Free Blue Like Friday by Siobhan Parkinson Page B

to know why we’re here, and could we not find our way home, and is this man still missing, and … but he didn’t say anything. He went back to what he had been doing.
    Our guard pointed to a sofa that had seen better days. It looked as if the dog slept on it, actually, but beggars can’t be choosers. (That’s another of my mother’s annoying little sayings; it’s funny how these things rub off on you, even if they annoy you.) So we sat down, side by side, on the manky sofa. There was a horrible little brown table in front of it. I stared at an application form for a passport that was lying on it, and our guard went out of the room for a moment and came back with two cans of Coke and two teacups.
    â€œThe kettle is stone cold,” she said. “I thought you might prefer this anyway.”
    She thought right. She was pretty deadly, really.

    â€œNow,” she went on as we poured our Coke into the cups, “I want to hear the whole story from the beginning.”
    â€œWill you tell, Hal?” I asked. “Seeing as it’s your story.”
    But I could see he really didn’t feel like telling the story. His face was white, and I thought I could hear his teeth chattering, though that might have been just the Coke, which was very cold.
    â€œAll right,” I said, when Hal shook his head. “I’ll explain.”
    So I did. The guard began by writing down everything I said, but the further I got into the story, the more slowly she wrote, and eventually she put down her pencil and notepad and just listened. She shook her head a few times, and once or twice she groped in a tissue box for a paper hanky and did the most tremendous amount of coughing and spluttering into it.
    â€œSo, we got my brother to leave the message on the answering machine,” I said, “and he must have got it, Mr. Denham, I mean, because he set off this morning and he drove to the hospital and he went in. We followed him, just for the laugh, like, well, actually, we didn’t follow, we went ahead and waited for him, but anyway, we saw him going in the hospital gate. And the next thing was a squad car arrived. And he didn’t come out, and we couldn’t work out what was going on.”
    She shook her head about fifteen times, and then she said, “So, because of you two and yer— prank ,” said our
guard, “the guards have arrested, as far as you know, an innocent man who only wanted to paint a building in the hospital? This boy’s stepfather, is it?”
    Hal opened his mouth, but I didn’t want him explaining how Alec wasn’t really his stepfather, so I said quickly, “Yes, that’s about it, I suppose.”
    â€œWell,” the guard said briskly, “you are the boldest children I ever met. Ye deserve to go to jail, the pair of ye.”
    I could see that the edges of her mouth kept wanting to turn up in a smile, but still, I wasn’t sure if we could trust her not to make life difficult for us.
    â€œIt was his idea,” I said.
    That was mean of me, I suppose, and I am not proud of it, but it was his idea. I hadn’t liked it from the start, as you may remember, and it didn’t seem fair if I had to go to jail for something I hadn’t wanted to get involved in in the first place. (Though I suppose a lot of criminals say that.)
    â€œBut luckily for you,” she said, ignoring me, “you are too young for jail.”
    Well, we kind of knew that, but all the same, when you are more or less in police custody, it’s nice to hear it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
    â€œThank you, guard,” I said humbly.
    â€œBut tell me one thing,” she said. “Tell me why.”
    â€œWhy what?”
    â€œWhy did you do it? Why did you want to play such a trick on this poor man?”

    â€œWell … ,” I said, and I looked at Hal.
    I certainly wasn’t going to tell her it was part of a major