The Boy in the Mirror
Chapter One
Olly was fed up. He wanted to go and play on his computer, but his mum insisted he had to finish his homework.
‘Education is the most important thing,’ his mum kept on saying, but it was so boring. Anyway, he hated school. He only went because she kept on nagging him. If it was left to him, he would play truant and join up with Pete and Sam. Lost in thought, he suddenly heard his mum shouting,
‘Oliver! Oli i verrrr!’ Her voice always went up in the end when she called him. Looking up he saw her standing there, dressed like a burglar. She had on a pair of old trousers, her curly hair was squashed in a hoodie and she was waving a torch.
‘I want you to help me,’ she urged in that tone of voice that means I won’t take no for an answer.
‘To do what? Why are you holding that torch?’
‘I’ve seen a large mirror in someone’s skip. It is just the right size for the hall. I have been looking for something like that for ages and someone has chucked one away. We can creep down there now, it’s dark and no one will see us. The owners obviously don’t want itand it will only be smashed on the council tip.’
‘Why can’t Sarah help?’
‘Don’t be silly, your sister is in bed. Anyway, she isn’t big enough to carry a mirror. It will only take a few minutes.’
Olly’s heart sunk, his mum was always collecting things and gathering up junk. The house was full of it, besides he felt foolish secretly raiding skips. He always got involved with his mum’s rubbish collecting expeditionsand they were usually a waste of time. She once rescued a statue of an elephant thrown in a skip. She then gave it pride of place in the rockery. It looked quite good for a while, until the rain washed the paint awayand it slowly disintegrated into mouldy lumps. The remains made the rockery look like an elephant’s graveyard, full of old bones. If she wasn’t taking stuff, they were dumping their own rubbish. Once they were chased down the street by an irate man, who objected to them putting an old carpet in his skip.
‘We can’t go down there mum. People will see usand we’ll get into trouble. Remember the last time?’
Brushing his pleas aside and pulling up her hoodie, Mrs Green responded with irritation.
‘Don’t start arguing Oliver.’ She always called him Oliver when she was giving orders. ‘Just do as you’re told and come on. First look for that rope we had, it might come in usefuland we can take it with us.’
Trying to wriggle out of the adventure he pretended he didn’t know where the rope wasbut she soon chucked out loads of things from the cupboard under the stairs and held it up in triumph.
Admitting defeat and feeling fed up, Olly picked up the rope and headed off with her. The skip was only a few streets awayand they walked along trying not to look suspicious. At last, they turned a corner and there stood the skip in all its glory. It was at the back of a house and to reach it they had to clamber over a fence and into a side alley. Although the alley was quite narrow, cars could still go down there so the pile of rubbish in the metal container was surrounded by sand with four large, red lanterns at each end.
The skip was quite high as they could see it had been overfilled with all sorts of things balanced precariously on the top. It was stacked with old concrete and broken bricks. His mum’s eyes lit up when she saw them. She wanted to take them home too and put them on her rockery. Olly managed to talk her out of that one, reminding her that it was the mirror they were after. At first she couldn’t see it and gasped,
