Desperate Measures (5 page)

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ I snapped, ‘I’ve got something in my eye. That’s all.’

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t pretend any more that when we were split up it was only going to be for a while. It was all a big fat porky and I knew it. I’d known it when I’d packed my rucksack (just in case) and followed Jamie and Rhianna out the front door and down to the woods. Deep down I knew I wouldn’t be coming back. Jamie was right.
We weren’t wanted. I just hadn’t wanted to admit it. Not out loud.

When we first went to school, the authorities thought Re could manage without any help but every morning at the school gate Mum would whisper to me, ‘Keep an eye on your sister, Vicky.’ So I did. I looked out for her. Kept the bad kids away. Protected her from danger. Every single day. And now Mum was dead I would always have to look out for her. For ever and ever. Amen. I took a deep breath.

‘So let’s see this fantastic den,’ I said quietly, a few seconds later. With a big grin on her face, Rhianna took me over to the entrance and pulled me in. It looked a bit of a mess. Ten to one it was chock full of creepy crawlies too. Ugh! I hate things like that. I took my rucksack off my back and pulled out my sleeping bag.

‘I thought you wanted to go “home”,’ said Jamie in his ‘I won, so there’ voice.

‘I’m not leaving you two here on your own,’ I said, unrolling my sleeping bag and laying it next to Rhianna’s. ‘Anything could happen.’

When I woke up everything was green. It was like being in the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz except it was cold and the top of my sleeping bag was all damp. I bet Dorothy didn’t have a soggy sleeping bag. I bet hers was all nice and cosy and warm. Something tickly was crawling in my hair and I could hear Jamie and Vicky laughing somewhere. Then I remembered. I wasn’t in the Emerald City, I was in Jamie’s little den in the woods. We’d really done it. We’d really run away together. I wriggled out of my sleeping bag and crawled outside.

‘Welcome to Camp Fun,’ said Jamie in a funny posh voice when he saw me. ‘And would modom care for some breakfast? I’m afraid we’re all out of cereal.’

‘Good!’ I said. ‘Cereal is pantyhose.’

‘But we do have a bag of the finest jam doughnuts.’

He brushed some mud off the bag and opened it. Yippeee! I love doughnuts. Things were getting better and better. (I bet Dorothy didn’t have jam doughnuts.) I put my hand in and pulled out a lovely, squishy, jammy blob.

‘There’s two and a bit each,’ said Vicky, pulling out another one. ‘And there’s milk to drink.’ She sniffed the carton then took a big swig. Milk dribbled down her chin.

‘Vicky you mucky mess pup!’ I laughed.

‘Who cares?’ said Jamie. ‘This is
our
camp. We can do what we like. There’s no rules, no adults to boss us around and no worries!’

‘No worries! No worries! We’ve got no worries!’ I grabbed Vicky’s arm and we danced round and round, laughing and giggling.

Suddenly we heard a noise. Someone was coming. Vicky quickly pushed me back into the den and dived in after me.

‘Don’t make a sound!’ she hissed in my ear.

Jamie pushed his way in and we sat there all in a tumble like we were playing musical bumps. Vicky had trodden on my foot and it was hurting like mad. What if it was Mrs Frankish? She would be so cross she’d turn us all into frogs. I didn’t want to be a frog. I hate frogs. This wasn’t how running away was supposed to be. Jamie said we weren’t going to have any worries. I started crying and Vicky put her hand over my mouth. We listened for a few seconds. Someone was outside walking around. A face appeared at the little doorway.

Vicky and I screamed but Jamie laughed. It was his friend Sam.

‘I was going to knock for you, like we said yesterday, but they’re going barmy back at your house. There’s a police car and everything.’

‘A police car! Great!’ said Jamie.

‘It is not great,’ snapped Vicky, ‘It’s awful. Think what Paul must be going through.’

‘What’s going on?’ Sam asked.

‘Sarah’s in hospital,’ Vicky told him. ‘They can’t foster us any more. We were going to be split up so we came here.’

‘I’m not going back,’ said Jamie.

‘I know,’ I said, ‘maybe we could phone Paul up on Vicky’s mobile and tell him we’re OK but we’ve just run away.’

‘Great idea,’ said Jamie. ‘The minute we do that, they’ll find us.’

‘They’ll soon find you anyway,’ said Sam. ‘They’re going to do a search – I heard the policeman telling some woman.’

‘Mrs Frankish,’ said Vicky.

‘She’s really a witch Sam,’ I said. Someone had to tell him.

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah. She’ll probably get her broomstick out and fly overhead like in The Wizard of Oz,’ I said, feeling all shivery.

‘Don’t you worry Rhianna – we’ll just chuck a load of water over her and she’ll melt into a trail of green slime.’

‘Thanks Sam.’ I liked him.

Vicky looked up. ‘We can’t stay here. We’ve got to go somewhere where they won’t be able to find us. Somewhere a long way away. Somewhere we’ll be safe.’

‘Where’s that?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know, but if we don’t get going right now, we won’t have a chance.’

She started stuffing things back in my rucksack. ‘Rhianna what the hell is all this?’ she exclaimed suddenly, pulling out one of my baldy Barbies.

‘Jamie told me to take all the things I needed. So I did.’

‘I give up,’ sighed Vicky, bundling the rest of my stuff out of the rucksack.

‘Watch my Furby!’

She grabbed the photo Great Auntie Irene had taken. Jamie looked at it.

‘That’s it!’ he shouted. ‘We’ll go and stay at Great Auntie Irene’s.’

‘But she’s really old,’ said Vicky.

‘So? We can help her with chores and things she can’t do any more . . . Carry heavy shopping and take Jip for long walks for her. It’s perfect!’

‘How are we going to get there Jamie?’ asked Vicky. ‘She lives miles away out in the country. Don’t you remember the journey there, with you throwing up all the time and Rhianna asking if we were nearly there so many times that she drove Dad bonkers. Anyway, how much money have you got?’

‘Twenty pence.’

‘Rhianna?’

‘Nothing.’

Vicky put her hand in her pocket and bought out some money. ‘Forty pounds. Our birthday money. That won’t get us far.’

‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Jamie, stuffing his sleeping bag back in his rucksack. ‘Get your things together. We’ve got to hurry.’

Sam helped me bundle all my stuff back in my rucksack but Vicky was getting cross because Jamie wouldn’t tell us where we were going. When we were all ready he just said, ‘Follow me!’ and charged off at a hundred miles an hour.

‘Jamie! Sam! Slow down. Wait for us!’ I didn’t like to yell in case someone heard us, but it was still early and luckily we didn’t meet anyone. Jamie led us out of the woods along the footpath by the gas works and up the back roads to Mr McCready’s depot. There were a few lorries parked inside the tatty yard, which was edged with rusty iron railings.

We watched from behind a scrubby bush. The place was pretty quiet. Too early for McCready, the old crook. It was partly his fault about Dad. He was always getting him to drop off his dodgy stuff. Maybe Dad didn’t realise that it was all stolen, I thought suddenly. Maybe Dad was completely innocent and had just ended up being the fall guy . . . Huh. Who was I kidding? Dad knew full well what he was doing.

There were a couple of drivers in the portakabin having
a brew before they set off on their journeys. I could see them inside, laughing and chatting and swigging their tea. I recognised one of them. It was Pete, one of Dad’s old mates from years back. He was all right, was Pete. Used to give us wine gums. He carried round bumper packs of them because he was trying to give up smoking, but he just got addicted to them instead. Pete always used to do the same trip up north, covering the same territory and always dropping in to see his ‘old Mum’ on the way. Then I clicked. I understood Jamie’s plan. Pete’s mum lived about thirty miles away from Great Auntie Irene – one year Pete had even made a detour to her house to deliver some Christmas presents from us.

If we could just get on to his lorry he’d unknowingly take us most of the way for free. Perfect. I grinned at Jamie who was looking pretty pleased with himself.

‘Not bad, you little tyke,’ I said. ‘Come on.’

Carefully we climbed up and over the railings into the yard, then scuttled towards the parked lorries. But which one was Pete’s? I hadn’t got a clue. If we got on the wrong one it would be a disaster. We could end up anywhere. Suddenly Rhianna started jumping up and down excitedly.

‘Shut up, Rhianna!’ I hissed at her.

‘It’s this one!’ she said, pointing to a red lorry with a battered knitted teddy bear tied to the grill at the front. ‘Remember?’ she asked. ‘Pete told me his name’s Lucky.’

Inside the cab on the dashboard we found three full packets of wine gums and the debris of several others. Rhianna was right. This was definitely Pete’s lorry.

As quickly and quietly as we could, we went round the back. Pete’s teddy bear was bringing us luck too – the doors were unlocked. We scrambled in and said our goodbyes to Sam. Jamie made him swear he wouldn’t tell anyone where we were going. He promised and closed the doors after us. We groped our way forward in the semi-dark, sat ourselves down behind some cardboard crates and waited.

About ten minutes later we heard the doors being rattled and locked and then the sound of Pete getting into his cab. We heard him start up the engine and then felt a sudden lurch forward as the lorry pulled out of the depot.

We’d done it. We were on our way. Jamie gave me a thumbs-up and I grinned back at him. We were together, the three of us, and everything was going to be all right.

We got out our sleeping bags and quietly made ourselves as comfortable as possible. I was petrified Pete might hear us so we sat in silence to start with, huddled together, listening to the drone of the lorry’s engine. After a while we became a bit more confident and started talking in whispers about all the things we were going to do when we got to Great Auntie Irene’s. A couple of hours passed and the journey dragged on. We were quiet now. And tired. Jamie and Rhianna fell asleep, one after the other, which was probably a good thing as they wouldn’t feel sick. About another two hours later I was just beginning to doze off when I felt the lorry pull to a halt. Maybe we’re at Pete’s mum’s, I thought.

Quickly, I woke Rhianna and Jamie and we hid behind some of the boxes. We waited, hardly daring to breathe as we heard the doors at the back of the lorry open. From
behind the boxes we could hear Pete rearranging some of the crates near the doors. I looked over at Jamie and saw to my horror he was pulling really strange faces. What on earth was he playing at? Now wasn’t the time for silly games. Suddenly I realised. He was trying to stop himself sneezing.

All at once he let out an enormous ‘Ahhhh-tishooo!’

‘Who’s in there?’ Pete called out roughly. ‘Come on – show yourself. Get out of there now!’

There was nothing for it. We all stood up.

‘Pete?’ I called. ‘It’s only us. Neil Davies’s kids.’

‘Neil’s kids?’ He lowered the crowbar he was holding. ‘Vicky, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah. It’s me and Rhianna and Jamie.’

‘What are you all doing in my lorry?’

‘Running away,’ Rhianna chipped in before I could stop her.

‘Jamie, go and help Rhianna a minute,’ I said as I quickly jumped down from the back of the lorry and pulled Pete to one side. I glanced round. We weren’t at his mum’s at all. We were in a huge car park full of lorries – part of a motorway service station.

‘Pete,’ I said. ‘We need your help.’

‘Where’s your dad then? Haven’t seen him for ages.’

‘Working abroad,’ I lied.

‘Oh right.’

I could feel my cheeks burning. ‘We’re just going to stay with someone else for a bit. We needed a lift.’

‘Sure,’ said Pete quietly. ‘Look, the lorry’s full of apples.
Go and help yourself. I just need a break for five minutes or so then we’ll get going.’

He walked to the cab and I dashed back to Rhianna.

‘Where’s Jamie?’

‘Said he wanted to stretch his legs. Is Pete cross?’

‘No. Everything’s going to be fine,’ I told her. ‘We’re going to be OK!’

She’d already got stuck into the apples. I told her to go easy or she’d end up with a bellyache. Just then Jamie appeared from round the other side of the lorry.

‘Why’s Pete talking about us?’

‘What?’ I asked.

‘On his mobile.’

My stomach lurched.

‘Quick!’ I hissed. ‘Get your stuff!’

We snatched up our bags. I looked round desperately. Which way? Beyond the car park, cars and lorries were roaring up and down the motorway. All around us were people, stretching their legs, sprawled out on the grass eating picnics and take-aways from boxes, exercising their dogs and taking a break from their journeys. The car park was fringed by a deserted stretch of scrubby woodland. Our only way out.

‘Come on.’ I grabbed one of Rhianna’s hands and Jamie grabbed the other. Then . . . we ran. And ran.

Vicky and Jamie pulled me along so hard my arms hurt. I yelled at them to stop but they wouldn’t, even when I said I felt sick.

‘You shouldn’t have eaten all those apples Re,’ said Vicky.

‘I didn’t eat them all, I only had five. There were boxes and boxes left.’

Vicky wouldn’t tell me where we were going. I thought we were going to get back in Pete’s lorry and ride in the front with him like I did once with Dad, but Vicky said we couldn’t. She always spoils everything.

I was still feeling sick when we ran out of the wood and came to a road. I wanted to stop but Vicky said we had to keep going. But I didn’t want to so I started crying. Vicky was shouting at me and Jamie was trying to pull me along when this car stopped. The lady driver wound down the
window and asked if we were OK.

‘Fine thank you,’ Vicky told her. ‘We’re just going back home . . . um . . . we’re a bit late. Our mum hates it when we’re late.’

I looked at her. She was going bright red like a tomato.