Heartbeat Away by Laura Summers Read Free Book Online Page B

big time, if you let it. And all those drugs we have to take can make you feel pretty spaced out sometimes.’
    â€˜Becky!’ A voice I know well calls from down the corridor. ‘Becky! You’re next for bloods!’
    It’s Natalie, one of my favourite nurses. I quickly turn to Alice. ‘See you later,’ I say before hurrying off down the corridor.

22
    We’re a long time at the hospital. As usual, I have to have loads of blood taken, together with all the other tests and Sahasra wants to check my fitness level, which means walking and jogging on her treadmill while breathing into a mask, on and off for half an hour. I’m totally worn out by the time I’ve finished. When we get back to the waiting room, it’s empty. There’s no sign of Alice. I guess she’s had all her tests too and gone home.
    Mum and I head back to the car, but from the moment we drive out of the car park, the traffic’s terrible. We get stuck in a jam for ten minutes, then find ourselves being diverted from our normal route.
    â€˜Oh great!’ sighs Mum as we’re forced to slowly follow the long queue of cars in front of us down a series of narrow side roads, which seem to be taking us further and further away from the direction we need to go. ‘At this rate we’ll be lucky if we get home by midnight,’ she groans. ‘Take my phone, Becky, and give Gran a quick ring. Askher if she’ll please pick up Danny from school.’
    I do as she asks and I’m halfway through my conversation with Gran when I glance through the car window. I stop mid- sentence, open-mouthed. There, across the road, are the entrance gates to the park I keep seeing. That same park I’ve never been to but know like the back of my hand. It’s exactly how I’ve been seeing it, with a wide tarmac path leading up to the bandstand and another path which I know winds its way down to a skateboard area and the boating lake over the far side. Stunned, I stare out of the window in total disbelief.
    â€˜Becky . . . Becky, are you still there?’ I can hear Gran asking through Mum’s mobile as we drive slowly past the park railings. I try to say something but the words won’t come out. My palms are sweating.
    â€˜Sorry, Gran. Yes . . . everything’s OK. But we’re going to be late home . . .’ I look frantically round for other landmarks – I need to know exactly where we are.
    â€˜I’ll collect Danny, shall I? From school?’ Gran is asking.
    Opposite the park, a large old church with a long, dusty stained-glass window squats between two smart office blocks. I strain to read its name on the weather-beaten noticeboard fixed outside. Saint Bar-something.
    â€˜Becky? I said, shall I pick Danny up from school?’
    â€˜Sorry. Yes please, Gran.’
    â€˜See you later, dear, mind how you go.’
    I manage to say goodbye then catch a last glimpse of the park before we turn down a side street and it disappears from view.
    * * *
    When we finally get home, Gran has cooked sausages and mash for Danny.
    â€˜There’s plenty left, Becky,’ she says.
    â€˜I still don’t eat meat, but thanks anyway, Gran,’ I reply, trying not to pull a face as the smell of cooked sausages hits my nostrils.
    â€˜I have to cook Becky all veggie stuff now,’ Mum adds with a small sigh as she starts to tell Gran about our long detour home.
    â€˜That’s up near where I was born,’ Gran tells us. ‘Over the butcher’s shop in the High Street.’
    As I make myself a peanut butter sandwich, I pluck up courage to ask Gran about the park.
    â€˜I know the one,’ she says with a nod. ‘Opposite St Bartholomew’s Church. Your Auntie Vi, Auntie Ruby and I used to go there every week for Sunday school when we were little. And in the summer, if the weather was fine and we’d been good, the vicar let us all carry rugs and cushions over