Free The Memory Game by Sharon Sant Page A

starts to run like a newborn gazelle up the alleyway. We
break out into the open together and I look round to see that Gary’s
mates have now joined him.
    ‘That little
bitch kneed me in the nads ,’ Gary
shouts and they all start tearing after us.
    ‘Beth, run!’ I
scream.  She glances behind her and then turns her face back to me for a
second.  In the white security light I can see she’s terrified and her
legs are shaking as she runs.  But she finds more speed and bolts for the
gap in the fence, ripping through it without a thought for the wire that razors her cheek bringing a jagged line of blood. 
Then we’re out on the field, making distance between us and the boys chasing
after, the darkness swallowing us a little more with every desperate
stride. 
    ‘I know
somewhere we can hide,’ I call and I veer to the left.  Bethany
looks across at me and follows. 
    There’s an old
drainage tunnel buried on the edge of the fields and hidden by shrubs and
weeds.  Matt and me have hidden from Mr Allen
there enough times for me to know its location well.  As we’re almost on
it Bethany realises my intention. She
stops and stares at me, her chest rising and falling like she could never get
enough air again.
    ‘Get in,’ I tell
her.
    For a minute I
think she’s going to say no but then she climbs inside the metal tubing and
scrunches herself up as small as she can.  I sit on the ground outside and
listen to her harsh breathing, which seems to echo across the frozen fields,
but Gary and his two mates don’t hear and they run right past.
    After a few
minutes Bethany whispers, ‘Do you
think they’ve gone?’
    I break through
the cover of the shrubs. The moon has come out from a bank of cloud and the
frosted grass glints in its silver glow. The fields look empty.  I walk
back to Bethany. 
    ‘I think you can
come out.’ 
    She clambers
from the tube. Her jeans are filthy and her face is tear-stained.  I
can see she’s still trembling.  She looks up at me and I know the question
without her asking.
    ‘They must have
been trying to break into the school,’ I say.
    ‘What for?’ she
whispers.
    I shrug. ‘For a laugh.’
    She drops to the
grassy bank below the pipe and sits holding her head in her hands. The
blood on her cheek is congealing already so I suppose the cut wasn’t too deep.
She puts a hand up to it and runs her finger gingerly along the length of the
wound. Then she lifts her head and glances down at her dirty jeans. 
    ‘ Dad’ll go nuts when he sees me like this.’
    ‘What are you
going to tell him?’ I sit down next to her, keeping a close eye on the
landscape, though the kids that I think were chasing us will probably look for
their kicks elsewhere now.
    ‘I’ll have to
tell him I fell over or something.’ She throws a small smile at me. I’m not
sure if she’s feeling better now or she’s just trying to make me believe that
she is. ‘Thanks,’ she says.
    ‘For what?’
    ‘For being there.’
    I look away. 
Neither of us says anything about the fact that she wouldn’t have been in
trouble at all if it wasn’t for me. 
    ‘Do you know
them?’ she asks.
    I nod. ‘I don’t
know them, exactly, but I know who they are. Gary James left school two
years ago. Don’t you remember him?’ She shakes her head. ‘He used to hang
around with Tom Delaney and Callum Peters,’ I remind
her. 
    ‘I think I might
remember them vaguely,’ she says. ‘They don’t live in our village do they?’
    I shake my head.
‘No. It was definitely Gary, though,
so it’s probably those three that chased us. They wouldn’t have done
anything serious, they always liked to pretend they
were harder than they actually were.’ That’s not true, but I tell her that
anyway and hope that it makes her feel safer.
    ‘It didn’t feel
that way when he got me against the wall,’ Bethany
says staring out over the fields.  She shivers and pulls her coat tighter
around her. ‘I daren’t go