The Citadel and the Wolves Read online

  For

  Doctor Margaret Frost, Simon Whitehouse,

  Doctor David Newton and the others whom I knew

  before the coming of the comet

  BOOK ONE

  Life at 10 Crown Dale Close before the Comet

  When I was a little girl, I loved reading children’s stories about the wolf, a proud and dignified creature in the animal kingdom. Then the comet struck the earth, society broke down, and hungry wolves escaped from the zoos. Now we feared the wolves.

  1. LIGHTS OF JUPITER

  Early June, 10, Crown Dale Close,

  London 2015

  I don’t normally use an alarm in the morning before school. I like to wake naturally, reaching out to the conscious world, like the beauty of a she-wolf asleep in her lair with the morning sunlight touching her face, she wakes to the day.

  AAAAARGH!

  The noisy refuse collection vehicle, or as daddy prefers to call it, the dust cart, which is rather old-fashioned and quaint, woke me that morning. I hate such rude awakenings, don’t you? I groaned into my pillow, begging them to leave me alone, as they wrenched me away from another universe of dreams, desires and fantasies and strange, alien worlds. I wasn’t ready to leave that cosmos just yet; however, someone else had other ideas. Although it wasn’t raining out, the noise sounded like thunder in my head. AAAAH! No, I was wrong; it sounded like a thousand people screaming at me all at once. HMMMM! Or was it a swarm of angry bees in my left ear? I finally decided that it was a local council refuse collection truck.

  Strange really, for it was this familiarity, the routine, the mundane, the ordinary that I would soon miss, even yearn for in an odd sort of way, but not right then, that moment in time, before the darkness that would engulf our beautiful, little world.

  Then the aliens from another galaxy came for our wheelie bin. I saw what one looked like once when I dared to look through the curtains. In fact, to my surprise, he looked almost human, except for his missing right thumb! I have long suspected that our school deputy directress is also an alien being from another galaxy because she too has a missing right thumb.

  Why do they have to make so much noise so early in the morning when people are still asleep? They should make it compulsory for them to collect the rubbish in the afternoon. It should be written in law or something, and when I become British prime minister in the future, I shall make it law. Daddy gets annoyed, too, when they block the drive with their big, blue and white refuse truck sometimes. They like to think that they are lords of the highway. I slid deeper under the covers. I tried to escape from the noise that was blowing my mind. Then I overheard one say that they were plotting to overthrow the government before they collected the rubbish bags from our house. Should I tell someone about this amazing revelation or go back to sleep? No, I could tell one of the teachers at school. They’d know what to do, wouldn’t they? I decided to go back to sleep instead. If the binmen from a parallel universe want to take over our world, then, that’s just fine by me. At least our rubbish would always be collected on time. Seriously though, I was annoyed with the aliens from another galaxy. They had rudely shattered a pleasant dream that I was having, though I couldn’t remember it when I woke. It had trickled out of my mind like grains of sand through my fingers. The others had spoilt it.

  My head was still full of sleep as I tried to figure out what day of the week it was. Something puzzled me. It felt like Monday. I don’t like Mondays because it’s maths and history and the beginning of another school week, and Friday was still five days away. Sunday had vanished in a summer haze. I was missing it already. Sunday would never be the same again, for it had gone forever. And what did I do with this very precious day? I wasted it, catching up with maths and history homework; nevertheless, I do want to do well at school. You can’t do that if you don’t study hard. I’m a little swot. Homework is part of that study, so perhaps I hadn’t wasted that Sunday which had gone forever till next Sunday comes around again. Forgive me, but when I’m half-awake, half-asleep; my head is full of nonsense that floats through my mind like clouds drifting through the sky on a warm summer’s day. I drift with them, leaving my physical form behind. I reached out with my sleepy mind that was still in another universe far from reality, embracing my consciousness and realised that it wasn’t Monday after all. It couldn’t be Monday. The binmen don’t collect the rubbish till Tuesday. It was Tuesday. It was Tuesday! I was a little happier because Tuesday was one day closer to Friday, and Friday was one day before Saturday and the weekend again. Great! But wait. What am I doing? I’m wishing my life away. Yesterday had gone. Today is tomorrow. I’ll soon be sixty-four. GULP! Tuesday is drama class and art, which I like. I could live with Tuesday, even though there is science in the afternoon.

  The aliens with the missing thumbs had moved on to bother someone else in another universe. Would they wake her up, too? Silence had returned to my little place in the universe, my room, my special world, my domain, the lair of the beautiful she-wolf; however, the silence didn’t last very long.

  “Jade! Jade!” Mum’s voice drifted up the stairs from the real universe, sliding under the door. It settled like dust on the floor. “Are you up yet?”

  “I’m up, Mum!” I lied beneath the covers. It’s easy to lie to someone (even your mum) when you are in another room with the door closed.

  She spoke again after a moment: “You don’t want to be late for school again, do you, Jade?”

  “No, Mum!”

  Of course I want to be late for school!

  I stretched, yawned and scratched like a big cat waking from a dream. Do cats dream? I don’t think so. Perhaps they do in other universes where my mind rested briefly. Although I was awake, the fuzz remained in my head. It takes me at least thirty minutes to wake properly. I lay on my back, gazing at the ceiling. I drew its strange, faraway dreams into my head.

  Who am I? What am I? Why am I? What do I do? What are my future plans? Where am I? I always ask the same questions every morning to reassure my consciousness that I am alive and not dead. The fog began to lift from my head. Only then could I become aware of my own being. I’m Jade Robinson. I’m female. I’m 13+ and I live in a big, white house standing in its own grounds at 10, Crown Dale Close, a nice, quiet, leafy, suburban street in South East London near West Norwood, with my parents, Wendy, my sister, who is 15+ and Tommy, my baby brother, who’s just eighteen months old. Daddy drives a silver-grey Japanese Jeep. When I’m old enough, he has promised to teach me how to drive. I’ve got my own room, and I don’t have to share it with my older sister. We do love each other, but we both need our own bit of space. Our own universes. Daddy is the head of the science department at St. Matthew’s, a private boys’ school in West Dulwich, South East London. Mummy doesn’t work. She’s a housewife, which is another old-fashioned word. When I mentioned this to her once in a light-hearted way because I know she works jolly hard, she threatened to boil my brain, in a light-hearted way, of course. Without mum, our nice house would fall apart. Daddy is absolutely hopeless at that sort of thing. Wendy and I attend St. Jude’s High in West Norwood, South East London. St. Jude’s used to be an all-girls’ school till they started admitting boys at the beginning of the term. Unlike many of the girls in my class, I simply am not interested in boys at the moment. My schoolwork comes first before anything else, including going out and having fun with my friends. I want to do well at school. I want to go on to university. I want daddy, the schoolteacher, to be proud of his little girl. He says that he’s proud of me because I’m doing so well at school, which is so very important to me at this moment in my life, so boys are definitely out. They demand too much of your attention. They demand too much of your time.
In fact, they’re simply too demanding. I’m only 13+ for DROKK’S SAKE! I’ve got my whole life ahead of me. There’s plenty of time for boys and romance in my life later. Who knows maybe I’ll even fall in love one day, too. I haven’t really thought about it much, love and things. Some of my friends think of nothing else. They’re boy crazy. I’m not. They call me old-fashioned. They simply don’t understand. They’ll regret wasting their lives one day in the future, wondering where it has all gone. I’m young and free. I’ve got no worries, though if I do badly in my forthcoming exams, I’ll kill myself.

  Then an alien creature not a million kilometres away interrupted my dreams when she played a little pop tune on my 5th generation, vid phone which, until a moment ago was lying silent on the little cupboard by my bed. I was reluctant to answer it, but she was insistent. I languidly reached out and picked it up. I lightly touched the vid phone screen and Wendy appeared after a moment or two. Her big, blue eyes were still full of sleep, her long, blonde hair messy and untidy, yet she still managed to look beautiful first thing. I was suddenly jealous. Why didn’t I look like her first thing? I looked a bit like an alien with two heads from another galaxy first thing, though having two brains as well might be useful for my maths homework. Wendy was silent for a moment. She wanted something from me. There was a question on her full lips, a worried look in her eyes. I knew what it was. I waited for her to speak, hoping that I didn’t look too smug and superior. No, I lie; I do want to look smug and superior.

  “Jade, have you text in your maths homework yet?” asked Wendy anxiously, biting her nail, a horrid habit.

  “What are you stuck on this time, Wendy?” I sighed, knowing what her answer would be.

  “All of it, Jade,” replied Wendy breathlessly.

  I frowned.

  She looked worried through her untidy strands of silky gold. “Jade?”

  I smiled reassuringly. “Okay.”

  “Thanks, Jade, you’ve saved my life again,” she beamed.

  “What are sisters for?”

  “Yes.”

  What? I’m brilliant at maths and science. After all, I am my father’s daughter. But oddly, so is Wendy. We don’t talk about it. I’m only bored with maths at school because they make it so easy. I need something to challenge my big brain. HAHA!

  I received her maths homework on my vid phone a moment later. It took me less than a few seconds to send the answers back to her. She thanked me with an auto text and a screen kiss. She and I are… What? (sighing) Is this cheating? Don’t be silly, of course, it isn’t. Wendy is my sister. It’s only cheating if you do it for a complete stranger! I would never do that…unless she paid me lots and lots of money, of course. HEHE!

  Now, where was I? Oh, yes, that strange dream; I was swimming in a warm sea beneath a red sun in the middle of the day. I sat up with a start. I’d remembered my dream. I’d remembered it.

  “Jade, how many more times must I tell you?” said the familiar voice at the foot of the stairs.

  How did she know? Silly question really. She is my mother. She knows everything. She is the wisdom of the world, the universe. I groaned wearily under the covers. I sometimes wish that aliens from another planet would kidnap mum. I’m only joking.

  I threw the covers aside. “I’m up, Mum.”

  Standing by the window in my little, rock print top that I sometimes wear in bed, I moved the drawn curtains a fraction. I waited. He didn’t disappoint. He soon appeared, riding his silver electric scooter on the pavement in the front. Those things are the fad at the moment. I must get myself one if I can borrow the money from daddy. They’re so easy to ride. A friend in my class has got one. She let me ride it once. It was cool. You don’t need a licence, and you can ride one from the age of 13. I’m 13. He stopped outside our front gate. He paused briefly to take a paper from his bag. A ‘free’ magazine or something like that slipped out of the paper. He bent down and picked it up, brushing off the dirt before he put it back between the pages of daddy’s daily paper. I like cutting out the ads for silly things, just to amuse myself and annoy the others. He walked up our drive in new designer trainers, a designer hooded jacket and designer mirror shades. Would you look at him? He was just delivering our morning paper for DROKK’S SAKE! He was our regular paperboy. He had been for the past few months or so. I clutched my mouth, trying to squash a giggle that had formed in my throat. He looked up at that moment. I ducked behind the window. My cheeks burned. Had he seen me half-naked in my little top? No, he hadn’t, I decided.

  When my vid phone played another little pop tune a moment later, I answered it. Wendy’s face appeared on my screen after a moment. Her hair was still messy and untidy. She was still beautiful. I hate her. She wore a silly smirk on her face.

  “What?” I asked wearily.

  “Did you see him, Jade?”

  “Who?” I queried.

  “Super cool.”

  Super cool?

  “No,” I lied.

  She laughed because she knew I’d just lied. As her picture faded from my vid phone screen, she gave me a little wave. I poked my tongue out at her. She missed it.

  A well-endowed girl with gypsy looks (long, dark hair, black eyes and full lips) in a black, lacy bra appeared on my vid screen. She invited me in a husky, sexy voice to wear the new Gypsy Queen bra and drive the guy in my life crazy with lust.

  “No thanks,” I sighed.

  I stabbed the Close Screen icon. The well-endowed gypsy girl in the black, lacy bra (looking a little surprised) dissolved into thousands of pixels.

  I shuffled sleepily into the bathroom. Wendy’s exotic perfume, reminding me of wild woodland flowers, lingered. She had been here before me. I was late again, but I wasn’t bothered. I drew the shower curtain, turned on the shower, shrugged out of my dressing gown, and stepped into the shower cubicle. I adjusted the thermostat regulator on the electric shower, getting it just right for my body temperature. I didn’t like it too hot. I didn’t want to look like a crab when I stepped out of the shower. I closed my eyes, allowing the hot water to massage my nude body. I try not to look at myself in the mirror when I’m in my underwear. I’m very thin. Although I eat regular meals and everything, I never seem to put on weight. I burn off most of the calories in mental energy, schoolwork. My skin tingled. It cleared the cobwebs out of my system. It felt good. Would it be something else I’d miss? I always need a shower to start the day right, a hot bath to end it. After school, I usually spend over an hour soaking in a deep, hot bath, hogging it, which annoys the others. I ignore them. I reached for the bottle of shower gel by the side. I squeezed out a generous blob onto my hand. I began to soap myself. I heard something in my purple world that puzzled me at first. I opened my eyes. Tommy, who was naked, stood in the shower with me, peeing. My eyes widened with horror. When he had finished, he looked up at me with his huge, blue eyes and grinned.

  VENUS PEBBLES!!

  I picked him up and threw him out of the shower.

  After my long, long hot shower without my baby brother doing unspeakable things in it, I checked my face in the bathroom mirror. My face was all clear, no zits, apart from the ‘one million’ freckles staring back at me!

  As I dressed in my room a little later, putting on my school uniform; mini tartan skirt, satin blouse top and blue tie with yellow stripes in it; black shoes and black knee-length socks (ugh), I listened to some pop music on my vid phone.

  The others were already at the breakfast table as I entered the kitchen with my schoolbag. I glared at Tommy, who sat on a raised chair with cushions on it. He grinned innocently when he saw me. I didn’t believe him. Daddy was watching breakfast TV on the 35 cm plasma screen portable. They were showing pictures of Jupiter after she had been hit by the Icarus 9 Comet. Although the pictures were fuzzy and blurred, it excited my scientist father, who is also a keen amateur astronomer. He bought a telescope, converting the attic into his own private observatory. He spends a lot of his spare time up
there now in the evenings after work, watching the stars and the planets. I think it helps him to relax after a long day in the classroom.

  “Late again, Jade,” commented mum.

  I murmured.

  I slipped my schoolbag over the chair as I sat down beside Wendy, ignoring the inane smirk on her face. I picked up the cereal box, poured corn flakes into my cereal bowl, sprinkled brown sugar on it, and added the chilled milk that was straight out of the fridge. I read the back of the cereal box as I usually do at breakfast time as I crunched my cereal noisily. I noticed the disapproving look on mum’s face.

  “Do you girls need a lift to school this morning?” enquired daddy unnecessarily when the commercials came on, interrupting the event of the millennium.

  Wendy and I murmured.

  As I sipped my hot, sweet tea, I studied the others behind my cup. It’s a game that I like to play in the mornings to amuse myself through breakfast. Father is tall, dark and handsome and smokes a pipe. In fact, in all my thirteen something years, I’ve never seen him without his pipe. Mum doesn’t approve, but daddy wouldn’t be daddy without his pipe. It’s part of his personality. His dark hair is sprinkled with specks of silver now. Mum, who is a few years younger than dad, is a petite woman with long, elegant, well-manicured hands. Despite having three kids, she hasn’t lost her figure. She was a secretary before she became a housewife to look after our beautiful home and us. Tommy, my baby brother, is plump and chubby. What more can I say about him? I think mum feeds him too much. He was a surprise. He was unexpected. But mum loves him as much as she loves Wendy and I. Then there’s Wendy herself. I’ve already mentioned her. Sis is very pretty, almost beautiful. Although I know I shouldn’t repeat myself, I’m jealous of her looks. She wears her blonde hair almost waist length. She has stunning, blue eyes and a nice figure. She looks older than fifteen. As for me, my mouth is too big, my nose too small, and worst of all, my ears are tiny. Wendy calls me a pixie when she wants to tease me in the middle of a row. Sisters, who’d have them? I’m also slender in build, almost thin, small-breasted, though it’s not all ribs! I’m neither short nor tall, standing 1.65 in my socks. I wear my copper hair in a short, cropped style because that’s the way I like it. Some people think that I’m a boy from the back. I’m not. I’m all female with female thoughts, emotions and desires. I cry sometimes when I really feel sad about something. I cried when Bono, my pet rabbit, died. I was eight at the time. I have grey-green eyes, though mum insists they’re blue. She says that the colour of my eyes changes with my moods. I laugh because it’s true. I have a small, pinched nose that gives the impression of someone who is cold and aloof. I’m not. I have lots of friends at school.