Skulk Read Free Page A

I’d spent a day lurking around the display room at Christie’s, waiting for Mum to decide just how much she was willing to spend on a footstool that had once belonged to Oliver Cromwell.
    But this was huge for a precious stone, and I’d seen some whoppers in my time.
    Then again, there wasn’t much point getting incredulous over that when it’d been bequeathed to me by a man who was also a fox.
    I let the stone slip into the sink with a ringing clonk , and staggered back to sit perched on the edge of the bath, my still-pinkish hands clenched on the porcelain. The shock of the cold surface helped a little. The bath was real, my aching soles and the gleaming tiles were real, the Fortnum & Mason handcream and the streaks of blood and the enormous cabochon sapphire in the sink were all real.
    I should’ve known it wasn’t a dream. My dreams were never like this.
    Although there was one chilling similarity.
    I have to clear this up before Mum sees it.
    At least in real life I had some chance of managing it.
    I had a shower first, leaving my blood-spattered hoodie and jeans in the bath, where they couldn't stain the plush pinkish carpet. I scrubbed myself and then the sink, not bothering to wrap myself in a towel until I was done. I dripped nakedly on the horrible carpet as I padded to and fro, scooping the clothes into a plastic bag and sluicing down the bath, wishing I could persuade Mum to let me redecorate in a colour that didn't make me feel like I was washing in Candyland.
    Back in the bedroom I stuffed the plastic bag back into the backpack and dived into the recesses of one of the wardrobes where there was a battered, neglected leather trunk. Pink and yellow flowers dotted its surface in crackling acrylic paint – Flowers , by Meg Banks, aged six years and four months. Inside, a layer of ballet programmes and school art projects hid a second layer of old diaries and secret, faintly rebellious cartoons.
    Below that there was the real hidden compartment, just big enough for a backpack full of aerosol paint and some old clothes.
    A secret within a secret. I was proud of how sneaky it was. I knew it’d worked when Mum confronted me with the contents of one of the diaries – standard stuff about how I hated that Gail went through my things – but never mentioned what was in the bottom of the trunk.
    I sat on the floor, cradling the sapphire in my hands like a delicate bird’s egg.
    And now? I glanced at my watch. It was nearly 5am. I shut my eyes, tiredness sitting heavily across my shoulders, but in the darkness I could still see twisting limbs, fur crawling back inside skin like a thousand microscopic burrowing worms, and the eyes – human eyes in an inhuman face.
    And now he was dead.
    I had no idea who – no, stranger than that, I had no idea what he was. But I didn't want him to be dead. I never managed to ask him if there was anyone in his life, anyone I should be breaking the news to.
    After another few silent moments on my knees, turning the stone over in the shaft of light spilling out from the bathroom, I stood up and went to my laptop, to do what I always do when I don't know something. I googled it.
    Obviously, fox shapeshifter got me nothing remotely fact-based. I read the Wikipedia entry on shapeshifters four times, in case there was something I’d missed, but couldn’t get past the idea of scouring lists of mythical figures for hints about the man I’d just seen fall down and die in my school playground. After that I poked around paranormal research sites for a while, but couldn’t escape the distinct whiff of bullshit.
    Frustrated, I clicked away. Habit hooked me and I opened a private browser and rattled off the address for graffitilondon.com. The first topic on the board: New E3 art, Waterloo Bridge . My heart lifted a little. E3 was my total hero. He had a genius for colour, composition, positioning, everything . I clicked through, hoping someone had taken a picture, though I almost didn’t