Num8ers - By Rachel Ward Page 0,10
of my life, anyway. Like a bad smell that follows you around, or a piece of chewing gum stuck on your shoe, Spider turned up again soon enough. You might say I couldn’t shake him. You might say we were meant to be together.
Anyway, that Wednesday I’d taken my eye off the ball for a minute. I was watching someone, an old dosser. He’d bumped into me ten minutes before, asked me for some money, and I’d followed him along the High Street. Now he was digging about in a dumpster on the other side of the road, and I was leaning against a wall, watching, when a familiar sourness drifted into my nostrils and someone said in my ear, “Whatcha doing?”
My attention was all on the old bloke, so I didn’t look ’round or nothing, just said to him, like we’d only seen each other five minutes ago, “Spider, what’s the date today?”
“Dunno, twenty-fifth?”
The old bloke had pulled something out of the dumpster, half a burger in its wrapper. He looked around quickly, seeing if anyone else was after it, and our eyes met for a second. There it was again, his number: 11252010.
He tucked the burger under his armpit and crossed his arms, then started scuttling off down the road. I set off after him.
“Where you going?” Spider called out, puzzled.
“I wanna go this way.”
He caught up with me. “What for?”
I stopped, keeping an eye on Grandpa as he weaved his way through the crowds, and lowered my voice. “I wanna follow that guy, the old one in the sweater.”
“What you up to? We don’t need to rob no one, Jem. I got money.” He patted his pocket. “If you want something, just ask.”
“No, I don’t wanna rob him, just follow him. Like we’re spies,” I said quickly, trying to make it into a game.
His face said, You’ve lost your marbles, but he just shrugged and said, “OK.” And we kept on walking, stepping up the pace as Grandpa turned a corner ahead of us. He’d gone down a side street, not so many people there. We got within about thirty feet of him when he turned ’round and clocked us. He knew I’d seen him get that burger out of the trash. Looking startled and shifty, he turned ’round again and started half running, half walking.
“We’ve been rumbled, man,” Spider said. “Whatcha wanna do now?”
I wanted to see what would happen to him, but I didn’t want to frighten the old guy, not on his last day.
“Let’s hang back a bit. He’s heading for the park, yeah? Let’s let him get in there and then go in. Wanna smoke?”
We lit up and then started walking slowly toward the park. At the far end of the street, Grandpa was hurrying along. He got to the end, where the main road is, with the park on the other side. He checked under his arm — yeah, the burger was still there — then looked back over his shoulder. Although we were way back, I knew that he could see us, that he was getting agitated. I was about to say to Spider that we should call it quits when, still looking back, Grandpa stepped out into the road.
The car hit him straight on with a sickening thud. He went halfway up onto the hood and then flew through the air. It was like one of those road safety commercials on TV, but they use dummies for that, don’t they? This was real — a real body, limbs waving crazily, head jerking forward and then back, finally lying on the ground.
We stood still for a few seconds, taking it in. People were screaming, starting to gather ’round. Spider started to run toward them. “Come on, let’s see if he’s alright.” I hung back. I didn’t want to see any more. If he wasn’t dead now, he would be soon, before midnight, anyway. Today was his day. Nothing you could do about it.
Spider was at the end of the street now, craning over the throng. I went up behind him. Someone near me was screaming, high-pitched, on and on. Her friend led her away. I could see through the gaps to the body. A heap of mismatched old clothes with something inside. Not someone, not anymore. Whoever he was had gone now. Gone to wherever people go, where my mum was. Heaven? More like hell for my mum, I should think. Or nowhere. Just gone.
I touched Spider’s arm. “Let’s go.” He