He pa.s.sed over lines of boats moored bow to stern, then over the cl.u.s.ters of larger craft on swinging moorings all turning together like compa.s.s needles to face the incoming tide. Soon he was flying past the wind-carved, rocky outcrops of Bolt Head and when other gulls called from the cliffs his own gull's voice cried back, a cry that came from another time, from the time before speech, a cry of pure loneliness. He flew on. 'Out to sea, out to sea,' beat his wings, keeping on until the land dropped away from sight behind him. He allowed his gull-nature to take over and lost himself in the thrilling pleasure of flying; gliding just above the water, dipping one wing so the tip brushed the surface, wheeling round then sliding down, down into the deep, green hollows between waves, there to swoop up, up again over the crest of the advancing swell. He had no past or future, just the exhilarating sensation of flying.

He had no sense of time pa.s.sing, but eventually the solitude of the ocean that had drawn him out to sea drove him back to the sh.o.r.e. Loneliness swept him like the flood tide back up the estuary to the landing stage where he had left his human self.

Circling, he looked down and was shocked to see that, rather than sitting lifelessly staring, his body was standing, moving, gesturing, talking. It had an independent life, an independent will. While his will was guiding the body of the gull, some other force was inhabiting his body, directing it, animating it. What? Who? Panic gripped him. Could his life somehow continue without him? He wanted desperately to be reunited with his human self, but he was shut out. No longer needed.

Now he saw that there was someone else on the landing stage, a girl. It was a.n.u.sha and she was shouting. He flew lower to hear what she was saying.

'What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you?' she was screaming.

She was keeping her distance, slightly crouched as if ready to run. As he watched, the two figures moved around each other like fighters in a boxing ring.

He heard his own voice say, 'Come here. I'm not going to hurt you,' and a.n.u.sha say, 'No, stay away from me!'

What had happened? What was going on? What had he done to her? He felt guilt, horror; like a sleepwalker who wakes to find he has committed some awful crime in his sleep. This was worse, because he was condemned to watch himself menacing his friend with no power to stop what was happening. He was certain also that a.n.u.sha could not possibly know that his human body was not under his control.

Then he saw a.n.u.sha stumble, tripping on the uneven stonework, and he saw his body bending, heaving up a jagged rock with both hands, pausing for a split second to balance the rock, then rushing at a.n.u.sha with a triumphant yell. He dived, shrieking, beating his wings in the face of a.n.u.sha's attacker, driving him back, forcing him to drop the stone. He was fighting against himself, but in that nightmare moment all he knew was that he must give a.n.u.sha a chance to escape. Eye to eye with his own body, Zaki saw evil looking out, and that evil thing directed the body to seize a piece of broken plank and lash at him, slashing the air so that he was forced to fly out of reach. But he must keep the attacker's attention, not let him go after a.n.u.sha. He dived again, aiming for the face, again the plank lashed out, but the bird swerved clear and attacked again and again, forcing a retreat. Back they went towards the edge of the landing stage until Zaki saw a look of horror cross his own face as his body stepped back into empty air and toppled slowly, then fell on to the rocks and shingle below.

Three beats of his powerful wings and Zaki the bird was looking down at his inert body lying stretched out below, one leg in the water, the right arm flung out to the side. Dead or alive? He searched for signs of life. Had he killed the body, or the thing in it? Could one die without killing the other? If his body was dead, what then? What did that mean for him? A short life as a seagull, is that all he had to look forward to? Panic gripped him once more, then all his senses lurched and he seemed to be sliding, falling, plunging through total darkness. The world steadied and he was left with a dizzy nausea, like the feeling at the end of a rollercoaster ride. He slowly sat up, then rolled to one side and vomited. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

His hand! His mouth! He was back in his own body! He examined his hands, touched his legs, felt his face. There was a stinging cut on his cheek where the seagull's beak had found flesh. His head ached. He felt the back of his head. There was no blood, but a lump was starting to rise where his head had struck a stone. He pulled his wet leg out of the water, then tried making small movements. He was bruised and sore, but nothing seemed to be broken. He looked up. a.n.u.sha was standing at the edge of the landing stage, looking down. She took a quick step back.

'It's all right. It's me. I mean . . . it's really me,' he said.

Warily, a.n.u.sha returned to the edge.

'It wasn't me. Whatever happened, it wasn't me.' He knew he wasn't making much sense but how could he explain? 'I was in the seagull. Something else took over my body. I know it's not possible, but that's what happened. You have to believe me.'

'Stay there,' she called, her voice cold and hard. 'I'll get help.' And she disappeared from view.

'No! Wait! Don't go. Please.'

Zaki waited, hoping she had heard him. She reappeared and cautiously looked down. Zaki felt a wave of relief; somehow he had to make her understand that he hadn't been responsible for his body attacking her.

'I'm not coming down there,' she said flatly.

'Please, a.n.u.sha, it's OK now really I'm not going to do anything.'

'You just tried to kill me with a great big rock!'

'No no I didn't.'

'You b.l.o.o.d.y did! If it hadn't been for that seagull, I'd be dead!'

'I was the seagull! That was me!'

It was hopeless. How could you explain something as crazy as this? But she'd seen the hawk in the cla.s.sroom, knew that he had made that appear.

'Look,' he struggled to make it sound logical, 'it was like the hawk, only this time I left my body.' He watched her face, watched doubt and distrust losing their grip. 'It really wasn't me that attacked you.'

She took a big breath, lifting her shoulders then dropping them as she huffed the breath out.

'Well, you do sound more like you.'

'Where did the gull go?' asked Zaki.

'I don't know I didn't see. When you fell over the edge it seemed to hang in mid-air and then it was off.'

'That's when it happened. That's when I went back. I thought I'd killed my own body and I was going to be stuck as a seagull for the rest of my life, and the next I knew, I was back in my body.'

Zaki got shakily to his feet.

'Wait,' called a.n.u.sha, 'I'll come and help you.'

Zaki sat back down on a large, flat stone; he still felt very giddy. a.n.u.sha came down the slipway to join him. She stopped a few feet away. Zaki raised his head and tried to smile. Would she trust him?

'You look really rubbish,' she said.

'I feel rubbish.'

'What about your shoulder?'

He hadn't thought about his shoulder, which, in itself, was odd since the fall should have made it worse. He tried it now. There was no pain. In fact he could even lift his arm above his head, something he had been unable to do that morning when he was dressing. He prodded his collarbone. Nothing. It was as though he'd never fractured it.

'It's fixed.'

'How fixed?'

'I don't know how, but it seems to be fixed. It's gone and mended itself.'

'I don't think bones can grow that quickly.'

'This one has. Look.' He waved his arm wildly.

'OK, OK. No need to go crazy. I don't suppose you could have lifted that rock you wanted to brain me with if it had still been broken.'

'I was the seagull, remember?'

'I know, I know it's just that this swapping bodies stuff is a little difficult to get my head round.'

'How do you think it feels when it's your body?'

a.n.u.sha looked thoughtful. 'If you were the seagull, then who was in your body?'

'I don't know.'

She studied him carefully, as you might study a dog that sometimes bites.

Zaki stopped trying to smile and looked down at his feet.

a.n.u.sha swung her rucksack off her shoulder and came and sat beside him on the stone. Now it was Zaki's turn to be puzzled.

'Why are you here?' he asked.

'Because I've decided to help you get cleaned up instead of reporting you for attempted murder!' She took a water bottle and some tissues from her rucksack.

'What I meant was, why aren't you at school? How did you know where I was?'

'Simple I followed you. Let me see your face.'

'Ow!'

'Don't make a fuss. It's not deep.' She washed the cut on his cheek.

'Followed me from where?'

'The high street. I was on my way to school. I saw you get out of the van. At first I thought I'd catch you up, but then you went the wrong way and I wondered what you were going to do. I brought my dad's camcorder, like I said I would, and I thought if I filmed you and something interesting happened, then we'd have it on tape. I thought it was better if you didn't know I was there. You never looked round so it wasn't difficult.'

She gave Zaki the water bottle so that he could rinse the sick taste out of his mouth.

'When did you start recording?'

'It was hard to do it while I was walking along and trying to keep out of sight, so I waited until you sat down over there and I hid amongst that stack of dinghies.'

'So you've got everything! Me and the gull all of that?'

'Well, yes, but it was just an ordinary seagull. It didn't suddenly appear or anything.'

'What about the fight?'

'No, I'd dropped the camera by then. It was the camera that started it. After the seagull flew off the first time I waited and waited I must have stayed hidden for over an hour, but as nothing really much was happening I stopped hiding and came across to talk to you. You seemed a bit confused, like you didn't quite know who I was.'

'What did I say?'

'Not much. You were in a very strange mood. You called me "maid". I thought that was a bit odd.'

'My grandad calls girls maid. It's proper West Country.'

'Then I showed you the camcorder. I played back what I had recorded and you went mad said I was trying to steal your secrets called me a witch!'

'A witch! Wow!'

'I said I didn't come here to be insulted and that I was going. I got halfway to the steps and you grabbed me, tried to get the camcorder off me. We fought I got away but you kept coming after me and I couldn't get to the steps. I dropped the camera just before you picked up that big rock.'

'I saw the rest.'

'Hmm.' a.n.u.sha looked thoughtfully at Zaki.

'What?'

'When you say you were the seagull,' she asked slowly, 'what do you mean, exactly?'

'Well . . . I was sitting up there and the seagull landed next to me. It looked at me and I looked at it and then whoosh! I was looking out of its eyes and feeling what it was feeling. I was the seagull! Except I could still think like me. I could choose where to go and what to do. So I flew out to sea.'

'Why out to sea?'

'I wanted to be by myself.'

'But your body stayed here?'

'That's where it gets really weird.' Zaki tried to bring his mind to focus on the problem of how his body could have continued to act once he had left it. And Zaki? Who was Zaki if he wasn't his body? His mind shied away, searching for distractions. There was something very nasty lurking at the bottom of this question and his mind didn't want to look at it.

The tide had crept in and the water was now lapping near their feet. Zaki watched the little ripples covering and uncovering the shingle. As he watched, a small, spiral sh.e.l.l clambered through the pebbles. He knew what it was. He reached down and picked it up.

'Look,' he said, holding up the sh.e.l.l with its occupant for a.n.u.sha to see. 'It's a hermit crab. That's not his sh.e.l.l, but he's taken it over and he'll fight anything to keep it.' As Zaki spoke, the tiny crab's legs and pincers appeared from the sh.e.l.l's mouth and the little claw opened and closed as the crab attempted to attack Zaki's finger.

a.n.u.sha laughed. 'It's very brave! Can I hold it?' Zaki pa.s.sed her the sh.e.l.l. 'h.e.l.lo little crab,' she said, holding it centimetres from her nose.

'I'm like that sh.e.l.l. There's something else inside my body,' said Zaki. 'I think something crawled in while I was in that cave. I'm sharing my body with something evil.' He looked at the crab in a.n.u.sha's hand. 'I wonder if that crab ate the creature that made the sh.e.l.l.'

a.n.u.sha carefully placed the crab back in the water. 'Off you go, little crab. I'm not sure I like you any more,' she said quietly.

Zaki looked at her. 'I think whatever it is that got into me is getting stronger; maybe not strong enough to push me out yet, but you saw what it could be like and it's doing home improvements it fixed my shoulder. How do you fight against something that's inside you?'

a.n.u.sha shook her head, then she sat up slightly. 'The voice the one you told me about yesterday. The one that called the girl's name . . .'

A wave of dread flooded through Zaki's body. He nodded . Yes, a.n.u.sha was right; that thing that had called out the girl's name and the evil thing that had looked out of his eyes it was one and the same. It had crept into him when he was in the cave; he had brought it into the open. He was like the carrier of a plague, of a deadly virus and he knew now what it wanted.

'It's using me but it's after the girl. That's why she doesn't want me to go near her. I've put her in danger maybe others. You saw it just now; it tried to kill you!'

'But why? What is it?' a.n.u.sha searched his face.

'I don't know.' Zaki's head hurt; he felt confused; he didn't know what was going on.

a.n.u.sha got to her feet. 'Come on. We're going to get wet if we stay here much longer. Anyway, I'm hungry. Have you got anything to eat?'

'No.'

'I have. You can share mine; you look like you need it.'

They climbed back up to the top of the landing stage and returned to the spot where Zaki had originally been sitting. a.n.u.sha laid out the contents of her lunch box between them and Zaki added the water bottle from his own rucksack and a snack bar that he found in his pocket and now broke it in half.

Zaki's mind returned to the awful conversation that morning in the van. He pictured his mother among a group of strangers, laughing happily. He picked up a pebble and threw it as far out into the water as he could. Then he threw another and another, each with more force and anger.

'Why did you come here?' a.n.u.sha asked softly. 'Is something going on?'

Zaki flung another pebble across the water.

'I don't mean all this, but . . . You don't have tell me if you don't want to, but, if something's wrong . . . you know, something else . . .' She left the sentence unfinished.