Free Just in Case by Meg Rosoff Page A

minor to travel abroad, filled it out and forged his parents’ signatures, bought a sandwich and a coffee, and settled in to wait for a flight. One by one he considered destinations: Verona, Antalya. Rhodes, Zakynthos, Barcelona. Salzburg, Salonika. Istanbul. Nîmes, Brest. Halifax.
    For three hours he sat very still at the centre of the airport, motionless like the human eye of a storm, until all the swirling activity blurred and made him sleepy. Moving to a quiet corner by the observation window, he folded his coat into a pillow, went to sleep and dreamt he was a mouse in a maze. Round and round he ran until he found the pathway leading to freedom – only to find it blocked by the face of an enormous mechanical cat.
    YEOWWWWW!
    He leapt in his sleep, startled and disorientated, banging his head on the metal window frame. Boy was awake, watching him anxiously. But despite the terrifying image he felt calm. The cat in his dream was a murderer, but the mouse was still alive.
    He stretched, found the toilet. More hours passed, during which he drifted from kiosk to café, reading magazines dedicated to subjects that had never before interested him, flipping through foreign guidebooks, shaking plastic blizzards, observing the wax and wane ofthe shifting crowds. Time slipped by easily here. He felt inconspicuous, relaxed.
    The next time hunger beckoned he sought out the Traveller’s Café, pushed his tray around the chrome track with the rest of the In Transits, chose sausage and mash and peas, chocolate cake and orange juice, and paid for it with the pocket money for his school trip. He ate slowly, happy to be an observer. He was the only one with no mission, no plane to catch, no breakfast to serve, no children to entertain. All around milled anxious groups of travellers, all nationalities and all colours, all sizes and shapes and sexual persuasions. Sometimes they smiled at him, struck by his face, his coat, or even his dog, establishing the most fleeting of human connections, a millisecond of brotherhood.
    We’re all in this together, they said to him, silently, in a hundred different languages.
    And then, in a sudden blinding flash, he realized he no longer needed to comb the world in search of a destination.
    He had arrived.

22
    Eight hours spent stretched out along an undulating row of plastic seats is not everyone’s idea of a good night’s sleep. But with legs slotted under metal armrests, ten thousand watts of fluorescent light glaring directly overhead, hundreds of disgruntled travellers for company, an abandoned acrylic airline blanket for a cover and his loyal dog at his feet, Justin slept like a baby.
    He felt almost serene.
    The rattle of the cleaner’s trolley lulled him into the gentlest unconsciousness he had experienced in years. The intense artificial light gave him a powerful sense of well-being; it occurred to him that he’d spent most of his life afraid of the dark.
    He slept through the early morning arrivals and departures, waking refreshed and cheerful at 8 a.m.
    The first day of his new life began with a full English breakfast at the café across from the first-class lounge. Except for the mushrooms, which tasted strongly of plastic, the meal was adequate: microwave hot and plentiful. Whenhe asked for more toast, the middle-aged woman behind the counter waved his money away.
    ‘You save that money for your journey,’ she said, handing him a plate heaped with slices of cold, singed white toast, a handful of individually wrapped butter pats, and five tiny tubs of strawberry jam.
    He smiled at her.
    Working his way through the pile of toast, Justin felt there was no pressure to do anything. His pace slowed accordingly, and it was nearly ten by the time he’d finished his food and read all the newspapers abandoned on surrounding tables.
    He wiped his mouth and stacked his rubbish for the cleaners, left Boy to look after his belongings, followed the picture signs to the Comfort Zone, pushed a pound