Free Wail of the Banshee by Tommy Donbavand Page A

unpleasant it was to pass through another person and settled for checking their breathing instead. They were alive – and like me they were both wearing purple wristbands to match the suit bags at the end of the bed.
    Susie was in the next room along, also deeply asleep. She wasn’t going to like the décor of her new room any more than I liked mine – seven-year-old girls can be pretty fussy when it comes to snot-green wallpaper. But, at least she was safe. I breathed a sigh of relief. Not that the inner me could actually sigh, of course. But it made me feel better.
    “AAAYYYOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW!”
    There was that noise again! It made me jump and I spun round, almost catching the silver rope on the banisters. A moment of panic flashed through my mind but thankfully the rope wasn’t damaged. Slowly, I began to reel it back inside myself and Walked through my new bedroom door and into my body.
    There was that usual moment of dizziness I get when I Rejoin. It’s like I’ve just woken up in the middle of a dream and for a few seconds I’m not sure what’s real and what’s not. But that quickly passed and I resolved to find out more about where I was and what was going on.
    “AAAYYYOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW!”
    The noise seemed to be coming from outside, and I dashed to the window to peer round the curtains (yellow with green stripes!). The street outside was filled with weirdly shaped houses. Some had turrets and towers, while others were squat and covered with cobwebs. The lampposts were as tall and twisted as the trees they stood beside, and the pavements were old and cracked.
    Then I saw some movement. There were people out there. Three kids of about my age, by the look of it. Maybe they could help me to wake up my family. I yanked open the door and ran down the stairs to ask them where on earth I was.

Chapter Two

    As I dashed down the unfamiliar staircase, I discovered that the rest of the house was decorated in pretty much the same way as the bedrooms. Purple and white swirls on the wallpaper downstairs and a front door that appeared to be made of bubbled glass. Whoever lived here had hideous taste. My dad would have a fit about the colour clashes when he woke up.
    I opened the bubbly door and stepped out into a front garden. A path led to a gate and I made my way along it, trying to spot the children I’d seen from the upstairs window. They were hanging around outside the house next door, and I could just about make them out through the bushes.
    One of them – a girl, I think – appeared to be completely wrapped in bandages. Maybe this was some kind of bizarre hospital, and she’d been in a terrible accident. She didn’t seem to be in any pain, though. One of her friends, meanwhile, didn’t look very well at all: his skin was so pale he looked like he’d seen a ghost and he had black rings around his eyes. Oh – and he was wearing a vampire cape. Things were getting weirder and weirder.
    I couldn’t quite see the other boy yet, although from what I’d spotted through the window, he seemed to be dressed like me in jeans and a T-shirt.
    “Hello!”
    And there he was, peering over the garden gate at me!
    “Er … hi,” I replied, suddenly embarrassed to be caught spying on the group.
    He glanced at the purple band around my wrist which, for some reason, made me feel self-conscious.
    “You must be new here,” the boy said.
    I pushed my hands into my pockets partly to hide the wristband, and partly because they were starting to tremble. “I’m not really sure where ‘here’ is, to be honest,” I admitted.
    The boy grinned. “Yeah, I was like that when I arrived, too!” He thrust his arm out over the garden gate. “I’m Luke,” he said.
    I shook his hand, hoping he wouldn’t notice that I was shaking. “I’m Jamie.”
    “Welcome to Scream Street!”
    Before I could ask what he meant, I heard the girl call out, “Who are you talking to?” And then she and the other boy joined Luke to look over