Free The Missing Link by Kate Thompson Page B

disappear, and then there was a full minute of shocked silence before Tina’s heart-broken wail rent the night air.
    ‘
Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Oggy!
’

6
    AND THEN DANNY flipped. It was too much, and for the first time on the journey he lost control. I saw him going.
    ‘Hold, Danny. Hold your breath,’ I said. But it was already too late. He was making terrible whooping sounds, dragging in huge lungfuls of air, and his eyes had that dreadful look that I knew so well: huge and wild and vacant.
    Tina backed off, terrified. I did what I had seen Maurice do on a few occasions – I grabbed Danny and hugged him tight. But he was too far gone and he thrashed around so hard that I was in danger of getting hurt and had to let go. For a few more moments he gaped and gasped, lumbering around in the road and crashing against the hedges and walls. I was terrified that he was going to hurt himself, out here in the middle of nowhere, but he was so far gone that he didn’t even hear my warnings. Three times he staggered and fell, three times he got up again and blundered about, like a blind, enraged monster. And then, finally, he dropped like a felled ox, out for the count.
    I had seen it happen before, but Tina was terrified.
    ‘Oh, Jaysus,’ she said. ‘Oh, Sweet Jaysus.’
    I knelt over Danny and felt his pulse. It was rapid and strong.
    ‘He’s all right,’ I said. ‘He just goes over the top sometimes. He hyperventilates,’
    ‘Hyper what?’ said Tina.
    ‘Too much oxygen,’ I said. ‘He’ll sleep it off.’
    Together we pulled him out of the road and on to the verge. I wrapped his blanket around him and made him as comfortable as I could.
    ‘Now what?’ said Tina.
    ‘We just have to wait,’ I said. ‘We might as well try and get some sleep.’
    ‘Sleep!’ said Tina. ‘Sleep!’
    ‘Sleep,’ said Darling, like a little echo. ‘Sleep.’
    She flitted up into a tree and fell silent. I lay down beside Danny and dragged a bit of the smelly blanket over my shoulders. A short distance away, I heard Tina settling herself in. I couldn’t be sure, but I think she was crying.

PART FIVE

1
    IN THE MORNING Danny was fine. I could see Tina looking at him dubiously, but it was always the same. If he ever had any memory of his turns, or any bumps or bruises, he didn’t mention them.
    I had hoped that the man might remember Oggy and dump him out, but there was still no sign of him, and Darling’s hopeful recce failed to find anything. We were all sad, but Tina was inconsolable.
    ‘He was the best friend I ever had,’ she moaned, hiding her face in the folds of her old, grey blanket.
    ‘We’re your best friends,’ said Danny. He was concerned about Tina, but full of his usual delight, despite what had happened. At times like that, I sometimes felt that he was
more
than human, not less. What people could be, if the world was perfect. But his charm was lost on Tina.
    ‘You don’t count,’ she spat, savagely. ‘You’re both going to turn into men!’
    I wanted to protest, and Danny was totally confused by the idea, but there was no denying it. I had never thought of myself in those terms, and wondered if it was something else I ought to feel guilty about.
    ‘I would never do something like that,’ I said.
    ‘Nor would I,’ said Danny, but Tina didn’t seem convinced. She got up and began to walk away, and there was nothing Danny or I could do except follow.
    Either the mist had dropped or we had been driven up into it during the night. We walked on through it, with Darling ahead of us, vanishing and emerging again, giving a strange, slow rhythm to our march. We had little idea of where we were going, except that we were still heading North, and the muffling mist made our senses all but redundant, and threw us back in on ourselves.
    It was not a good time for that to happen. Tina was more remote than ever, and Danny got gimpy and slow again. As for me, I brooded. It wasn’t fair that I had to be doing this. I