Free Brave New Girl by Catherine Johnson

all!” Mum shouted back at me as the doors folded closed, and I felt myself going red as everyone stared.
    I held Arthur’s hand tight, and as I walked away down the road I wondered how much Mum had noticed. Even with the latest and most grippingly page-turning Jenny Darling, she would have to be mad not to have realised that Sasha was hardly ever around at home, and how it was between me and her when she was.
    You could hear the singing from outside the Chapel. It was round, of course, and old brick, and there were what looked like even older trees planted in front of the building, big and dark and waving their brand-new spring leaves in the wind. Denny had run ahead and I saw him turn and wave at me before he went in.
    By the time me and Arthur caught up we could see into the hall. The choir were doing warm-ups, hundreds of Year Sixes going ooo-oooh and aa-ahhh all together. It made me smile. Me and Arthur scurried up the little steps to the gallery that ran round the top of the big hall. There were a few parents and younger kids. Some were running around in between the seats, their mums shushing them uselessly. Down in the hall the Olympic Junior Choir stopped their warm-ups and went quiet.
    â€œWe’re going to start off with a song you all know.”A man with a straggly beard and funny shoes was standing on a box in front of the kids. “It’s
Love is Like a Magic Penny
....” The Year Sixes groaned. It was the cheesiest song ever. A really stupid, cutesy, corny, happy song.
    I remembered singing all the time at primary school. Me and Christina both down at the front. We loved singing. Harvest Festival, Diwali, Christmas.
    The music teacher would tell us to smile while we sang, so we looked like number one idiots, and I’d be looking back at the parents watching. Sometimes you’d see them crying. Not falling-over sobbing, nothing like that, just the odd tear escaping, or their eyes shining.
    I was doing it now, the adult thing I mean. I was standing there, listening, and it felt as if so much of my life was over. I felt as if everything had gone, all that happiness so long ago. I felt like I’d lost so much. Christina, of course, but Sasha, too.
    I wiped my eye with the corner of my sleeve.
    The song finished and I looked round for Arthur. My insides flipped. He had vanished. There was his school bag and his robot colouring book, but no Arthur. I strode around the gallery, looking under the benches and now I wasn’t crying, I was angry.
    I couldn’t shout because they’d hear me downstairs. “Arthur! Arthur!” I hissed.
    â€œAre you all right, love?” one of the mums said.
    â€œUm, no, I’ve lost my little brother. This tall, brown curly hair.”
    The woman shook her head. Downstairs the choir had started up
London World in a City.
    I imagined going home and telling Mum I’d lost Arthur. I imagined a whole future in which Arthur was lost and it was all my fault. I imagined never again being able to hear anything to do with the Olympics without thinking of my long-lost little brother. I thought I’d start getting tearful all over again. I took a deep breath and told myself not to be so stupid.
    â€œArthur!” I hissed again. I went to the steps and ran down to the front door. Outside it was sunny and the new leaves blew about in the trees. The main road was thick with traffic. What if he’d been knocked down by a car? Stuck under a bus like something out of
Casualty
?
    â€œArthur!” I yelled at the top of my voice. “Arthur!”
    He wouldn’t be that stupid, would he? If he had been knocked over I reckoned there’d be blue lights, a helicopter ambulance coming in to land on theplayground, a crowd standing around at least. There was nothing like that.
    I went back into the Round Chapel and up the stairs. Still no sign of him. I took deep breaths and tried to calm myself down. One last look before I called the cops.