Return to Roar, page 19
The Box is on the deck next to us. We’ve been keeping it close during the journey, watching for any sign of the message, but so far we haven’t seen a glimmer of magical light. It’s just dull, plain cardboard.
“So what are you going to do with this thing?” asks Win, patting the Box. It’s still wrapped in Rose’s tangle of ropes, and Mitch added some magical super-strong seaweed. It looks like something that’s been dragged up from the bottom of the ocean.
“I say we take it to Home,” says Rose.
I shake my head. “It won’t fit through the tunnel.” During the journey, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Box, and I think I might have come up with a solution. “I say we try to open it.”
“What?” The others stare at me openmouthed.
“Arthur, this box has given us nothing but trouble,” says Rose. “We need to get rid of it.”
“We can’t get rid of it,” I say, “and I don’t think we need to. Since we left the End, the message hasn’t appeared, and something else has changed: I’m not scared of it anymore.”
“Really?” says Win.
I nod because it’s true. I realized it as we sailed back through the gap in the mountains. I was sitting on the Box watching Win do some kicks. The Box was uncomfortable, what with all the rope and seaweed, so I pushed them to one side, and just like that, I realized I wasn’t frightened of it.
“If this trip has taught me anything,” I say, “it’s that everyone is scared of something, but when you’ve got friends, real friends, those fears lose their power. Rose, I think you know this too, and that’s why the message hasn’t appeared. It’s not the Box anymore, it’s just a box.”
“Arthur’s right,” says Win. “Friends like us have a powerful magic. We can make dragons!”
“So we just . . . open it?” says Rose.
I nod. “And we leave it open.”
She frowns. “But what if you’re wrong? What if something does come out?”
“If we’ve got each other, we can face anything.” I look straight at Rose as I say this. I want her to know that what we have in Roar, this magic, will follow us home. “I’ll always be there for you, and you’ll always be there for me, right?”
The light from the stars shine on Rose. She smiles and shrugs. “Of course. You’re my brother.”
“Then let’s do it,” I say.
Everyone gathers around. The orangutans stop playing their music. The Lost Girls come down from the rigging. Win helps us pull off the layers of rope and seaweed until the Box is sitting in front of us, its lid loose.
Rose puts her hands on it. No glimmering letters appear. “It’s just a box,” she says, then she pulls the lid open, and together we look inside.
Right at the bottom I see a tuft of gray fur. I take it out and let it float out of my hands. “It’s empty,” I say.
Then the Lost Girls cheer, the orangutans start playing their music again, and Win makes everyone laugh by climbing into the Box and dancing.
“This is a serious dance,” he protests. “Stop laughing!”
“So, mate.” Win and I are having breakfast on the rock outside his hut. “You’ve got one day left in Roar. What shall we do?”
I gaze at the rivers and waterfalls and mountains that all need exploring. Then I remember that Win and I have unfinished business.
“I want to ride a unicorn,” I say.
He smiles. “Nice . . . More toast?” I nod and he reaches into the box next to him and pulls out two jars. “Marmite or honey?” he asks.
The Box has become Win’s store box. It’s full of bread and swords and comics, and his last few precious pieces of candy. It’s already gotten a bit crumby and battered. I’m not sure how long it’s going to last.
“A bit of both,” I say.
Once we’ve eaten our breakfast we spend the rest of the day looking for female unicorns, and in the end we discover two eating sunflowers in a meadow. They’re bigger than male unicorns and possibly even more beautiful. One is blue with a purple mane, the other one is gray with silver spots. Their horns are the same glittery, luminous white.
This time we’re not taking any chances. We sit on the ground and wait for them to come over to us. First they sniff us. Then the blue one scratches my hair with her horn and then, only after we’ve given them a whole sack full of apples, are we allowed to sit on their backs.
“Look at us, Arthur,” says Win as we trot toward the On-Off Waterfall. “We’re riding unicorns!”
I stroke my unicorn’s sleek neck. In my head she’s called Ronaldo and we’re the best of friends.
Rose is impressed to see us turn up on unicorns, although she tries to hide it. “I prefer a bit more height,” she says. She’s riding Orion and it is true that he’s slightly bigger than the unicorns. “Cool horns, though,” she’s forced to admit.
Of course Mitch can’t come to the waterfall to see us off so it’s just Win who leads us up the rocks to the tunnel.
“Come back soon,” he says, hugging me tight, “and bring more rocky road.”
I hug him back. “Don’t go near any icy water without me,” I say. “And give Ronaldo some apples if you see her.” I admitted that I’d given my unicorn a name when Win told me his was called Penguin.
Win insists on sending Mister Flambaygo ahead of us into the tunnel to light our way.
Mister Flambaygo does light our way. The ball of fire is so dazzling we can barely open our eyes as we crawl toward Home. It also makes the rock red hot to touch so it’s a relief when we reach the mattress and the globe fizzles out and vanishes from sight. We tumble onto the attic floor, me first, and then Rose, and for a moment we just sit there, dazed.
Grandad is on the sofa waiting for us. He’s got a cup of coffee in his hand and he’s wearing his slippers and his usual shorts. A newspaper is open on his lap. It’s a brilliantly normal sight.
He grins. “You cut it a bit fine. Did you have fun?”
“I think we had our best adventure ever,” I say.
He takes in our bruised and dirty faces, and our tatty clothes. Rose pokes a finger through a burn hole in her onesie.
“Excellent!” he says.
We just have time to have a shower and to get our stories straight before Mum and Dad arrive to pick us up. This time we don’t blame our cuts and bruises on a bike accident, but on an epic cleanup at the community garden.
“I told them to watch out for those brambles, but there was no stopping them,” says Grandad.
Back at home Rose tells me more about Harriet. She shows me her phone and all the screenshots she’s saved from Instagram and Snapchat. On one, hattie_scottie has posted a picture of a dead fish floating in a rock pool and written:
reminds me of rosietrout.x.xo_x lol
rebel1234_x you mean . . . but true!!
sophiedreamz wat if she sees it
hattie_scottie truth hurts!!! only joking tho
There are lots more like this.
A spotty dog with an ugly face with hi Fish written below it; a selfie Rose took on the beach captioned couldn’t be happier! which is then followed by a string of sarcastic comments from Harriet—stunning! #instamodel—and a picture of Rose’s friends all drinking milkshakes with Harriet in the center, with the comment ooops forgot to invite the Fish!!!
Nearly every one of these picture and comments starts with Harriet. No, not Harriet, Hattie. It makes me furious. I want to show Mum and Dad and our teachers. I want to join Instagram and write cruel comments below every single one of Harriet’s selfies. I can’t do this, though. For one thing, I don’t have a phone, but more importantly Rose doesn’t want me to.
“So what are you going to do?” I ask.
“First of all, this,” she replies, and in front of my eyes she deletes all her social media accounts. She keeps the screenshots, though, just in case she ever needs them.
“Is that it? What about at school on Monday?”
She smiles, and her hand goes to the small glass bottle she’s been wearing around her neck ever since we got back from Roar. “I’ve got it sorted, Arthur. Mitch taught me a spell and it’s all I need. Oh, and you. If you don’t mind me hanging out with you and Adam Zeng for a while, that would be good.”
I look at the bottle. “Rose,” I say, “what’re you planning to do?”
“I’m going to teach Harriet a lesson.”
“What sort of lesson?”
But Rose refuses to say any more.
Walking to school on Monday feels different. For one thing, Rose hasn’t got her phone in her hand. I’ve hardly seen it since we got back. Instead she’s clutching Mitch’s glass bottle.
“I really wish you’d tell me what’s in there,” I say. “If you’re going to make Harriet disappear in a hurricane or get frozen into a block of ice, I’d like to know about it.”
She looks at me and smiles. “Stop being such a funge, Arthur. It’s just a bit of sea urchin ink mixed with cloudberry juice. Oh, and a dash of paprika.”
“But what does it do?”
“You’ll find out in a minute.”
Rose is speaking calmly, but I know how difficult this is for her. She’s been tense all morning and the only thing that seems to be helping her is the small bottle. As we approach the school gates we see Harriet in her usual spot, leaning against the fence with a group of girls.
They look up when they see us coming. Harriet smiles at one of the other girls and gives her a nudge. Suddenly it’s obvious to me what she’s doing; I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.
“Hi,” Rose says, then she walks straight past them. She’s going so fast that I have to run to catch up with her. Maybe that was it, I think as we walk into school. Maybe all Rose had to do was stand up to Hati Skoll and then her problems with Harriet would fade away!
“Oi, Fish!” Harriet’s voice rings out across the playground, loud and rude.
Rose stops walking. We turn around.
Harriet is still flanked by the girls. Some of them are staring at Rose, just like Harriet is. But not all of them. Nisha is on the edge of the group. She’s fiddling with her blazer and looking at her feet. As usual all the girls have their hair in one long braid, but today Rose’s hair is in pigtails. “What’s the matter with you?” says Harriet. “Why didn’t you answer any of my messages in the holidays? And what’s with the hair?” She reaches forward to tug at Rose’s pigtails. Then she laughs.
Rose goes to step back, but then I see something flicker across her face and she stays where she is. “I didn’t answer any of your messages because I didn’t want to,” she says.
Harriet’s eyes narrow. “What?”
Rose shrugs. “I looked through the stuff you’ve said about me on Instagram, and I remembered what happened with the cupcakes, and the way you always call me ‘Fish,’ even though you know I hate it, and I realized that you’re a horrible person. Why would I want to hang out with a horrible person?”
Harriet gasps and puts her hands to her mouth. “That’s so mean!” she says, and her bottom lip actually wobbles. The girls who are standing closest to her put their arms around her and stare at Rose accusingly.
“No, you are mean,” says Rose. She’s trying to keep her voice calm, but it’s getting louder. She pulls out her phone. “I’ve kept every single thing you ever said about me and I will show someone if I have to!”
The lip wobbling vanishes as quickly as it appeared.
Harriet steps closer. “Do you know what, Rose? No one ever wanted to hang out with you. I had to make them.”
“Whatever,” says Rose, then she turns away from Harriet and starts to walk across the playground. Nisha, I notice, walks away too, and a couple of the other girls run after her.
I catch up with Rose.
But Harriet hasn’t finished. “Who are you going to sit with in lessons, Rose?” she shouts. “What will you do at lunchtime, because you’re not going to be with us!” Rose keeps walking. “And you’re not coming to my sleepover, or to town with us. And I’m deleting you from our group chat. NO ONE LIKES YOU, ROSE!”
This makes Rose stop in her tracks. Calmly she unscrews the bottle and shakes the pink powder into her hands. It’s dotted with gold that shines in the sun. It looks like magic and it really doesn’t belong in our scruffy playground. Harriet is busy tapping away on her phone and the rest of the girls, the ones who haven’t left, are hovering uncertainly around her.
“Oh yes they do,” whispers Rose, and then she lifts her hand to her lips.
“Are you sure about this, Rose?” I say, wondering if I should knock the powder out of her hands. “You’re not going to hurt her, are you?” I think of the storms Mitch can conjure up, the hurricanes, the flashes of lightning that can set fire to trees.
But already Rose is blowing the powder into the air. If you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t notice it.
It floats across the playground, a trail of sparkling dust that twists and turns, stopping directly over Harriet’s head. It’s her own little whirlwind, a pink storm waiting to break.
Then Rose whispers a word and I hold my breath.
The spell falls on Harriet. As it falls, it changes. It becomes a beam of pure golden light.
Harriet lifts up her face. The other girls haven’t noticed it—I don’t think they even know it’s there—but Harriet has. The light bathes her face and she can’t help smiling. It’s a big happy smile. It’s not something I’ve ever seen Harriet do before. The light continues to fall on her, dazzling, beautiful; it’s like a little piece of Roar has appeared in Home.
“Mitch gave me that powder in case I missed her,” says Rose. “That’s what it feels like when we’re together. Now Harriet knows what it’s like to have a real friend.”
Then she puts the cork back in the bottle and slips it into her pocket.
“Harriet would never have done that for you,” I say.
“Exactly,” says Rose, and together we walk into school.
About the Author and Illustrator
JENNY McLACHLAN is the author of several acclaimed young adult novels, including Flirty Dancing, Stargazing for Beginners, and Truly, Wildly, Deeply. Before Jenny became a writer, she was head of English in a secondary school; she now loves visiting schools as an author and delivering funny and inspiring talks and workshops. When Jenny isn’t thinking about or writing stories, she enjoys living by the seaside in the UK, cycling, and running over the South Downs. The Land of Roar was her middle grade debut. Visit her at www.jennymclachlan.com.
BEN MANTLE has illustrated numerous books for children, including the picture book There Was an Old Dragon Who Swallowed a Knight and the middle grade novel The Lost Magician. He is also the author-illustrator of the award-winning The Best Birthday Present Ever! Ben lives in the UK. Visit him at www.benmantle.co.uk.
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Books by Jenny McLachlan
The Land of Roar
Copyright
RETURN TO ROAR. Text copyright © 2020 by Jenny McLachlan. Illustrations here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here copyright © 2020 by Ben Mantle. Illustrations here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here by copy artist Dynamo, based on the style of Ben Mantle original illustration style copyright © 2020 by Ben Mantle. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
COVER ART © 2020 by BEN MANTLE
COVER DESIGN by ALICE WANG
Originally published in Great Britain in 2020 by Egmont Books UK Limited
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Digital Edition JUNE 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-298276-6
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-298274-2
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21 22 23 24 25 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First U.S. Edition, 2021
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Jenny McLachlan, Return to Roar
