Free Foxes by Suki Fleet Page B

have the best clothes. Clothes that are clean and not full of lice like some of the other clothing banks I’ve heard about.
    It hurts to think about how Dashiel used to make me laugh trying on the oddest clothes we could find. Dresses made out of thick flowery curtains, curtain tape still attached. Purple velvet flares with silver bells on. Badly knitted jumpers with anything from misshapen creatures to words spelled wrong. Christmas jumpers wired with lights that actually lit up. Mismatched boots. Dashiel would try everything on—mostly to amuse me and whoever else was around. It was our secret mission. Something we never spoke about.
    I close my eyes and sit back down to hunch over, forgetting where I am and trying to curl myself around my heart.
    “Are you okay?” Micky asks gently.
    I open my eyes, noticing how he’s dipping his head to peer at me, and I try to straighten up, but I feel caught in the gravity of his gaze. Like a meteor being pulled into the sun, I’m stuck and unable to escape.
    “I’m okay,” I say, trying to sound as sure as I can.
    “I do kinda know where a clothing bank is, but I’ve no idea what I’m supposed to do,” Micky admits as we head outside. “Are you sure you don’t mind coming with me? I mean, you probably think I’m being pathetic, right?”
    I shake my head. Pathetic? Never.
    “Supervillains need coats too,” I say as brightly as I can. It’s true, I do need a coat, and I’d probably find a way to avoid going to the clothing bank forever, so Micky is doing me a favor really. “The sea is a cold hunting ground,” I add, watching some guy with a predatory grin talking to a woman in the grocer’s opposite.
    When Micky laughs, it startles me. I turn to see all the sadness and shadows flee his face, like a flock of swallows swooping up and disappearing into a September sky, leaving him grinning loopily, his eyes shining. “You come right out of left field, don’t you?” he asks.
    I frown at the ground sort of happy to have made him laugh but having no idea what it is he means… and I can’t seem to open my mouth to ask him.
     
     
    WE HEAD across the ironclad bridge toward Central London. It’s busy with lunchtime traffic, people crowding the bridge to take pictures of the river. The London Eye looms around the bend. I wonder if anyone inside a pod is looking down at us, the only two people walking with any purpose. The only two people on this bridge without coats or cameras.
    Micky catches me staring at his jumper. It has a few holes in it. He touches them and I hear him swallow.
    “My bag of washing got stolen last week from the launderette. I’ve had to borrow stuff. I lost most of my clothes.”
    And I’ve managed to break his damn phone too. Well done, me.
    The pavements are slippery with ice. I don’t want to fall over, so I don’t walk too fast and I watch where I’m putting my feet. I watch Micky’s feet too. His dirty gray trainers at least look like they fit him. His jeans don’t—they’re too big. If I put my head up and stand up straight, I think we’d be about the same height, but his legs are much longer than mine. And his feet are huge, or perhaps they just look big on his skinny frame like his hands do, as though he’s not quite grown into who he’s going to be yet.
    I wonder how old he is. Perhaps he’s younger than I thought. I don’t want him to be younger.
    Micky talks about everything. His accent makes every word sound new, and he comes out with stranger facts than the ones that fill my head.
    I think he’s cold and needs to take his mind off it. Maybe talking makes him feel warmer. I don’t always respond, but I’m listening. I like the sound of his voice. It relaxes me and makes me feel easy in his presence, which is weird because I hardly know him. Mostly I’m still thinking about “left field” and what it is he meant when he said that.
    “Do you want me to shut up? I talk more when I’m nervous. I’m used to people