Drive By Page 6

  ‘You know what I mean. We didn’t mean for her to have a heart attack, did we? We didn’t know she had heart disease.’

  Badger nods. ‘J’s right.’

  Jake looks over at Badger. ‘So what? You wanna go to the police? You think we should confess?’

  Badger shrugs. He looks down at the carpet. Then he shakes his head. ‘I don’t know what I think right now.’

  ‘I say we keep quiet,’ Drac says. ‘If the police knew it was us, they’d have arrested us already, wouldn’t they?’

  I don’t say anything, but I guess that makes sense.

  ‘Drac’s right. We shouldn’t tell the police. No way. We should keep quiet,’ Jake says. ‘Badger? Do you agree?’

  He shrugs again. ‘I s’pose.’ He doesn’t exactly look thrilled with the choice.

  ‘J?’ Drac says.

  Jake and Drac stare at me. I don’t like the looks on their faces. They look intimidating, like I should be agreeing with them whatever I think. I look at Badger. He’s still staring at the carpet, picking bits of fluff from it, letting them fall back to the floor. I sigh. I really have no idea what we should do. Neither answer is the right one.

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘I agree. We keep quiet.’

  No one speaks. It feels weird. I don’t want this to be happening. I suddenly get an image of the Poisoned Dwarf in my mind, of her sitting, unsuspecting, in her car as we approached. And I get a guilty, stabbing feeling in my guts. I imagine her now, in hospital, stuffed full of tubes, hooked up to machines that beep. All because of one moment of madness.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Drac says.

  ‘Nothing,’ Jake says. ‘That’s the point. We just act normal, wait for all the fuss to die down. Don’t mention it to anyone. Try not to think about it. She’ll get better. And then it’ll all be forgotten in a couple of weeks.’

  ‘What about the newspapers?’ I say.

  Jake looks at me. ‘What about them?’

  ‘What do I do with them?’

  ‘Deliver them, of course,’ Jake says. ‘Just like everything’s normal.’

  We’re almost entirely silent as we deliver the newspapers. We all help each other out, taking it in turns to take a paper from the trolley and post it through a door. We have my road done in a couple of minutes. But each time a newspaper is pushed through a letter box and I hear it plop down on to a carpet, it feels wrong. It feels like we’re shoving a letter confessing our guilt through every letter box in the area. Any one of the people in the houses we’re delivering to could have seen us messing about with our water pistols that day, could have been passing the shop when we gave the old lady the fright of her life. Maybe we should be shoving the newspapers into a recycling bin instead. All gone, all done with. Who cares if I lose my job?

  But I know why we have to do this. Jake’s right. We need to keep everything the same as normal so we don’t attract any attention. If we keep our heads, if we’re lucky, no one will ever know what we did. It will all blow over and we’ll be able to forget it and the Poisoned Dwarf will be OK. So I keep silently taking my turn, posting the newspapers through letter boxes, trying to get this over with as soon as I can.

  We turn on to Exminster Avenue and my stomach lurches immediately because it dawns on me that we’re gonna have to push one of these newspapers through the letter box of number fifteen. The Poisoned Dwarf’s house.

  We do the first couple of houses. Drac takes the first one, Jake posts the next, then Badger. Then it’s my turn. I take a paper from the trolley, fold it in two without looking at the front cover, and I walk up the front path of number seven, up the step and open the letter box. I push the paper through. It resists for a second, makes a scraping noise as I push it, but then I feel gravity take over. I hear it hit the mat and then the letter box snaps shut. I rush back along the path as Drac takes the next one and delivers it to number nine. In no time at all Jake and Badger have delivered to numbers eleven and thirteen.

  I pause before I pick the next newspaper up from the trolley. I stare at number fifteen. The blinds are closed in the living room. There’s no one standing in the porch. But still my heart beats like mad.

  ‘Come on, J, get a move on,’ Drac says.

  I look round at him. I nod my head. ‘It’s her house,’ I say quietly.

  Drac stares back at me.

  I take a deep breath and I start walking towards the house. I fumble to get the front gate open. It squeaks as it swings open. I walk along the crazy-paving pathway, staring ahead at the porch and at the blinds, praying no one will come to the door as I deliver the paper, that no one will see me. I look down at the newspaper as I fold it in two. As I catch a glimpse of the headline, I think about just making a run for it back along the pathway and carrying on delivering to the other houses. My boss would never find out that I didn’t deliver to 15 Exminster Avenue.

  But my legs carry me forward. And as I reach the glass porch, I find my hand opening the letter box almost against my will. I pause. My hands feel clammy. This feels wrong. It feels cruel. They’re not gonna want to read this. This is the last thing they’re gonna want shoved through their door.

  ‘Hurry up, J,’ Jake calls from the pavement.

  I lift the paper, rest it in the letter box. I push it slowly, inch it inside. It falls. It hits the mat, lands headline side up.

  ‘What was that all about, then?’

  I look at Mikey, but don’t say anything. I go and sit on the sofa and point the remote control at the telly. When the telly comes on, it’s the lame channel that he spends all day watching. I switch over.

  ‘What was the big powwow for?’ Mikey says, sitting down on the sofa next to me.

  I look at him, raise an eyebrow. There’s something in his voice that I don’t like – it sounds as if he’s taunting me. ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘You and your boyfriends,’ he says, smirking.

  I shake my head, look over at the TV. ‘What? I had my friends round, so what? Just because you don’t have any friends, doesn’t mean that no one else does.’

  Mikey lets out a sigh. ‘You all looked like you were bricking yourselves to me,’ he says. ‘Have you done something naughty?’

  ‘Go and play in the road, Mikey,’ I say.

  Mikey sniggers. ‘Your secret’s safe with me.’ He winks and gets up and leaves the room.

  I stay on the sofa, the uneasy feeling in my stomach growing.

  It’s the end of football training. Me and Jake stand around and exchange a look as our coach starts his car. It splutters and coughs, just like he does half the time. He slams the old banger into reverse, turns it around and then chugs out of the car park. We get on our bikes and head home.

  We ride along the pavement quietly, dodging in and out of all the people who are walking towards the supermarket.

  ‘You OK?’ Jake says after a bit.

  I slow down a little, look round at him. ‘Yeah. Why? What do you mean?’

  ‘You just seem quiet today.’

  As if that should be a surprise to him given what we found out yesterday.

  ‘Just thinking about stuff,’ I say.

  Jake doesn’t reply. He hasn’t said anything about yesterday. I don’t know whether he just doesn’t think it’s important or whether he doesn’t want to think about it. Me, I can’t help but think about it.

  ‘About the old lady. The Poisoned Dwarf,’ I say. ‘I feel bad about what happened.’

  Jake still doesn’t say anything. We get to the railway bridge where the pavement narrows. There’s someone coming the other way, so we jump down off our bikes and wheel them through.

  ‘You need to relax about all that old lady stuff,’ Jake says quietly. ‘We didn’t mean to give her a heart attack. How were we to know she had a heart condition?’

  ‘Do you think she’ll be all right though?’

  ‘How should I know? Probably.’

  I think about the old lady, wondering whether she’s still in hospital, whether she
could have died and we don’t know about it. Jake has a look about him like he doesn’t have a care in the world and I can’t understand it.

  ‘Don’t you even feel a bit guilty?’ I say.

  He turns to me. ‘A bit,’ he says. ‘Course I do. But I’m not gonna waste the rest of my life worrying about it. There’s nothing I can do about it now, is there?’

  I sigh. ‘But if we hadn’t shot at her with our water pistols, she probably wouldn’t have had a heart attack, which means it is our fault.’

  ‘Look. The old lady had a heart condition, right? It said that in the newspaper. If it hadn’t been us shooting her that gave her a heart attack it would have been something else. It sucks that she had a heart attack, but . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Unless you’ve got a time machine, there’s nothing you can do to change what happened.’

  I wish I did have a time machine. There’s no way I would have shot at her if I’d known. Maybe I should have known. You only need to look at her red, screwed-up face to know that she’s a heart attack waiting to happen.

  ‘Besides, she wasn’t exactly innocent herself,’ Jake says. ‘She slashed Drac’s ball.’

  An angry reply flashes into my mind, but I don’t say anything. I have my eyes set on what lies ahead – the parade of shops where it happened. I feel shaky and nervous. I look at the parking space where the Poisoned Dwarf was parked last week. It’s empty right now.

  The whole incident replays through my mind in slow motion. Aiming in through the car window and firing water at her. Her scream. Her shocked face. Us pedalling away, laughing.

  I wheel my bike along and try to get home as quickly as possible. I feel my cheeks flush as I pass the spot.

  ‘You wanna go and get some chips for lunch?’ Jake asks.

  I shake my head. How can he think about that right now?

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I think I’m gonna go home.’

  But then I see something that takes my mind off everything, makes my heart stop for a second and then race at about a million beats per minute.

  It’s the girl from the bus. Summer. I’m sure it is. She’s walking towards us on the same bit of pavement. Her head is down at the moment. She hasn’t noticed us. I glance at Jake, hoping he hasn’t noticed her, that he doesn’t say anything childish like he did the other day. But he’s too busy looking across at the building site on the other side of the road to notice anything.

  I look back at the girl. It is Summer, definitely. She’s dressed all in black again, earphones in, blowing bubbles with her gum as she walks. As she approaches us she looks at me. I stare back at her, not sure whether she’s recognised me or not. But then she smiles, so I smile back. I wonder whether I should stop and try and have a conversation with her, or whether Jake will butt in and ruin it all. As I’m trying to work out what I’m gonna do, she reaches into her bag and takes out her phone, which is ringing. She pulls her earphones out and puts the phone to her ear.

  ‘Hello, Mum,’ I hear her say.

  I see something fall from her bag and hit the pavement. In a second, she’s passed us, gone towards the shop.

  I put my bike down. ‘Watch my bike for me,’ I say to Jake.

  I go over to what Summer dropped on the ground. As I get close, I realise it’s her bus pass. I bend down and pick it up and then I run along the road after her.

  ‘Hey,’ I call. ‘Summer.’

  She doesn’t hear me.

  ‘Summer!’

  Again she doesn’t look round. She opens the shop door and goes inside. I follow her in and up an aisle to where the milk is kept. I stretch out my arm and tap her on the shoulder. She kind of jumps and then turns round. She stares at me. She looks scared to begin with. Then she sees it’s me and she smiles.

  ‘Hi,’ she says, taking her phone away from her ear for a second.

  I hold out her bus pass. ‘You dropped this.’

  She stares at it for a second. Then she reaches out and takes it from me. She looks at me again and my heart skips a beat. ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘Johnny.’

  We stand and look at each other and I think that I should say something. I should talk to her. I might never see her again in my life. But after a couple of seconds she puts her phone back to her ear and says, ‘Sorry, Mum . . .’

  I start trying to say ‘See you around’, but it kind of catches in my throat. I turn and head back out of the shop.

  I pick up my bike.

  ‘Who was that?’ Jake says.

  ‘Uh?’ I say. ‘Oh, just a girl. She dropped something, that’s all.’

  Jake doesn’t say anything more and we carry on walking, pushing our bikes. As I walk, I wish I’d thought of something to say to start a conversation other than ‘you dropped this’. I’m hopeless.

  ‘Johnny?’ Mum says as she walks into the living room.

  I ignore her and stare at the TV.

  ‘Johnny, do you know what happened to this week’s paper?’

  I look up straight away. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I can’t find it anywhere. Did you deliver one to us or not?’

  I don’t say anything. I didn’t deliver one, no. I didn’t want Mum or Dad to read about what me and my friends did. I know our names weren’t in the paper, but I just felt weird about it. They can always see through me when I’m lying or trying to keep a secret, and I thought they’d do the same this time.

  ‘Um. I think so, yeah,’ I say.

  Mum looks confused. ‘I asked your dad and he said he hasn’t seen it though.’

  ‘I’ve seen it,’ Mikey pipes up. ‘In the recycling bin in the front garden.’

  ‘Really?’ Mum says. ‘Did you put it there, Johnny?’

  I shake my head and hope that my cheeks aren’t starting to flush.

  ‘Mikey?’ Mum says.

  Mikey shakes his head. ‘Why would I do that?’

  Mum leaves the room to go and retrieve the newspaper from the bin.

  Summer

  Mum walks into the kitchen and puts her handbag down on the table. She comes over and kisses me on the top of my head.

  ‘Good day?’

  I nod. ‘Yeah, OK.’

  ‘Good,’ she says. She goes straight to the kettle and fills it at the sink. ‘Drink?’

  I shake my head. ‘I went over to see Grandad for a bit today,’ I say.

  Mum plugs the kettle in. Then she stops and looks at me. ‘Oh, yes. How was he?’

  ‘Fine, I think,’ I say. ‘He was doing some gardening.’

  Mum nods. She starts looking through cupboards for a mug and a tea bag.

  ‘He didn’t mention Nan,’ I say.

  ‘Really?’ Mum says without looking at me.

  ‘Nope. I even asked him how she was and he didn’t say a word. He just gave me her library books and asked me to take them back to the library for him.’

  ‘That sounds like a typical man,’ Mum says. ‘Totally emotionally retarded!’

  ‘Mum!’ I say. ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘Sorry, love,’ she says. ‘That came out wrong.’

  Neither of us says anything for a bit. Mum busies herself making a cup of tea and I sit and think. When she’s done making her tea, Mum comes and sits at the table with her drink.

  ‘Do you think Nan’s gonna be all right?’

  Mum looks deep into my eyes and smiles. She puts her hand on top of mine and rubs it. She nods. ‘I’m sure of it,’ she says. ‘She’s a tough cookie, your nan.’

  I smile back, but I wonder whether that’s just the kind of thing that you say to make someone feel better or whether Mum really does think she’s gonna get better.

  ‘We could go and see her if you like,’ Mum says. ‘The ward is open to visitors in a bit.’

  I shake my head. I don’t want to see Nan in the hospital again. It makes me feel weird. It makes me feel nervous. I want to see her back at home.

  ‘Well, I could phone the hospital,’ Mum says. ‘They could tell us exactly how she
is.’

  ‘Can you? Please.’

  Mum sits for a while, sipping tea. She must be able to sense something from me, because after a few seconds she says, ‘You want me to phone them now, don’t you?’

  I nod. I feel like a little girl again.

  Mum gets up from the table and goes through to the lounge. She takes the phone and dials the number for Nan’s ward. I hang around close to her, desperate to hear the news. But I can’t work anything out just from Mum’s side of the conversation, because all she says is ‘yeah’ and ‘OK’ and ‘oh’. At the end of the conversation, she puts the phone back in its cradle. It seems to take an eternity for her to look back at me and open her mouth.

  ‘She’s doing well,’ Mum says.

  A wave of relief washes over me.

  ‘She’s not one hundred per cent, obviously, but she might be able to come out of hospital soon.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘They did say that she’s very weak though,’ Mum says. ‘She’s going to need a lot of rest and recuperation.’

  I’m so relieved.

  ‘Feel better now?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks, Mum.’

  Johnny

  Instead of relaxing at home like I should be, I’m heading down the high street at two thirty in the afternoon. I have my earphones in and I’m carrying a plastic bag full of milk and bread and all the other stuff Mum put on the shopping list for me to get. The sky overhead is starting to look nasty. The clouds have rolled in and it’s almost dark. It feels like it’s gonna chuck it down any second now. I start walking faster, hoping I can get home before it starts cos I’m in just my T-shirt and shorts.

  I turn left at the lights and then cross the road, hurrying along, swapping the carrier bag from hand to hand to stop it digging in and leaving a mark in my skin. I walk on, take the road on the right before the parade of shops, try not to look at them or think about what happened there, and then I’m on Exminster Avenue. I cross straight over, so I’m on the side where all the even-numbered houses are. I’ve started doing it every time I walk down this road. I don’t want to walk past the Poisoned Dwarf’s house. I feel guilty every time I see it.