Jigsaw Lady Read online

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Copyright Page

  Titles in Teen Reads

  CHAPTER 1

  From the moment that Rickey Randall arrived at the school he had ‘bully’ stamped all over his face.

  He was a good foot in height taller than everyone else in year nine, and everyone in class had heard a story from a friend, who had heard it from their brother, who had been told it in a bowling alley, about why Rickey had been expelled from his previous schools. Some said it was gang related. Some said he had almost killed a year seven while ramming his head down a toilet, but all said the same thing: Rickey Randall was bad news.

  And for Billy Pearce and the other students like him, Rickey Randall was the Devil who had come to Ramsay High.

  Billy was a small boy. He didn’t really like his lessons, but he knew that if he wanted to be a postman like his father he had to learn his words and pass his tests. And he’d tried to keep out of trouble, making friends with the quieter boys in the class, Graham King and Martin Reilly. They’d spend their break times by the music block, playing handball against the sports’ hall wall.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t long until Rickey and his follower Dave Chapman found them. And, once he did, he decided to make their lives hell.

  At first it was small things. During PE, Rickey would line the ‘weedy’ boys against the wall, using a tennis racquet to hammer balls at them. If they were hit they were allowed to leave. But Rickey would deliberately miss, building up the fear in the same way that a horror movie does.

  The longer Billy stood there waiting to be hit, the more scared of being hit he became. It was torture.

  From that, Rickey moved up to bigger games. When changing after PE he would steal Billy’s clothes while Billy was in the shower and throw them in with him, soaking them. Or, worse, he would hide them so Billy had to run around naked looking for them. Usually he’d give them to the girls next door.

  But the day that Rickey Randall pushed Billy out of the first floor window during French, holding him by his feet as Billy dangled in fear, was the day that Billy realised that he had to do something about this. The teachers didn’t care, they were as scared of Rickey as he was and they were powerless to do anything. The only way that Billy was going to survive until year ten was to become a follower, like Dave Chapman.

  Graham, however, didn’t understand.

  “You’re joining the enemy!” he complained during Physics.

  “No, I’m surviving,” Billy said. “What would have happened in French if my shoe had slipped off? I’d have fallen! It wouldn’t have been like a tennis ball hitting me! It would have been a dozen times worse! I might have broken something, even died!”

  “I’d rather die than suck up to Rickey the Thicky,” Graham muttered.

  “I’m sorry,” Billy said, “but I have to do something.”

  “If you do this, then our friendship is over.” Graham sat back, folding his arms, and for a single moment Billy felt anger at his best friend.

  “You’re just worried that if I join Rickey, then I won’t be the top of his hit list!” he snapped. “You’re just worried that you’ll be next! Some friend you are! Maybe we shouldn’t be friends!”

  And with that, Billy turned and stormed back to his desk, glaring at his one-time friend for the remainder of the lesson. But, deep down, Billy knew that Graham was right. If it had been the other way round, Billy would have said the same thing.

  But he’d burned his bridges now and the only way to go was forwards. Straight towards Rickey Randall.

  *

  It was after Maths that Billy found Rickey and Dave behind the school canteen, slouching moodily against the wall, hands in pockets. Nervously, he walked over to them, expecting Rickey to leap up and attack him. Instead, Rickey just looked at him, his face becoming a sneer.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I… I want to be part of your gang,” Billy stammered nervously. Rickey looked over to Dave, who smiled.

  “Why?” Rickey asked. Billy fought back the urge to reply because that way you won’t beat me up or throw tennis balls at me or strip me naked and make me run around…

  “Because I want to be cool,” he lied.

  Rickey laughed, pushing away from the canteen wall and leering at Billy. As Billy flinched back, Rickey placed an arm around his shoulder.

  “You wanna join us?” he said. “You gotta prove it. You need to leave your old friends behind. You do that – you’re in.”

  “I can do that,” Billy said, already feeling guilty. Dave took a step towards Billy and gave him a hard stare.

  “Let’s see you do it then,” he smiled. “Come on Rickey, let’s go pay Billy’s mates a visit.”

  Billy felt his stomach flip-flop as he followed the two bullies towards the music block. He wanted to turn around, to run away, but he found his feet following theirs, knowing that he was too scared to leave. As they turned into the small open area where Billy used to play handball, he saw with a sickening lurch of his guts that there was only one other student there.

  Graham.

  Standing still, a tennis ball in his hand, Graham had probably been playing handball alone, hitting the ball against the wall until someone turned up to play. Now he stood like a rabbit caught in the car headlights.

  Rickey walked over to Graham, taking the tennis ball from his hand.

  “Move,” he ordered, pointing at the wall. Without even asking why, Graham quietly walked to the wall, facing the two bullies and Billy. Rickey gave Billy the ball.

  “Throw it at him,” he ordered.

  Billy looked at Graham, seeing the hurt, anger and shame in his ex-friend’s eyes.

  “If you do, we’re definitely no longer friends,” Graham said softly. But Billy knew it was already too late. Shutting his eyes, Billy threw the ball, hearing the ka-duk of the ball missing Graham, hitting the wall and bouncing back. Picking it up, Rickey passed it back to Billy.

  “Again,” he said.

  Three times Billy threw the ball; three times it missed, but the fourth time, the fourth terrible time, it flew straight at Graham’s face, hitting his nose and drawing blood. As Graham ran off in tears, Rickey and Dave laughed, slapping Billy on the back. Billy felt sick. But at the same time, there was a small amount of hope that now he would no longer be bullied.

  “Nice one,” Rickey said. “You’re almost there.”

  “Almost?” Billy looked from Rickey to Dave. “There’s more?”

  “Oh yes,” Rickey grinned. “That was the proof. Now we need the initiation.”

  “What do you mean?” Billy wanted to leave. Dave leaned in close.

  “We mean a test, something bigger than this. Tonight you join us on a mission,” he said. “Tonight we meet the Jigsaw Lady.”

  Billy felt a shiver of fear run down his spine. He knew the stories about the Jigsaw Lady, and he wanted more than anything in the world never to visit her house. But he knew that whether he went that night would be based on who he feared more… the Jigsaw Lady… or Rickey Randall?

  CHAPTER 2

  The Jigsaw Lady wasn’t some kind of horror story aimed at scaring children; she was a real person, one who lived in the broken-down old house at the top of Stone Hill. Ever since he’d been a small child, Billy had heard the stories about the Jigsaw Lady. Some said she was a lonely old woman who spent her days putting jigsaw puzzles together, but others said darker things: that she was a witch; that she’d been alive for hundreds of years; that she stayed young by drinking the blood of teenage boys; and how children, cats and dogs had mysteriously disappeared when walking through her gardens.

  B
illy didn’t know which of the stories were true, but the one thing he did know was that the last thing he wanted to do was be anywhere near the Jigsaw Lady’s house at eight o’clock at night. But here he was, at five minutes to eight, standing at the end of Stone Hill, waiting for Rickey and Dave to turn up.

  It was another ten minutes before they arrived, and Billy thought he saw a slight trace of fear in their faces as they walked up to him.

  “You made it then,” Dave said as he stopped. Billy nodded.

  “Why are we here?” he asked.

  Rickey grinned, the fear disappearing from his face for the first time. “To have some fun,” he said, opening the gate and entering the Jigsaw Lady’s garden. “Come on.”

  Dave looked at Billy. Billy looked back at Dave.

  Neither of them moved. Rickey, seeing this, sighed as he walked back out of the garden.

  “And I thought I hung out with the hardest kids in school,” he mocked. “But no! Here they stand, scared of a little old lady and some broken bits of pictures.”

  “It’s not that,” Dave said. “I’ve heard things, you know? Bad things. If she was to catch us in her garden…”

  “Well she won’t,” Rickey said with a sneer on his face. “She’s at Bingo tonight.”

  “What?” Billy stared at Rickey in shock. The thought of the Jigsaw Lady going to Bingo was one that had never occurred to him before. Did witches even play Bingo?

  “Yeah,” Rickey carried on. “My gran sees her there every week without fail. So she’s not here tonight.”

  “So why are we here?” Billy asked. Rickey’s smile faded away and Billy started to tremble as Rickey moved closer.

  “Because we’re gonna break in,” he hissed. “We’re gonna break in and bring all of her stupid jigsaws outside.”

  “Then what?” Billy couldn’t stop himself from asking the question.

  “Then? Then we’re gonna empty them all on the grass and mix them up!” Rickey laughed. “Let’s see her try to put them all back together after we do that!”

  Rickey paused, looking at Billy.

  “You do want to be in this gang, don’t you?” he asked. “I mean, you don’t want to be one of the bullied again, do you?”

  “No, no,” Billy shook his head, “not at all.”

  “Good,” said Rickey. “Then let’s go and have some fun.”

  They walked through the garden, Billy jumping at every noise he heard, convinced that at any moment the Jigsaw Lady was going to spring out of the shadows and turn them all into frogs – or worse. But nothing happened and, by the time they reached the Jigsaw Lady’s front door, Billy was even starting to relax.

  BAM! BAM!

  Billy leaped into the air, only to see Rickey, his hand on the door knocker, laughing loudly.

  “Did the nasty door knocker scare you?” he laughed. Billy sulked. As nobody answered the door, Rickey took a step back and, with a kick of his heavy black boot, he stamped at the door lock.

  “What are you doing?” Billy asked, looking around in case anyone had heard them.

  “How else are we getting in?” Dave asked, standing beside Rickey and joining in, his own boot slamming against the door lock at the same time as Rickey’s. Under such force the door splintered open, swinging into the house.

  “Bonus time,” Rickey said as he entered the Jigsaw Lady’s house. Billy didn’t want to go in; he was too scared. Luckily he didn’t have to, as a few seconds later Dave appeared with a handful of boxes in his arms. Each box was a jigsaw.

  “Make yourself useful if you’re not coming in,” he said, throwing the boxes at Billy. “Make a pile of the bits in the middle of the garden, yeah?”

  As ordered, Billy walked into the garden and started to open the boxes, pouring the jigsaw pieces onto the ground, throwing the boxes aside as he did so. Pictures of mountains, kittens and city streets all went flying as, box by box, the pile grew. Whenever Billy ran out, Dave always had another armful to add to the pile. Slowly, the pile grew higher and higher, now almost as tall as Billy was himself. He felt bad for doing this, for causing anyone, even if they were a witch, such hassle. But, at the same time, he wasn’t being bullied and that counted for something.

  Finally Rickey came out with the last three boxes, helping Billy and Dave throw the pieces onto the pile.

  “That’s it,” he said. “Every jigsaw that the Jigsaw Lady owns.”

  “I don’t want to be here when she tries to put them together,” Billy said, staring at the pile. Rickey laughed as he reached into his pocket.

  “Who said she was gonna get a chance to?” he said as he pulled out a tin of lighter fluid, squirting it all over the pile of jigsaw pieces as he danced around it. “I’m not letting her have any of these back. She’s a witch. And you burn witches.”

  He paused, throwing the empty tin of lighter fluid to the grass as he pulled out a box of matches. Silently he removed one from the box and lit it.

  “And if you don’t burn the witch, you burn the next-best thing,” he hissed, as he dropped the still-lit match onto the pile.

  As the match hit the fluid, the pile of jigsaw pieces went up in flames, easily twice the height of the pile. Billy had to step back as the heat from the bonfire was so fierce.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here!” Dave pulled at Billy’s arm. “Before someone calls the police!”

  In a daze, Billy followed the two bullies out of the garden. But as he ran, he couldn’t help himself. He stopped and turned, taking one last look past the bonfire, now blazing fiercely, at the Jigsaw Lady’s house. And what he saw chilled him to the bone.

  In the top right-hand corner of the house was a small, square window. And, as the light from the bonfire hit it, Billy could see a face staring out, a wrinkled old bag of skin that stared angrily down at the jigsaws, the fire, and at Billy. As their eyes locked, Billy realised exactly who he was looking at.

  Rickey had lied. The Jigsaw Lady wasn’t at Bingo. She’d been upstairs, asleep. And now she was staring at him. She’d seen what they’d done. She’d seen their faces.

  And the Jigsaw Lady would want revenge.

  Terrified, Billy ran from the garden at a sprint, hoping that if he could get away quickly he’d escape the Jigsaw Lady’s curse. But at the same time he knew that if the Jigsaw Lady was a witch, and if she did curse them… then Rickey, Dave and Billy were dead!

  CHAPTER 3

  When Rickey dragged Billy into the boys’ toilets, Billy thought for a moment he was back to the old days of beatings and being made to look stupid, but it was far worse.

  For the three days that had followed the burning of the Jigsaw Lady’s jigsaws, all three of them had been nervous, jumpy even. Nothing had happened on any of these days and Billy had even started to relax. But on the fourth day, as he was walking to Maths, Billy was grabbed by Rickey and pulled into the toilet, where he found Dave standing, his face pale and scared.

  “What’s going on?” Billy asked.

  “Dave saw the Jigsaw Lady,” Rickey said. “He was in the supermarket and she appeared out of nowhere. Pointed her finger at him and cursed him.”

  Dave looked as if he was going to be sick.

  “What happened then?” Billy asked. Dave looked to Rickey, who nodded. Slowly, Dave removed his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. Pulling it off his right shoulder, he stared at Billy, tears in his eyes.

  “This happened,” he said.

  There was a mark on Dave’s shoulder. A jigsaw-shaped mark. But when Billy looked closer he saw that it wasn’t a mark, oh no – it was worse. It was nothing. A jigsaw-shaped nothing that he could see the wall behind Dave through. It was as if someone had taken a photo of Dave and removed a part of it.

  “I’ve got three of them,” Dave moaned. “One on the shoulder, one on the hip and one… well, let’s just say that going to the toilet might be a problem for a while.”

  “Four,” Rickey said, pointing at Dave’s right arm where a smaller hole in his body could be seen. “N
o, look. Five.”

  Dave started to cry, big shuddering sobs that scared Billy even more. For this bully to be so scared…

  “So, what now?” Billy asked. Rickey shrugged.

  “I dunno,” he said, but stopped as the toilet door opened and Mike Wood from year eight walked in, staring at the half-naked Dave.

  “What’s going on?” Mike asked. Dave looked to Rickey. Rickey looked to Billy.

  “Mike, can you see anything wrong with Dave’s shoulder?” Billy asked. Stepping forwards, Mike stared right at the missing, jigsaw-shaped hole.

  “Maybe a bruise coming up?” he said.

  “You don’t see anything… missing?”

  “Should I?” Mike stepped back, looking at all three bullies. “I don’t know what game you’re playing but it’s not good enough to get you out of school. Try harder.” And with that, deciding that he didn’t actually need the toilet, Mike left.

  “He couldn’t see it,” Billy said. “Only we can.”

  “Maybe it’s not real then?” Rickey said, looking to Dave. “Maybe it’s like a big joke?”

  “It don’t feel like a big joke,” Dave snapped back, pulling on his shirt. “It feels like I’m being torn apart, piece by piece.”

  “Look, let’s give it a day and see what happens,” Rickey said, and Billy knew that Rickey was scared, too scared to get involved. Dave shook his head.

  “No, I’m not waiting,” he pushed his school tie into his bag as he started for the door. “I’m going to her house and I’m gonna demand that she returns the bits of me she’s stolen.”

  He looked at Billy.

  “You coming with me?” he asked. Billy looked at his feet. The last place in the world he wanted to go was the Jigsaw Lady’s house.

  “You’re both cowards,” Dave hissed. “I thought I was hanging with the cool kids. Well, when I sort this out you can both go to hell. I don’t want anything to do with you any more.” And with that he stormed out of the room.

  “Dave, wait!” Rickey shouted at the now closed door, but it was too late. Rickey looked back at Billy.

  “We don’t tell anyone,” he hissed. “We keep this to ourselves, OK?”