Ashby’s Compass

Ashby carries a little brass compass in his blazer pocket. It was his great-grandmother’s. It doesn’t help much in town, where the roads go where they like, but he likes the feel of it. The needle always settles, however much you shake it.

In the Clue Club, Ashby looks for a kind of stress that most people forget about. He calls it the compass clue. It’s what happens when someone is carrying something about doing the right thing.

Guilt. A secret that’s too heavy. Two promises that pull in different directions.

His best case was his own friend Kofi.

Kofi and Ashby had been friends since nursery. Then, one week in spring, Kofi started avoiding him. He walked the long way to lessons. He didn’t come to Ashby’s on Saturday, though they always played football on Saturdays. When Ashby messaged, Kofi answered with one word, or not at all.

Ashby was hurt. His first thought was, Fine. If he doesn’t want to be friends, I don’t care.

Then he remembered what Inez always said. A behavior is a clue. And he made himself ask the question properly. What might Kofi be carrying?

He thought about the body clues, the feelings clues, the friends clues. None of them quite fitted. Kofi seemed fine with everyone else. It was only Ashby he was dodging.

That’s when Ashby thought of the compass clue. When people avoid one particular person, sometimes it’s because they feel bad about something to do with that person.

So on Monday he caught Kofi at the bike racks.

“Have I done something?” he asked. “Or have you?”

Kofi went very red. Then it all came out.

Two weeks earlier, at Ashby’s house, Kofi had been kicking the ball in the garden and it had smashed the little window in the shed. Nobody saw. Ashby’s dad thought it was the wind, or a fox. Kofi had meant to say something, and then hadn’t, and then every day it got harder, until he couldn’t even look at Ashby without feeling sick.

He wasn’t being a bad friend. He was carrying guilt, and it had made him run away.

Ashby laughed. He couldn’t help it. “That’s it? I thought you hated me.”

Kofi didn’t laugh. He was still worried. So they went round to Ashby’s together after school, and Kofi told Ashby’s dad. His dad was a bit cross, and then not cross at all, and in the end Kofi helped him put the new glass in.

Kofi said afterwards that he felt about ten kilos lighter.

Here’s what Ashby tells the Clue Club.

Some of the heaviest stress is about right and wrong. Someone might be avoiding you because they feel guilty. They might be grumpy because they’re keeping a secret that’s too big for them. They might be stuck because they promised two people two different things and can’t keep both.

That kind of stress is hard to see, because people hide it. But the compass clue is worth checking, especially when someone avoids just one person, or one place.

And if someone tells you a secret that is about somebody being hurt, it is not a secret you have to keep. That is one you take to a grown-up you trust.

Check the compass clue: guilt, a secret, or a promise pulling two ways.