knew was bad before he had any idea what it might be, because the hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and the nails on his fingers felt tight.
It seemed to be coming from downstairs. Short laboured scrapes, one after another, then a pause.
“Dad?”
The scraping continued. Whiskers scampered off the bed and sniffed at Ned’s door. Dad had always joked that he made the perfect guard dog. Too small to need a walk, but with the hearing of a bat.
“Dad …” Ned shouted, “if this is a birthday surprise, it’s not very funny.”
There was no reply. Ned opened his bedroom door and cautiously crept down the stairs, closely followed by his mouse. The scraping was coming from the sitting room’s patio doors. Something outside was trying to claw its way in.
Ned’s first reaction was to run, and Whiskers, who was already squeaking noisily by the front door, was clearly of the same mind, but Ned’s curiosity had taken a hold. He turned, inching his way towards the sitting room, and was about to flick on the light switch when he saw something that made his blood turn cold. Standing in the glass doorway, lit up in the cold glow of the garden’s security lights, was the scariest sight he’d ever seen.
It was a clown, though nothing like the ones he’d seen in books or on the telly. He had the same shrunken hat, oversized boots and orange curly hair one would expect, but he was caked in dirt. His make-up had cracked, like white clay left too long in the sun, and the few teeth he still had were gnarled black stumps.
The horrible scraping sound began again as the clown dragged a claw-like nail across the glass. Then Ned realised – scratched into the glass of the patio doors were four letters.
Y C U L
Ned ducked down out of sight behind the sofa, heart pounding, speechless with fear.
Suddenly from behind him Ned heard the sound of the front door being thrown open and a rather different Terry Waddlesworth than Ned was used to burst into the house.
“Dad!” Ned managed to croak over his shoulder.
“Ned? Ned!”
“Dad, there’s something …” But he was suddenly unable to speak, only point with a shaking finger.
“Thank goodness you’re all r …” His father’s voice trailed off as his eyes followed Ned’s hand. The only sound now was the continued scraping from the clown’s fingernails, who seemed not to have heard them through the thick, double-glazed patio doors.
When Ned’s dad at last spoke again, he did so in a slow, deliberate whisper. “Ned, it’s time to go,” he hissed, beckoning him back towards him on all fours then grabbing him by the arm and leading him into the hallway.
Ned was in a daze.
“It’s OK, Dad, no need to panic. I’ve figured it out, I’m still dreaming. I’ll probably wake up in a minute and you’ll tell me we’re staying in Grittlesby for good, because I like it here, and I’ve got actual friends and they’ve bought me presents and we’re going to start behaving like a normal family and everything’s going to be great and …”
Ned’s dad ignored his babbling and picked up two black bags from under the stairs, before pausing by the front door. The scratching stopped.
“Give me a minute, son, and don’t go back in there. Whatever happens, he mustn’t see you.”
And in a second he’d pounded up the stairs to Ned’s bedroom. On his way back down, Ned’s dad was stowing something into one of the black bags. Just as he was dragging Ned out the front door, they heard behind them the sound of shattering glass from the sitting room.
“GET IN!” shouted his dad as he threw open the door of their Morris Minor and revved the engine, and before Ned knew what was happening they were tearing out of the driveway in a cloud of dust.
Slowly Ned started to surface from his stupor. A bank of grey fog had rolled into Grittlesby, just like the one from his dream, and as they sped through their little suburb, Ned wondered whether his dad was using his eyes or his memory to navigate.
“I’m not dreaming, am I? Dad, what’s going on? What was that thing?”
“A clown, and a particularly nasty one at that. I just hope he didn’t see you.”
“See me? I don’t understand. Why would that be bad?”
“Because I haven’t had enough time!”
“Time? Time for what?!”
“To get you to safety, to explain, you see … not everything we see is as we see it. The world is a complicated place. It has layers, Ned, lots of layers. What might be the norm for one person, is not really the same for …”
CRUNCH!
Just then something crashed into the right side of their car, hitting it hard. Through the fog, lit up by the streetlights, Ned saw a bright purple ice-cream van with a sign on it reading, MO’S CHILDREN’S PARTIES. Its driver was hideously fat, with the same monstrous grin and cracked make-up as the clown from Ned’s home.
“GET DOWN!” ordered his dad, before shoving Ned further into his seat and out of the clown’s line of sight.
“Please don’t tell me you hired these clowns for my birthday?!”
“Ned, the tickets and present I gave you, do you have them?”
“What?” said Ned, peeking between the seats at the grinning clown tearing after them.
“THE PRESENT! THE TICKETS! DO YOU HAVE THEM?”
Ned had never seen his father quite so crazed. Fumbling through his pockets he found both envelope and package, and pulled them out.
“OPEN IT! QUICKLY!” shouted his dad.
Ned tore at the present’s paper to reveal a smooth metal box. Just then there was another loud crash at their rear and the box flew from Ned’s hands.
“I’ve dropped it!” he shouted, scrabbling around by his feet. “It’s on the floor here somewhere …”
Terry cursed loudly and flicked on the car’s reading light, before making a sharp turn.
“Find it, Ned, that box is the key!”
“The key to what?”
“Just do it!”
Something in Ned’s dad’s voice made Ned do as he was told, and he soon found himself upside down in the passenger seat, scrambling around under the car seat to find his mysterious gift. Their old car wasn’t used to being pushed so hard and the engine groaned loudly as Terry hammered on the accelerator. Under his chair, Ned could just make out the glimmer of an edge.
“I think I can see it!” he shouted.
“Hold on, son, it’s
