Bloom. Nicola Skinner

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      What, you want more? That’s the problem with children these days it’s all take, take, take.

      May the best child win.

      Now, go and do your homework.

      Your headmaster,

      Mr Grittysnit

      I put the letter down and took a big shaky breath. This was my destiny. Window girl and I looked solemnly at each other, as if bound by a silent pact.

      Holding the letter as gently as if it was made of glass, I walked over to the fridge. I wanted to fix it there with a magnet so I could see it every day. But finding a space would not be easy. Already the fridge was plastered with yellowing bills, old recipes Mum tore out of magazines …

      And, of course, that photo of us on our most recent summer holiday, taken just a fortnight before. It showed us on a small pebbly beach, huddled under a blanket, beneath a sky as grey as the bags under Mum’s eyes.

      I stared at that photo, remembering. How the caravan had smelled of somebody else’s life that we’d wandered into by mistake. How Mum had spent the whole week begging me not to break anything. How it had rained for six days straight and then, just as we’d boarded the coach back to Little Sterilis, the sun had come out.

      Which had made everything worse somehow.

      Mum had spent the whole journey back – all five hours of it – with her forehead squished up against the window, staring at the blue sky like it was someone else’s birthday cake and she knew she wouldn’t get a slice.

      Next to the photo was our calendar for the year ahead. I saw that Mum had marked our summer holidays on it already. CARAVAN, she’d written, in thick red ink. No exclamation marks. No smiley faces.

      To be honest, it looked more like a threat than a holiday.

      But if I won the Grittysnit Star competition, we could have a proper family holiday, somewhere sunny. Somewhere else. My yearning hardened into determination. All I had to do was be perfect for the next eight weeks.

       No sweat.

      I’d just fixed Mr Grittysnit’s letter over the photo, feeling immense relief as Mum’s troubled frown disappeared, when …

      SLAM! The back door whipped open with a bang.

      My heart hammered with fright. Who’s there?

      But it was no one. Just a gust of wind and a door nearly swinging off its hinges. I must not have shut it properly after airing the kitchen earlier.

      The wind roared in and seemed to fill the entire kitchen with anger. I felt as if I was standing in a room of invisible fury. On legs as wobbly as cooked spaghetti, I staggered over to shut the door and force the wind out.

      Something white and fluttery flew over my shoulder.

      I shrieked and ducked down.

       Is a pigeon trapped in our kitchen?

      I looked closer. It wasn’t a white pigeon, all claws and feathers. It was Mr Grittysnit’s letter! The wind had ripped it off the fridge and it was flying frantically about the room. When I jumped up to catch it, it darted out of reach, as if invisible blustery hands had snatched it away. I just caught a glimpse of the stick figures hovering in mid-air, their smiles turned to frozen grimaces, before they flapped and fluttered …

      … out of the doorway and into our backyard.