Infinite Sky by Cj Flood Read Free Book Online Page A

did?’
    ‘Course I friggin’ didn’t, but he found out anyway – he finds out everything – and now he’s spitting because he told me what’d happen, told me not to
get mixed up with . . .’ He stopped, but it was obvious what he’d been about to say.
    ‘I just thought if I waited till the new term, everything’d calm down, and they might let me back in, and I wouldn’t have to tell him, or you, or go to work. It doesn’t
really matter cause I’m gonna work for myself, but I don’t know. I liked it at school.’
    He ran out of words, and he looked so dejected that I couldn’t help reaching out to him. I stroked his knee, as if he were a pet that had just come back from an operation.
    ‘Matt Dunbar sounds like a prick,’ I told him. ‘I’m glad you beat him up. You should have told me though. I tell
you
everything.’
    ‘I know,’ he said, and he smiled at me, full whack. ‘That’s why I like you, Iris. I can talk to you about anything.’
    I shrugged because I couldn’t trust myself to speak.
    ‘And you’re pretty,’ he added, really quickly, and I almost laughed out loud with the joy of it.
    I wished there were some way Matty could have witnessed this.
    When the energy shooting around my bloodstream had calmed down, I asked what he was going to do.
    ‘What can I do? Hole up here for a bit, then go face him.’
    Babyish ideas entered my head, like
You could hide in the chicken coop
, or
Camp in the cornfields
, or
We could run away together
, but I managed to keep them inside.
    Trick said he was on driving duties, for lying, which meant he wouldn’t be able to get out for a while, and I tried not to look shocked that his dad would let him drive a car about before
he was even fifteen. We arranged to meet in a few days’ time, on Wednesday, at nine p.m. If he wasn’t there by ten, it meant he couldn’t get out.
    ‘I’ll just come back the next night,’ I said.
    And the night after that.
    And the night after that.
    Trick couldn’t relax, but he didn’t want to go home, and so we headed to the brook to cool our feet.
    At the ancient oak, I heard something.
    ‘Wait,’ I said, raising a finger.
    We cocked our heads.
    ‘There,’ I said, and he nodded.
    ‘You’re not wrong.’
    It was Dad. And he was shouting my name.

Seven

    Clearing the pig farmer’s gate, I heard Dad shout again. I kicked up dust as I ran down the lane. Through the wispy branches of the poplars surrounding our yard, I could
see him, fingers at his mouth, about to whistle. I shouted, and he stalked to meet me on the drive.
    ‘Where the
bleeding
hell have you been?’
    ‘Nowhere.’
    ‘Nowhere? I’ve been shouting all morning.’
    My pulse throbbed at my temple.
    ‘Austin’s out looking for you.’
    ‘Why?’ I asked in a small voice, thinking of Sam and Mum and rubber skid marks across busy roads.
    ‘Some stuff from the shed’s gone missing,’ he said, heading for the house. ‘I need you to wait in, in case the coppers call back.’
    ‘Wait in?’ I followed behind him. ‘Where are you going?’
    ‘Blasted chainsaw’s banjaxed again. Austin’s driving me into town. Haven’t got time to waste, waiting around for the bloody phone to ring.’
    ‘Have you spoken to Sam? Maybe he borrowed something?’
    ‘Course I flaming have,’ he said. ‘Though God knows what he’d want with a monkey wrench, he can’t even wash his bleeding football kit. Anyway, the window’s
smashed at the back.’
    I shut up. I didn’t know what there was to say anyway, I just wanted to slow things down.
    ‘I told you this would happen, didn’t I?’ he went on, in the kitchen now. ‘I said so. They wouldn’t bloody listen.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Who d’you think? Bloody coppers! What did they expect?’
    I sat at the kitchen table while he hunted around the kitchen for the pick-up keys. They hung off a bundle of keyrings Sam and me had brought him back from different school trips, but he still
managed to lose them every