Gone Missing. Jean Ure

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СКАЧАТЬ mum had gone off somewhere she stayed at my place for a couple of days, though I have to say that was a complete disaster owing to Dad and his insane prejudices. He took one look and that was it: that girl has got to go. She couldn’t actually go cos she didn’t have anywhere to go to and not even Dad would throw someone out on the street, but afterwards he said she was a bad influence and I hadn’t got to see her any more. We had some of our worst rows over that. Not that it stopped me seeing her! It hardly could, considering we went to the same school. Course, when Darcy got excluded Dad was like “I told you so! I said that girl was no good.” That was when Darcy’s mum said she couldn’t cope and sent her off to London to live with her sister, and I took up with Marnie, instead.

      “Darcy didn’t like me,” said Honey.

      “She didn’t even know you!” I said.

      “She wouldn’t want me.”

      “Look, we’d only be there a few days, till we found somewhere else. I’m not going without you,” I said. “How could I go off and leave you here, all by yourself? If we do this, we gotta do it together!”

      She was back at her lip munching again. I did wish she wouldn’t!

      “Honey?” I said. “Are you listening?”

      She dipped her head.

      “So are we agreed? We could go and crash with Darcy. Just for a few days, till we get sorted. OK?”

      The bus pulled up at the Green Man, and we both got out. I said, “Yes?”

      “Yes, all right,” said Honey. “But what would we do afterwards?”

      “After we got sorted?”

      “After we’d stopped crashing with Darcy.”

      “We’d go and crash somewhere else!”

      “But where?”

      “How do I know where?” My fantasies hadn’t reached that far. I’d only got as far as the actual running away. “I can’t plan everything at once,” I said. “Some things you just have to…wait for them to happen!”

      “What we have to do,” I said, “we have to cover our tracks.”

      It was Tuesday, and we were on the bus again. Going in to school, this time.

      “It’s very important,” I said. “We have to lay a trail.”

      Honey had been looking faintly worried, like she didn’t quite know what I was talking about. When I said lay a trail, she brightened.

      “Bread crumbs!” she said.

      I said, “Yeah, right! Bread crumbs! Remember those two boys we met that time? Ian, and—” I waved a hand.

      “Duncan.” She blushed. Duncan had been the one she fancied. I think he’d fancied her a bit, too. We’d gone into Birmingham for the day, just me and Honey on our own, and we’d bumped into these two lads in McDonald’s and got talking. We’d really hit it off! Well, to be honest, Honey and Duncan had hit it off. Boys always went for Honey. In spite of her dad being Italian, she had this silvery hair and ivory skin, like her mum, but with her dad’s eyes, deep and dark, like rich chocolate. I guess she was what you’d call striking. Mum always said that with looks like those she would need to be careful. I knew what she meant. It doesn’t do to be too trusting, and Honey had this tendency, she’d trust anyone that was nice to her.

      “Duncan McAleer,” said Honey.

      Wow! She’d even remembered his surname. It was more than I’d done. I hadn’t even remembered his first name. All I remembered was that they’d lived in Glasgow. They’d given us their addresses and said to call if ever we were up there. I’d chucked the addresses in the bin cos a) I couldn’t see I’d ever be going to Glasgow, not in the foreseeable future, and b) even if I did I wouldn’t particularly want to meet up with them again. Duncan wasn’t actually too bad, but Ian had been a geeky little thing with red hair and a pointy nose and a face like a ferret. Yuck! Not my type at all.

      “Is that where we’re going to go?” said Honey. “To Glasgow?”

      I said, “No! That’s where the bread crumbs are going to go.” I could see that I’d lost her, but the bus was starting to fill up and I didn’t have time to explain. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

      “Why can’t you tell me now?”

      “Because it’s a secret,” I hissed. “Our secret…just between you and me. Right?”

      She nodded. “OK.”

      “Promise you won’t tell anyone!”

      Honey was always very biddable. She ran a finger across her throat. “Slit my throat and hope to die.”

      I giggled. “You probably would die, if you slit your throat!”

      She meant “cross my heart” but she sometimes got things a bit muddled. It could be quite funny.

      On the way home that afternoon, I explained to her what I meant about the bread crumbs. I’d stayed awake half the night hatching elaborate plots, laying false trails, like I was in some kind of spy movie.

      “We have to make them think we’ve gone to Glasgow. Not London. We don’t want them to be on to us!”

      Honey muched at her lip. “Why can’t we do it the other way round? Make them think we’ve gone to London?”

      “Because we are going to London!”

      “I’d rather go to Glasgow.”

      “We don’t know anyone in Glasgow!”

      “Yes, we do. We know Duncan! I’d rather go and stay with Duncan than with Darcy.”

      “Well, we can’t, cos I’ve lost his address. And anyway, we don’t actually know him.”

      “I don’t actually know Darcy.”

      “No, well I do, and that’s where we’re going.”

      Honey fell quiet for a bit. I could see she was turning things over in her mind.

      “Are we really going to run away?” she said.

      “We are if things don’t improve at home! You don’t know what it’s like, living with my dad. And you can’t go on living with your mum. She’ll destroy you! You know that, don’t you? You do know?”

      I fixed her with this stern look. Honey just made a vague mumbling sound and let her eyes slide away. Honey’s mum was like a forbidden subject; she wouldn’t ever talk about her. I went on about Dad practically non stop, but Honey never once said anything bad about her mum. I knew she was a bit frightened of her-not physically, I don’t mean, cos I don’t think her mum was ever violent. It might almost have been better if she had been; at least then someone would have had to sit up and take notice. As it was, I think I was probably the only person that knew how hateful she could be to Honey. Honey was just scared, the whole time, of displeasing СКАЧАТЬ