Susan Sedgwick
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An extract from Peregrin Zefyr and the Alloid Threat
The Windbird
Benny was falling backwards through space.
At least that’s what it felt like he was doing. He clung for dear life onto the doorframe of the camper van, his face frozen in a silent ‘O’ of disbelief.
He had no idea what was behind him. Whatever it was, it was sucking him out of the door, prying his fingers loose from the thin metal rim one by one.
The last thing he saw as the darkness swallowed him was the unblinking eyes of the boy they called Zeff, watching from inside the van.
He was just called Zeff.
He appeared from nowhere about halfway through the term. One minute he wasn’t there, the next he was. In the yard, in the corridors, most of all in the library. He spent hours on the computers and pulling forgotten books off the shelves.
You could tell just by looking at him that he was different. He looked almost but not quite like a pupil. His uniform didn’t look like a uniform, for a start. The black really was black, and he kept his blazer buttoned with the collar turned up. He didn’t do his tie properly, but none of the teachers seemed to mind. It was as if they couldn’t see him. He tied his black hair in a ponytail, and there was a bounce in his walk which suggested that the rules didn’t apply.
Like the rest of the school, Benny thought Zeff was in another class, someone else’s mate. He didn’t think much about him, until the day he found himself sitting next to him in the canteen.
It was lunchtime, a few weeks into the summer term. The air was full of the smell of grease and the sound of high-pitched voices. Benny shoved between the chairs and the bodies, a fistful of cutlery clutched to the side of his tray. He was still too late to get the last seat on the table with his friends.
He slammed his dinner down in the nearest space he could find. The plate left a gluey trail of beans as it slid to the side of the tray. He tucked himself into the table, the chair biting into his back.
Zeff didn’t seem to be aware of Benny. He shovelled forkfuls of whatever he was eating into his mouth without looking at it. All his attention was on the shabby book he’d propped against the plastic water jug. As he turned the pages, he occasionally jotted in the open notebook at his elbow. Once he tried to write with his knife.
“Benny Jacks!”
Benny swivelled round. Miss Price.
“Benny Jacks, do your tie up properly!”
Fiddling half-heartedly at his neck, Benny turned back to the table. Zeff was already halfway across the canteen.
Benny nearly missed the book.
Grumbling to herself, a dinner lady bent over the table. “This yours?” she called after Benny, who was weaving his way out.
Thinking she meant the tray left behind by Zeff, he nearly said ‘No’, but then he saw what she had in her hand. It was the notebook Zeff had been writing in.
“I know who it belongs to,” he said, and held out his hand. Zeff was still there in the corner of his eye, disappearing out towards the yard. Benny was going that way anyhow.
Trouble was, when he got there Zeff had vanished. Wondering what he should do with it now, Benny looked at what he’d been given by the dinner lady.