Fourteen-year-old Caz and her friend Lucy do the Creepy Thing. It's a bizarre version of 'chicken'. They break into houses while folk are asleep, challenging each other to 'do a creepy'. To 'do a creepy' you approach a sleeping person in the dark, in the dead of night, putting your nose one inch away from the sleeper's face for a count of fifteen seconds. One night, Caz breaks into the house of Sara Metherall, a lonely old woman shunned by the community. Lucy challenges Caz to do the Creepy Thing. Caz rises to the challenge. She creeps, she counts. But just before she completes the count of fifteen the old woman opens her eyes and clamps Caz's wrist with a cold silver bracelet. The next morning the bracelet has disappeared, but left in its place a tattoo. A tattoo that holds a curse. While her life disintegrates around her, Caz has to find a way of lifting that curse. Or returning it to the place it came from...

 

 

This book has been graded for interest at 12-14 years.

There are 240 pages in this book.

It is aimed at Young Adult readers. The term Young Adult (YA) is used for books which have the following characteristics: (1) aimed at ages 12-18 years, US grades 7-12, UK school years 8-15, (2) around 50-75k words long, (3) main character is aged 12-18 years, (4) topics include self-reflection, internal conflict vs external, analyzing life and its meaning, (5) point of view is often in the first person, and (6) swearing, violence, romance and sexuality are allowed.

This book was published in 2006 by Faber & Faber .

Graham Joyce is the author ofnine adult novels. He lives in Leicester, England.