Free Dark Ride by Caroline Green Page B

anniversary coming up, I was just thinking about it.’
    What was she talking about? ‘What do you mean, anniversary?’
    She hesitated again. ‘Well... it’s almost a year since the boy and his mother died.’
    Grey pavement rushed towards me like a wall.
    A strong grip was on my arm and then a hallway smelt of furniture polish.
    A sofa with patterns and wallpaper with different patterns swam in front of me, so that they all mixed together and made the sick in my throat keep rising until it blurted out of my mouth, right into a basin that was magically in front of me.
    I sat there, too numb to think straight and she was back, removing the stinky basin without a word, and then putting down a tray with a teapot and a plate of ginger biscuits. The room was silent apart from the sound of a clock ticking and completely wrong, cheerful radio noises from another room.
    The old lady handed me a cup of milky tea and I took a sip, my hands shaking so much I slopped some on my jeans.
    ‘Lots of sugar,’ she said. ‘That’s what you need for shock. Have a biscuit too.’
    I didn’t want one but took one like a robot and bit into it. The taste seemed to bring everything back into focus along with a bright thudding in my chest.
    ‘Did you know him well, lovey?’ The old lady had her head on one side like a bird.
    I just nodded. Protests were screaming inside my head. It’s obviously a mistake! How can he be dead when I’ve spent half the week with him? You’ve got it wrong, that’s all. It’s just a stupid mistake.
    But the words didn’t come. I just sat there, while she talked quietly.
    ‘It was an awful thing. There was an accident, a car accident. The police said she lost control of the vehicle and they drove straight off St Lawrence’s Headland into the sea.’
    I was staring at her, still unable to take in her words.
    ‘They said they ...’ she hesitated,’... died instantly.’ She cleared her throat.
    I got up abruptly. ‘I have to go now.’ My voice was hoarse and every part of me was hurting like someone had punched me all over.
    She got up too and placed her warm, dry hand on mine. ‘I know it’s a shock. But time is a great healer and you’re still young. You’ll get over this, really you will.’
    I pulled my hand away and walked out of the room. I didn’t even thank her for being so kind to me. I just had to be alone. As I walked out of the front door and back down the road, I could feel her concerned eyes boring into my back.
    It couldn’t possibly be true. It was too crazy to be true.
    But maybe it was true? Maybe it had been right in front of my nose all along and I’d just been too dumb to see it.
    No one could have fallen from that height and walked away. He wouldn’t let me see his hand when he cut it on the glass either. I thought of the waitress in the café, looking at me so weirdly. She must have thought I was cracked, sitting there talking to myself.
    I’ve been figuring some things out, Bel. That’s what he said, right before he jumped.
    I knew exactly where to look, but when I got to the outside of the fairground, everything was different. There were vans parked all over the place. A big green portakabin was in pieces on the side of the road. I stood there, unsure what to do next when a low whistle came from nearby. I looked over and saw there was another old building with a tatty yard behind it. I slipped through a gap in the fence and there was Luka, sitting on a wall.
    He looked like he’d been waiting for ages. We didn’t speak. All I could do was stare at his face and neck and hands which looked so real and fleshy, and his trainers and jeans and hoodie. Just like any other boy. There was the hole in the knee of his jeans where you could even see a circle of pink skin. I remembered touching his cheek and how cold he was. But real.
    ‘Go on then.’
    When he spoke it made me jump. ‘Go on then, what?’
    ‘Get all the questions you’re gagging to ask out the way.’
    ‘Is