You're Magic Duggie Bones

By J.M. Carr

Twelve-year-old Duggie Bones might not be the most popular kid in school but he is magic.

When the mysterious Professor Mosotho sends Duggie, lessons on ancient African wisdom, along with magic spells to give him confidence, Duggie thinks he may have found the answers to some of his many problems, including how to tackle,'The Baddies', bullies, Brooke, Madison and Clint Baddley.

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But is Mosotho really a professor and is it really voodoo magic he's offering? As Duggie's problems increase, he tries to work out whether Professor Mosotho and his 'African Academy of Alternative Arts' is real or somebody playing a horrible trick on him?

Will Duggie ever learn the truth and how will he cope with his rapidly escalating problems in the meanwhile

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Cindy Press
• Release date: Aug 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9798223122845

J.M. Carr

J.M. Carr lives in Southampton UK with her partner, a border collie called Cindy and a goldfish called Melbourne. She's been a teacher and a community worker. She writes novels for middle grade/teen/YA and short stories for anyone.

Book preview

1: The First Friday in February 2006

DUGGIE BONES GRIPPED the top of the duvet and stared at the plaster swirls on his bedroom ceiling. Moonlight shining through the old blue curtains gave them a weird glow, cards from his twelfth birthday still hung over a string to hide the teddy bear border, and the sound he was waiting for rumbled through the flimsy wall of the maisonette.

‘Mum, are you asleep?’ Another earth-quaking snore rattled round number three Sapling Buildings on the Poplar View Estate.

He flung back the duvet and leapt from the mattress. Over his pyjamas he was ready in jeans and a purple jumper with a big red ‘D’ on the front. He felt under the bed for a torch and then from his pocket, pulled a limp piece of paper where the folds had almost worn through. He switched on the torch and checked the instructions for the last time.

At the top of the sheet in curly writing, it said:

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Then there was a list of stuff in the same curly writing. Duggie ran his finger down the list until he reached:

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By the bed, on the calendar Mum had for Christmas, Friday 3rd February 2006, was ringed in thick biro and on top of that, a digital watch glowed 23:20. Aagh! Only seven minutes to go!

He grabbed the watch, refolded the bit of paper and stuffed it, with the torch, back in his pocket. He checked the other pocket for the key to the bike shed. He picked up his trainers and opened the door, only far enough to slip through before the hinge started to squeak.

Duggie crept across the landing and down the stairs, stepping over the fourth from the top with the creaky board. He yanked his lucky bobble hat from the hooks by the front door and pulled it on over his brown curly hair. His hand was on the doorknob when he remembered the front door key hanging on the same hook; better take that or he couldn’t get back in again. Then Duggie Bones let himself out of their maisonette above the shops, turning the doorknob so it didn’t make a click and checked his watch: 23:21, six minutes.

Frost sparkled along the top of the balcony wall and hundreds of stars glittered like tiny LEDs in the night sky. On tiptoes, he ran along the balcony, past the other maisonettes – Kyle and Kylie’s place where slow dance music leaked out the window, past Mr Harris’ broken door and down the wee-smelling stairs to where the security door swung on its hinges. He checked his watch, 23:22, five minutes to go.

Duggie stuck his head outside; a couple was snogging under a lamppost on the other side of Portwell Road, apart from them he could have been on the moon. He shut the door, so it didn’t bang and kept close to the wall until the corner. He looked round it as far as he dared. Brilliant, Sapling Parade was practically deserted too. He zipped past an old guy in a bundle of blankets, asleep outside Iqbal’s Video shop (it’s all DVDs now, Dug), where Mum and Dad used to work.

He might just make it.

It was by the Peking Palace Chinese Takeaway that he heard a girl shrieking. Two girls. He felt sick when he realised who they were. He slipped into the dark entrance of the empty shop next door, swallowed hard and waited.

High heels clicked on the pavement. The chips he’d had for tea churned inside his belly. Then a voice that froze his heart said, ‘Mads! D’you see Smithy today? He’s a right plank, ain’t he?’

‘Yeah, like Bones, he’s a geek and a plank.’

‘Just wait till we get them on their own.’

‘Yeah, and Parker too.’

The heels stopped outside Duggie’s doorway. He wanted the shop to swallow him up. He heard the snap of bubblegum and when he looked up, the twins, Madison and Brooke Baddley were silhouetted in the moonlight. They were so close he could smell their body spray. His watch said 23:23. Four minutes, just four minutes.

Both girls, tall and thin in skinny jeans teetered on high heels. They chewed like cows munching grass then blew big pink sticky bubbles at each other. Duggie watched them grow and burst.

Duggie swallowed but he couldn’t get rid of the horrible itch at the back of his throat. He held his breath and gripped both hands over his face until his fingernails dug into his cheeks. He couldn’t hold it any longer. A muffled cough escaped into Sapling Parade. Madison and Brooke turned together and squinted at Duggie like teenage terminators.

‘Duggie Bones!’ they said in unison, like they were pleased to see him for all the wrong reasons and together, they invaded his doorway.

Duggie felt his knees crumbling. ‘Hiya... Brooke... Madison... I’m a bit busy tonight...’

‘He says he’s busy,’ said one.

‘Bless,’ said the other, ‘so are we.’

They grabbed a sleeve each and pulled him away from the shop door.

They blew sticky elastic bubbles right up close to his face, the back of his neck and his ears. Duggie was the filling in a Baddley sandwich.

They dragged him out into Sapling Parade.

Trainers slapped the concrete. ‘Brooke! Mads!’ Clint Baddley, Brooke and Madison’s nine months younger brother ran towards them along Sapling Parade.

‘Hey, you haven’t got Bones have ya?’ He sprinted and grabbed Duggie’s lucky bobble hat, ‘Wha’hey!  I got ’is hat.’ Clint, a bullet of a boy, waved the hat just out of reach.

‘Aw, come on, give it back ...please Clint.’ Duggie tried to grab it, but Brooke and Madison had a firm grip.

Clint turned to his sisters, ‘Mum’s back ... and she ain’t happy.’ He ran backwards, twirling the lucky hat on his finger.

The girls screwed the fabric of Duggie’s purple jumper in a fist each. Their heels dug into his trainers. Then they shoved him against the boards covering the shop window and joined their brother.

‘My turn next, Bones!’ shouted Clint. The lucky bobble hat flew off his finger and landed in the skip opposite.

The old guy was still there, huddled in blankets outside the DVD shop. Duggie watched Clint hurtle towards him, followed by the two girls. And in the light from the streetlamp, Duggie watched a shiny black shoe followed by a blue trouser leg, the kind of blue you couldn’t mistake for black, slide out from under the blankets.

Clint went over first, then the girls sprawled on top of him.

The little pins prickling behind Duggie’s eyes dissolved.

‘You just watch it Bones,’ said Clint from the heap of Baddley arms and legs ‘That was you, that was! You’re gonna get it now.’ He threatened over the squeals of the tangled girls. One last finger from each of them before all three Baddleys, The Baddies even to their mates, scrambled up and legged it towards Portwell Road.

Duggie wiped the snotty trail running out of his nose, ‘Ha! I’m gonna get YOU!’ he shouted after them, ‘...one day!’ and returned the finger when they were too far away to bother. He wanted to say thanks to the homeless guy but there was no time, when Duggie checked his watch, 23:26 flashed green on his wrist. A minute, that was all, if that. One minute was all he had.

His feet felt like they’d been stabbed. He hobbled over to the skip and reached in amongst the rubbish for his hat. It was smeared with sweet and sour sauce. He wiped it on his jeans and rammed it back on his head, anyway. Then as fast as his bruised feet would let him, Duggie Bones ran along the rest of Sapling Parade and round to the car park at the back of the buildings.

The bike shed was in the far corner, near the locked gates onto Portwell Road. The shed door was shut. There could only be seconds left. A big round silver moon lit the way to the final ingredient. His feet crunching on the gravel were as loud as eating popcorn at the pictures; they throbbed inside his trainers.

Outside the shed, he looked round to see if anyone from the maisonettes was watching. He could have sworn he saw someone sitting in the driver’s seat of the burned-out car at the back of the empty shop. Duggie rubbed his eyes and squinted to see who it was.

Nobody, just a shadow, the car was empty.

He took the key that had been safely nestling in his jeans pocket and counted the seconds till 11:27pm. One... two... the six turned to a seven; it was 11:27pm exactly.

He turned the key in the lock, took one big breath and opened the slatted wooden door.

2: The Bike Shed

THE HINGES CREAKED like a door to a shed full of ghouls. Duggie stood with only his toes over the threshold. He didn’t know what he was expecting to find apart from his final ingredient. Why did it have to be 11:27pm exactly? And what was his final ingredient? Questions bounced round his brain messing up the all the thinking space he had.

Just inside the shed door a couple of old teddies were propped up against a cardboard box with an empty crisp packet. The rest of the shed was draped in shadows. Duggie shone his torch inside. The beam rested on some big black bin bags, spewing old clothes onto soggy newspapers spread over the shed floor. In one corner, there was an old washing machine, rusty on the corners and edges; but in the other corner, behind the only bike in the shed with a buckled front wheel, he could see a new, clean, plastic takeaway box. Some holes were punched round the sides and taped to the lid was a pale blue envelope. From the doorway, in the torchlight, he could see one word on the front. It said: ‘DUGGIE’.

He stepped inside, pushed the door shut behind him with his foot and listened.

The shed had its own quietness. His skin tingled with it. Outside, he could hear big kids mucking about round by the community centre, distant telly voices chattering in the maisonettes above and the far way hum of traffic along Farebury Road on the other side of the estate. But inside, there were only the memories of the rattles and rustles and clunks the leftover stuff used to make.

Was the mysterious Professor Mosotho, the Principal of the African Academy of Alternative Arts in Farebury going to jump out on him from the shadows? There was a whole load of shed rubbish in the other corner he hadn’t had a look at yet. Someone could easily be hiding in there. Duggie held his breath and waited.

Professor Mosotho says that readiness for the unexpected is the key to success. Duggie wasn’t really sure what that meant until now.  He shivered in the cold and his teeth chattered but no one rustled out from the corner. No one slid out of the shadows. Duggie was alone in the shed with the rubbish and the box.

He picked his way through the old clothes and soggy newspapers. A cold breeze tickled his back. Poplar View could be a million miles away; he couldn’t hear the big kids or the tellys anymore, just the quiet.

His phone buzzed against his chest. Duggie jumped like he’d had an electric shock. He reached down the neck of his jumper and read a text from Patrick: ‘u got it yet? What is it?’

No, he hadn’t, thanks Pat. He switched the phone off and tucked it back in the pocket. Where did Patrick get credit?

Duggie knelt on the soggy newspapers and stretched through the bike frame for the plastic box. He kept it level in case it was anything runny inside. When it was free of the bike, he sat on the paper to have a look inside. It wasn’t runny or powdery or anything like the ingredients Duggie used when he was cooking. If he shone the torch right up close, he could make out the hazy shape of something with legs, lots of legs, and a curly tail. If it was an animal, it wasn’t moving. Was it dead? There was only one way to find out.

He gripped the torch under his chin, so he had both hands free. It was difficult to get it to shine in the right direction. The lid was almost off, when he saw a message in small writing on a blue sticky label on the side of the box. He shone the torch right up next to the plastic. He read: Under no circumstances remove this lid.

The thing inside moved. He nearly dropped it. He shone the torch against the side of the plastic box again and the same thing happened. It seemed to be reacting to the light, not much, but it still freaked him out. Duggie reckoned he knew what it was. He put the torch on the floor, waited for a minute for the creature to settle down and pulled the blue envelope from under its rubber band.

Inside was another set of instructions in Professor Mosotho’s handwriting. He put them back in the envelope. He’d need those later. And he slid the envelope into his jeans pocket.

He was right about the creature. He’d seen one in a book at the library. The instructions told Duggie to ‘keep the final ingredient in a cold place’. Well, the shed was freezing but it wasn’t safe. He had to think of somewhere else.

He stood up. His bottom was cold where the damp had seeped through. He picked up the box and grabbed the door handle.

He gasped, swallowing a lungful of freezing night air.

A huge face stared at him from the back of the shed door. Duggie dropped the torch. His heart banging against his ribs like the last pound coin in a piggy bank, he bent his knees to feel for the torch without tipping the box.

With a shaky hand, he aimed the beam at the face. The eyes flashed and glinted in the light. Hooked to its neck, on two nails hammered into the ears like studs, was a necklace of bones that glowed pale and white in the torchlight. It took Duggie a few seconds to realise whose face it was.

His.

Duggie held the beam close to his own features staring back at him. Little circular mirror tiles glued on his eyeballs made the laser beam flashes and the bones round his neck were ... bones, real bones, knotted in a length of string.

Pinned to his forehead was another folded sheet of blue paper. He put the final ingredient on the rusty washing machine and removed the paper. These instructions were simple:

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Duggie refolded the paper and put it in his pocket with the envelope.

It was his face, but it wasn’t like looking in a mirror. It was a different person staring back at him. Was it the person he was going to become?

He flexed his fingers getting ready to remove the bones for a Bones.  Was anything going to happen when he touched them? Would he feel a spark of the enchantment when he put them round his neck? As Duggie unhooked the necklace from his more than life size picture, his stomach was like the lottery machine on the telly.

He put the torch in his other pocket and tied the necklace around his own neck. The bones were cold where they touched his skin, but that was all. Duggie shivered and pulled the lapels of his pyjama top over to hide them. He felt like as is if he’d put on suit of armour. He reached over for the final ingredient, opened the door and stepped outside.

The moon cast a silver blue haze over the car park. Duggie locked the shed door. Something sparkly in the gravel caught his eye. Keeping the box level and with the torch wedged under his armpit, he bent down to pick it up. It was a key ring in the shape of a dog, bits of it were in glittery enamel which is what made it sparkle. Duggie put that in his pocket too, it looked new. Then, on the lookout for Baddies and spooky shadows, he crept to the open gates leading onto the estate and round the corner to Sapling Parade.

By the launderette, he heard high-pitched squeals coming from the direction of the skip outside the Peking Palace. He nearly dropped the box again.

Not Brooke and Madison, just a couple of cats fighting over scraps. All the shops were dark, the homeless guy and the couple snogging under the lamppost had gone.

When he opened the front door to number three, the light was on in the little hallway. Maybe Mum had woken up?

But another of her elephant snores rumbled down the stairs and he remembered he hadn’t turned the light off before he went out.

He put the