Gone by Anna Bloom Read Free Book Online Page A

idea what to say. What are you supposed to say to that? So I don’t. Turning my attention away from the taunting green eyes I scrutinize the rust bucket parked haphazardly in the lane by the cottage. Its nose is buried in the honeysuckle creeping along the garden wall and it has a wheel precariously balanced half on the curb.
    “What is this?”
    “Daisy.”
    “You named your car?”
    Technically it is not a car, despite the covering of honeysuckle debris I can clearly make out it’s a Volkswagen camper. A Volkswagen camper that has seen far better days.
    “ Daisy meet Bex. Bex meet Daisy.”
    Pulling open the passenger door I slide myself in, glancing at the mountain of mess littering the interior. There are crisp packets and empty coke bottles everywhere.
    “I refuse to shake hands.”
    “You just did.”
    I roll my eyes but can’t prevent the lip twitch that hints at my smile. I bite my lip to stop the foreign sensation of a lip twitch extending into a full smile.
    Joshua cranks the engine and the ‘thing’ shudders to life. Music blares at a deafening level and I put my hands over my ears.
    “No Beach Boys?” I shout over the thundering noise.
    Joshua twirls the stereo dial and lowers the music. “Sure it’ s in here.” Leaning right over to my side he tugs hard on the door to the glove box which falls open onto my knees, causing thirty cassette tapes to clatter to the ground.
    Surely they stopped making those things a decade or so ago? I laugh, I can’t help myself. Then I stop. I haven’t made that noise in, I don’t know how long. It feels strange and unnatural bursting from my lips like that.
    Easi ng myself back into the seat, I strap up my belt and attempt some small talk with the complete stranger taking me out for the day. “Leather seats?” Yep. Small talk is another talent I lack.
    “100 % PVC.”
    “Classy.”
    “It will be in a minute.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Don’t worry you’ll find out shortly.”
    If small talk is not a skill, then understanding cryptic conversation is pretty much like understanding French – a subject I got thrown out of at school. I change the subject in the vain hope of creating some form of verbal rapport. “Where are we going?”
    This whole situation is starting to strike me as being a bit odd. I understand that odd is normal for me. But, it’s my second day in a new town and I am trapped in a camper van, with a stranger, heading somewhere that I don’t know. Even odder is the fact my parents willingly let me go, no shouting, no arguing, no slamming of doors. No resistance at all.
    I mean, I know I am known for doing silly, sometimes dangerous things, but to be honest I don’t fancy being murdered down a Cornish country lane by a strange, dreadlocked surfer today.
    It’s weird, and I don’t believe in any of that instant connection crap. That’s bollocks made up by people who have no sense of reality. I have a healthy respect for reality, largely brought about by the crap situations I normally find myself in. But the guy with the green eyes, dreadlocks and eyebrow ring does not feel like that much of a stranger. This leads me to believe that my own grasp on reality may finally be slipping.
    Last night after we had sat talking on the beach about everything and also absolutely nothing for two hours straight he walked me up the lane to the cottage in the dark. As we got to the cottage gate he leant right in towards me, his body stopping a couple of millimetres from mine and asked if I fancied a surfing lesson. I quickly weighed up the option of walking around the two shops in the village and then mooching about the house for the day by myself, or, a lesson with the boy whose skin shines like silver and decided the lesson sounded a far better option. I believe this was the moment that my grasp of reality loosened.
    Spontaneity is not one of my strong points. It normally ends in disaster. Actually it always ends in disaster. As Daisy starts to head