Num8ers - By Rachel Ward Page 0,64
about all the dogs that must have peed there over the years. It was too dark to see much; the swings and slide in the kiddies’ playground were just ghostly shapes on the other side of the grass. The coast was clear, but I hesitated for a minute. It felt sad leaving our hideout, the last place we’d been together. Was I just imagining it, or could I still smell his rankness, clinging to the leaves?
“Good-bye, Spider,” I said quietly, in my head. “I’ll see you in Weston.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I hurried as fast as I could along the path, back toward the town center. I was peering into the darkness ahead of me, looking out for danger. I didn’t even notice the figures coming across the wet grass until it was way too late.
“Oi! There’s a lot of people looking for you, including my dad,” a voice called out to the left of me. It was young, female, with the sort of accent you only hear on TV, like a yokel in a sitcom. I stopped in my tracks and turned to face whoever it was.
“And?” Give them a bit of attitude, don’t show them any fear. I could see them now, three kids emerging from the gloom. Kids like me, about my age, jeans and hoodies.
“And I reckon he’ll be earning good overtime. I could hit him up for a few extra quid this week.” The other two laughed. Two more girls, with nose studs and lip rings. They walked up to me, looking me up and down.
Maybe before, I would have started running, or at least hunched my shoulders, stared down, but now I stood my ground, looked right back at them. Their numbers came up, of course. They all had another sixty, seventy years — the piercings a sign of middle-class rebellion, nothing more; these girls were heading for comfortable lives, maybe even a husband and two-point-four children.
“You don’t look like a terrorist,” the first one spoke again. “Did you do it?”
“ ’Course not.”
“What are you runnin’ away from, then?”
“Don’t like the cops. No offense,” I added, thinking of her dad.
“None taken.” She almost smiled. “But you ran away from the bomb.”
“Yeah, just one of those things, you know.”
“Not really. What things?”
I didn’t have the energy to lie. “It just…I just…I felt something bad was going to happen.”
“And it did.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you often feel things, what’s going to happen, like?”
“Yeah, sort of.”
“So you know whether we’re going to turn you in or not?”
I hesitated for a second or two. I wasn’t going to beg.
“I don’t think you are,” I said evenly.
“Why shouldn’t we?”
“You don’t look like a snitch.” It was a compliment, intended to flatter. It worked.
“No, I’m not. You’re right there.” A pause. “You’re not going to last five minutes goin’ up that way, though. Not through the town center. Too many people. Where you goin’, anyway?”
“S’posed to be heading west, Bristol way.” I didn’t want to say Weston — that was our secret, Spider’s and mine.
“On the bus?”
“Walking.”
“Walking! Get out! Are you hungry?”
My eating pattern had been so odd, I didn’t know if I was or wasn’t. When I thought about it, my last real meal had been breakfast, and that seemed like years ago.
“Yeah, a bit.”
“Hang on, I’ve got an idea. Come on, we’ll cut down the back to mine.”
The other two looked at her like she was mad.
“Wait a minute. That’s not such a good idea, is it?” one of them said.
“Shut up — it’s a great idea. Last place they’re going to look.”
“But you’d be in a shed load of trouble if they did….”
“But they won’t. It’ll be cool.” She cut off any further discussion by turning around suddenly and starting to walk back across the grass. “Come on!” she hissed.
I set off after her, with the others following me. I didn’t know whether to trust her or not, but I didn’t really have another option. We walked along quickly, in silence. She led us down back alleys and footpaths, between garden fences and alongside playing fields. Eventually, she stopped, and we all caught up with her.
“I’ll just go in and check what’s goin’ on. Wait here.” And she disappeared ’round a corner. The three of us left behind didn’t have anything to say to each other. They were pretty wary of me, and I was too tired to care.
“It’s OK.” She’d returned. “Dad’s still out and Mum’s glued to the telly. We’ll go in the back way.”
The other two looked at each other.
“Britney,