Free The Memory Game by Sharon Sant Page B

home now, in case they’re waiting for me.’
    ‘I don’t think
they will be.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
she asks doubtfully.
    ‘I’ll go down
and check they’ve gone if you want to wait here.’
    She shakes her
head fiercely. ‘No, stay with me.’
    I wonder what
good staying with her would do and she probably does too but I don’t argue. ‘If
we sit for half an hour, they’ll probably be long gone, then you can go home.’
    She nods and her
hand goes up to the cut on her cheek again.
    ‘Does it hurt?’
I ask.
    ‘A bit.’  She pauses. Then she asks in a timid voice, ‘ What did it feel like… when you died?  Did that hurt?’
    I think about
this before I answer. ‘I suppose it did when the car hit me. After that I
can’t remember. It must have done.’
    ‘Kids at school
said you were really smashed up.’
    ‘How did they
know?’
    She shrugs. ‘I
suppose someone told them. Word gets round pretty fast in this village.’
    ‘I suppose so,’
I say. ‘It looked bad.’
    ‘You saw?’
    ‘Yeah.  I stayed with my body for a while. I didn’t
really know what was happening at the time so I felt like I didn’t dare leave
in case I wasn’t dead and I could climb back in, y’know ,
like they do on films when they realise it isn’t their time to go.’
    She looks
thoughtful. ‘Maybe that’s what did happen. Perhaps you’re still here
because your body wasn’t actually ready to die but you didn’t get back in? And
now it’s too late because your body is buried and you’re trapped.’
    I shake my
head. ‘If you’d seen the mess I was in, you’d have known there was no way
I was going to survive that. I was definitely dead.’
    ‘What happened
to the car?’ she says.
    ‘It drove off
straightaway.’
    ‘Did you get a
look at it?’
    ‘Not
really.  It was black, pimped job, that’s about all I can tell you.’
    ‘So it was a
hit-and-run?’
    ‘I suppose it
was.’
    ‘Perhaps you’re
here to solve the mystery of who hit you then?’
    I consider this.
‘I don’t think so.  It’s not like it changes anything for me whether I
know who did it or not.  Besides, what would I do about it if I found
out?’
    ‘We could go to
the police,’ she says.
    ‘And tell them
to arrest someone on the strength of what a dead boy is saying to you?’
    She pushes her
hair back from her forehead. ‘Maybe not.’
    As she says this
I can see what looks like a bruise on her temple. She catches me looking and
drags her fringe back down over it. It’s dark where we are and I can’t see all
that well, but it looks too black to be from tonight. The way she covers it up,
though, it doesn’t seem like she wants me to mention it.
    ‘You’re ok now?’
I ask instead.
    ‘Not really,’
she says with a shaky half-laugh. I can see that she’s shivering. I’m not sure
whether she’s still scared.
    ‘I saw you at
the funeral, you know,’ she says.
    ‘The funeral?’
    ‘Yours.’
    ‘I know which
one you mean. Why didn’t you mention it before?’
    ‘I didn’t know
what to say about it. Does it matter?’
    ‘I don’t suppose
so. What did you think? It must have been weird.’
    ‘I was scared.’
    ‘Of me?’
    ‘Of seeing you dead.’
    ‘But you see
dead people, you said so.’
    ‘No,’ she
corrects me, ‘I said I get a sense of where they are. I’ve never seen them
lurking at the doors of the church where their funeral is before.’
    ‘Maybe you’re
getting better at seeing us?’
    ‘I don’t think
so. It’s something about you that’s special.’
    I laugh. ‘That’s
the first time anyone has ever said that without adding needs to the end
of the sentence.’
    She laughs too.
    ‘I didn’t see you at the funeral,’ I say.  As soon as it comes out, I wish it hadn’t.
    She’s quiet for
a moment. ‘You wouldn’t, though, would you?’
    She’s right.
 Bethany was probably more
invisible than me at that funeral.  At least one person noticed I was
there.
    We sit quietly
for a