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A small village in the wilds of Northumberland is rocked by the disappearance of 12-year-old Tammy. Only her twin brother, Ethan, knows the extraordinary truth of where she is. It is a secret he must keep, or risk never seeing her again… What do you think has happened to Tammy? Hellyann I read the sign again, glowing in front of me: Type of organism: human female Origin: Earth Age: about twelve years This brand-new exhibit will be introduced to the wider Earth Zone exhibition when emotional stability has been achieved I looked at the bedraggled creature, and I wanted to reach through the unseen barrier and hold its hand. (This was neither allowed nor possible: the barrier would have repelled me with a painful shock.) Its hair … All right. I must stop saying ‘it’. The sign says it is a female, and so it should be ‘her’ … Her hair fell in tight twists. I should have liked to see it when it was clean. Her pale and hairless skin was dotted with darker spots (‘freckles’, they are called in her language). Her clothes were similar to those worn by the other humans in Earth Zone. She had trousers of a coarse-looking fabric and a thick-looking padded item of a lighter shade on top, while her feet were clad in big shoes fastened with looped cord. Her face was dirty and streaked with tears, and her eyes shone wet and bloodshot. She had been weeping (this is normal – humans do it a lot), although the atomic-level mechanical medication that had been given to her had closed down a lot of her primary cognitive functions- (Wait. Is this too complicated? Philip suggests I should write: ‘Her brain had been made slow by the drugs she had been given.’ And that is, I suppose, close enough. I shall let you decide.) Despite this, there was a spark of life in her eyes. She looked at me and I was struck by how very expressive human faces are… Ethan My twin sister Tammy has been missing for four days now, so when the doorbell goes, I assume it’s the police, or another journalist. ‘I’ll get it,’ I say to Mam and Dad. Gran is asleep in her tracksuit on the big chair by the Christmas tree, her head back and her mouth open. The lights on the tree haven’t been switched on for days. I open the door and Ignatius Fox-Templeton – Iggy for short and for slightly less weird – stands there wearing a thick coat, a flat cap and shorts (despite the snow). He’s holding a fishing rod in one hand and Suzy, his pet chicken, under his other arm. A large bag is slung over his back and his rusty old bike lies next to him on the ground. For a moment we just stand there, staring at each other. It’s not like we’re best friends or anything. We had this sort of awkward encounter when Tammy first went missing on Christmas Eve, but that’s about it. ‘I, erm … I just thought … I was wondering, you know, if … erm …’ Iggy’s not normally like this, but he’s not normally normal anyway, and besides, nothing’s normal at the moment. ‘Who is it?’ calls Mam from inside, wearily. ‘Don’t worry, Mam. Doesn’t matter!’ I call back. Mam has been getting worse in the last day or two. None of us has been sleeping well, but I’ve begun to think that Mam has not been sleeping at all . She’s got these blue-grey patches under her eyes, like smudged make-up. Meanwhile, Dad has been trying to keep busy at the pub and coordinating search efforts, but he is running out of things to do. Everyone wants to help us, which means the only thing left for us to do is to sit around and worry more, and cry. Sandra, the police Family Liaison Officer who has been here a lot, says that it is ‘to be expected’. I turn back to Iggy on the doorstep. ‘What do you want?’ I say, and it comes out blunter than I intended. ‘Do you … erm, do you want to go fishing?’ he almost whispers. His eyes blink rapidly behind his thick glasses. In case you don’t quite get just how odd I find this, you have to know that for the last few days the only world I have known has been one of worry and tears; and police officers being brisk; and journalists with cameras and notebooks wanting interviews; and people from the village bringing food even though the pub has a massive kitchen; and Sandra, Dad and Mam trying to manage all of this. All because, four days ago, Tammy vanished off the face of the earth. Nothing has been right since. So when Iggy turns up wanting to go fishing, my first thought is: Are you mad? Then it dawns on me. ‘Is this Sandra’s idea?’ I ask, holding the front door half closed to keep the cold out. Iggy doesn’t seem to mind. He gives his characteristic confident nod. Iggy knows Sandra already: he’s had several reasons for a police Family Liaison Officer to call at his house. ‘Yes. She thought you might want to get out of the house for a bit. You know, change of scene, and all that malarkey. Think of something else.’ Malarkey. It’s a very Iggy sort of word. He doesn’t have much of a local accent, though he’s not exactly posh either. It’s like he can’t quite decide how his voice should be and uses odd words to fill the gaps. He goes on: ‘And so, here I am!’ He holds up his fishing rod. ‘Well,’ he adds, nodding to Suzy. ‘Here we are.’ I’m really not sure about Iggy. Dad doesn’t like him at all, ever since – soon after we arrived in the village – Dad caught him stealing a box of crisps from the pub’s outhouse. Still, I have to admit: what Iggy is doing is quite kind, even if it wasn’t his idea. I don’t even like fishing. Suzy, Iggy’s chicken, stretches out her neck for a scratch, and I oblige, burying my fingers deep in her warm throat-feathers. To be honest, I have my doubts about Suzy too. I mean, who has a pet chicken ? Then, as I tickle Suzy, I think: What’s the worst that could happen? So I put my head round the living-room door. Dad has gone into the kitchen on his phone and Mam is just staring blankly at the television, which is switched off. Gran snores a bit. The room’s far too hot and the remnants of the fire in the wood burner glow white-orange. ‘I’m just going out for a bit, Mam,’ I say. ‘You know – fresh air, an’ that.’ She nods but I’m not sure she completely heard me. All that’s in her mind is Tammy. Tammy, my twin sister, who has disappeared off the face of the earth. Listen to the rest on Scribd! Ask your parent or carer to click on the link below to sign up for 30 days' free access to Scribd. https://blog.scribd.com/home/2020/3/17/a-letter-from-the-scribd-ceo-to-our-community

Marinka dreams of a normal life, where her house stays in one place long enough for her to make friends. But her house has chicken legs and moves on without warning... What questions does the Prologue leave you with? Prologue My house has chicken legs. Two or three times a year, without warning, it stands up in the middle of the night and walks away from where we’ve been living. It might walk a hundred miles or it might walk a thousand, but where it lands is always the same. A lonely, bleak place at the edge of civilization. It nestles in dark forbidden woods, rattles on windswept icy tundra, and hides in crumbling ruins at the far edge of cities. At this moment it’s perched on a rocky ledge high in some barren mountains. We’ve been here two weeks and I still haven’t seen anyone living. Dead people, I’ve seen plenty of those of course. They come to visit Baba and she guides them through The Gate. But the real, live, living people, they all stay in the town and villages far below us. Maybe if it was summer a few of them would wander up here, to picnic and look at the view. They might smile and say hello. Someone my own age might visit – maybe a whole group of children. They might stop near the stream and splash in the water to cool off. Perhaps they would invite me to join them. “How’s the fence coming?” Baba calls through the open window, pulling me from my daydream. “Nearly done.” I wedge another thigh bone into the low stone wall. Usually I sink the bones straight into the earth, but up here the ground is too rocky, so I built a knee-high stone wall all the way around the house, pushed the bones into it and balanced the skulls on top. But it keeps collapsing in the night. I don’t know if it’s the wind, or wild animals, or clumsy dead people, but every day we’ve been here I’ve had to rebuild a part of the fence. Baba says the fence is important to keep out the living and guide in the dead, but that’s not why I fix it. I like to work with the bones because my parents would have touched them once, long ago, when they built fences and guided the dead. Sometimes I think I feel the warmth of their hands lingering on the cold bones, and I imagine what it might have been like to hold my parents for real. This makes my heart lift and ache all at the same time. The house creaks loudly and leans over until the front window is right above me. Baba pokes her head out and smiles. “Lunch is ready. I’ve made a feast of shchi and black bagels. Enough for Jack too.” My stomach rumbles as the smell of cabbage soup and freshly baked bread hits my nose. “Just the gate hinge, then I’m done.” I lift up a foot bone, wire it back into place, and look around for Jack. He’s picking at a weathered piece of rock underneath a dried-up heather bush, probably hoping to find a woodlouse or a beetle. “Jack!” I call and he tilts his head up. One of his silver eyes flashes as it catches the light. He bounds towards me in an ungainly cross between flying and jumping, lands on my shoulder, and tries to push something into my ear. “Get off!” My hand darts up to cover my ear. Jack’s always stashing food to save for later. I don’t know why he thinks my ears are a good hiding place. He forces the thing into my fingers instead; something small, dry and crispy. I pull my hand down to look. It’s a crumpled, broken spider. “Thanks, Jack.” I drop the carcass into my pocket. I know he means well, sharing his food, but I’ve had enough of dead things. “Come on.” I shake my head and sigh. “Baba’s made a feast. For two people and a jackdaw.” I turn and look at the town far below us. All those houses, snuggled close together, keeping each other company in this cold and lonely place. I wish my house was a normal house, down there, with the living. I wish my family was a normal family, too. But my house has chicken legs, and my grandmother is a Yaga and a Guardian of The Gate between this world and the next. So my wishes are as hollow as the skulls of the fence. Read the rest on Scribd! Ask your parent or carer to click on the link below to sign up for 30 days' free access to Scribd. https://blog.scribd.com/home/2020/3/17/a-letter-from-the-scribd-ceo-to-our-community Story Chair Special Click on the link below for this week's Story Chair Special, brought to you by Mrs Smith and Lucky! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glIJgCBP1SY

Luke is a comic superfan who shares a treehouse with his Maths-mad older brother Zack. Luke's only mistake is going for a wee right at the wrong time...! What do you think happened while Luke was having a wee?! Chapter 1: The (Not) Chosen One My brother is a superhero, and I could have been one too, except that I needed to go for a wee. My name is Luke Parker, I’m eleven years old and I live in a mild-mannered part of London with my mum, dad and big brother, Zack. He wasn’t always a superhero, but with a name like Zack you’ve got to wonder if my parents had a hunch that one day he’d end up wearing a mask and cape and saving orphans from burning buildings. I mean, come on! It’s not a name, it’s a sound effect. It’s what you get in a comic when a superhero punches a supervillain. Pow! Blam! Zack! It seems to me that in life you are faced with clear-cut moments when things could go one way or another. Vanilla or chocolate. Smooth or crunchy. Drop the water bomb on Dad’s head, or hold fire. It’s up to you which choice to make and sometimes all it takes to change the way your whole life turns out are four little words. “I need a wee.” It was the fateful evening. Zack and I had been in our tree house for about an hour and I was bursting. I was reading an old issue of Teen Titans by torchlight and Zack was doing his maths homework. He’s always been a bit of a swot. Before he became Star Lad, at school he was star boy. “Then go,” he said, solving another quadratic equation with a flick of his pencil. “I’m not stopping you.” The truth was I didn’t want to go down the rope ladder in the dark. It had been hard enough climbing up it in the first place. It’s not that I’m unfit or anything, but put it like this: you won’t ever see me on an Olympic podium. I suffer from hay fever and have funny-shaped feet that mean I have to wear these things in my shoes called “orthotics”. When Mum first told me I needed them I was excited. I thought they sounded like supersoldier-power armour, but when they finally arrived they turned out to be bendy foot-shaped supports and not a cybernetic exoskeleton suit. That was a disappointing Thursday. I hung my head out of the tree house door. “Maybe I could just wee from here?” “Out! Get out of here, you disgusting child!” Zack is only three years older than me, but when I’ve done something to annoy him he calls me a child. Of all the things I can’t stand about my big brother, being called a child is number forty-seven. Not that I have a list. OK. I do have a list. Even before he became a superhero the list was up to number sixty-three. Now it’s almost at a hundred. He is very irritating. I climbed down the rope ladder and went into the house. I did a wee. When I returned to the tree house a few minutes later, Zack was sitting there silently in the dark. I knew something was up because he’d stopped doing his homework. I grabbed my torch and levelled the beam in his face. He didn’t even blink. “Zack, are you all right?” He nodded. “Are you sure? You look … different.” He nodded again, very slowly, like he was working out some complicated thought in his head and then said in a croaky voice, “I think … something amazing just happened to me. Luke, I’ve changed.” Now this didn’t come as a great surprise. About six months before, Dad had taken me aside for what he called a man-to-man chat. We sat in his shed – I think that’s because it’s the most manly room we have – and Dad explained that from now on I might notice some changes in my big brother. “Zack’s embarking on a great journey,” said Dad. “Brilliant! When’s he leaving? Can I have his room?” “Not that kind of journey,” said Dad with a weary sigh. “He’s going through something called puberty,” he went on. “His voice will be different, for instance.” “Ooh, will he sound like a Dalek?” “No, not like a Dalek.” “Pity.” “He will become hairier.” “Ooh, like a werewolf?!” “No, not like a werewolf.” This puberty lark didn’t seem up to much. There was other stuff, to do with privacy and girls, but to be honest, after the let-down about the Dalek and the werewolf I stopped taking it in. So, when Zack told me in the tree house that something had changed, I knew exactly what to say. I pursed my lips and gave a serious nod like I’d seen the doctor do when he told me I had glandular fever. “I’m afraid that you have caught puberty.” He ignored me and stared at his hands, turning them over and over. “I think I have superpowers.” Read the rest on Scribd! Ask your parent or carer to click on the link below to sign up for 30 days' free access to Scribd. https://blog.scribd.com/home/2020/3/17/a-letter-from-the-scribd-ceo-to-our-community Story Chair Special Click on the link below for Bubble 4's hilarious Story Chair Special! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVX57rUXMCY