Free What We Saw by Ryan Casey Page A

Adam’s feet, and he smacked it towards the wall, where it bounced back and hit Emily on the leg.
    ‘Geez, what’s up with grumpy over here?’ she asked.
    I tried to answer. ‘We, we’ve just had a tough few days, family things, you kno—’
    ‘Yeah, and seeing your ugly mug first thing every frigging morning doesn’t exactly help,’ Adam said.
    Adam’s words stung me. My throat wanted to shout at him, but I held myself back. I didn’t like using family matters as an excuse, but I had the situation under control without him butting in. ‘Sorry Emily, he’s just…’
    Emily’s eyes watered as she blinked her eyes and rubbed her arms. ‘No. It’s alright. I’ll go now.’ Her voice crackled, and she walked off, heavy-footed.
    Adam perched against the wall, his arms folded. He gritted his teeth before spitting a green blob on the floor. It was a good job Gran hadn’t seen him because she’d go mad. Behind wearing his piercing, spitting was the one thing she hated the most.
    I glanced up at Emily and noticed another bruise. On her arm again, but in a different place this time, like a tattoo wrapped around her wrist. It looked as if something had been wrapped around her, hard, which was strange, because it didn’t look like the sort of bruise you’d get if you’d fallen over. I remembered her dad grabbing her the other day, pulling her away from the den. Had he accidentally pulled a little hard or held too tight? Sometimes Granddad was too tight with his handshakes, so it was an easy enough mistake to make. Emily’s eyes met mine as she covered her left wrist with her right hand. She turned away and walked off down the road, back towards her caravan. I wanted to call for her or to walk after her and ask her if everything was okay, but I couldn’t.
    Adam sat sour-faced against the wall.
    ‘Nice one, Ad, real nice one,’ I said.
    He looked up at me as he perched against the wall. ‘We don’t need her right now. She’ll only slow us down. We’ve got to work out what to do about what we saw. About Donald and the body.’
    ‘Yeah, but—’
    ‘But nothing,’ Adam said, rising from the wall. ‘Just because you fancy her doesn’t mean you have to drag her into everything. She can’t know about this. She’ll only go crying to her mum or her soft dad.’
    I remembered the way Emily’s dad clutched at her arm. He seemed anything but soft in that moment.
    The two of us kicked the ball around for a while, unable to muster up the courage to go and see Donald, just in case he had seen us. It was bizarre that we hadn’t seen him walk past over the last few days. He often patrolled the caravan site and waved as he wandered along outside our front window.
    But all had gone quiet. I thought about Donald and the way he was with Carla.
    ‘You don’t think that Donald has something to do with Carla’s disappearance, do you?’ The words splurged out of my mouth without much consideration.
    Adam bit hard into his lip, the pink flyaway football bouncing towards the wall and onto a family of woodlice. ‘Why would he?’
    ‘It’s just… I dunno. With him burying… y’know. Maybe he’s done something to her.’
    More of Adam’s lip gave way to his teeth, digging into his flesh. He curled his eyebrows inwards.
    ‘Adam, I really think we should say something to someone.’
    Adam tutted. ‘We’ve been through this,’ he said. ‘We can’t. It’s not worth the bother. It might get us into more trouble. It’s our mystery.’
    The last words made my stomach sink. It was still just ‘our mystery’ to him. I wanted to solve this mystery too, but I understood the weight of the situation. I don’t know if Adam really did.
    I was about to say something when Adam flicked his head in the direction of the caravan door behind me. I turned round to see Granddad stood on the steps, watching us kick the ball around.
    ‘I’ll be off for a walk at five-ish. Have another look for Carla, I think. You boys want to