his part. I donât want anyone feeling sorry for me.â
Kaylie was shocked. âDonât be stupid. You canât let Mucky Monica get that part. Especially not after what she said today.â
Dawn agreed. âNo way, Fay. Just think of the fun weâre going to have watching her face every day, having to be
your
understudy.â
In the end, very reluctantly, I agreed. To make Monica suffer like that had to be worth something.
As I left them and began the trek down the stairs the mist thickened into a fog, swirling round the dim lights that hung over the walls on either side of the stairs. Dad didnât like me coming home this way. The stairs were long and narrow, with high walls on either side, with only the odd light dimly illuminating the path. Trees hung over the wall too, and even on a bright summer day the stairs were dark and dismal. But on a night like this, with the fog drifting in and out of the branches, they were worse than dismal. They were eerie. But it was a shortcut everyone used. If I didnât come down these stairs the route home through streets and avenues would take at least another fifteen minutes.
It was always busy.
Except for today.
Funny, I thought, that there was no one on the stairs today. It was true that most of the school had left earlier, but I had never known it to be
so
deserted.
The fog, I supposed. More people taking the bus home, or finding the idea of the stairs too eerie in the dark afternoon.
Even sounds were muffled in the fog. Hoots from cars, a distant fog horn sounding on the river, all had a strange weird sound.
I was halfway down when I heard them.
Footsteps clipping behind me. Someone coming down the steps at exactly my speed. I stopped for a second and the clipping stopped too. It made me smile. It was an echo, I realised. A muffled echo of my own steps.
And yetâ
When I began to walk again, there they came behind me, clip, clip, clip. I had never before heard my feet echo on these steps.
I began to hurry. The feet behind me speeded up as I did. Surely, it had to be an echo. Still, the sound was making my heart beat faster. It was as if they were after me â coming down behind me, the footsteps and whoever they belonged to, shrouded by the fog.
I stopped again, abruptly, and so did they. But surely, this time, they stopped a moment after me?
But, not an echo.
Someone else.
Someone else, hidden in the fog.
âWhoâs there?â I called out.
There was no answer. Still, I was sure there
was
someone, out of my sight, standing waiting in the fog behind me.
Who? What?
Without realising it I was pressing myself against the wall, holding my breath. I was afraid, and I wondered what I was afraid of.
What was the most frightening thing that could come out of that fog?
Chapter Four
I didnât have time to think about that. There was a sudden rush and something, someone, came lunging at me.
I let out a shriek and almost fell.
It was Drew Fraser.
It had been him all along.
âLook who it is, Lady Macbeth. Iâve always wanted to be married to a wimp.â He made a face at me. They wouldnât think he was so good looking if they could see him now, I thought.
âDonât you dare call me a wimp!â But my voice was soft, not harsh the way I wanted it to be.
âWell, letâs face it. You as Lady Macbeth isnât exactly typecasting, is it?â
âI suppose you would have preferred Monica.â
He shrugged his answer. An answer that seemed to say anyone would be better than me.
âWas that you up there, trying to frighten me?â
He rolled his eyes. âI wouldnât have to do much to frighten you, would I?â
I wouldnât let him see heâd managed it.
If Iâd had the nerve I would have asked him if he would walk down the stairs with me, but then he would definitely think I was a wimp. I just didnât want to walk home alone through this fog. Not today.
But