The Skull

"I tell you, boy, you take. But then...it take you. More and more...you want it until you are dead but cannot die." Old Nancy's words are prophetic but Josh, popular and happy, becomes a victim of his active imagination. When he finds a cat's skull belonging to the strange pagan woman who feeds wild cats on a vacant lot, Josh assumes that it is powerful magic. He keeps it, thinking that it will help him to deal with Kevin, a sinister bully who has joined his class. The skull seems to act like a curse when Kevin steals it and gains mastery over Josh's friends. They beat him up on a lonely path beside a railway. Unless Josh can find a solution to his problem, there may be worse to come. "The Skull" is a story of self-discovery by a child of eleven on the brink of maturity. The pagan superstition in the book, combined with conflict between Josh and the psychopathic Kevin, resembles award winning author David Almond's "Clay". A similar theme of bullying appears in Anne Fine's "The Tulip Touch": pagan magic features in Theresa Breslin's "Whispers in the Graveyard" and Harriet Goodwin's "The Hex Factor".