Jenny Valentine - Broken Soup

HarperCollins Children’s Books An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2008

Copyright © Jenny Valentine 2008

Jenny Valentine asserts the moral right to be

identified as the author of the work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Source ISBN: 9780007229659

Ebook Edition © May 2012 ISBN:9780007369638

Version: 2015-03-23

For

Molly and Ella,

Jess and Emma,

and Kate.

All great sisters.

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Copyright Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-one Keep Reading Acknowledgements About the Author Books by Jenny Valentine About the Publisher HarperCollins Children’s Books An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2008 Copyright © Jenny Valentine 2008 Jenny Valentine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. Source ISBN: 9780007229659 Ebook Edition © May 2012 ISBN:9780007369638 Version: 2015-03-23

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Books by Jenny Valentine

About the Publisher

It wasn’t mine.

I didn’t drop it, but the boy in the queue said I did.

It was a negative of a photograph, one on its own, all scratched and beaten up. I couldn’t even see what it was a negative of because his finger and thumb were blotting out most of it. He was holding it out to me like nothing else was going to happen until I took it, like he had nothing else to do but wait.

I didn’t want to take it. I said that. I said I didn’t own a camera even, but the boy just stood there with this I-know-I’m-right look on his face.

He had a good face. Friendly eyes, wide mouth, all that. One of his top teeth was chipped; there was a bit missing. Still, a good face doesn’t equal a good person. If you catch yourself thinking that, you need to stop.

All my friends were cracking up behind me. The girl at the counter was trying to give me my change and everybody in the queue was just staring. I couldn’t think why he was doing this to me. I wondered if embarrassing strangers was one of the ways he got through his day. Maybe he walked around with a pile of random stuff in his pockets – not just negatives, but thimbles and condoms and glasses and handcuffs. I might be getting off lightly.

I didn’t know what else to do, so I said thank you, who knows for what, and I went red like always, and I pulled a face at my friends like I was in on the joke. Then I shoved the negative in my bag with the oranges and milk and eggs, and he smiled.

All the way home I got, “What is it, Rowan?” and “Let’s see” and “Nice smile” – a flock of seagulls in school uniform, shrieking and pointing and jumping around me. And I did my usual thing of taking something that’s just happened apart in my head, until it’s in little pieces all over the place and I can’t fit it back together again. I wanted to know why he’d picked me out of everyone in the shop, and whether I should be glad about that or not. I thought about what he said ( you dropped this … no really … I’m sure ) and what I did (act like a rabbit in headlights, argue, give in). I was laughing about it on the outside, feeling like an idiot on the quiet. I had no idea something important might have happened.

My name is Rowan Clark and I’m not the same person as I was in that shop, not any more. The rowan is a tree that’s meant to protect you from bad things. People made crosses out of it to keep away witches in the days before they knew any better. Maybe my mum and dad named me it on purpose, maybe not, but it didn’t do much good. Bad things and my family acted like magnets back then, coming together whatever was in the way.

When I got home with the shopping, I forgot about the negative because there was too much to do. Mum was asleep on the sofa while Stroma watched Fairly Odd Parents with the sound off. Stroma’s my little sister. She was named after an island off Caithness where nobody lives any more. There used to be people there until 1961 and one of them was someone way back in my dad’s family. Then there was just one man in a lighthouse, until they made the lighthouse work without the man and he left too. That’s what Stroma and her namesake have in common, getting gradually abandoned.