Aveline Jones: The Next Chapter - Merchant Taylors’ School 11+

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Aveline Jones was thirteen and full of teenage hormones. She sat in her mum’s car and heaved a sigh that said more about her sad mood than words ever could. While a few days off school would normally have been cause for a major celebration, her plans for doing not-a-lot had been ruined. And now fate was taking her to a different place altogether. Malmouth. Home to her Aunt Lilian.

Aveline stared gloomily out of the car window as the countryside passed by in a bleak blur, the pelting rain mimicking her feelings inside. Whilst she’d only met Aunt Lilian a handful of times, she remained something of a puzzle. Nice but cold, like ice cream. Aveline hadn’t spent much time with her aunt before now, mainly because she lived too far away. But on the few occasions she’d met her, Aveline had always felt a little intimidated. Sometimes she felt she’d be more suited to being a prison guard than a teacher. The thought gave her chills.

The journey down from Bristol had been long and miserable. Aveline had tried listening to her music for a while but had given up. The countryside outside appeared to have given up, too. The wind outside was fierce. Like a toddler throwing a tantrum, it flung anything aside that entered its path. With most of their leaves being blown away, the trees resembled plucked and starved chickens, their trunks black and shiny with slime. The skinny hedgerows looked similarly hungry and ill, all the colour having been sucked out of them by the vampire weather. The only living things to be seen were the crows that sat hunched in the branches, hurling their angry curses across the empty countryside.

Aveline turned to squint between the manic windscreen wipers.

‘Is that Malmouth?’

‘Certainly is. Won’t take long now.’

Snakes wriggled in Aveline’s stomach as she looked out at the town. Despite it only being late afternoon, the sky looked ominously dark, as though even the stars were afraid to appear. The streets were practically deserted and the town’s icy and unwelcoming atmosphere crept into the car like fog, invading every empty space. An old man walking his dog stopped to glare at them as they passed, an annoyed scowl on his leathery and weather-worn face. His expression seemed to be a warning.

To their left, waves crashed down onto the pebbled beach in angry explosions of foam. A little further on, the concrete harbour wall curved out into the sea like a giant stone tentacle, anchoring tiny fishing boats as they bobbed around in the sheltered bay.

Up ahead, outside the cottage at the end of a row, somebody watched them approach. It appeared to be a boy. He leaned against the garden wall at an awkward angle, as if he’d fallen against it but was unable to pull himself back up. He was odd-looking – his skin appeared too pale, his hair too dry and frizzy, a combination that suggested he might be suffering from some dreadful sickness.

‘Is he okay, do you think?’ Aveline’s mum said.

Aveline didn’t reply. She sensed something wasn’t quite right, the back of her neck growing cold. It was a feeling she got sometimes, when she walked past abandoned houses with boarded-up windows or lay in bed at night reading something spooky. It told her that all was not well. That perhaps, somewhere in the shadows, something lurked. Despite her telling herself that she was fierce and brave, that she didn’t need to be afraid, old fears and experiences often crept into her mind. Fears that were very difficult for her to shake off.

As they drew closer, the boy still hadn’t moved. Their car slowed. Like a pair of inquisitive owls, the two of them turned their heads to peer at the strangely rigid figure.

Dead eyes stared back at them.

Writing task

Write the next chapter to this story. (25 marks)