Free Lifted by Hilary Freeman Page B

that day in the summer holidays that your mum couldn’t find you, and the bin men came, and she got into a huge panic thinking you’d got mangled up in the lorry?’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Ruby, giggling. ‘I think she even called the council. My dad was frantic too. And I was at your house all the time, thinking I was so clever hiding in the cupboard under the stairs. I couldn’t understand why everyone was so angry with me when I finally came out. I’d just got bored waiting to be found.’
    ‘I got into loads of trouble for that too, you know?’
    ‘I didn’t realise. Sorry.’
    ‘It’s OK, I forgave you. Eventually.’
    She smiled. ‘Good. Hey, Noah, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Why are you always sitting there, looking out of your window?’
    ‘I’m not watching out for you, if that’s what you think,’ he said, not entirely truthfully. She blushed. ‘It’s just because my desk is by the window. So whenever I’m on my PC you can see me, that’s all. And waiting for stuff to download or to render can take forever. It gets really boring, so while I’m waiting I look out the window to see what’s going on.’
    ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘But what exactly do you do on your computer all the time? It can’t all be schoolwork.’
    ‘Just stuff,’ he said. He didn’t know whether he should tell her, whether she’d really be interested, or whether she’d understand. So he played it down. ‘You know, just games and programming systems and finding data, things like that.’ He saw that she was nodding blankly. ‘It’s pretty boring, really. Maybe one day I’ll tell you about it properly.’
    ‘Oh, right, yeah, thanks.’
    ‘I talk to my mates a lot online too,’ he said, worried that he’d made himself sound like a nerd again.
    ‘Yeah, me too,’ she said. She paused. ‘So, I guess you’re probably wondering why I called you down here. There’s a reason.’
    Noah’s pulse quickened. ‘Yeah?’ What he really wanted her to say was, ‘Because I missed you so much and I really needed to be with you’ but he knew that was a silly fantasy. Whatever her reason, it wasn’t to declare her undying love.
    ‘It’s about you know what.’
    His heart sank. Of course it was. ‘Right.’
    ‘My dad took me to this shop this afternoon. It sold jewellery and scarves and bags and stuff like that. He wanted to get a present for Evil Stepmother and he dragged me there to help him. Because I’m a girl, so supposedly I’ll know what she’d like. Like all women are the same. Anyway, that’s not important. The thing is, I took something while we were in there. It just sort of happened.’
    Noah widened his eyes. ‘Ruby! When you were with your dad? What if he’d seen you? What if you’d got caught?’
    ‘Yeah, I know, it was stupid. But all the shop assistants were fussing around him because he looks like he has loads of cash, and nobody was taking any notice of me, and there was no security or anything that I couldsee, and, I don’t know, I just did it. To see if I could.’
    He nodded. ‘So what did you take?’
    She reached into her pocket. ‘These. Earrings.’ She held them out to him, as if she was asking for his approval. They were delicate-looking, with different-shaped coloured stones hanging down like grapes.
    ‘Nice,’ he said. He knew that wasn’t the right thing to say. ‘I mean, um, I see.’
    ‘The thing is, when he brought me home I got him to drop me off on the high street and I tried three different charity shops, but none of them will take earrings for pierced ears. They said it’s not hygienic because of hepatitis or HIV or something, and they can’t sell them. They’re not allowed. So I’m stuck with these brand new earrings that I can’t give away, and there’s no way I can wear them, obviously, and I don’t know what to do with them.’
    It dawned on him that she wanted him to help her. ‘Right … Are you asking me to take them off you?’
    She nodded and smiled,