Free Red Ink by Julie Mayhew

now?
    A blank page.
    Amanda expects me to write about how sad I am. When we need to do an essay, Mrs Castleman, our English teacher, tells us to put the subject in block capitals in the middle of the page –
SAD
– then brainstorm around it.
Spread your thoughts out
, she says,
and organise them afterwards
. I would like to be back at school now doing proper essay plans, getting ready for my GCSEs, but Paul thinks this will be ‘very challenging’. It will not be ‘very challenging’, it will be a relief. I never thought I would wish to be back at school, but this house, empty, with nothing to do except think . . . Kojak is terrible company.
    SAD
. I have no thoughts about that to be spreading about.
    I need to write something more important, something that will make things okay. Amanda doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She might have a dead mum, but she doesn’t have my dead mum.
    A blank page.
    What I write in this book will make a difference, because the things I do have huge consequences. That’s what the dark thing is that’s been living inside my ribs since the police came to call – my power. I understand it now. When I was walking home from the stationery shop after buying this notebook, I did something – I used that power. I went to the office shop on the high street, the one I’ve never been to before. It looks too boring, too businessy. I could have gone to one of the nice stationery shops in town, but since the haircut, I don’t feel like going too far any more. And anyway, this notebook that I found is perfect. It’s got a purple cover made of velvet with fancy writing pressed into it, like the opposite of braille. Greek writing.
    On my way home, heading back along Long Lane, there was a stocky man walking two miniature sausage dogs. He was in front of me, on the opposite side of the road. The man was butch-looking – a builder-type – but his dogs made him look so drippy. He’d dressed them in matching navy waistcoats. Double drippy. One of the dogs, the littler one at the back, was struggling to keep up on its tiny, stumpy legs. It kept turning to look at me, which slowed it down even more. The man was yanking the lead, making the little dog skid across the pavement. The dog seemed scared of me, which was stupid because I wasn’t going to do anything. But then I thought, what if I did do something? So I kept staring at the dog, feeling myself getting a hold over it somehow. Then when I thought it was really under my spell, I made this sudden turn to cross the road towards the dog. The thing nearly exploded with fright. It yelped and hopped, got into such a tizzy that it tangled itself in its lead. That was very funny.
    And then the man kicked the dog. Really hard. A boot into its stomach.
    “Stop it,” he went, really gruff. The dog let out this horrible squeal, a sound that put the taste of metal in the back of my throat. That was my power. I did that. I kicked that dog. Me – who likes animals, who used to nurse poorly garden birds in cardboard boxes as a kid, who stops in the street to sign those petitions against vivisection – I kicked that dog. I didn’t mean to, but that’s not the point. It was my fault. Just like I didn’t mean to do the things I did the day Mum died. But I did them, without thinking, and look what happened. Imagine what I could achieve if I really put some thought into it.
    A blank page.
    Paul will be home soon and I’ve written nothing. If I concentrate hard enough, something will come. I click-clack the pen between my teeth. In English once, Mrs Castleman gave us all a postcard and told us to use it as inspiration.
Just write
, she said,
anything that comes into your head
. My postcard was of a polar bear with its head turned over its shoulder. Its mouth was open, panting like a puppy, laughing almost. I’d written a fairy story about an ice palace guarded by friendly polar bears. Kids’ stuff. The thing about polar bears is everyone thinks