Waking up, sprawled on the roof of a skyscraper, would be enough to make most people freak out. Gazing down eighty floors at the teaming streets of London would be enough of a surprise to make the average teenager's leap. When Deanna Okwuru's eyes fluttered open that Monday morning, she had another shock. As her gaze travelled down her arm, she saw tawny feathers sprouting from her arms, talons curving from her usually manicured fingernails,…

The train had come to a halt. The snow whirled and stung their faces.'Line's blocked.' announced the guard gloomily. 'Can't stay here. We'll freeze. We'll have to walk.Come on.' Inverness was behind them, and although she could no longer see the hills of the Great Glen, she could sense them, looming,menacing. She didn't like this place. Never had. 'What - you mean walk to Laggan? In this?'…

Ellie was very lonely since mum and dad had moved away from London to a tiny hamlet near the sea. Where were all the children? There never seemed to be anyone on the freezing December beach except a man with two big dogs and an old woman who talked to herself. Mum kept saying she'd soon make new friends when she started at the local school. But meanwhile all Ellie could do was wander up and down the beach, with the wind whipping sand in her…

My fingers raced over the keyboard, tapping in one potential password after another.  BEEP!  ERROR!  BEEP!  ERROR!  BEEP!  ERROR!

It wasn’t easy to do – especially with the alarms blaring out, lights flashing, and the heavy footsteps telling me that an entire platoon of guards was running down the corridor towards me.  But I had to keep going.  I had to find the…

The house was very old, full of shadowy corners, quite unlike the simple two-up, two-down where Sam and his family had lived for so many years. But after Dad was gone, Mum said she wanted to move closer to Carlisle, to be near her parents and this place was all they could afford. It was stuck out in the middle of nowhere, looking like something from another time. Mum told him that she was thrilled with the place, it should have been much more…

It had been a long, miserable journey.  Jack knew he had set the angry mood before they'd even left home, refusing to tie a ribbon on his suitcase so that he would recognise it at the other end.  It hadn't been a long row - mainly sulking and stamping, a couple of swear words and a slammed door, but his silence in the car afterwards left room for Cindy's humming to drive everyone mad. …