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And black.
And small.
And …
Gulp.
I stared at the picture and shivered. I hadn’t just forgotten to do my ironing the night before. I’d also totally not thrown the Surprising Seeds safely in the bin.
Which meant …
… they were still in my rucksack, back in the classroom, getting up to who-knew-what while my back was turned.
What if they were glowing?
What if they were causing the desks to topple and the ground to break?
‘What’s wrong?’ Neena had poked her head round the bookshelf and was staring at me. ‘You’ve got that funny shell-shocked face you get when you’re panicking about something.’
I was lost in a whirl of fear. For a second, I wasn’t in the library at all, but standing on a broken patio slab, watching as the world broke apart under my feet, hearing that strange voice all over again.
I’ve been waiting for you.
Gulping, I put my hand on the bookshelf to steady myself.
‘Sorrel,’ said Neena in her don’t-mess-with-me voice, ‘what’s going on?’
She sat me down on a beanbag and looked at me sternly.
I leaned back and sighed. ‘Something weird happened yesterday.’
Her face instantly brightened. ‘Go on.’
I told her everything, half expecting my lips to seal together again. But they worked fine, and I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. Being able to talk about the Surprising Seeds made them more real somehow, and that didn’t feel like a good thing.
Neena, on the other hand, looked delirious with elation.
‘Shivering silicates!’ she exclaimed. ‘Where’s the packet?’
‘In our classroom.’ I shook my head with frustration. ‘In my rucksack. I meant to throw it away, but I forgot.’
Her eyebrows rose so high they disappeared behind her fringe. ‘You’ve brought contraband into school? You’ve actually broken a school rule?’ A delighted smile played on her face.
I tried a smile and it came out twisted. ‘Look, can we just forget it? Let’s get back to these books.’
‘Okay,’ said Neena firmly. ‘Once you’ve shown me these Surprising Seeds.’
‘N-no,’ I stammered. ‘I can’t. I don’t want to.’
‘Then why do you look so enthusiastic?’
‘Do I?’ I asked, surprised.
‘Er, yeah?’ she said, staring at my face so intently I felt like I was something growing in one of her Petri dishes. ‘You look as excited as you do on the day of the Head of Year nominations.’
A FEW MINUTES later, we squished between two of the most cluttered bookshelves we could find, taking turns to peep out through the shelves to make sure no one was around.
In the light of the midday sun streaming through the window, the envelope looked even older than it had the day before. I held it carefully, noticing how thin and soft the paper felt. Just how long had it been underground anyway?
‘“The Surprising Seeds”,’ Neena read aloud in a spooky voice. ‘“Self-seeding be these seeds.” What does that even mean?’ She looked earnestly at me.
I shrugged, mystified at the sudden thrill of pride I felt. ‘Who knows?’
The hot sunshine pouring in from the window bathed the packet in light and warmth. Within a few seconds it was as hot as the hottest setting on my iron.
‘Ow!’ I dropped it on the floor, wincing.
The packet glowed golden white round the edges, as if a thin flame was dancing inside. Then this sentence appeared: IF YOU FOUND THIS PACKET, SOW THESE SEEDS – AND THEN YOU’LL REAP WHAT YOU TRULY NEED.
Loads of people have since asked why I didn’t throw the packet away right there and then, to which I always reply: ‘Are you mad?’
I mean, what would you have done? Honestly? If something mysterious and beyond human understanding conveniently materialised in front of you one day and promised to MAKE ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE?
I’ll tell you what you wouldn’t have done. You wouldn’t have said: ‘Hold on a minute while I run a little background check on you.’ You wouldn’t have said: ‘Have you got an up-to-date licence to practise the dark art of wish fulfilment?’
You’d have rubbed your hands together and asked: ‘When?’
You know it, and I know it. So don’t talk to me about throwing things away.
My mind spun. Could these strange old seeds be the answer to my prayers? If they would give me what I truly needed, perhaps I needed to pay them a bit more respect. I saw myself striding into the hall, Mr Grittysnit beaming at me in a way he never did in real life, a big fat Grittysnit Star certificate in one hand, plane tickets to Portugal in the other.
BANG!
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of something loud and heavy slamming on to the floor.
‘It’s only a book. It fell off that bookshelf,’ Neena said, picking it up.
My heart thudded. It wasn’t only a book. It was The Terrible Sad History of Little Cherrybliss. And the regulation grey jacket I’d put on carefully just minutes before had fallen off.
As if the book didn’t want to be covered up.
‘Sorrel?’ said Neena.
‘Yeah?’ I gasped, with great effort.
‘Your fingers are going mental.’
She was right. My fingers moved and danced in the air in front of us, as if they were playing a tune on an invisible piano. Almost as if they were speaking to me – and I knew what they wanted.
My fingers want to sow.
They wanted to sprinkle and scatter and shower and shake over. They wanted to dash and drop and dust and drip and dance and dribble. They wanted to send off and send loose and send flying. And they really, really wanted to sprinkle those seeds.
A fully formed thought bubbled up inside my brain as if somebody had planted it there. The Surprising Seeds did not want to be sealed up any longer. They wanted to get out into the world.
And I would be the one to set them free.
The shrill school bell ripped through the air and my fingers stopped twitching.
Hesitantly, I picked up the packet of Surprising Seeds, but it was cold to the touch once more. I stuffed it into my rucksack and exhaled deeply, my head throbbing.
‘Where did you say those seeds came from?’ asked Neena, her eyes shining.
I forced out a weak grin. ‘Our patio.’ My thoughts raced over each other desperately, like busy little worker ants late for their first shift.
I got up shakily and pulled Neena to her feet, a plan forming in my head. ‘I’m coming round after school, aren’t I?’
She nodded. ‘What do you fancy doing?’
‘I’ve got an idea. It’s a bit … weird.’
Neena grinned. ‘I love it already.’
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