Free Drama Queen by Chloe Rayban Page B

vapour from the afterworld was disturbing the air. At any moment I could envisage some spectral figure coming through. I got to my feet, my knees feeling totally weak. Calling out something to the effect that I would drop by again, I escaped from the flat shutting her door firmly behind me.
    I ran up the stairs as fast as I could with my heart pounding – and bumped slap bang into Cedric.
    â€˜Hold it. What’s the hurry? What were you doing at Mrs Z’s?’
    â€˜Long story.’
    â€˜You look in a state. What’s up?’
    â€˜Shhh!’ We peered over the bannisters. Some people had let themselves in silently through the main front door. Three figures in dark coats were now standing outside Madame Zamoyski’s flat. We heard the echoing ring of her doorbell, and then she ushered them in. The door clicked shut after them.
    â€˜Do you realise what she’s doing down there?’ I whispered.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜She’s having a seance.’ I explained about the round table and the smell of sulphur. ‘I bet they’re in there now, hands linked, calling up the dead.’
    Cedric snorted with laughter. ‘Monday is Mrs Z’s bridge afternoon.’
    â€˜But her flat, everything. She looks just like a clairvoyant.’
    â€˜Mrs Z? No way!’
    â€˜So what about the smell of sulphur?’
    â€˜Probably her egg-and-cress bridge rolls,’ said Cedric dismissively. ‘What were you doing in her place, anyway?’
    I hesitated. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t tell anyone. But Cedric was so harmless he didn’t really count. And I didn’t have to tell him the whole story. So I started. ‘If you were sent a letter. Say an anonymousletter from someone. And you wanted to track them down. What would you do?’
    â€˜An anonymous letter?’
    â€˜Well, kind of. A letter from someone who didn’t give their address.’
    â€˜First thing I’d do is check the postmark. Every postmark shows when and where a letter was posted.’
    â€˜Cedric, you know what? You’re brilliant!’ I leaned over the bannisters and spontaneously, totally without thinking, gave him a big smacker on the cheek.
    He blushed scarlet. ‘Look, Jessica, if you want to talk about it …I mean, an anonymous letter. If you need any help …’
    â€˜No, it’s OK, it’s nothing like that. I’ve got to go.’ I raced up the last flight of stairs to our flat, raked out the card again and studied it more closely.
    There was the postmark. 7-4-02 Forest Vale. Lower down, a little hard to decipher, were some letters and numbers.
    How stupid of me. I’d been spending all my time looking for Jane. What I should have been doing was searching for Henry.
    I hid the card away at the bottom of my sock drawer and thought hard about how to go about it.

Chapter Eight
    Forest Vale. I was used to seeing the name on my bus every day, written up over the driver. It was the last stop on the 74 bus route – the one that went back and forth to our school. I’d always pictured it as having loads of tall pine trees with a shady river running up through them. And little grassy clearings. The kind of place you could go to with friends and have a really cool picnic.
    So the following Saturday afternoon, since I didn’t have much on, I decided to take a trip down there and check it out. Dad was going to pick up the Harley, so he’d cancelled our usual afternoon together. I told Mum I was going to do some research for my geography project. I even sorted out a clipboard to take with me to look convincing.
    I gazed happily out of the window as the bus idled its way through the Saturday morning traffic. I wassure that I’d find Henry in Forest Vale. It couldn’t be too difficult – in a place like that. It would just be a matter of asking around.
    Streets full of busy shoppers passed in a kind of daze as I sat daydreaming