Ripples From Otherland – Middle Grade

Chapter 1

Bea and I grip each other’s hand, staring open-mouthed at the space where Hugo had stood moments earlier. Bea’s eyes are so wide they might pop out of her head just like the eye-popping unicorn keyring hanging limp from her backpack. The lollipop she’s sucking falls right out of her gaping mouth and lands in the dirt.

“He just… vanished,” I say.

There’s nothing special about the scrubby patch of dry grass and even drier mud in front of us, nothing remotely remarkable about the fronds of bracken or the peeling bark of silver birches stretching above us, and yet there’s clearly some weird stuff going on because we just saw Hugo disappear into thin air. It’s both the coolest and the most alarming thing that’s happened so far today. And that includes this morning’s archery session.

I step forward to investigate the ground where Hugo was standing, in case there’s a light beam or a portal or something epic like that, but I’ve barely put my foot forward when Bea yanks me back again.

“Elly,” she scolds, pulling hard on my hand so I know she means business. For such a tiny person, she can be seriously intimidating sometimes. “Hard nope.”

“But there must be something there that we can’t see!” I cautiously reach my free hand forward and wave it in the thin air that should be Hugo’s torso.

Nothing happens.

“Weird,” I comment.

Bea tugs on my hand again. Her eyes are still bugging out of her head and I can tell she’s not keeping calm, despite the slogan on her T-shirt reminding us to ‘Keep Calm and Believe in Unicorns.’ She recites the number one rule at camp: “Stay safe. Tell a grown-up.”

I snort. “Right, like they’ll help.” The camp leaders haven’t done anything about the other disappearances so I don’t know why Bea thinks this time will be any different.

But it is different, because Hugo fetched my bug catcher back from the boys’ toilets when someone thought it would be funny to nick it and hide it in there. And when the mean girls from bunk 4 were making fun of Bea, Hugo stood up for her, saying he believes in unicorns, too. Bea was so pleased she gave him a Drumstick. We were on our way to show him the best climbing tree on site when he vanished in front of our eyes.

Bea and I hurry back to the leaders’ cabin. Bea’s backpack bounces along behind her, eye-popping unicorn keyring swinging wildly. My legs are much longer than hers, so I jog to match her slower pace, my bug catcher bumping against my chest. I’ve decided to keep it close, on a cord hanging around my neck, since the boys’ toilet incident.

We run half the length of the campsite, past the roped-off area we used for archery this morning, past some younger children gathering sticks for their campfire, and past a group of older kids kicking a football around the rec ground before we reach two long, low wooden buildings—they’re the campers’ cabins—and a third, smaller hut. The leaders’ cabin looks exactly as I’d imagine a log cabin in the woods to look, with uneven wooden steps up to a creaky wooden door, low windows with dusty cobwebs in every corner, a pointed roof and a black metal chimney. An ordinary white clothes horse—identical to the one my parents have back at home—looks out of place beside the whimsical cabin, drying several of the bright blue shirts worn by camp leaders.

“Hello?” I shout.

“Good afternoon, campers.” A voice exits the cabin, followed by Leader Chloe, who looks around the same age as Felicity, my evil older sister. She smiles as she recognises us. “Camper Bea and Camper Elly. What can I do for you?”

“We’d like to report a disappearance,” I say.

“A disappearance?” Leader Chloe repeats, still smiling. She’s so much nicer than Felicity. I wonder if I could swap them.

“Hugo. The boy with the poofy hair.” I mime his afro around my own hair, which is both super frizzy and super orange. I always wear it in two plaits to try and keep it out of the way.

A crinkle of confusion appears between Leader Chloe’s eyebrows. “He’s not in our camp, is he? We haven’t got a Hugo in the bunks this week.”

My stomach sinks.

Beside me, Bea mutters, “Rerun.” This is exactly what happened when the other two boys went missing. The camp leaders behave as if they’d never been here.

“Check the register,” I insist. “Hugo.” I have no idea what his last name is. Or his birthday, or his phone number. We’re not allowed to bring any devices to camp so I don’t even have a picture of him to show her.

I can tell Leader Chloe is just humouring me when she unlocks her tablet—typical, the grown-ups are allowed gadgets—and scrolls and then shakes her head. “No Hugo.”