Ada Rue and the Banished: A Bloomsbury Reader: Dark Red Book Band


 
 Title Page
 Contents
 Chapter One
 Chapter Two
 Chapter Three
 Chapter Four
 Chapter Five
 Chapter Six
 Chapter Seven
 Chapter Eight
 Chapter Nine
 eCopyright
 
 
 
 
 
 
 BLOOMSBURY EDUCATION
 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK
 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland
 BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY EDUCATION and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
 This electronic edition published in 2023 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
 First published in Great Britain in 2023 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
 Text copyright © Kereen Getten, 2023 Illustrations copyright © Simone Douglas, 2023
 Kereen Getten and Simone Douglas have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author and Illustrator of this work
 This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers
 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
 ISBN: PB: 978-1-8019-9129-2; ePDF: 978-1-8019-9127-8; ePub: 978-1-8019-9128-5
 Text design by Sarah Malley
 To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters
 CONTENTS 
 Chapter One
 Chapter Two
 Chapter Three
 Chapter Four
 Chapter Five
 Chapter Six
 Chapter Seven
 Chapter Eight
 Chapter Nine
 
 CHAPTER ONE
 Two boxes of books and three boxes of clothes sit in the garage next to a hundred more boxes for the rest of the house. All with words scribbled on them in Mum’s funny handwriting: For the Living Room, For the Office, Ada’s room.
 I stand between the boxes feeling empty. It’s official. We are here. There is no going back.
 This morning I woke hoping Mum and Dad had changed their minds. That the goodbye cards and presents we received from neighbours and family would make them want to stay.
 I thought maybe it would make them sad enough to stay in the city with the people we knew and not move to the middle of nowhere where I would have to start all over again.
 When I walked downstairs this morning in our old flat, I was praying everything would be back in its place – the sofa, the photos, the TV – but instead the rooms were still empty, and Dad was packing the last of our things into our two cars. My heart had sunk, but I hadn’t given up hope, not completely. Anything could still happen. A meteor could hit earth, or one of the cars could get a flat tyre, or the new school Mum was going to work at could evaporate and disappear. I’ve seen it in the movies, so why couldn’t it happen in real life?
 The door inside the garage that leads into our new house is open and I can hear Mum shouting instructions to Dad.
 “The pans go in the kitchen, Lloyd; you should know that.”
 “I thought the pans went in the laundry room,” Dad shouts back. He chuckles at his own joke.
 The garage door is still open from when the removal men carried all the furniture and boxes from their lorry into the house. Now the red brick driveway is empty and silent.
 Dad’s black Range Rover, that Mum bought for his fortieth birthday, sits on the pavement and Mum’s old banger, as Dad calls it, is behind.
 A kid not much younger than me sits on his bike across the road staring at me. I spotted him out of the living room window, and he hasn’t moved since, not even when I stepped into the garage and stared back. His bike is tilted, his left foot on the ground, his right on the pedal, and his helmet is too big for him – it almost covers his eyes. Like it was a hand-me-down from his older brother that doesn’t fit him yet.
 Mum pops her head into the garage. “You going to pick one of those boxes up or stand there all day?” she asks, adjusting her head scarf to cover the front of her hair. Her skin is shiny from sweat and her white vest has marks on it from carrying furniture inside. She had muttered to herself earlier that wearing white was a bad idea and what was she thinking.
 “Mum,” I say, pointing to the boy on the other side of the street. Mum leans further out to get a better look, then steps into the garage with only a pair of slippers covering her feet. She stands next to me with her hands on her hips.
 “Hello!” she calls out to the boy. “Are you our new neighbour?” She uses her ‘teacher voice’ as Dad calls it. Her high-pitched sing-song voice that makes her sound happier than she actually is.
 The boy straightens his bike and rides off without saying anything. I hope he’s hasn’t gone to tell his friends that a weird family have moved in. I hope he’s just late for his lunch or something.
 Mum frowns then shakes her head. “Hmm,” she mutters, heading back into the house, “maybe he’s shy.”
 I know what shy is, it’s what everyone calls me because I don’t say much, but he didn’t seem shy, he just seemed strange. Like he was watching us except I don’t know why.
 Mum glances back at me, “Hurry up with those boxes, Ada, they won’t unpack themselves.”
 I’m still thinking about the strange boy on his bike when I pick up a box filled with books. It’s so heavy I almost fall backwards.
 “Whoa!” Dad grabs the box from me. “Alright Tarzan,” he says, “why don’t you grab one of the lighter ones.”
 I pick up a lighter box and follow him into the kitchen, past the island with white stools