Free Ghost Girl by Lesley Thomson

She must reach him before he realized this. He was treading too hard on each pedal, making the bike sway. The front wheel went first one way then the other; each time it got closer to the grass.
    Mary dropped her bike and hurtled towards Michael. She was the Greek Runner. It was like running in a dream; her legs would not work properly. Michael seemed to get no closer.
    The little girl would never forget this fleeting impression.
    Michael Thornton looked back to where his father’s face had been. It was like flying, he was going to say, but there was only sky. He kept going. His sister was watching him. He was like her; he was just as good.
    The front wheel jack-knifed and the boy truly took off in flight. He landed belly first on the tarmac.
    An aeroplane droned above, a momentary gleam of sunlight flashed off the colours of British European Airways. A pigeon flying much lower might have been crossing the flight path. It alighted on the topmost branch of the chestnut tree that cast a thin shadow over the two children.
    Mary got to Michael before her father and dragged him to his feet. Her baby brother was not crying, but he would not look at her, which was a bad sign. She followed his eyes to where he was looking and saw white houses with ravens above their doors.
    ‘You stopped holding,’ she accused her father. She smacked dirt off the front of Michael’s jumper. A trickle of blood came out of one of his nostrils.
    ‘I dropped this.’ Their father pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. ‘Here, lad, use this. Buck up!’ He handed it to his son. Mary snatched it and clamped it to Michael’s nose.
    ‘The main thing, Michael, is you went by yourself.’ Bob Thornton folded his arms. ‘Keep practising, son, you’ll soon be the best.’
    ‘Did you see?’ Michael’s voice was muffled through the fabric now stained crimson.
    ‘Not properly,’ Mary scowled. ‘Tip your face back.’ She wanted to tell her daddy that she was the best.
    Bob Thornton went back across the park and Mary saw him pick up her bike. He did not need to; she would have got it. He knew where to find it: perhaps he had seen her do the skid.
    ‘He didn’t drop his hankie.’ She kept her voice low.
    ‘Yes he did.’ Michael eyed her warily.
    ‘He let go.’ She stepped away from him as if he were a bomb set to explode.
    ‘You said you didn’t see.’
    ‘I saw him let go.’ Mary was firm.
    ‘So did you see?’
    ‘You shouldn’t have stood up.’ She persisted: ‘He lied to you.’
    ‘He didn’t.’
    ‘He did.’
    ‘You’re not Mary!’ Michael’s widening eyes betrayed that he was aware he had plunged into treacherous waters. He snuffled into his father’s handkerchief although the bleeding had stopped.
    The sun went behind a cloud and a chill fell like a mantle over St Peter’s Square. The breeze intensified pushing the branches of the chestnut tree violently.
    Rooted to the spot, Michael Thornton watched with growing panic his sister stalk off along the path.
    Mary took her bike from her father and scooted it, standing on one pedal; then she swung her leg over the saddle, like a cowboy. She rode around the park and out of the gate.
    ‘He didn’t lie,’ Michael repeated to himself, with less certainty.

8
    Monday, 23 April 2012
    She leant shut the front door, her shopping bag in her arms, and conjured up the reassuring aroma of overcooked vegetables, disinfectant laced with the collective body smells of a hundred boys. She imagined so many innocent souls, their hopes and dreams before them, sleeping soundly above her.
    At this time of the evening, Reception, a partitioned area built before her time, was closed and she would be in charge of greeting the few visitors; a time she liked best.
    At the turn in the staircase something made her pause. She surveyed the cavernous hall below. Everything looked in order.
    Her shoulders bowed, the woman’s silhouette on the expanse of green gloss wall had no head; distorted further by