Ross Welford - The Kid Who Came From Space

It was Christmas Eve, and snow had fallen on the top moor. I think everyone was hoping that a big snowfall would cover the village and make it look like the front of a Christmas card, but it didn’t and, to be honest, it’s not that sort of village anyway.

Kielder is sort of spread out, with a mixture of old and new houses, and no typical ‘village street’ – you know, a baker, a butcher, and a sweet shop like you get in stories. Because of the forest and the lake and the observatory, there are loads of visitors in the summer, but most things shut down in the winter, like the tearooms, and the maze, and Mad Mick’s Mental Rentals, which hires out bikes. Tammy had taken to calling the village Boring-ville. She once said, ‘I don’t belong here. I’m a city person’, as if sleepy Tynemouth – where we used to live – was New York.

There is a pub, though, run by my mam and dad. The Stargazer is set back from the main road, with a swinging pub sign at the end of a short driveway, and a huge Christmas tree outside, and coloured lights in the windows and candles everywhere, because Mam is half-Danish and they’re obsessed with candles.

I can remember almost every detail of that evening, even though I wish I couldn’t. I have gone over it all with the police officers, with Mam, with Dad, with Gran, with reporters and most of all with myself: in my head, again and again and again.

So here goes, ‘one more time from the top’ – as Miss Swann, our music teacher, says.

It was five minutes past six in the evening. Mam had gone over to the pub, where there were going to be carols. Dad was going to dress up and Tammy and I were going to follow later, first going round to the old folks in the village to drop off a Christmas present from Mam and Dad. There was Scottish Sheila, Tommy Natrass and the Bell sisters. They all got a bottle of vodka with a label saying, Happy Christmas from Adam and Mel at the Stargazer .

My job had been to wrap the presents.

Tammy came downstairs with the oblong boxes wrapped in red paper and ribbon in a carrier bag. That’s when we had our row. It started with Tammy holding one of the presents up and saying ‘Nice job!’ sarcastically.

‘I did my best,’ I said.

The paper was scrunched up, the sticky tape all over the place, and the ribbons badly tied. When she held it up, one of the labels fell off. Wrapping presents is hard.

‘“I did my best, Tammy,”’ she mimicked in a baby voice. ‘You always say that! But you never do, do you? You do what looks like your best. You do what people will think is your best. You do just enough so that when you say, “But I did my best”, people will believe you and go: “Aw, poor Ethan – he did his best.” But you know what, Ethan? I know what your best is. I’m your twin, remember? I’m the other half of you. How could I not know? And you haven’t done your best – nothing like it, so don’t lie.’ She waved one of the badly wrapped gifts as evidence, and another label flew off.

‘Where’s your costume?’ I said, to change the subject. We had agreed: we would dress up as elves for the evening. It would be fun.

Tammy rolled her eyes and tutted.

‘You’re so childish, Ethan.’ When she said that, I looked down at my costume from last year’s school parade: striped tights, green buckled jacket and the pointy hat I was holding. I hate it when Tammy says stuff like that: it’s as if being ten minutes older than me gives her some sort of age advantage.

‘But we agree d !’ I said, trying (and failing) not to sound as though I was whining.

Tammy was in her usual clothes: jeans, trainers, thick fleecey top. She’s not big on fashion, is our Tam. She was pulling on her new red puffer jacket, an early Christmas present from Gran, who was staying with us.

‘Well, we can disagree. There. Just done it! I dis agree to dress up and prance around Boring-ville like some six-year-old. As for you – go ahead. You look great.’

‘Well, I’m not going to be the only one. I’m going to get changed,’ I snarled, and began to stomp up the stairs.

‘See you at Scottish Sheila’s. I’m going.’

‘You’re not going to wait for me?’

‘No. We’re late as it is. Bye.’ She opened the front door and stepped out into the cold, and that’s when I yelled it.

‘I hate you!’

(I sometimes hope that she didn’t hear me, but she must have done. I yelled it loudly, and she hadn’t even shut the front door.)

Five minutes later, I had taken off the stupid elf costume and had calmed down. Maybe she was right anyway , I thought. I compromised, and put on a sweater with a flashing red reindeer nose instead. (I wasn’t going to give in completely, you understand?) I pulled the front door closed behind me and set off on my bike to catch her up.

Shortly afterwards, I saw Tammy’s bike lying in the ditch at the side of the road, its front and rear lights shining white and red, illuminating the frosty verge, and no sign of Tammy.

I haven’t seen her since.

When people find out that Tammy and I are twins, they sometimes go, ‘Ooh, are you psychic?’, which is so daft that we developed this routine. I would go, ‘Yes, of course we are. Tammy: what number am I thinking of?’ And whatever number Tammy said, I would then say, ‘Dead right! Wow!’

Well, we thought it was funny, anyway. It actually fooled Tammy’s new friend Nadia, but she’ll believe anything.

So no: we’re not psychic. But that evening, when I saw Tammy’s bike at the side of the road with its lights still on, I knew something was wrong. I felt a lurch in my stomach, and I stopped my bike next to hers. A cold feeling spread from my neck and down my back exactly as though someone had dropped ice inside my collar.

‘Tammy!’ I shouted, not so loud to begin with, as, although I knew, I couldn’t be certain something was wrong, if that makes sense. ‘Tam?’

The moon was still low and obscured by thick cloud, and when the sky is like that, Kielder is darker than you can possibly imagine, the only light coming from our bicycle lights.

‘TAMMY!’ I yelled, and cocked my head to hear, but there was nothing. The wind was so light that it made no sound at all as it passed through the bare trees.

Tammy’s bike had stopped near to an overgrown path that leads down to the reservoir and the little jetty where Tammy and I play the throwing-stones-as-far-as-we-can game. I grabbed the light from the front of my bike and started down the path.

It makes no sense , I told myself. Why on earth would she go down here?

‘Tammy! Tam!’ I kept calling.

The path is quite steep down to the lakeshore, and I kept stumbling in the dark until I got to the little beach of shingle and rocks. I stared out over the inky blackness of Kielder Water, and that’s when I heard the noise: a low drone, getting higher in pitch.

OOOOOOMMMMMMMM ooooooooommmmmmmm.

The noise was sort of like an aeroplane, but definitely not an aeroplane. It was sort of like a motorboat, but definitely not a motorboat either; and there was nothing to see. Here, right next to the water, the sky appeared a little clearer and the cloudy moon gave off a little bit of grey light. I narrowed my eyes and stared out over the lake, where a column of mist had appeared, stretching high into the sky, hanging for a few seconds before it dispersed on the breeze.

There was a smell too. A bad smell: very faint, like bad body odour and blocked drains, but that was soon taken by the air as well.