Free The Key by Geraldine O'Hara

peeling themselves out of a red Ford Fiesta in the car park.
    Time seemed to stand still. With my heart doing double time and forgetting to beat every few seconds, I stood, remembering we’d sat at one of those bench sets where the seat was attached to the table. No amount of me trying to scoot the seat away was working, and I toppled backwards, my head and shoulders landing on the grass, my legs still hooked over the wooden slats. Mortified, I lifted my legs off then crawled on hands and knees to the end of the table amid David asking if I was all right and joining me, going down on his haunches to help me up.
    “What the bloody hell happened there?” he asked, no trace of amusement on his face.
    I was thankful for that. It took the sting out of my mishap.
    “I, err, sleeeped,” I slurred, my accent thicker. Had the knock to my head done something to my brain? “I need to sit here for a moment, that is all.” I need to hide!
    “Okay,” he said. “Take your time. Do you feel sick?”
    I thought of the people and the red Fiesta. Oh yes, I felt sick. “A little.”
    “Do you feel tired?”
    Tired of lying. It was getting to be a bit of a burden already. “Yes.”
    “I think we may need to get you to a doctor. You took quite a bang to the head there. Come on.”
    Before I could protest, he hauled me upright. The man and woman were walking towards us, arm in arm, chattering about something or other. If I could just… Too late, the woman turned her head and stared straight at me.
    “Jane? What on earth are you doing here?” she screeched.
    I staggered backwards, needing to get the hell away. If I started speaking in a French accent around those two, the game would well and truly be up. They’d ask outright why I was talking in such a daft way, and would I ever grow up, ever stop making a fool of myself?
    On and on I went, backwards, backwards…
    I started falling, windmilling my arms to try to get myself upright again. It didn’t work. I cried out—hoping the yell could pass for both French and English—and realised, with total horror, where I was going to land.
    River water greeted me with open, cold arms, cuddling me whole. I closed my mouth too late, a treat of dirty water filling it, and a caul of my hair cemented itself stubbornly across my face. I flapped my arms and legs, tried to peer through my hair to find out where the sunlight was but couldn’t see a thing but blackness. I struggled, panic setting in, and floundered beneath the murky depths, wondering, inanely, whether this was my last act. I’d die under this crap-infested water never having known what it was like to love and be loved.
    A whoosh of movement tossed me sideways, and I floated away from it, feeling the ripple and push of the undulating momentum. Everything sounded so dull—the somewhat creepy tinkling of the water changing direction, a female scream, an odd whistling inside my head—and my lungs felt like they were going to burst. I lifted one hand, still frantically flapping the other, and pushed my hair off my face. I stared around, seeing nothing but brown—no welcoming lightness to tell me where the surface was.
    I was a goner, I really was.
    May as well face up to it and let the river claim me. It wasn’t like I was going to be able to get away with anything after this. I’d been caught and there was no getting away from that.
     
    I sat on the riverbank, shivering and looking down at the sodden grass, water streaming off my hair to drip onto my soaking jeans. I couldn’t lift my head, didn’t want to see the people surrounding me. And there were many. Several pairs of feet in various shoes were arranged in a semicircle. I couldn’t see David’s trainers.
    “Jane, whatever were you thinking ?” my mother shrieked.
    I winced. The game was well and truly up.
    “Always been the bloody same you have, my girl,” Dad said. “Remember that time on Lobb’s Mountain, Vera? When she wouldn’t listen to us and ran down