Noah

Chapter 1

Some people say that my mum is weird, but I think she's rather brilliant. She calls me her remembering machine, because whenever she forgets where her keys are before she leaves for work, I always manage to find them just in the nick of time. ''Botherations!'' she always says, as she searches wildly around the room for her glasses, which are more often that not, perched very quietly on the tip of her nose.

Another name I like to go by is the great sneak-er! And this, by no means, should be confused with what American's call trainers, but because I, Noah of 64 Wilson Road and of 9 and 3/4 years, am the great master of sneaking! At school, I like to sneak books under the table and read them during boring maths classes and when mum cooks something disgusting for dinner, I sneak the worst bits under the table and feed them to our dog Poppy, all without anyone noticing in the slightest. 

Our house is a big grey box with lots of other smaller boxes inside of it and it is right next to a huge car park. When I was younger, I used to sneak lady birds in to the house and rescue them from being squished by the unforgiving wheels of our neighbours' cars and keep them in a sizeable box I had fashioned, which would become their new home. Mum thought that this was great, and once I revealed my collection of lady bird houses, she announced that they should have an upgrade and we should keep them in the kitchen by the big window so they can get lots of sunlight. 

One day, I want to use my sneaking powers to master the art of robbery! But don't worry, I will only steal from the rich, like Robin Hood and I'll only take a few pennies at a time and when I've saved up enough, we can all finally go on holiday somewhere fancy. 

Mum says that we can make our own holiday right here in our house and when I said that she couldn't, last week she blocked up all of our windows with bin bags (because curtains certainly wouldn't do!) and scuttled off at once upstairs to fetch the fan. Upon her return, she started up the fan in my direction and told me to lay down and close my eyes. I could hear her fidgeting around and typing on her laptop, which began to play the sound of seagulls and the jingling tunes of ice cream vans. She then plonked herself down next to me and held my hand.

''Isn't this great??' she said. ''Just like being on the beach!''. 

After a good amount of laying, I felt her get up and walk over to our old fireplace which one, doesn't work at all, so is pretty useless at what it was made for and two, mum says that even if it did work, she would much rather fill it with pretty things. Mum is a bit of a collector and quite like a magpie, is always finding odd shiny bits and bobs here and there and taking them home to show us. I think we make quite a good team, the magpie and the sneaker.

She placed something small and cold in the palm of my now slightly sweaty hand. I squeezed it as hard as I possible could and recognised it at once. It was the seashell she had picked up from the park we always walk Poppy in. She had thought it was terrifically shocking and beautiful to see something so misplaced. How had it come all this way from the sea? And what adventures must it have gone on to get here?

She whispered to me that when you hold a seashell up to your ear, you can hear the quiet roar of waves crashing on a distant beach, as if sounds from the shell's past are still lurking within it. I thought that surely because it was found in a park, It might contain the sounds of swings and children playing and dogs parking but no, as I held it up to my right ear I could hear, clear as day, the sounds of the ocean.

Plonk, Plonk, PLONK,

I was whooshed back to reality by the sounds of my sister Matilda's elephant feet coming down the stairs. ''What's all this then? come on mum, you know this is the sort of thing that gets the neighbours talking for days on end!'' 

How great! I thought, mum's holiday trick will be known by everyone and she'll be the most popular mum in town! 

Meanwhile, I put the shell safely in my pocket, making quite sure that Matilda couldn't snatch it off me and put it back where it belongs.