Free Eglantine by Catherine Jinks

pitch black?) There were lanterns on the boat , I added, which glittered as it approached her across the waves. Finally the boat reached the cliff. She could see Count Osric. He threw a rope, and she caught it. She tied it to a tree. Then he climbed up the rope, and she threw herself into his arms. “Oh my love!” she cried. “How long I have waited!” (That was pretty good, don’t you think?) After kissing her, he carried her back to the boat, and sailed away.
    And they lived happily ever after .
    It took me about half an hour to write this, and even then I wasn’t happy. No matter how much I fiddled with it, I couldn’t seem to make it any better. What’s more, I had homework to do. So at last I gave up, and copied out my ending, and stuck it to the wall of Bethan’s bedroom. I didn’t tell anyone about it. I wanted to surprise Mum if anything good did happen.
    The next morning (Tuesday), I got up early. I was really excited. I went into Bethan’s room and looked around, half-expecting the writing on the walls to have vanished during the night.
    It hadn’t, though. Things were worse – much worse. With dismay, I saw that Eglantine had even scrawled over the piece of paper with my ending on it. She had written, his domain was almost entirely surrounded by the sea .
    Obviously, she still wasn’t satisfied.

CHAPTER # nine
    A lot of things happened on Tuesday.
    To begin with, Bethan’s photo appeared in the local newspaper. I discovered this at lunchtime, when I spoke to Mrs Procter, the librarian. I had brought a copy of Eglantine’s fairytale to school, because it had occurred to me: what if the story was a genuine fairytale? What if it was in a book somewhere? What if Eglantine had been reading the book before she died, and had never finished it?
    Clearly, the ending that I’d tacked onto the story hadn’t been the right one. But there was a good chance that I might be able to find the right ending – with Mrs Procter’s help.
    So I went to her, and showed her the fairytale, and asked her if she recognised it.
    She looked at it for a moment before remarking, ‘Is this something you got off your bedroom wall?’
    I stared at her in astonishment. How had she heard about our bedroom wall? Seeing my expression, she hurried to explain.
    ‘It was in the paper, this morning,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you see it? Look – I was reading it on the bus.’ She poked around behind her desk and produced a copy of the News . On the fourth page was a picture of Bethan in his bedroom, under the words Local haunting investigated .
    ‘Oh – I’m sorry, it’s your brother ’s bedroom,’ she added, peering at the caption under Bethan’s black-and-white feet. Behind him, the writing on the walls was faint and blurry.
    The story mentioned PRISM, and the possibility that a chemical reaction was responsible for our ‘mysterious trouble’. Mum was quoted, but nobody else. I wasn’t even named.
    ‘It must be very difficult for you,’ said Mrs Procter, studying me closely, and I flushed. I didn’t want her to think that we were a family of weirdos.
    ‘Well, it is strange,’ I mumbled. ‘But there’s probably a logical explanation.’
    ‘Yes, of course.’
    ‘The writing was there before we moved in. It just came back after the room was painted, that’s all.’
    ‘But it is some kind of text? Some kind of story? That’s the impression I got.’
    In reply, I pointed to my copy of the fairytale, which filled twenty-two pages of an exercise book.
    ‘That’s as much as I’ve been able to collect,’ I said. ‘But it isn’t finished. I wanted to know if you’d seen it anywhere else. In a book of some kind.’
    ‘I see.’ Mrs Procter flicked through the pages, frowning. ‘Of course I’ll read it, Alethea. Maybe it will ring a bell.’
    ‘I think it’s a fairytale. Mum thinks it’s Victorian.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘It would be good if we could – well – work out the ending.’
    I didn’t want to tell