Free No Going Back by ALEX GUTTERIDGE

more confident, less worried that everything precious would be taken away from me if I wasn’t good and didn’t keep my room tidy and work hard at school? I wished I could be more like her, the four year old with the wispy blond hair and carefree smile.
    â€œYou want to lighten up a bit,” Gran used to say. “Plenty of time to be all orderly when you’re old.”
    â€œI’m fine as I am thanks,” I’d reply.
    Except, deep down, I wasn’t sure that was true. Part of me was missing. There had been this silent space in my life which made me unsure of who I really was. Now that Dad was back I had a chance to fill that gap and find the real me.
    On my second afternoon with Dad, when Gran had gone for her rest, we lolled about in thegarden. Dad sat beside me on the swing seat and told me stories about things we’d done together when I was little. “Do you remember when we took a rowing boat out on that little boating lake in the park near home and your mother was rowing but she dropped an oar in the water?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œYou must have been about three at the time. She told me to leave it, that we could manage with one, but I didn’t take any notice, as usual. I leaned over and fell in.”
    â€œI bet that was funny,” I giggled.
    â€œYour mother didn’t think so. She said the whole boat nearly capsized but the lake wasn’t deep so I could have scooped you up and carried you to the shore. Not that Mum saw it like that. She wouldn’t talk to me for the rest of the day, called me ‘irresponsible’.”
    I pulled a face.
    â€œShe didn’t like me taking you near water after that. I had a real job to persuade her to let me take you back to feed the ducks. ‘Promise me you won’t take her in a boat,’ she used to say, every single time.”
    At the base of my spine, something tingled andin my head a distant memory twisted out of the recesses.
    â€œI remember us going to see the ducklings,” I said. “I remember you holding my hand. I had red woolly gloves because it was still cold and afterwards we sat and ate pancakes at a little café.”
    â€œYes,” he said, clapping his hands, making the molecules twist and dance up in the air. “Yes, that’s right. You always had that chocolate spread and I had maple syrup. Fancy you remembering that.”
    I felt so pleased with myself and Dad was obviously thrilled too. He was jigging about and rocking the swing seat backwards and forwards.
    â€œAnd I remember sitting on your shoulders as we walked home,” I said and I turned towards him, my eyes widening. “And I remember just how I felt, how much I loved being up there. I felt so special, as if I was the King of the Castle with my own special view of the world. You clutched at the front of my legs and I curled my fingers around your hair. You used to cut across the grass instead of taking the path across the park and you had to keep ducking to avoid the low branches of thetrees bashing me on the head.”
    â€œYes, that’s right,” Dad said. “What about the fair? Do you remember going to that?”
    I frowned and tried my best. There was fairground music filling my ears and bright lights and swirling colours soaking my senses but this time there was no Dad in the picture.
    â€œYou loved the teacups,” he said. “We would whizz around so fast and Mum would close her eyes and tell the man to stop spinning. But you and I would say, ‘More, more.’”
    â€œUrgh!” I said. “I hate those teacups now. I was sick in one once. Now just looking at them makes me feel queasy.”
    â€œThat’s right,” Dad replied. “You were sick, all over Mum’s new jeans. I’d forgotten that. Goodness me, she was cross. You know what she’s like about her clothes.”
    We both laughed out loud just as Mum walked into the garden to get