly investigate. I could protect the pack.