The Turnarounders and the Arbuckle Rescue Read Online Free PDF Page A

stared. No one else appeared to have seen but there was definitely someone there. Someone tall. Someone cloaked. Their face concealed under a voluminous hood. Electricity crawled across Ralf’s neck. Who was that? What were they doing there? He stepped out to take a closer look but by the time he’d crossed the street, The Hooded Man was gone.
     
    That night Ralf’s nightmares were worse. He woke sweating. His heart seemed to pound in his ears and his breath was unnaturally loud in the silent room. He lay on his back, crippled with fear; his eyes wide open, straining to see something in the thick, suffocating darkness.
    He thought of the time when, as a small boy, he had wakened his mother with screams, convinced there was an ogre in the room, only to discover when the light went on that it was his own dressing gown, hanging on the back of the bedroom door.
    His mother could not help him now, though. With supreme effort he forced himself to move, to break out of the spell that held him but, for reasons he would not have been able to explain, he made this move seem relaxed and natural, as if done in sleep. He turned on his side with an exaggerated sigh for the benefit of the audience he knew was not there.  His arm protruded over the side of the bed slightly, suspended over nothingness. He drew it in to stop the shadows grabbing it.
    It took him a long time to go back to sleep.
     
    As the months passed, his premonitions grew. There was the storm in March that he knew about the week before it hit; the embarrassing day in April when he’d thrown a woman’s dessert on a café floor because he was certain eating it would have killed her. How had he known she had a nut allergy? He didn’t know the answer to this question. And, in May, he didn’t know what made him so sure the boy at The Ponds would have drowned if he’d gone swimming. Pinning the poor kid to the floor had been extreme, but Ralf knew it had saved his life.
    By June, Ralf was beginning to jump at shadows. Everything around him held the possibility of accident or disaster and his eyes constantly scanned crowds looking for signs of danger.  Ralf’s frame of mind, gloomy at the best of times, wasn’t improved by the constant bombardment he was suffering at school from the snooty boy he’d met on the first day
    The boy’s name was Julian Kingston-Hawke and as well as being clever, sporty and popular, he headed a particularly nasty gang, which included a gargantuan, mindless hulk of a boy called George Tatchell. Along with their friends, they took great delight in tormenting anyone they perceived as vulnerable and it rapidly became clear that Ralf was top of their target list. For weeks, Ralf bore their taunts in silence but on the day before his birthday at the start of July, things got physical.
    It was half past three and there was the usual crush on the main school stairs as everyone tried to get out as quickly as possible. Ralf was about half way down when he heard a snide voice behind him.
    ‘Saw your Aunt this morning, Osborne,’ said Julian. ‘She was on the heath – talking to a tree!’ There was laughter and a smattering of applause. ‘Honestly Osborne, it’s tragic. You should put her out of her misery.’ Julian sniggered. ‘If she was in my family, I’d put poison in her tea.’
    Ralf knew he should ignore it, but he couldn’t help himself. He didn’t turn but raised his voice just loud enough to carry.
    ‘Julian, if she was in your family, she’d drink it!’
    There were cheers and catcalls but Ralf didn’t have an opportunity to savour them. A sharp thump on his rucksack made him lurch forward, grabbing at nothingness. His head cracked sharply on the banisters and he tumbled down the stairs.
    By the time he got home from school, the side of his face was swollen and he had a raging headache but from the look of horror on Gloria’s face you would have thought Ralf had, at the very least, cut off his own ear.
    ‘What have you