Amanita Walmer and the Amberleigh Flower (Teen Edition)

By Dominic Jericho

This is a languid novel about the lost love of a late father through emerging teen independence, set amid the broad beauty of North England, and the sumptuous rainfall of the South American tropics.

Amanita Walmer never knew her father, the renowned botanist Dr Virgil Walmer, as he died weeks before she was born. When Amanita travels up to Durham University to begin her undergraduate degree she realises many of her home comforts and old friendships have vanished, and has to face up to her life as a single woman navigating challenging studies and the world of lustful men, previously unknown to her.

When old friend from Amberleigh Samuel Mills pays a visit to her dorm room, her suppressed desire for male companionship and her longing for home combine in a passionate outburst. They begin to date. As Amanita's year progresses, a rain-cloud of grief for her lost father begins to rear its head, and she discovers that she has always missed what she never had. However when she is suddenly called home to Amberleigh to attend a family incident, her growing confidence is set into stark relief. Confronted with the love she feels for her family, and the path she has built for herself, can Amanita summon the latent courage she inherited from her intrepid father, and allow her own independent spirit to finally bloom?

In this eloquent exploration of burgeoning independence, Amanita Walmer and the Amberleigh Flower portrays what it is like to leave home for the first time, the strains put on friendships that were once thought eternal, and the lasting marks of an unknown fatherhood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dominic Jericho
• Release date: Dec 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463862780

Dominic Jericho

Dominic Jericho is a writer of young adult fiction. He's been writing stories since before he was a teen himself. He started with a pencil on a scruffy notepad before rapidly buying up multiple packs of empty exercise books so he could fill them with ideas, lists, concepts and illustrations. He now writes all his novels on a shiny new laptop, which unfortunately has the annoying distraction of an internet connection.Dominic lives in the South East of England.You can keep up to date with Dominic’s writing by visiting and following his blog. The blog is stuffed full of interesting book-related reading lists, reviews and lovingly flawed interpretations of literary classics. Visit now at: https://dominicjericho.wordpress.com/

Book preview

Amanita Walmer

and the

Amberleigh Flower (Teen Edition)

© Dominic Jericho 2018

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

The moral right of Dominic Jericho has been asserted.

First published in Great Britain 2018

Public domain works cited within text:

George Herbert ‘The Flower’ (1633)

Matthew Arnold ‘Dover Beach’ (1851)

Matthew Arnold ‘To Marguerite: Continued’ (1852)

Frances Hodgson Burnett The Secret Garden (1911)

James Joyce Ulysses (1922)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Amanita Walmer

and the

Amberleigh Flower (Teen Edition)

By

Dominic Jericho

This is a languid novel about the lost love of a late father, and emerging teenage independence, set amid the broad beauty of Northern England, and the ponderous rainfall of the South American tropics

For K.P.

Visit https://dominicjericho.wordpress.com

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Contents

Before

The Rain-Dial

Evacwatered

Snake

Uni

Subterfuge

Samuel Mills

New Friends

Flower of My Soul

In Bloom

Yordyssea

Ghost Walker

Amazon

Back to School

Xanadu

Apparition

Torrent

Oblivion

Text Message

Amanita’s Visit

Lindisfarne

Green Shoots

Rainwater

Struggle and Flight

Venetia Cherrett-Flood

Torrential Rainfall

Quest-Youngs

Claimed

Revernalent

The Heart of Loss

Cloud

The Amberleigh Flower

BEFORE

SEARING PAINS STRUCK his chest as he walked to close the window. The photo frame toppled over, and stilled, lay on its side. As he lifted it to its rightful position another sharp stab of soreness jabbed his ribs. It was happening. He tried to speak, to call out to his pregnant wife but when he parted his lips no breath came to carry the words.

The rain fell heavily outside. It started as it always does. A few spitting spots tipping on the tops of cars, slowly collecting puddles at the side of the road. Then the heavens opened. As he looked at the ground it appeared the rain gushed down so fiercely it shot back up to the air from the grey tarmac. He hunched over the back of the sofa, agony riddling his rippling torso. What the fuck was this, he thought. Torture beyond his worst nightmare. He didn’t imagine the end would be this brutal.

The noise from outside grew louder. Cars starting. Doors slamming. Their street was a courtyard in which every sound resonated and echoed. TVs blared. Music played. Couples argued. Children shouted. As rain teemed down it crowned the din with its own unending rumbling. Though this cacophony Dr Virgil Walmer collapsed gratefully into oblivion and mercifully, breathed his last.

*

THE RAIN-DIAL

DOWN BY THE stream and through the autumn rain ten year old Amanita Walmer walked to the wood shed. The aroma of wet timber filled the outbuilding; it smelt like security to Amanita. The scent of home. The odour of abode secure to the soul.

She withdrew a padded notebook from beneath the old log that rested against the back wall of wood. For a moment she gazed at the faux-leather binding which held the woven flower on the front. Its prettiness frequently entranced her.

Her pen punctured her jeans with reassuring familiarity. She leant back on the improvised armchair – a garden bench filled with duvets and blankets to resemble a small bed – and began to write.

The day had been full of words. Words from her mother, words from her sister Wendy, words from her friends, words from her teachers. It was a relief to get them down on paper; to make them real, to pull them out of the intangible ether through which they swam all day and wash herself clean of them. Words that kept swarming around her mind, round and round until she grew tired of them but couldn’t stop their spinning. Now they were spilling on the page they were released and she could move on.

He had pulled her hair after she rebuffed him. He was a nasty boy, he didn’t like the truth. Why should she hold back what she wanted to say? It was her mouth, her thoughts and she was free. Why should she oppress her mind just because the recipient’s capacity was not yet large enough to cope with the truth? It had hurt when he twisted her strands in his fingers. As she tried to run away it hurt more because he hadn’t let go, because it pulled several strands clean from her scalp. Parts of her, never to be replaced. Violence against women. It would be a topic against which she would rail until her pen ran dry.

Tomorrow filled her with dread. It was the school swimming lesson. He would be there again, like a dark portent, like a rain-filled cloud. Ready to push her in when she wasn’t looking. Ready to splash water into her face. Ready to dive beneath and pull down her costume. She hated the weekly ritual and would be glad when she could return to hockey with the girls. She couldn’t hide that she was not a slim girl. Her size had become a frequent topic of abuse from the onlookers, whoever they were. Despite this, she still loved the sensation of moving her body through the water. It was a feeling of being out of your depth but still in control. As she moved through the rippling pool the knowing of being an isolated, independent figure thrilled her. It was in those moments – when she escaped the cat-calls and the taunts – her mind turned to the situation at home and the uncertainty of her own origin. Her father – gone before she had the chance to know him. She wondered how much that fact determined who she was now, and who she would become.

Amanita glanced at the page. It was already full. She switched on the radio, and a deliciously romantic song crashed through the speakers. She had been humming it all day. A ray of sunlight broke through grey dirge into the shed window as she sang along in harmony, tapping her foot against the sodden logs.

*

The steam hit the ceiling, hot water morphing to vapour before reverting to condensation and dripping back down the faded bathroom tiles. Amanita flicked the bubbles at the tap with her big toe. She had brought the radio inside from the shed, running through the garden lest the falling rain permeate the battery compartment and melt its musical power.

Sunday nights were relaxing. She was freed from chores and homework and allowed a couple of hours in her own company: to think, to write, to compose herself for the coming week. Each bath-time she glanced down at her growing chest, wondering if they would be a cause of greater amusement for the brigade who liked to bully her. She pushed her chest out and was surprised to see her nipples harden. They had never done that before. She washed soapy bubbles over them and turned the hot tap back on so the steam made her invisible from herself.

*

The weekly walk up and around Amberleigh Cascades was taking longer this Sunday. Amanita’s mother was collecting wild flowers to take into work tomorrow. She collected them for a friend who had been ill, and was not yet fully recovered. Amanita had been intrigued at first but when the drizzle came she grew irritated at the amount of time her Mum stole from her day. Didn’t she realize they were getting wet? Didn’t she realize at any moment they could slip and fall from wet leaves underfoot, down towards the cavernous pool into which the Amberleigh Cascades also fell? Still her mother lingered, placing each flower delicately in a tupperware container to protect them from plummeting drops of moisture.

‘She will just love these. Can you smell them Amanita?’

‘No Mum!’ said Amanita, exasperated. ‘Can we go home now?’

‘In a moment honey,’ her mother said.

Amanita walked over to a glade amid the trees that allowed a full vista on the waterfall. If water was cognisant then it seemed the gentle accelerating tide approached the brink with no knowledge of what lay beyond. The moment it crashed onto the stones immediately below the drop, it hurtled down at an exponentially increasing speed and transformed into surf, the crest of a wave, the colour of egg-whites. Falling angels, Danny had called them, rushing down to meet their oblivion. There was something about the complete water cycle that was reassuring. Always changing, always moving, always recycling. Through the air, condensing in clouds, falling rain, onto earth, down to rivers, merging with the sea, evaporating in the air once more. If there was ever an earthly indication of eternity both the transience and repetition of water’s forms symbolised it.

Amanita sat on the wet grass. She withdrew her notebook from her inside pocket and began composing a poem.

the shell-pink ocean

severing the sun

sits restlessly

submissive pebbles

surrender and fall

back and forth

to the murmuring sea

white surf bubbles like foam

moisturising her painted toes

she sighs gracefully

breathing alone

*

She had cried all the way home. It was the first time she had wailed with the wetness. Amanita’s anguish was not due to those boys bullying her, although indirectly the despair they precipitated had its part to play. It was caused by her own guilt. They had not relented and she had finally lost her temper. Not knowing what she was doing she pushed one of them off his bike. He had crashed to earth with a thud, smashing his knee on the gravel. The boys stopped to look at her in shock. She stood open-mouthed, watching the blood pour from the boy’s knee like a royal red carpet, like a line of angry accusing red beret soldiers.

She had committed the act; she was responsible.

Waves of shame washed over her with startling rapidity as she ran home. Surely that was it. The police would come now. She would be arrested. Her future was ruined. She would waste away in a cell. She would probably never see her mother again once the police took her away. This was it. Crying ever louder as she approached her front door her mother came rushing out.

‘Whatever is the matter Amanita? What is it darling?’

‘Oh Mom!’ cried Amanita. ‘I’ve done a most terrible thing.’

Her mother knelt down to the pavement, so her eyes were level with her daughter’s.

‘Listen honey, whatever it is you can tell me. I am here for you, and always will be.’

*

As she knelt to lay the flowers at the memorial stone her knee sank into damp dew on the satin grass. Cherry-red roses and pale green lilies presented a stark contrast to the small grey plaque before her. It had only been two weeks since the memorial service but the outrageous events remained as fresh as the scent wafting in Amanita’s face from the flowers resting on the ground. They still lay in their wrappers.

Their memorial was a peaceful place but the stench of death it concealed haunted Amanita. She had been there almost five years ago when Chardelia Foss and Ella Amur had fallen to watery graves. Eventually they had been removed, and their graves had been deliberately placed at opposite ends of the enclosure. One was overgrown, the other was decorated neatly with flowers. Amanita strolled over to Chardelia’s and read again the echo of Keats carved into her headstone: ‘Here lies one who’s name is writ in water’. Transient and strange, Chardelia had been an enigma to most until her death when more was revealed about her tragic, sacrificial existence.

Amanita moved on and passed the graves of Phoebe Forrest and Eva Acacia, Abigail and Ursula Calcite. Too much passing, rude quantities of maternal love lost forever.

Finally, Amanita reached the grave she had sought. Again, she found it hard to negotiate the thistles that protruded from either side of the path. This was a part of the graveyard few visitors walked, the number of graves on the other side fewer than the rest. You could tell by the slightly worn edges of the headstones that they were older. Amanita persevered and knelt gently at her father’s final resting place. She bowed her head and said a short prayer before lifting her eyes to the weathered engraving etched into the headstone, like an irremovable stain on her soul.

‘I’m sorry Dad,’ she said softly, touching the top of the cold stone.

The sun peeked from behind a cloud and slowly its morning rays filled the graveyard, lighting up garlands and wreaths lain by other mourners. With the radiance grew an aroma of dew-wet flowers. The smell, the smell. It was a remarkable scent.

Wandering round the yard Amanita saw one grave recently dug was overflowing with flowers. Mountains of them piled high in blue and white, the colour of the little boy’s favourite football team. Tears stained her cheek. As she attempted to wipe them clear they rushed forward swiftly, tracing mascara on her cheek as they flowed. Sadness and compassion – the graveyard was full of it. Amanita spent a few moments remembering how much potent life had been cut short prematurely, especially her two friends Cherry and Sandi. A brisk wind blew through branches near the church beyond and Amanita pulled her cardigan closer around her shoulders. It was time to go.

*

The netball court was crowded as Amanita walked into the group of shivering girls. It was the regional schools’ competition, and they faced an aggressive team from Northumberland. As the newly-selected captain Amanita would need to assert herself. Instead, and to her horror, the girls crowded round, yanking her ponytail hard and shoulder-barging her. The anger at her selection had not dimmed. Amanita feared the match would be a write-off, forever condemning her brief captaincy.

‘Girls!’ boomed a voice in the distance. Tall and giraffe-like Deirdre Quinine strode slowly over to the court. ‘Separate!’

Reluctantly the girls withdrew from Amanita. It would be a long match. In moments like this Amanita felt the deep sting of her special insecurity. The feeling of never having had a father. It felt like you were perpetually in limbo. Perpetually feeling life permanently drives you on, that you must not rest. A feeling of not being good enough, of being at some foremost level rejected by life. An unworthiness that permeates your spirit. That life is singling you out for earlier independence for some unfathomable reason. It was, when Amanita reflected, hardest of all. A feeling that your own father rejected you, despite the sensation’s irrationality. The illogical nature did nothing to dim it. In one way it made it burn fiercer and faster. The tide and swell of it still flowed and flowered despite its lack of rationality. Amanita’s intellectual internalisation made her father’s absence her own fault, his premature death her shame.

*

Since landing in the South American tropics a half hour before, Dr Virgil Walmer had not stopped sweating. He knew it would be hot but the humidity was overwhelming. He brushed his sleeve against his brow and saw it was sodden. If the heat kept up like this, it would be an exhausting trip. Delving into the khaki canvas bag he took on every expedition, he pulled out a wide-brimmed cloth hat that was also his constant travelling companion.

He looked round. His team were setting up equipment in the clearing, the anti-animal deterrents. On the last trip a wild mountain lion had surprised them just after dawn. Standing as still as he could, Virgil had tried to stare down the animal to frighten it off. But it had stared right back at him. Just as he thought it was going to attack, a parrot cawed loudly in the trees disturbing the animal, and giving the team enough time to gather their hunting rifles. A quick shot into the air forced the lion to make a swift retreat. That had been the only time, but since then his team insisted on procuring protection. Barbed wire and an electronic alert system would tell them, even when not in camp, if their base was transgressed or encroached.

The place was not just teeming with wildlife, Virgil thought as he smiled to himself. This was the place. He had finally done it. At last he had arrived in the one place he wanted to study his whole life. Rare specimens hid beneath the undergrowth. Undiscovered plants that could change the course of his research forever. Having built academic studies upon the findings of others he was now proud to be doing what they had done, discovering and uncovering concealed secrets for himself. Wild flowers of beguiling beauty poked through the leafy scrub that fringed the clearing. Virgil could not wait to get started. This would be the most exhilirating trip of his life.

‘Doctor – could you come over here for a moment,’ Heather Namma his principal research assistant asked. ‘I think we may have to recalibrate the settings on the rain-dial.’

The rain-dial was an instrument he invented a few years before. It was a simple idea. He had meant it only to be used for his own research, but on the advice of his colleagues he patented the device. Since then he had been inundated with requests to manufacture it for sale within his academic field. Other academics clearly wanted the benefits it sought. Virgil had been in two minds about this. His team at the time had wanted to deny all the other researchers access to it as it gave them competitive advantage in making new discoveries first. However, Virgil thought it was unethical to withhold the advance of knowledge from the world of academia and had, reluctantly, submitted the design to be manufactured for wholesale production. It was now a well-known device in the industry. It worked by measuring the speed and volume of falling rain, which in turn indicated the probability of ground permeance and water absorption rate of plants in the period of time following each rainfall. This helped them understand how the colours, shapes and proclivity of plants changed with different types of rain. It was an understanding vital to the work they were conducting, especially in tropical, humid atmospheres.

Virgil walked over to his assistant to take a look at the dial. In an instant he knew that it wasn’t just the settings on the rain-dial that needed calibrating. He spotted a far more urgent and serious problem.

*

A fierce wind whipped down Amberleigh beach, blowing sand into the air and scattering seagulls scouring the shingle for scraps. William Canterbury walked the five-year-old Danny along the shoreline, while in his arms he carried the one-year-old Polly. They had returned from the hospital, another check-up for Polly. There was something wrong with her hearing, the doctors said. William was still in mourning, and he had not readied himself to absorb this news. One woe doth tread upon another’s heel so fast. William was beginning to realise there was no relenting. His mission seemed to be to maintain a passive disposition in the face of savage provocation from life. Calm and peaceful, like Job, he was to endure suffering until a mysterious hand decided otherwise. He was not a deeply spiritual man but reticence and selflessness earned him a reputation across Amberleigh as one of the town’s truly gentle men.

Further down the beach William spied a couple of figures silhouetted against the sunlight glinting off the limestone cliff that supported Amberleigh Castle. They sat on the sand eating lunch. One was a tall slim woman, the other was a child. A child who looked about Danny’s age.

William gathered Polly closer to his chest and called to Danny to stop kicking the ocean and follow him towards the mother and child.

‘Howdy,’ said William to the mother, ‘I’m William, this is my daughter Polly and that over there,’ he said pointing again at the sea at which Danny was now gazing, sat on the sand, ‘is Danny.’

‘Hello. I’m Christy – this is my daughter, Amanita.’

William looked down at the plump girl building a sand castle. In fairness it looked more like a fortress than a sand castle.

‘Hallo Amanita,’ William said bending down, ‘What a lovely castle you’re building.’

‘Yes it is, although I could do with a better bucket. You know the ones which have turrets built in at the bottom,’ came the reply from five-year old Amanita.

William smiled at Christy and stood back up. Christy smiled back. Polly had awoken, and was tugging at his collar.

‘Your daughter’s quite something,’ William said.

‘Yes she is,’ said Christy, beaming at the tall gentleman, ‘We come down here often. Amanita loves the beach. She’s trying to make a sand castle that matches Amberleigh castle,’

They both looked up at the castle on the limestone headland, briefly illuminated by a ray of sun piercing the mass of clouds overhead. Its shadow dominated the beach. Danny looked round to see where his father was, and saw William waving at him to come over. Reluctantly he obliged.

‘Now Danny, this is Christy, and this is Amanita. Say hello Danny,’

‘Hello,’ Danny said, partly hiding behind William’s leg.

‘Hi Danny,’ said Amanita, smiling at him in a similar way to the smile Christy gave William. ‘Would you like to be my friend?’

*

They ran as fast as their chubby limbs would propel them. Ran with the wild abandon of being five. William and Christy watched as their children advanced on the massive rock of headland protruding into the North Sea. Those coves and caves were where Amanita and Danny were headed. In their minds it was liberating a unique source of adventure and imagination.

Amanita arrived at a large lichen-covered rock. It was overgrown with sea moss and rested in shallow pools at the foot of a wide mouthed cave. The beach extended towards it but the surf rushed in as well, dampening their tread. Darkness made it difficult to see how much sand they would have to stand on should they enter, or how firm it looked.

‘Come on Danny!’ Amanita said.

‘I’m not shore wee shudd ger in thare. It looks…dayn…jer…russ.’

‘Poppycock!’ Amanita said, borrowing a word she heard her mother use a thousand times. ‘It’ll be exciting.’

Impressed that Amanita knew more words than him, Danny trod the steps behind her as they advanced on encroaching blackness. The sand was growing squidgy underfoot and the damp smell of sea-weed flooded their nostrils. As they approached the dark of the hollowed vacancy they found they could see more of the inside of the cave walls. Plastered thickly with sea-green moss, Danny reached out to the wall to help him traverse an odd shaped stone in front of him. He found that it felt like a carpet when tea had been spilled on it. Water-logged softness. The water had not just rushed from the sea. It was dripping down from hidden cavities, black and mysterious. At the back of the cave to which Amanita hurried, Danny saw the stone looked grey and brown in distinct stripe patterns. It looked like an abstract painting, but far too large and extravagant to be man-made. God had designed this, Danny thought. God was here, in this cave. Maybe Mum too.

‘Come on Danny, there’s something here!’ Amanita shrieked, unable to keep the latent bossiness from her voice. ‘It’s shining in the sea water.’

Danny stumbled over another rock and would have plunged in head-first had it not been for him scrambling his hands in front of him on the sodden sand.

‘What is it Am?’ Danny said. He crawled to Amanita’s side. His face closer to the sea than hers, he saw what she was looking at. ‘Oh. I see.’

In the water, floating in the eddies of a calm pool and trapped by small rocks was a bracelet, glistening gold. At the centre of the bracelet shone a small red ruby. Danny reached in the pool and fished it out on his pinky finger. It looked smaller in the damp air of the cavern compared to swimming in its watery bath. Still it easily fit on his wrist and he slid it up and down his thin arm, watching the way it curved light onto the rocky ceiling.

‘Lovely,’ Amanita giggled. ‘I think it’s a girl’s bracelet Danny, maybe you should give it to me.’

Danny grimaced at her.

‘You don’t want people to think you’re a girl, do you?’

Danny could not think of a worse insult. He slid off the bracelet and handed it unquestioning to Amanita. Amanita did not put it on her own wrist straight away.

‘I think I will wear it on special occasions,’ Amanita said, and slid it in her shorts pocket.

*

EVACWATERED

VIRGIL INSTINCTIVELY LOOKED around him. As if a furtive glance or sneaky look on discovery would suddenly reveal the traitor. It would only uncover more of his suspicions and give his saboteur an advantage. So he turned his attentions back to the rain-dial.

It had been damaged beyond repair. Although not obvious to the untrained eye one of the pedal-hammers had been snapped off and Virgil saw with dismay a cutting tool must have been used to effect this. It was made of robust metal; this wasn’t something that could have been done accidentally. The dial had been in perfect working order back in the laboratory; he knew one of his team must have broken it.

Deliberately.

This was the last thing he needed. Maybe one of his competitors commissioned one of his team. Maybe further betrayal was around the corner. Or perhaps it was the ego of youth, wanting to break away and set up their own research facility? It would happen eventually with one of them, Virgil thought. It was inevitable, like sunlight tilting through the trees, or the rain’s crescendo from the clouds. Nature was unstoppable, and human nature was no exception. Fine, Virgil thought, but not on my expedition. Not on this expedition. Virgil stood up. He would root the bastard out.

Dr Walmer’s team was made up of nine others. They all flocked to him after the invention of the rain-dial and after his academic reputation had been secured by his first major discovery. The dancing orchid, a flower that withstood fierce winds but moved in a wildly creative fashion whenever it rained. He had put out an advert for five assistants to join him on his upcoming expedition at the time – a journey to South Africa – but he had been overwhelmed by the response. Students had applied from across the country to an advert only been meant for people studying in his own town. So he had decided to take on four more. In the end he had become so exhausted by the recruitment process he paid less attention than he should to his final selection. It was a mistake that perhaps created his current problems.

The nine he picked were: Holly Sob, an eloquent young horticultural journalist from Cumbria who impressed him at interview with deft composure and mature disposition; Heather Namma, a young and eager student in his tutorials who still had much to learn but whose enquiring and honest mind was an asset to his team. He had made her his principal research assistant for those same reasons; Dom Barker, an energetic young man looking for a fill placement while he decided what to do next; Fluorescent Miles, a slightly prim and affected young girl, again from his own tutorials who literally begged him to accompany him on the expedition, and whom Virgil strongly suspected harboured a secret crush either on him or another in his expedition team; Jed Fox, a sharp and penetrating young mind from King’s who, although he had just lost his mother, certainly seemed not lost to grief: he had starred his interview and been Virgil’s first pick for joining his team; Christina Bush, another bright young mind although quieter and more determined; Stella Whimsy, a capable administration assistant who offered her help arranging logistics and practicalities; Caffy Sugar, an effervescent, enthusiastic girl whose bouncy nature endeared her to the rest of the team; and finally Joanie McArdle, a biosciences student from Glasgow, whose dry wit and hard work ethic made her a must for completing Virgil’s research team. One of these people, whom Virgil expended considerable effort recruiting, had betrayed him.

*

The rushing houses and wind striking his cheek told five-year old Timothy Gaunt he’d achieved the futuristic and thrilling heights of his beloved character in his favourite adventure film. This was indeed the future. Skateboarding down the street, the occasional pedal on the floor to provide thrust, before sailing away on the asphalt. Dipping down driveways, flicking up kerbs, arms outstretched, a beautiful hazard to all passers-by. Tim pulled a bag of wheat crunchies from his jacket pocket and threw a couple into the air to catch them with his mouth. They flew straight over his head. As he glanced at the sky with wonder he failed to see the pram obstructing his path. The skateboard zoomed straight underneath but Tim toppled into the air and landed on his bum on the other side. Not knowing what had happened he looked up at an angry mother, tending to her still-sleeping baby inside the pram.

‘Jesus! What the fuck do you think you are doing?’ screamed an infuriated Georgia Oconee. ‘You could have killed my baby.’

Tim, not knowing what to say, began to cry. As Georgia approached him to reprimand him again, two small figures appeared from across the road.

‘It was an accident miss,’ Amanita said, ‘we saw it all. He didn’t mean to bump into anyone.’

‘That’s right,’ confirmed Danny, happy to follow Amanita’s lead, concealing his knowledge that he’d seen nothing at all. Danny extended a hand to Tim and helped him to his feet. He had grazed his knee badly and blood dripped down his leg, mixing with gravel and rain-water.

‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘I’m Tim.’

‘Danny’, Danny said, smiling. ‘I think we better help you home.’

Amanita faced off Georgia who slunk away, cursing under her breath and pushing her pram gingerly. She then returned to the two boys.

‘My name’s Amanita. Who might you be?’

‘Timothy,’ Tim said standing up straight, trying to look impressive, even though his face winced from his grazed knee.

‘Oh,’ Amanita said, looking down at his injury. ‘Come on, if you put one arm around Danny and one around me we’ll help you hobble home,’ she said giggling, enjoying the feeling of taking charge. ‘Where is your home?’

‘Amberleigh,’ Tim said simply, as it began to rain.

*

Danny thundered gleefuly down the stairs and fell into the living room where his father watched the television. He had been listening to a synthesized pop track on the turbo boost radio in his bedroom and loved the warm melodies music brought. Happily tapping his foot along in time to a song about a neon trance, he remembered excitedly about Tim, his new friend. Downstairs the news blared from the convex screen. A windswept presenter desperately tried to preserve her hairstyle in place beneath a flimsy brolly failing to withstand side-swiping rain.

‘Dad, can I go out round to Tim’s to play?’ Danny asked