Drive By Page 8

  As I’m eating, I can tell Mikey’s staring at me. Eventually, I decide to look back at him. I slowly and really deliberately switch my gaze from the window to Mikey, raising an eyebrow as I do it.

  ‘What are you looking at?’

  Mikey shrugs. He shakes his head. ‘Dunno, it hasn’t got a label,’ he says through a mouthful of chewed chocolate flakes.

  I stare at him. I roll my eyes. He continues staring at me and a strange look comes over his face, like he’s trying to figure something out. It makes me feel paranoid.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You look rough,’ he says.

  ‘Thanks.’

  I get an urge to give him a dead leg or something, but I resist; he’d just get me in trouble for it. So I look away from him and spoon cereal into my mouth.

  There’s no sound for a moment or two, apart from the sound of me eating and scraping my bowl. The whole time I’m eating, I can sense Mikey looking at me.

  ‘What is it now?’

  ‘You look tired,’ Mikey says with a smirk. ‘Did you sleep OK?’

  ‘What’s it to you whether I’m tired or not?’

  He shrugs again. ‘Just making an observation.’ He picks up his bowl and the local paper and gets up from the table. ‘Dunno why you’re so twitchy about it though.’

  Summer

  I hate today. It’s weird and horrible. The flat seems quiet and sad. I don’t know what to say to Mum. I don’t know what to do with myself. I tried watching TV for a bit. And then I tried to read. But it felt wrong. I feel like I shouldn’t be doing anything that I like doing, that I enjoy doing. It feels disrespectful. I keep imagining what Nan would think if she looked down on me from heaven or wherever she is and saw me smile or laugh or something.

  I always used to feel the same about Dad. Mum once told me he could see me from wherever he was. She was trying to be nice, I know she was. She said it once when I came home from school upset. It was just one of those things where someone talks about their dad and then looks at you and remembers that you don’t have a dad and mumbles, ‘Sorry. I didn’t think.’ Which always makes it much worse. I probably wouldn’t even have noticed they were talking about dads till they pointed it out. And it upset me even though it was stupid. So Mum said her thing about Dad always being there, seeing me. And it made me feel better. It really did. It made me feel warm and special and normal. But the more I thought about it, the more I got freaked out. Because nobody wants their parents to know everything about them, to see everything they get up to, do they? How embarrassing would that be! There are some things which shouldn’t be seen by anyone else, especially not your family.

  So today I’ve been hanging around doing nothing, just stroking Petal and thinking. I haven’t even cried. Which is strange because I am upset and I usually cry at the drop of a hat. I cry when I watch films or listen to music or read a book. I even cry when someone gives me good news. And even though I feel awful, and I feel sorry for Nan and for Grandad too, the tears haven’t come. I can’t explain it. Maybe I’m in shock.

  ‘You should go and do something,’ Mum says to me as she comes and sits next to me on the sofa.

  I shake my head.

  ‘You should,’ Mum says. ‘It’ll make you feel better to be doing something rather than just moping around.’

  I shake my head. ‘I don’t want to. Nan’s dead. I don’t want to do anything.’

  Mum puts her arm round me. ‘She wouldn’t want to think of you just sitting around being unhappy, Summer. Would she now?’

  I shake my head. Mum pulls me in towards her. And for the first time, tears form and start to fall.

  Johnny

  There was a list on the side in the kitchen this morning and with the list was a twenty-pound note. Whatever change is left from the twenty, Mum had written in the note, is for me. To be honest, I don’t think the twenty will even cover all the stuff on the list. Why Mum can’t go to the supermarket after work like any normal person, I don’t know.

  So here I am, on my afternoon off, in the supermarket again, scanning through the list, mentally checking everything off it. I realise I’ve forgotten potatoes, which are right back at the other end of the store, near the entrance. I think for a second that maybe I just won’t go and get them. It would serve Mum right for treating me like a slave. But then I realise that it’ll probably mean I won’t get fed tonight.

  I sigh, turn the trolley around and push it back along the central aisle towards the fruit and veg section, which is like trying to swim against the tide. For every five steps I take, I have to stop and make way for someone else. I lose count of the number of people that roll their eyes or tut at me for having the nerve to walk in the opposite direction to them.

  As I’m standing in the fruit and veg aisles, searching for the potatoes, I catch sight of someone I recognise. Summer. My stomach does a somersault. I stare at her for a second. She’s got a shopping basket in her right hand and she’s inspecting a bag of carrots as though she’s never seen anything like them before in her life.

  I wonder what she’s doing here. Maybe she has evil parents like mine who make her do all their chores while they’re at work. If that’s true then that’s something else we have in common.

  Just as I realise I’ve been staring at her for ages and I should be searching for potatoes, Summer glances up at me. Before I even think about what I’m doing, I look away, as though I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t have. And when I look up again to see if she’s still looking at me, she’s vanished.

  I hear a voice over my shoulder.

  ‘Hello again, Johnny.’

  I turn. It’s her. My heart starts racing. My brain goes into overdrive, trying to think of something to say that isn’t complete gibberish.

  ‘Um. Hi,’ I say. ‘Summer.’ Immediately I realise how stupid I sound. I wish I knew how to talk to girls. I haven’t got a scooby what to say to her, but I know that I want to talk to her. I want her to talk to me. I want her to like me.

  Summer looks at my trolley. ‘You doing the family shop?’ she says.

  I feel myself blush. I suddenly become very aware of all the embarrassing things in the trolley, like cheap toilet roll and budget baked beans. ‘Yeah. Something like that. My parents are slave-drivers.’ I look at her basket. Her shopping is as dull as mine. ‘How about you?’ I say. ‘Your parents slave-drivers as well?’

  Summer smiles and then screws her face up. She nods. ‘Pretty much, yeah. My mum made me go and shop for my grandad, which explains all the boring stuff in the basket.’ She flourishes a hand towards the goods in her basket – mainly frozen meat pies and tinned vegetables – and screws her face up again.

  I smile at her and try and think of something else to say.

  ‘So, Johnny, what do you do when you’re not running errands for your mum or riding buses?’

  I shrug. ‘Sleep?’

  Summer laughs. ‘Your life sounds about as rock and roll as mine.’

  ‘Rock and Roll are my middle names,’ I say.

  She smiles. She looks down at the floor for a second and then bites her lip. It makes her look amazing.

  ‘Well, Johnny,’ she says, looking up at me, ‘maybe we should meet up some time and be rock and roll together. What do you think?’

  I’m silent. Shocked. Did she really just say that? ‘Um. Yeah. Totally.’

  She smiles.

  And reality seems to distort. Before my very eyes, an amazing-looking, cool, interesting girl gives me her phone number and takes mine. This has never happened before. This is unprecedented. I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not imagining it.

  ‘You’ll call me, right?’ Summer says.

  I nod my head.

  Summer smiles. ‘Brilliant.’ And then she goes.

  I stand and watch her for a second, still in shock. Then I take my stuff to the till and pay. God knows how I actually manage to do that though cos my head feels like someone’s sucked my brain out and replaced it wi
th candyfloss or something. I grin like an idiot all the way home.

  Summer

  I can’t sleep. I’ve been in bed for ages. My brain won’t switch off. I’ve been thinking about how weird it was at Nan and Grandad’s house without Nan. I started imagining Grandad, sitting there in the evening on his own. I imagined him sitting there quietly, just the sound of all the clocks in the house ticking loudly for company, chiming every quarter of an hour.

  And I wondered whether Nan has a spirit. I wondered whether she was just dead and gone and that was it, or whether she could see us from wherever she was now. I imagined her looking down at Grandad. I wondered what she’d be thinking as she watched him. Probably something like, ‘It’s about time you had a haircut, Harry’, knowing Nan.

  And then I started thinking about Johnny. I can’t believe that I was so brazen! I’m not usually like that. But I figured, life’s too short to wonder what might have been. And it felt good. It felt right. I wondered whether it was fate that kept bringing us together or whether it was just coincidence. Maybe it was like some weird telepathy thing between us. Maybe we keep searching each other out, maybe we keep being in the same places as each other because we want to be.

  I sat for ages and tried to work out whether I should text him. My heart told me to do it. I want to see him again soon. But my head told me not to. I should wait for him to get in touch with me. I was the one that took the initiative and suggested we swap numbers. It’s his turn now. He promised he’d call. So it’s his turn to show that he likes me by getting in touch.

  But he hasn’t been in touch. He hasn’t texted, despite the fact that I’ve spent ages staring at my mobile, willing a message to come through. I even did what I said to myself I wouldn’t do – I wrote a text message to him. But when I’d finished it, I couldn’t send it. I’d look desperate – and that’s not a good look for anyone. I saved it in my drafts folder instead. I’ll wait for him. I’ll give him till the weekend to phone me or text me. And if he hasn’t by then, I’ll do it. He does seem kind of shy after all.

  I lean over and put my mobile down on my bedside table, switch the light off and, eventually, go to sleep.

  Johnny

  A jolt surges through my body. I see the Poisoned Dwarf in her car, slumped back in her seat. Unconscious? Dead? My heart thumps in my chest. I feel confused. I don’t know where I am or what’s going on. I feel panicked. I sit up and open my eyes. My heart pounds. I feel breathless.

  Gradually, my heart slows a little and I realise I’ve been dreaming. I’m in bed, at home, freezing cold but drenched in sweat. My covers are off – half off the bed, in fact. I look over at the window. It’s wide open. The curtains billow in the breeze. I look at the clock. 2.43 a.m. I sigh. Again. This is the second night in a row, same time both nights. How can that be?

  I sit and stare for a while, trying to work out what’s going on, how my window could possibly be open when I know for certain I shut and locked it before I went to bed.

  I have a strange feeling, like I’m not alone. There’s no sign of anyone else in the room with me, not that I can see. It feels like someone else is here though. Someone I can’t see. I can’t explain what it is. I just have the feeling. I know someone is here other than me. It makes me uncomfortable. I shiver. I feel vulnerable.

  I open the drawer of my bedside table. The window key’s still there in exactly the same position I put it earlier. I made sure I locked the window before I went to bed, I’m sure I did, though now I’m beginning to doubt myself. I don’t like this one bit. This is freaking me out a little.

  I take the key and go over to the window. I look at the frame, but I can’t see anything strange. I look down at the moonlit garden. Everything seems completely still. I close the window and lock it again. I try the window, just to make sure it’s properly locked. Just as I’m about to put the key back in the bedside drawer, I think again and change my mind. I’m gonna keep hold of the key, just in case. I close my fingers tightly around it.

  I sit down on my bed feeling stupid, feeling like someone’s watching me, laughing at me. Someone must be trying to wind me up, watching how I’m reacting. It must be Mikey. It’s exactly the kind of lame thing he’d do to get a laugh.

  I decide to investigate. I pull a T-shirt and some boxers on and open my bedroom door. Out on the landing I can hear snoring coming from Mum and Dad’s room. I go straight past their door and put my hand on Mikey’s door handle. I open the door silently and take a step forward into his room. It’s dark. My eyes take a few seconds to adjust. The smell of Mikey’s room assaults my nostrils – socks and body odour. He could do with opening his window more often.

  I take another step inside and look at Mikey’s bed. He’s lying there asleep. I bend down next to him, check he’s not just pretending. I hear him murmur something in his sleep, but I can’t work out what he’s saying. He seems fast asleep though. It can’t have been him that was in my room – he’s not that good an actor.

  I back out of his room and shut the door behind me. I stand on the landing for a minute, collecting my thoughts. I feel strange. I almost wish Mikey had been sitting up in his bed, laughing at me. At least that way I’d know why my window was open. Because, if it wasn’t him, then who was it? There has to be someone else in the house, hasn’t there? The thought terrifies me. I look nervously at the dark corners around me, wondering if one of them is concealing someone, something.

  I take a deep breath and think. Maybe I should wake Dad up, tell him someone’s in the house. But I decide not to. What if there is no one? Dad will think I’m mad. No. I’ll check the rest of the house myself. I go back to my room and grab my cricket bat for protection. The slightest movement and whoever it is, they’re getting hit for six. No messing around.

  I go into the bathroom first, cricket bat raised, ready to strike. I kick the door open with my foot, like they always do in films, and then wait for a second. I move quickly into the room, but it’s empty except for me and the shadows cast by the moonlight streaming in through the window.

  So I head downstairs, taking the steps slowly, my ears and eyes on stalks. I reach the last step and turn. And I stop still for a second, listen out for any noise. Absolute silence. I start creeping forward again, through to the kitchen. The door’s already open. I check behind the door, in the boiler cupboard, by the back door. No one’s there. I move back out of the kitchen. I put my hand on the dining-room door handle. I push the door open and stay where I am, just in case there’s anyone in there. I want them to show themselves before I do. Nothing happens. Next I step into the dining room. I check behind the door, under the dining table. Again there’s no sign of anyone.

  There’s only one room left. The front room. If anyone is in the house, they must be in there. My heart thumps even harder in my chest, so loud that I’m sure if there is anyone else down here, they’ll hear it. I close the dining-room door as quietly as I can and creep a couple of steps along the hallway. I stretch my arms before I get to the door, make sure I’m ready to strike if I need to. I let the door swing open and then step inside. My eyes quickly scan the room and it’s clear that no one else is here.

  I lower the cricket bat and slouch into a chair. I close my eyes and think. What is going on? Am I losing it? I could swear someone else was in the house, that someone was watching me, that someone had opened my window. But my mind must be playing tricks on me cos there sure as hell isn’t anyone awake here apart from me.

  ‘Who are you?’ I say aloud to the room, to the house, to whoever opened my bedroom window. ‘What are you? Where are you?’

  There’s no answer. I realise how ridiculous I must sound, how useless I must look. And I feel embarrassed. I’m being totally paranoid. After a few minutes, I get up from the chair and head back upstairs. As I get to the top of the stairs, I hear footsteps. I freeze. I get ready with the cricket bat. And then I see him. Walking out of the toilet. Dad. He looks blearily up at me.

  ‘Johnny? What on earth are you
doing?’

  I must look utterly stupid to him. I lower the cricket bat. ‘I thought I heard someone downstairs.’

  ‘Really? Was there anyone there?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  I nod. For a second I consider telling him, but I know that I won’t. I sigh. ‘Yeah, I’m all right.’

  ‘Good,’ Dad says. ‘Go and get some sleep, Johnny. Next time tell me if you hear anything. I don’t want you being a hero.’

  I go back to my room.

  Summer

  I see Sky struggling with her bag and her ticket at the barriers before she sees me. When she walks out on to the station concourse I run over towards her.

  ‘Sky! Over here!’

  She stops where she is, drops her bags down and opens her arms wide. I throw my arms open and hug her.

  ‘Wow, Summer,’ she says. ‘You pleased to see me or something?’

  I smile. ‘You could say that.’ I grab one of her bags. ‘Shall we go home, then?’

  Sky scrunches her nose up. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Let’s go and get something to eat first. My treat.’

  Sky leads us out of the station and along the high street. We walk along the street till Sky finds a café she likes the look of. She opens the door and holds it for me.

  It’s a trendy place – loads of recycled furniture and that kind of stuff. There are important-looking people tapping away at their laptops at most of the tables. We go over to the counter and order and then head upstairs, where it’s much quieter. On the table there are plastic flowers made from cut-up bottles and drinking straws standing in old milk bottles. I look at Sky and smile.

  ‘I like this place. It’s cool.’

  Sky smiles. ‘Yeah. It’ll do, won’t it?’

  I smile and look around the café. And I realise that it feels strange being with Sky, like she’s a different person from the one that used to live with us. I’ve hardly seen her for ages and it feels like she’s grown up loads. She’s an adult now, not a kid.