Red by Libby Gleeson Read Free Book Online Page A

me,’ said Red. ‘He found me lying in the mud, in the middle of all the broken-up trees and the wrecked houses and everything.’
    â€˜She was half dead,’ said Peri. ‘Too much eating of mud and sea-water.’
    â€˜And you don’t know where your dad is?’
    â€˜I don’t know anything. I can’t remember anything.’ Red scratched at the dry timber of the table. ‘I don’t know why. Maybe I got hit on the head or something. I can’t picture anything; parents, the house I lived in, nothing. I couldn’t remember you, Jazz, or that I was called Ginger. Not till I saw your note.’
    â€˜You mean, if I hadn’t put that message up you wouldn’t have known about me?’
    Red shook her head.
    â€˜But we went to kindergarten together. You’ve known me since we were five.’
    â€˜Doesn’t matter. You can say that but I can’t remember it.’
    â€˜And your family? Your dad? Can you remember him?’
    Red didn’t answer. Her head, her whole body, felt suddenly heavy. Too many questions. Shut up, Jazz.
    â€˜So that’s when you went and put that photo up?’
    Peri nodded.
    â€˜But why were you there? Do you live round that area?’
    Peri didn’t answer.
    Jazz wouldn’t let up. ‘You must have a family, Peri. Where are they?’
    â€˜I don’t live with them any more.’ He looked away.
    â€˜So where did you sleep last night?’
    â€˜At your old school,’ he said. ‘We just wanted to get away from where everything was wrecked and I thought the school was a good place, lots of rooms. It’s damaged but we could get in. We slept in the library.’
    Jazz laughed. ‘In Mrs Mac’s library. I wish I’d been there.’
    â€˜And we saw the photos on the wall,’ said Peri. ‘We knew then that it was Red’s – Ginger’s – school. Except she’s not in the Year 6 photo, the one from last year.’
    â€˜That’s ’cos you’d gone.’ She looked at Red.
    â€˜Gone? Where did I go?’
    â€˜Good question,’ Jazz shrugged. ‘They came and got you from class. Your dad and another bloke. They said you had to go then, straight away. So you packed your bag and left. We thought it was something just for that day, or maybe a few days, but that was the last time we saw you. And it was terrible because you were in the class performance, you know, the one we used to do for Assembly. And when you didn’t come back the next day, or the next, they had to cancel it, move it on to the next week and stupid Trevor Ho got to sing the song. You’d have been much better.’
    The class performance . I am crying in the car. But I have to sing I am saying and Dad is there and he’s saying that he is sorry really sorry but this is important, more important than anything in my whole life and we are going, we have to get out of the city now, right now. My bags are packed and I can’t say goodbye to anyone and we are going where the people who are after him will never find him. I am kicking the back of the seat in front and I am saying that I don’t care I want to sing and he doesn’t care and Mrs Williams says it is the best class performance she’s ever programmed and I am the star. He turns from the front passenger seat and he hasn’t shaved his face and it looks all furry. My dad is crying and he’s saying he’s sorry, sorry, sorry. This is not how he planned it, he thought we would never have to do this again, but we have to go to another place, to change our names and to never come back and it’s to save our lives and it’s for our own protection .
    Red jumped up and moved to the end of the verandah. Her shoulders were shaking. She could see his face. Dark bushy eyebrows, the deep vertical crease between them as he spoke that afternoon, a tiny scar above his lip, pale against the darker