Num8ers - By Rachel Ward Page 0,39

some air myself. Still holding Spider, I got onto my back, so that my face was upward. I tried to flip him over, too, but I couldn’t manage to. We were carried downstream, ’round a couple of bends. I was just wondering if we were going to carry on like this until we got to the ocean, when there was a sickening scraping feeling down my back, and I jarred suddenly to a stop. The jolt made me lose my grip on Spider for a second, but I grabbed him again.

We’d both stopped moving. The river coursed on around us, but we were wedged on some sort of stony bar, sticking out from one bank into the river. Spider was lying facedown on top of my legs. I hauled him off me and over onto his back, then gripped him under his armpits and pulled him up the sandy spit of land and out of the water. He was heavy, a lifeless weight. I knelt next to him, looking at him with disbelief. His eyes were shut. He was gone.

This was all wrong — so, so wrong. It wasn’t meant to be like this.

“Spider, wake up!” I yelled. “Wake up!” Nothing. “Wake up! You can’t fucking leave me! You can’t do this!” I brought my fist down on his chest in sheer frustration. His mouth fell open and water trickled out.

I drew myself up, leaned over him, and pushed both my palms down hard into his stomach. More water came out. I did it again. And again. And again. Suddenly, a plume of water spurted out of him, like a whale’s spout, and he made the most godawful noise I’d ever heard as he drew a massive breath into his waterlogged body.

I’d sprung away from him with the surprise of the water, and I just sat back on my heels for a while, watching his chest rise and fall on its own. He opened his eyes and seemed to be trying to focus, then he said, “What you crying for? What’s up with you?”

I hadn’t realized I was crying, but when I wiped my hand across my face there were hot tears and snot there.

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m happy.”

He closed his eyes and opened them again. “I don’t get it. What’s going on?”

“You fell in the water. I got you out.”

“Right,” he said, “that’s why I’m all cold and wet, then. I don’t remember a thing. I thought we were walking through a field and then suddenly I’m flat on my back, soaking wet, and you’re crying — sorry, happy.” He started to sit up, looking around him like he’d just landed from another planet. “Here, you’re all wet, too,” he said, then a big grin slowly spread across his face. “You didn’t give me the kiss of life, did you?”

“No. Shut up.”

“You did, didn’t you?”

“No! I squashed your stomach down until the water came out, but I wish I hadn’t now, you bloody moron.”

He reached over to me and ran his hand over my shaved head, the smile fading away as the situation sunk in. “You saved me. You saved my life. Jesus, Jem, I owe you big time, man.”

I shrugged him off.

“Forget about it. I just did what anyone would’ve.”

“There isn’t anyone else here, though, is there? There was only you. Only you could’ve saved me. And you did.”

“Just drop it, alright? It’s not a big deal. Look, at least we’re on the right side of the river now. We just need to walk back to our stuff. Get some dry clothes. I’m fucking freezing.” It was true. I was shivering violently, and so was Spider.

We helped each other to our feet, staggered up the bank, and trudged upstream again. Spider was in front, like usual, but he kept stopping and looking back at me, then smiling, shaking his head, and carrying on. And all the time my mind was racing double-time. So, the numbers were right after all. It wasn’t his day today. But if I hadn’t been there, surely he would have drowned — he was nearly dead when I dragged him out of the water. Spider knew it: I had saved him. I’d kept him alive.

My head was spinning now. What if he’d been meant to die today, but I’d made things turn out different? For the last couple of weeks, I’d felt guilty about the old tramp. I’d never meant to hurt him, but there was no escaping it: It felt like we’d chased