Free Inside Grandad by Peter Dickinson Page A

could speak normally again, provided it was about something else, like the e-mails or Tacky or school. It was only then that he felt something pressing against the side of his palm, and looked down and saw that Grandad was holding his hand again.
    He'd no idea how long he'd been doing that for, and now, as he stood staring, Grandad gave a gentle sigh and let go.
    He told Lena when she came, and she was interested and puzzled, but he didn't try to make it happen again. He was pretty sure it wasn't any use. And nothing like that happened when he went on to do the exercises. He didn't get any response at all, and he was just as tired as ever when he finished.
    But thinking about it on his way home in the car, he decided that was a sort of private message, for him alone, and what it told him was that though Mum had been right, and getting Grandad well wasn't all down to him alone, there still
was
something that only he could do, and no one else. He didn't know what it was yet, but it was something to do with the pressure inside him, and he'd been wrong to try and stop it. What he'd got to do was let it happen, and find out about it, and then, in the end, he'd be able to use it.
    So for the next three weeks Gavin's life fell into two halves. He felt almost as if he'd become two different people. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and weekends he was Stonehaven Gavin and Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays he was hospital Gavin.
    Hospital Gavin felt utterly different from the normal, Stonehaven Gavin. The moment he woke, all through breakfast and school, he could feel the pressure beginning to build. He nursed it, looked after it, let it happen unseen inside him. He didn't think about it all the time, did his work okay, talked with the other kids, and so on, but he didn't waste any energy getting involved. His friends might have noticed he was a bit quieter those days, but they probably didn't.
    Then the bell went, and he gathered his things, and Robert was waiting in his car out in the road, and they drove up to Aberdeen. Lena was usually in the ward. Some days she watched him for a while; mostly she just said hello and left him to it.
    He said hi to Grandad, sorted his stuff out, talked, or read to him if he'd got anything to read, and then started on the exercises.
    Now the sense of pressure reversed as he tried to pour everything that was in him, his whole soul, all that gathered strength and need, into the slow, monotonous exercises.
    "Now, Grandad, see if you can touch your nose."
    Count slowly to six. Adjust arm. Grip wrist and elbow. Raise forearm. Shift grip. Uncurl forefinger. Lower arm and hand to touch nose.
    "Great. Now you can put it down again."
    Count slowly to six….
    There was never even a flicker of response, apart from the slow lopsided blink every so often, and it wasn't Grandad doing that, really. It was just something that happened. There was never even the slightest glimmer in the vague blue stare. It was as if the selkie had gone from the harbor and mightn't ever come back.
    The image haunted him. On the Saturday morning Dad was home Gavin took him down to fish for mackerel, and between them they caught enough to spare one for a seal, if it had appeared, but it didn't. Dad was obviously having a great time—he used to fish with Grandad years ago, he said, whenever Grandad was home from
his
ship—so Gavin was carefulnot to let him see how he was feeling. He knew it was stupid, but he'd really longed for the seal to appear and look at him the way it had that first day, and it hadn't. Why should it? Magic doesn't work in the real world.
    As the days went by he got to know the nurses. They were very kind to him. When there wasn't anyone else in the ward they treated him almost like one of themselves, as if he was part of Grandad's treatment, which he was, sort of. They took him out into their office for a cup of tea when the shifts changed and they were all in the ward together. The tea trolley didn't come round the stroke