Num8ers - By Rachel Ward Page 0,26
holding her breath. “I knew there was something,” she said quietly. “I knew you had a gift.” She was still holding my hands, shaking them gently up and down, a gesture of comfort. “You’re here for a reason, Jem. You saved Terry for me. Thank you.”
Her eyes were glistening, and I thought, You’ve got it wrong about me. Spider could have stayed where he was, and he wouldn’t have died today. I only protected him from getting hurt. He wouldn’t have died today. I can’t save him. I want to, but I can’t, and soon he’ll go, and you’ll think I’ve let you both down.
But I couldn’t say any of this, I could never tell them what was coming up for Spider. So I just sat there; and Spider, Val, and I were all quiet, as the reporter on the TV broke the news that police were putting out an urgent call to trace two youths seen running away just moments before the explosion, both in hoodies and jeans: one black, very tall; one shorter and white.
I felt my stomach lurch. Whatever trouble I’d been in yesterday fell away. Spider and I were up to our necks in it now. We all looked at each other, and Val held on to my hand with one of her hands and reached out to hold Spider’s with the other.
“You’ve done nothing. They’ve got nothing on you,” she said firmly. But we’d both had run-ins with the police before, and they weren’t going to swallow any stories about second sight, were they? Spider looked at me over the top of his nan’s head, and I knew what he was thinking. We couldn’t stick around waiting to be picked up. It was time to run.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Listen, I’ve got to go out for a bit, like I said, do a bit of business, and then when I get back, we’ll get going.”
“But—” I started to object, but Spider wasn’t having it.
“We’re gonna need money, aren’t we? You get a bit of food together while I’m out, yeah?”
“OK, but what if they pick you up now?”
“I’ll be fine.” He put a jacket on over his hoodie and crammed a beanie over his unruly hair. “There, don’t worry, Jem. Safe.” He formed a fist and held it out to me, and I did the same. Our knuckles touched. “Safe, Jem. I’ll be back soon.” He sloped out the front door.
All this time, Val had been watching us and hadn’t said a word. Now she got up from the chair.
“You’d be alright here, you know. They’ve got nothing on you. You didn’t do nothing.”
I shrugged. They’d been heavy enough about the knife — this was something completely different.
“I’m not going to stop you, don’t worry. You’ll have to do what you think best. Look,” she said, making for the door, “if you are going, you’ll need some different clothes. Let me have a look in my room. You go through cupboards in the kitchen, take what you want.” I went through to the kitchen and started opening cupboard doors randomly. There was hardly anything there — a few cans of peas, some beans, a box of instant mashed potatoes. I took out a packet of crackers.
“Did you find the chocolate biscuits? I’ve got a box of chocolate biscuits somewhere,” Val said, coming into the room with an armful of clothes. “Here,” she said, handing them to me, “try some of these.”
I took them back into the sitting room and sorted through, thinking that I’d rather die than wear them. She’s small, like me, so we were OK size-wise, but — obviously — they all stank to high heaven of smoke and, to be honest, they were gross.
“What you making that face for? Not good enough for you?” She’d caught me. “Look, you’ll need a couple of T-shirts, and you’re going to need something warm. It’s dropping cold at night now. This sweater,” she rummaged vigorously in the heap and pulled out a big pink thing with a huge roll neck, “and a coat, or something. Here.” She threw a mint-green padded parka and some gloves in my direction.
“I’ll…I’ll try them upstairs.” I stumbled up and found the bathroom, dumped the clothes on the side of the bath, and slid the bolt across to lock the door. I used the toilet, and then sat there for ages, just breathing, trying to get my head around what had happened, what was still happening. It was like things were slipping and