Free Ostrich Boys by Keith Gray Page A

get used to.
    “You okay?” Sim asked.
    I nodded. “Yeah. Fine. No worries.” But my smile felt awkward.
    Inside the travel center was a long, winding queue with Kenny at the very end of it. I counted and he had twenty-eight people in front of him. Sim rolled his eyes, muttered something about hating waiting and wandered back out the way we’d come. I went to stand with Kenny.
    “Is Sim really mad?” Kenny asked, craning his neck to try and follow him.
    “Mad insane? Or mad angry?”
    But Kenny wouldn’t laugh. He didn’t look at me when he asked, “Are you going to go without me? If the train comes before I get another ticket?”
    “It’s tempting,” I admitted. “The problem is, things would’ve been so much simpler if we’d stayed on that train. I had all the times worked out. But if we want to catch up a bit and get to Ross before tonight, it’s gonna be a whole lot easier if we can make that connection at Newcastle.”
    “But how much does it matter if we don’t get there tonight?”
    “We can easily get there tomorrow,” I said. “That’s not the problem. But the train times just don’t fit for us to get there
and
all the way back to Cleethorpes tomorrow as well. It’s too far. Which means we won’t get home till Monday. And staying out another night is something we definitely can’t afford. Never mind the fact that the longer it is before we go back to Cleethorpes, the deeper the trouble we’re in is gonna get.”
    Kenny stared at his feet. “We’re shittered, aren’t we? I’m sorry, you know? Honest, Blake. I didn’t mean …”
    I knew he felt embarrassed because of his freak-out on the train. It wasn’t the right time to make him feel worse. “Yeah,” I said. “I know.” The time to really make him squirm would be when he had another ticket and we were on that connection from Newcastle, back on schedule. That was when I was planning on completely ripping the piss out of him.
    But I checked my watch, twice. The queue inched forward; we shuffled a couple of steps with it. And I couldn’t help doubting we were going to get any further north than we already were.
    At the front of the room was one long counter with at least ten windows where the station staff sat at computers, checking timetables and issuing tickets. The frustrating thing was, only four of the windows had anyone sitting there. I craned my neck to scan the queue, counting everyone in front of us again. There were only twenty-six now.Weighing them up, I reckoned some people were in pairs, and there was definitely a threesome—three backpackers with bright, shell-like packs. So maybe it wasn’t the full twenty-six in front of us. In reality perhaps there were only twenty, twenty-one. That sounded better. Not brilliant, but better. I checked my watch again. Just under half an hour to go.
    Sim appeared behind us. “What’s happening?”
    “Not a lot.” The queue moved on another single shuffled step as if to prove it. Twenty-five people in front of us now. “Where did you go?”
    “There’s an information kiosk-thing out there. I asked the bloke if he could do anything.”
    “And?”
    Sim pulled a face. “Kenny needs to see one of them.” He pointed at the staff behind the windows. “I got him to check when this next train gets into Newcastle, though. Three minutes before the one to Carlisle leaves.”
    “That’s tight,” I said.
    He nodded, turning away from me. I realized he was also counting the people in the queue. “And there’s no way we’re going to make it just standing here,” he said.
    An idea popped into my head, but it took me a few seconds to say it out loud. “Maybe we could call Caroline.”
    Sim wasn’t amused.
    “I’m just saying: we could give her a ring and ask her to drive us.”
    “That’s the most stupid—”
    I tried to defend myself. “I told you what she was like this morning. I really think she’d help us if she knew.”
    “Yeah, but would Ross want her there? Think