Free Home Sweet Home by Adrian Sturgess Page B

dark.”
    Jackie was
apprehensive but bolstered a little by her brothers’ rock solid
confidence she agreed to wait by the fence while he popped in and
retrieved the ball. She watched as he prised the panels apart and
slipped through and then all she could hear was a gentle swishing
of leaves as he presumably forced his way through the shrubs at the
end of the garden. Then all was silent and she gazed around, with
heightened senses, across the open fields that lay just to the
other side of the road from where she was standing. The evening had
almost turned to night and under the overcast sky she could make
out the silhouettes of trees way off in the distance and the
occasional harsh caw of the, only just visible, wheeling crows,
crashed against her fragile senses, sending butterflies shooting
through her stomach. She looked back at the fence and thought
“Where is he? It can’t take that long to find a ball, surely”
    In truth he had
only been gone a few minutes but in her strained state it seemed an
age. Finally she pulled at the fence panels and pushing her head
through the gap she hissed as loudly as she dared.
“Ben, Ben, where on earth are you? Come back, I’m scared.”
    There was a
sudden noise and then something or somebody crashed solidly into
her, knocking her backwards almost into the road and there was Ben
standing over her, panting and gasping and almost beside himself
with terror. “Jackie come on we’ve got to run.”
    Then he came to
his senses enough to see that he had sent her flying and that she
was sitting on the ground nursing a blow to the head. “Jackie, are
you OK? Here let me help you and then we must get moving.” Slowly
he hauled her to her feet and with one arm around her, half to
comfort her and half to pull her along, they set off home at a
trot.
    On the way back
he did his best to explain to Jackie what had happened and in
between panting for breath and sobbing in terror, he laboriously
got his story out.
    He had quickly
made his way through the shrubs and could see the ball right in the
middle of the lawn. He paused between the shrubs and tried to get
up courage for a quick sprint across the lawn and back to retrieve
the ball, but his heart was pounding in his chest and his courage
was waning. Then suddenly, just as someone standing at the side of
a pool, desperately trying to summon up the courage to enter the
cold water, reaches a point of decision and jumps, so Ben started
to run. As he reached the ball and fumbled to pick it up in his
panic stricken hands, he looked up at the house and saw at once
that it wasn’t the house he knew. It appeared empty and abandoned.
For some reason this calmed him and he walked a little closer. It
must be very close to the house they were buying, maybe even next
door, but he hadn’t remembered seeing any such house on the day
they had come to view. At this point Ben had almost returned to
tell Jackie, but his curiosity made him go right up to the back of
the house and even in the half-light it was clearly derelict.
Window frames were empty of glass, a rear door was hanging from one
hinge and even the bricks were loose in places. He thought of
Jackie waiting and knew he mustn’t be too long but he seemed almost
compelled to enter into the house. This actually proved quite easy,
as he only had to swing the door slightly to one side and step
through.
    The house was
in a completely dilapidated state and the floor was strewn with
rubble, shattered glass and other nameless objects that lay just
beyond resolution in the gloom. He felt he wouldn’t go much
further, for in truth his courage was bow tight and ready to snap
at any moment, but he crunched his way as carefully as he could to
a door and promptly froze.
    He could hear
voices on the other side and a thin strip of light was visible
through the cracks in the door. At this point his nerve finally
snapped like a twig and he half tiptoed and half ran across the
room to the broken door and exited the