Free White Crow by Marcus Sedgwick Page B

hurt.’
    Ferelith nods.
    ‘Yeah. Why is that? Why do kids say things far worse than adults?’
    ‘Trust me, adults can say bad stuff too.’
    ‘Like what was on your car?’ Ferelith asks, looking back at Rebecca now. She holds up her hand. ‘Sorry. We don’t have to talk about it, even if everyone else in the village is. It must be really hard.’
    Rebecca says nothing. Then her face crumples and she folds into a small ball on the rug, and cries her heart out.
    Ferelith watches her, thinking, waiting, thinking some more. Then she crawls over to Rebecca and puts a hand on her shoulder, then strokes her hair with her other one.
    Rebecca whimpers like a wounded dog, and Ferelith pulls her into her arms and holds her tightly.
    ‘Poor Becky,’ she says, but Rebecca just rocks back and forth, sobbing quietly.
    Eventually, the tears stop, and Ferelith finds a box of tissues for her. She blows her nose and wipes her face, and then Rebecca speaks again.
    ‘You want to know the worst thing?’
    Ferelith nods, not daring to speak, in case she breaks the spell.
    ‘The worst thing. Worse than all the things kids said to me at school, worse than the newspaper people on our doorstep, worse than the things they said on the TV. The worst thing is that I look at my dad, and I don’t know.
    ‘I don’t know what I think. I don’t know whether he did something he shouldn’t have. I don’t know whether he’s responsible for that girl dying. Or not. That’s the worst thing.’

Cry Me a River
    I spent a long time with Rebecca that day. In fact, it was late by the time she went home, back down Long Lane in the dark.
    She seemed better after she’d cried, but that’s often the way. Something to do with endorphins. Or serotonin, or some other chemical the body releases to make you feel better. Seems a shame that the stupid body can’t release some of the same bloody chemicals and stop you from crying in the first place.
    That’s what I would have done if I was designing the body. But I didn’t, God did. And if he didn’t, then it was Charles Darwin who did. If you see what I mean.
    But even then, some things don’t make sense. Like, why do we cry? I mean, I can understand the physical need to cry if you get some grit in your eye. It washes it out, stops the grit from damaging your precious organs of sight.
    But apart from that, why do we cry?
    When we see a sad film, when Kevin says that he doesn’t love you any more because Julie’s not as fat as you are, when your hamster dies. Or when your mum goes crazy and your dad leaves you, why do we cry?
    What’s the point?
    From evolution’s point of view, I mean?
     
    So anyway, we talked for a long time that afternoon, and I found some pizzas in the freezer that were mine and that no one else in the house had stolen, and we ate them, and I found a bottle of wine in Matthew’s room that he won’t miss because he’s too stoned most of the time to know what’s going on.
    Rebecca said she didn’t want to drink, but I told her it was medicinal, and that was all it took for her to slug back half a bottle in half an hour.
    Then we dozed in the sun coming in from the big window over the garden, until we watched it set behind the firs at the end of the garden and the room grew dark, and as it grew dark, all Rebecca’s pain and all my pain grew darker and softer too, and a gentle tired ease entered my body and my mind.
    I felt really happy, but just as I was thinking that, Rebecca spoke, for the first time in hours.
    ‘Christ,’ she said. ‘I feel so bloody, bloody, bloody lonely.’
    I sat up.
    ‘But you’ve got me, now,’ I said.
    And then she sat up too.
    She looked deeply at me.
    ‘Have I?’ she said, like it was a surprise.
    ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘of course you have. For better or worse.’
    And she smiled.
    1798, 10m, 4d.

    What are the tools of the angels?
    The tools of the angels are light, sunlight, golden sunlight. The light illuminates us and displays the truth,