What We Saw (20 page)

I remembered the accident. Something had happened when me and my dad were driving, smiling at each other. When I’d been on the verge of telling him. Glass peppering against my face, slipping into sleep.
I wonder if he’s okay
. Before I could ask my mum, she walked over to me and put her hand against my head, her strong perfume sweetening its way into my nose.

‘Hello, love,’ she said, kissing my head as she perched on the side of my bed. ‘Looks like you had quite a bump!’

‘Head’s a bit sore,’ I said. My throat felt really dry, as if someone had rubbed sandpaper against it over and over. The way that Donald had helped Adam and me in the den that rainy afternoon, sanding away at the chair.

Donald. I remembered Donald, and oh god, Emily, and all the bad things that were about to happen. I felt a sudden urge rush through me, jolting my body upright. My forehead clattered against my mum’s head. She winced then cuddled me and put me back down into my bed.

‘Someone’s happy to see his mum,’ she said, smiling, her paper white teeth glistening in the over-saturated light of the hospital ward. I smiled back at her and rested my head against the fluffy pillow underneath.

‘My throat’s a bit sore, too,’ I said. ‘Dunno if I’ve spoken for a while.’

My mum stood up and turned towards the wall as the nurse from before popped her head into the room and to see if everything was okay. She seemed like a friendly woman. My mum smiled at her and told her that things were fine.

The nurse winked at me. ‘Looks like you can’t get enough of sleeping, young man!’ She edged towards the door. ‘Don’t go chatter boxing your mum too much or you’ll tire yourself out even more, lazybones.’ She giggled and held her clipboard to her chest before leaving the room. I couldn’t see properly, but it looked like I was in a private sort of room aside from the kid a few beds down. He slept, snoring louder than Gran did. Don’t know how the nurse could have the cheek to call me lazybones when that lad snored away.

Mum poured a glass of water from the jug on the table next to us. The condensation dripped down the side of the jar. She handed me the paper cup, and my throat eased off a little as the freezing water tumbled down into my belly.

‘How long have I been asleep?’ I asked.

Mum stared into my eyes, her smile painted on in an attempt to reassure me. ‘You were out for quite a while, my boy. The accident was yesterday. Gave us all a bit of a shock. But don’t you go worrying about that right now. You drink your water and relax and focus on getting better.’

The last thing I wanted to do was more relaxing. But I felt exhausted and weary. Even moving an arm felt like an enormous effort. The thought that I’d been lifting my arm to eat ice-cream with my dad tired me in itself.

‘Is Dad okay?’ I asked.

Mum rubbed her hands against her legs. ‘Your dad’s okay. Just a few little bruises and scratches.’ She tried to carry on smiling, but it twitched at the corners.
Maybe Mum and Dad had made up when I’d been asleep?

‘Where is he?’ I asked.

My mum looked down and stood up again, pacing around the little diamond of territory that she seemed to have claimed for herself. ‘Oh, he’s back at work. Important job, he said.’ Her face took a turn for the serious before she looked at me again and brought out a forced smile. ‘But he passes on his best, and he’ll see you soon. Just not after a drink next time.’

My mind spun again. Maybe I had been a little optimistic hoping that they’d made up, but I couldn’t be blamed for hoping, right? I wondered if this was it now. If it was all over. The caravan site. My mum and dad.

Emily.

‘You can come back home if you want. I’ll take a bit of time off, and we can spend some time together again. Your summer holidays will be over within a week anyway. It’d be nice to spend a final one at home, wouldn’t it?’

A warmth grew inside me. The feeling of being wanted. But it also felt like I was running away from all the terrible things I’d seen. I felt bad for Adam, after everything he’d been through, but I was a coward, and that’s how I went about things. I’d tell Mum about everything and get her to ring the police when the time was right. I smiled and nodded my head, acknowledging my mum’s offer. Her hair wasn’t as blonde as I’d first thought, but a strange shade between white and yellow. Her nails were bitten down.

Somebody knocked on the door in the corner. I looked up, expecting to see the nurse again but instead, I saw the familiar glint of an earring—my cousin. He straightened his mouth out in a sort of smile with Gran and Granddad following not far behind. They both looked at me cautiously, as if they understood more about my situation than I did. They walked over to me, patted my head and shook my hand. All the typical attention a sick patient receives. I felt old here, as if my role had been reversed. Why should I be the one lying in this bed when a bunch of old people were egging me on to ‘keep my chin up’ and all that?

Granddad had brought me some cake. Judging by his belly and the way he burped, it was leftovers.

‘Look what Gran got for you.’ He burped again and wiped the crumbs from the corner of his mouth.

I smiled and shook my head. ‘Thanks. Think I’ll save it for later.’ My stomach rumbled with hunger, but it was the point that mattered. I had a right to be awkward. The last time I’d looked at Adam and Granddad was when I’d seen them in the mirror of my dad’s car, making what I thought was my grand escape. Perhaps that explained the awkwardness I felt.

‘How you doing?’ Adam asked after the fuss had died down. My gran and granddad chatted about paint and wallpaper with my mum.

‘I’m good, cuz. Sorry about the whole, y’know, barging past you thing.’

Adam shook his head. ‘Nah, it’s fine. It’s fine, I’d have done the same. I was only doing what Granddad said. Plus I guess if you hadn’t you probably would’ve avoided being in a coma for a day, but never mind.’

I felt crushed, and heat raced its way into my cheeks. Adam saw this too, the glint returning to his eyes.

‘Right you,’ Gran said, standing up from the chair at the side of the room. ‘Got some news for you—we’ve had a chat with your mum and you’ll be off home this Friday.’

I felt my stomach sink. I wasn’t sure whether it was relief or disappointment. ‘Ah, okay, cool.’ I tried to smile but my cheeks felt wobbly. My eyes twitched. It was harder to disguise emotions when you were tired.

Gran turned to my mum and they grinned at each other.

‘He’s had a great time,’ Gran said to Mum. ‘They’ve got on so well. Bit of trouble here and there but boys will be boys, eh?’

‘And girls,’ Adam said under his breath. Gran swung round towards him, her eyes wide.
Strange.

‘What d’you mea—’

‘Come here for a big squeeze, you,’ my mum said, interrupting and throwing herself at me.

Mum gave me a big, crushing hug and waltzed off, leaving a cloud of perfume behind her. It smelt so nice. It felt strange to think that I’d be smelling it every day again, back to the normality of life after everything that had happened.

Gran, Granddad, and Adam sat next to me. Granddad had a chat with the nurse, who told us all that if I felt well enough, I was all okay to go back to the caravan tomorrow. I’d have to make sure I had a good rest tonight and ate plenty to get my energy levels back up. And that I couldn’t get too stressed about anything, or it might give me a really bad headache.

Adam shot off to the shop to buy something before returning with a crossword magazine. ‘It’s one of the big ones,’ he said.

Gran tried to grab the magazine from him, but he snatched it away and cradled it under his arms. ‘This is for Liam.’

Gran held her arm in the air for a moment before dropping it and nodding. ‘Excuse your old gran,’ she said, her cheeks flushing. ‘You know what I’m like with my crosswords.’

Adam looked at me directly in the eyes as he handed me the magazine. ‘You promise me you’ll have a go at the Super Crossword in the middle tonight, yes?’ He stared at me.

All this fuss over a crossword magazine, really?
I thought about our mystery. I’d suggest going to the police when I got out of here, maybe leave the professionals deal with it. The professionals had looked after me well here, so I knew they’d take care of things. Emily was in trouble. We couldn’t do anything more now.

‘We’ll be back for you tomorrow,’ Granddad said. ‘Remember to give the nurse a shout if you need us. We aren’t far away at all.’ After that, they left, and I was on my own again.

*

I ate my food as it started to get dark. I had potato and carrots with some meat cut up into small pieces. I wasn’t sure whether it was chicken or pork. That meant that it probably wasn’t really meat at all. After I finished eating, the nurse told me I should get some more rest.
I had been lying down for two days! How could she possibly think I was not getting rest?
Some new people had arrived. There was a spluttering old man who kept farting and didn’t care much about it. He’d fart and waft it out from under the bed sheets. I don’t know if he realised there were three other people in the room with him. Maybe he was mental.

I wasn’t totally sure if I wanted to slip off to sleep in the same room as Farting Man and Snoring Kid, let alone the woman at the far side of the room with the tubes stuck in her nose. Were the tubes up her nose part of what was wrong with her or the cure or something? I picked up the crossword booklet from my bedside desk. The first couple of little puzzles were tricky enough. I wondered how hard the Super Crossword could be. I flicked past the horoscopes and letters that women had sent in about their husbands cheating and finding funny messages on their phones. I opened to the middle pages, supported by the grip of the staples. To my disappointment, somebody had already written in some of the spaces of the crossword my cousin had told me to turn to.

I read the words and realised why Adam was so desperate for me to flick to these exact pages and to do this crossword. I read the words again, making sure I’d taken them all in correctly and that I wasn’t seeing things. I closed my eyes and blinked really hard, hoping that maybe the bump to my head had stopped me from being able to read. I opened my eyes and the message didn’t change. The words still started back at me, blue and capitalised.

I tore out the middle pages and crumpled them up in my hand, not wanting to risk anyone seeing them. My heart raced in my chest as I sunk into my pillow, my eyes dancing, not knowing where to look. As my eyes closed, the image of Adam’s handwritten words was engrained in my mind’s eye, tattooed on the underside of my eyelids until I got some sort of answer.

EMILY’S GONE. COULDN’T SAY IN FRONT OF G + G. THIS IS SERIOUS. EMILY’S DAD IS MENTAL.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Gran and Granddad were there to pick me up from the hospital early the following day. I hadn’t slept much the night before. My head hurt from the crash and ached from the words in the crossword magazine.

Adam was quiet in the car as we made our way through the woodland and back towards the caravan site. He didn’t say anything, in fact, other than the odd grunt when Granddad tried to start conversation. Every now and then he’d turn to me, catching my eye to check that I knew what he was thinking. He was searching for reassurance that I had taken his word and looked at the Super Crossword. A part of me wished that I hadn’t, as important as the information inside it was. I just wanted this whole thing to be over. All of this mess. One way or another, it would be over by Friday.

I nodded at Adam and he nodded back, totally silent. He knew I knew.

As we approached the caravan site, we spotted a familiar figure on the horizon. As the beige jacket and walking stick came into view, I wanted to slide under the chair and vanish. My legs shook. I couldn’t do this right now. Not without knowing what was going on. Adam looked around the car, blinking fast.

Granddad slowed down as he spotted Donald in the distance.

Donald waved at us, signalling to pull up next to him. ‘Hello, you lot. How’s the soldier doing in the back there?’ he said, tapping his walking stick against the window. He crouched down to get a good look at me. I stayed still and battled with my instincts to force a smile. Adam sat, rigid, his back tall against the seat like a meerkat.

Donald started to say something, looking from Gran to me. Gran put a hand against his as it rested against the open window, shaking her head abruptly in both directions. Donald retreated and straightened his face in understanding. I knew what they were on about, and Adam must have known too. How could this man be so cool and so calm after everything he had done and was about to do? I wanted to tell Gran and Granddad everything, right at that moment. I let the scenario play out in my head: the crushing look across his face, Adam’s disbelief that I had spoken out. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. We were so close to solving things. And I didn’t know what the situation was with Emily. It could be dangerous to talk.

*

The silence around the dinner table that evening was unbearable. The chicken in front of me should have tasted brilliant after the hospital food, but instead it tasted more like cardboard. The thick gravy piled on top of the potato was so salty that it took the edge off of everything else. I definitely preferred my mum’s salt-free cooking now. I looked forward to eating at home again. My mum was quite good at coming up with foods, especially Sunday roasts. Except we didn’t really have them on a Sunday all that often. Saturday was a better day. And I didn’t like Yorkshire puddings, so I had more potato instead.

Adam toyed with his food, waiting for it to magically vanish from the plate. Gran and Granddad glanced up at each other every now and then, a look that hinted at the worry underneath. Adam wasn’t supposed to have told me about Emily I don’t think, so I had to play innocent and pretend that I didn’t know anything. They were probably looking for the right time to tell me, when I wasn’t at risk of ‘getting stressed.’ They were only looking out for me, but there were more important matters at hand right now. My friend—no, my girlfriend—had gone missing, and I only had two days left to find her before I was whisked home and transported back into the normal world. And there was all this about Emily’s dad being ‘mental.’ I needed to talk to Adam. Soon. I didn’t know if I could go about my normal life, my school life, carrying such a burden of knowledge. And I knew for certain that Adam would never, ever get over this if we didn’t get to the bottom of it one way or another.