Bloom. Nicola Skinner

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      *

      ‘Are you sure this is the right street?’ I asked, an hour later.

      ‘I think so,’ said Neena, mopping her forehead and squinting at her mobile again. ‘This app thinks we’re standing right in front of it.’

      Our plan to find the gardening centre had been going so well. Once we’d got back home, Neena had asked her mum if we could go to the corner shop to get some sweets. Mrs Gupta, staring at some numbers on her laptop, had merely nodded absently, and we’d slipped away before she’d asked us how long we would be.

      ‘Once she gets like that, she loses track of time anyway,’ Neena had said confidently. But we’d been searching for the best part of an hour and there was still no sign of it.

      I was losing patience. Neena said she’d downloaded the right map, but it had led us to a part of Little Sterilis I’d never seen before – a rundown street with a betting shop and a large car park, and little else.

      After another ten fruitless minutes of plodding up and down the same road, peering uncertainly into dusty shopfronts, I was about to suggest we go back to Neena’s house to come up with a Plan B.

      Then I saw it.

      On the other side of the road. Nestled between the multistorey car park and a boarded-up book shop was a narrow alleyway, dark with shadows. It was so choked with weeds and overhanging creeping plants we must have missed it the first million times we’d walked past it.

      ‘Do you think that’s it?’ I asked.

      ‘Only one way to find out.’

      We crossed the road. At the opening of the alleyway was a faded wooden sign hammered into a plank. Most of the words were covered in a dark green mould. I read what was left.

      ‘STRANGEWAYS,’ I read aloud. ‘RUN. NOW.’ I gulped. ‘Perhaps this isn’t such a good idea …’

      Neena wiped the sign gently with the frayed sleeve of her Grittysnit cardigan. Gradually the rest of the words appeared through the mould. The sign now read:

       STRANGEWAYS GARDEN CENTRE

       FAMILY-RUN BUSINESS

       NOW OPEN

      She patted my shoulder triumphantly. ‘This is the place.’

      I peered into the murky tunnel, so tangled with stalks and leaves and hanging-down things it was hard to see anything on the other side. A trickle of icy sweat dripped down my neck. But my fingers gave a sudden twitch and burned painfully, reminding me why we were there.

      ‘Come on then,’ I said, hoping I sounded braver than I felt, and we plunged into the tunnel.

      Instantly the sweat on my skin cooled. I pushed something fine and sticky away from my face and tried not to shudder.

      A few moments later, we emerged in front of a crumbling red building that was smothered in a creeping twisty plant. The place was so overgrown that even the light was green. It felt like we were on a different planet.

      ‘Hello? Anyone here?’ called Neena.

      Nobody answered, but I had the feeling we weren’t alone. The building seemed to fill up with silence, as if it was waiting for us to say something else. Even the heart-shaped leaves that twisted round its bricks stopped rustling.

      ‘Hello?’ I tried. My voice echoed around the courtyard and came back to us. ‘Oh … oh … oh …’

      Still no one came.

      Something small, black and scary flew at my face with an angry buzz.

      ‘I think we should check the map again,’ I said. ‘This place is abandoned.’

      But Neena shoved me.

      A stooped white-haired man in faded green overalls stood in the doorway. In his wrinkled hands was a large pair of scissors smeared in something dark and red. A big black dog at his side barked loudly. The sound bounced off the crumbling bricks like gunshot, shattering the hot silence.

      ‘What do you want?’ The man’s voice had the creakiness of a rusty gate opening for the first time in years.

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