Num8ers - By Rachel Ward Page 0,23

up straight and started walking toward me.

“Nothing. Shut up!”

He was close now, and went to grab me. I ducked away and started running. There were a lot of people on the bridge, and I had to weave my way between them. Spider was way faster than me, but he was big and awkward, and I could hear people shouting as he blundered through the crowd behind me. I made it to the other side and ran blindly through the streets. It didn’t take Spider long to catch me, and he got hold of my arm and spun me ’round to face him.

“How did you know that was going to happen, Jem?” We were both breathing hard.

“I didn’t. I didn’t know nothing.”

“No, Jem, you knew about that. You knew about that. What’s going on?”

I tried to wrestle away from him, but he was gripping hard. With his height and his strength and his smell he seemed to be all around me, I couldn’t get away. I tried to hit him, but he had both my arms now. I rammed my head forward, but he’d seen me coming and just held me farther away, still gripped in his vise. I couldn’t stand it. I kicked out and my foot slammed into his leg. He winced, but didn’t let go. “Nah, man, you’re gonna tell me what’s going on.”

People were staring at us. I stopped struggling and went limp in his arms. I don’t want to do this on my own anymore, I thought. I can’t do it on my own.

“OK,” I said, “but not here. Can we cut down to the canal?”

We walked up to the Edgware Road and soon found a way through to the back of the shops that led down to the canal. At last we were away from people. All the strength had gone from me, my legs were starting to go.

“I’ve gotta sit down,” I said weakly, and slumped onto a broken bench. One of the wooden slats was missing, felt like you were going to fall through it. Spider sat next to me.

“You’ve gone a funny color, man. Put your head between your knees or something.”

I leaned forward as a whooshing sound filled my ears. The space inside my head turned red, and then black.

“Whoa, steady, mate.” I could hear Spider’s voice from a long way away, the other end of a tunnel. When I opened my eyes everything was the wrong way ’round. Took me a while to realize I was lying down. The bench dug into me where I was nearly falling through the gap, but my head was on a pillow, rank-smelling, but soft: Spider’s hoodie. He was pacing up and down on the towpath, rocking his head, flipping his fingers, muttering under his breath.

“Hey,” I said, with hardly any sound at all. He stopped pacing and crouched down by me.

“You alright, man?” he said.

“Think so.”

He helped me to sit up slowly, then sat next to me. I was shivering. He grabbed his hoodie and held it out. “Here. Put this on.”

“Nah, I’m alright.” Didn’t want that foul-smelling thing on my clothes, my skin. I shivered again and he reached ’round behind me. I didn’t know what he was up to, was about to tell him to where to go, when I realized he’d draped the hoodie over my shoulders. Kind of wrapped me up. Made me think of my mum putting a blanket ’round us both on the sofa when the flat was so cold, cuddling up underneath it, one of her good days. Something was stabbing me in my eyes: pricking, stinging, hot. It spilled out and ran down my right cheek. Shit, I was crying. I don’t cry. I just don’t do that. I sniffed hard, wiped my face with the back of my hand.

“You gonna tell me now?”

I looked hard at the ground in front of me. Spider was the closest thing I’d ever had to a friend. Could I trust him? I took a deep breath.

“Yeah,” I said. And I told him.

CHAPTER TEN

There was silence between us — not an empty thing, a space full of thoughts and feelings, unspoken words and emotions. We sat there while the sounds of London in chaos played out half a mile away, sirens wailing, car horns going, helicopters circling. I felt stunned — still reeling from what had happened and shocked that I’d finally told someone. My body and my head were all over the place. I hadn’t looked at Spider