Num8ers - By Rachel Ward Page 0,104
you and your mum.”
So she does know.
“How do you know about them?”
“Your mum told me. I knew about her years ago, and then when she found out about you, she rang me up.”
Suddenly, I’ve got to tell her, tell her the thing I’ve been bottling up all summer.
“Nan — half the people in London are going to die next year. I’m not making it up. I’ve seen their numbers.”
She nods.
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Yeah, Jem told me about 2027. Warned me.”
My hands go up to the sides of my head. Nan knew! Mum knew! I’m shaking, but I’m not scared, I’m angry. How dare they keep this from me? Why leave me on my own with it?
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t she?”
The anger’s fizzing through me now, in my arms and legs. I kick at the board under the kitchen cupboards.
“Don’t do that!”
I want to smash something. I kick out again, and this time the board thunks down onto the floor.
“Adam! Stop it!”
Nan’s on her feet now, coming toward me. She makes a grab for my arms. I try to shrug her off, but she’s strong, much stronger than you’d think to look at her. We stand wrestling with each other for a few seconds. Then, quick as a flash, she lets go of one of my arms and slaps me across the face.
“Not here!” she shouts. “Not in my house! I won’t have it!”
I come back to myself then, I see things like they’re happening to someone else, a teenage boy grappling with an old woman in her kitchen, and I feel the shame spreading through me like a blush.
“I’m sorry, Nan,” I say. I rub my cheek where she got me. I don’t know where to look, what to do with myself.
“Should think so,” she says, and she turns to put the kettle on. “If you’ve calmed down, if you’ll listen, then we can talk about it.”
“OK,” I say.
“In fact, you make the tea. I need a smoke.”
She sits down and reaches for her packet, and her hand is shaking, just a little, as she draws a cigarette out and lights it.
When the tea’s ready, I sit down opposite her.
“Tell me, Nan,” I say. “Tell me everything you know. About me and Mum and Dad. I’ve got a right”
She’s studying the tabletop, or pretending to. She brushes a little bit of ash onto the floor, and then she looks up at me, blows a long trail of smoke out of the corner of her mouth, and says, “Yeah, you do have a right, and I s’pose now’s the time.”
And she tells me.
SARAH
He’s trying the door.
I hold my breath.
In the darkness, I can hear the handle turn, the scraping of metal on wood as the door pushes against the chair I left tipped up against it. There’s a scuffling sound as He moves the door backward and forward, gently at first, then with more force. I can picture His face — confusion turning to anger — and I hunch up farther on the bed, sitting upright, knees up to my chin, and I cross both sets of fingers.
The room falls quiet for a few seconds, and then He’s there again. He can t believe it. He needs to check.
Then footsteps, and silence.
It worked! It fucking worked!
I hug my knees in closer and rock from side to side. I want to shout out, scream, dance, but I can’t break the silence. I can t wake the others: Marty and Luke in the room next door, my mum farther down the landing.
I should sleep now. It’s safe to sleep. I uncurl my legs and slide them down under the duvet. I’m tired, but not sleepy, and I lie there for ages, triumphant and scared at the same time. I’ve won a battle, but the war’s not over yet. Rain starts battering against the window.
I ache for sleep, eight hours of dreamless blankness, but when I do drift off, there’s no rest. I’m back in the nightmare that waits for me every night.
The flames are orange.
I’m being burned alive. I’m trapped, penned in by rubble.
The flames are yellow.
The baby’s screaming. We’ll die here, me and her. The boy with the scarred face is here, too. He’s fire and flame himself, scarred, burned, a dark shape in the thundering, crackling, spitting heat.
The flames are white.
And he grabs the baby, my baby, and he walks away and is consumed.
The room’s still dark when I force myself awake. The back of my T-shirt and my