Free How To Be Brave by Louise Beech Page B

hold of it or not.
    So I said, ‘Rose, I’m going back to sleep, and so are you. And when we get up in the morning, I’m going to tell you the greatest story you can imagine. About the man in the brown suit. It could take weeks, even months. But only if you let me do your finger pricks and injections. Let me do them and I’ll give you a story way better than War Horse or Harry Potter .’ I paused. ‘Because it’s true.’ She didn’t say a word so I continued. ‘We can get up a bit earlier and you can do your blood in the book nook. It’s entirely up to you. You have a big think about it. Go on – go back to bed now.’
    Breath held, I waited. Then I heard the soft swish as she opened my door again and the sound of her bare feet going across the landing and then the closing of her bedroom door. I had no idea if she’d departed with plans to meet me in the book nook or if she still intended to lie down in her bed forever.
    I could not get her words out of my head – Will you say bye to Dad for me ? I’d never tell Jake she’d said that. Never. It would kill him deader than any landmine or gun could.
    I tried desperately to sleep. I wanted to escape Rose’s death wish, wanted to drift on the sea again. How could an abandoned lifeboat hold more appeal than my own home?
    I did dream of the boat and this time I wasn’t alone. Other shadows crowded into its limited space. The lack of moonlight equalised them; they shuffled for the best spot in a craft designed for half their number and they sang softly until sleep washed whispers away, a mixture of accents and tones and depth.
    One sang the loudest.
    Grandad Colin.
    He sang a song I felt I’d heard before. Then the other shadows added their notes. They told stories. Mouths I knew must be cracked and bleeding didn’t talk of that place beyond the makeshift lifeboat; they didn’t say ‘home’. Home was too painful. They told made-up stories to escape. Lies bounce best on ocean waves; pretence gives more comfort than truth. And in the dark we’re all the same; no one is more hungry or happy or needy or worthy or injured than the next person.
    Then I was alone. Just the sea and me. I knew as I bobbed about on the boat that I’d wake soon, and I desperately clung to its edge. I wanted to hold onto Grandad Colin. Wanted to shout him to come back.

    I woke the next morning and remembered my grandmother taking me for fish at this fancy restaurant and telling me Grandad Colin hadn’t talked much about what had happened to him. That he’d taken his thoughts to the grave, leaving only physical mementoes, medals and photos, official letters and locks of hair. Had she even known there was a diary? Had the leathery book been overlooked by everyone until now? Had it been waiting for us?
    Today I had to tell a story.
    I wasn’t sure I could.
    When the clock digits changed to 7:00 – the perfect blood sugar reading – I got up and went on to the landing. The distance to Rose’s door seemed longer, like the horizon moving away the closer you get.
    Would she want to start our trade? Could the story I’d promised shrink her bruises? Could it ease the constant cycle of changing injection sites to cause least damage, cushion the cut of finger end?
    I opened her bedroom door, inhaled sleep and glue and wax crayon. The bed was empty but neatly made, each pillow symmetrical with the duvet. What did it mean? She was never tidy.
    Where was she?
    Downstairs I went, afraid of what I’d find, dreading an empty house and open back door. I sneaked into the kitchen, the hallway, the dining room. There in the book nook, cross-legged on a cinnamon cushion with the diabetes box on her knee and a scowl on her face, sat Rose.
    ‘If this story is rubbish,’ she said. ‘I’m going back to bed.’
    I nodded – the joy and relief at her being there suffocated all words.
    ‘It’d better be more good than…’ Rose stopped to think. ‘Than Charlotte’s Web and all the Harry Potter