Twelve-year-old Carmen has a secret: she can talk to her cat Grim. But the powerful Brotherhood has banned pets, and the penalty is death.
Ward is the most wanted boy in the world. The only thing standing between him and the hangman's noose is maste...
It was only ten in the morning, but already three unusual things had happened.
First: Ward was sitting next to Jaggles on the Smoking Chair.
Ward had never sat on the Smoking Chair before. It was really a bench, that stood at the foot of the jetty, and consisted of a plank balanced upon two rusty pale blue steel drums. Ward could smell the baccus Jaggles held clamped between his brown molars; he watched a wisp of smoke curl into the air, tattering as it was dragged by the wind out to sea. The back of Jaggles's neck was brick-red above the collar of a shirt that may once have been blue but had faded to the non-colour of the sky and sand. Apart from the redness, and the occasional puff of smoke, he showed no outward sign of what boiled within the highly-pressurised confines of his body. For George Jaggles hated everything on earth, and had long ago perfected the art of appearing composed while seething like a volcano inside.
Second unusual thing: Jaggles had said nothing about Ward's feet.
For years Jaggles had been trying to get Ward to wear shoes. Threats had not worked, nor had punishment: as soon as he was out of sight Ward would remove the shoes and hide them. Even in the depths of winter when the ground was like ice he bore the cold rather than cover his feet. It became a matter of principle. The irony was that, if Jaggles had not reacted so violently in the first place, Ward would probably have taken to wearing shoes of his own volition. Ward didn't know why Jaggles had such an aversion to – almost a horror of – his feet. The only peculiar thing about them was a red, star-shaped mark on his left heel. Otherwise they seemed like perfectly normal feet to him.
Third, and most unusual: there was a ship anchored in the channel, and Ward was out in the open instead of locked in the storeroom cellar. This cellaring of Ward was a task Jaggles undertook with relish: he had only to see a sail on the horizon and he'd whirl into action. But this time he had told Ward to wait with him here.
Highly unusual.
A rowboat left the side of the ship and crawled towards the mouth of the cove. Ward's heart drummed in his chest.
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Psst. The last part of this book is a glossary. You can either use it to look up any strange words you see, or else assume I have horrible spelling.
