The Outcast by Sadie Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

wished just once she could go and have fun without Kit being everywhere all the time.
    Kit’s throat burned. Her eyes were stinging, partly with sweat and partly with tears. She wished they’d all stop looking at her. She bit the side of her tongue to keep from crying properly, but her throat hurt. She stood on one leg and scratched the back of her calf with her sandal.
    ‘You’ll have to go back,’ said Tamsin.
    ‘Go back!’ said Ed, shooing her, like a dog.
    Kit didn’t move. She stood and stared at them all.They were on a higher part of the road and their various poses of disap- proval and boredom were silhouetted against the white sky like a tableau of judgement.
    ‘Go back!’ said Tamsin,‘Go on, Kit!’
    Kit thought she could trust her voice.‘What shall I do with my bike?’ she asked.
    ‘You’ll have to carry it,’ said Ed, but they all knew this was ridiculous.
    ‘Kit, you’re ruining everything!’ saidTamsin, her patience at an end.
    Lewis saw Kit’s chin start to go; he hadn’t seen her cry before and he didn’t want to.
    ‘It’s all right,’ he said to them.‘Put your bike in the hedge, we’ll get it on the way back.You can go on my crossbar.’
    Nobody questioned this; so long as Kit wasn’t their problem they didn’t care. One by one they started up the hill again.With no momentum, it took an effort to get going. Lewis laid his bike down and went over to Kit, picking up hers.
    ‘That looks pretty nearly bust up,’ he said.
    He shoved it into the hedge. Kit wiped her face with dirty hands, and her eyes, and Lewis pretended not to notice.

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    ‘Come on, we’ll have to walk up to the top.’
    They started to walk, and to begin with they weren’t slower than the wobbling bicycles. Kit twisted her arm around to look at her bleeding elbow and then wiped it on her shorts. At the top Lewis got on his bike.They looked down, letting the others get away from them with screams and yells.They could see the country spread out and the hill dropped away sharply. It was steep enough to be frightening, but not so steep you’d actually fall on your face, if you were careful. Tamsin and Ed had gone away immediately, followed by the others, and the shouts got quieter very quickly as they speeded up.
    ‘Sure you’ll manage?’ said Lewis, and Kit nodded. She was terrified of the hill. She’d been terrified of it all the way up, even on her own bike, and now the prospect of sitting sideways on Lewis Aldridge’s crossbar was the most horrible thing she could think of. She knew she would at least break her neck, but there was no way out of it at all.
    ‘Come on then,’ he said.
    He seemed to be thinking about something else, so she just clambered on. Lewis was wondering how he’d explain to Mrs Carmichael that her younger daughter had died going a hundred miles an hour down New Hill on his bike. He had to hold the handlebars awkwardly with her in front of him.
    ‘You’ve got to balance and sit in the middle or we’ll both come off, all right?’
    She nodded. Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t have spoken.
    Ahead of them the others were nearly at the bottom.
    Oh hell, Lewis thought, they’ll all watch.
    He pushed off, and the first few feet they almost fell side- ways, first one side, then the other and again the first way; the steering wasn’t doing what it should and Lewis’s legs kept

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    kicking into Kit. She fell backwards and sideways and then the bike was going fast enough to balance and seemed steadier.The steepness of the hill took them by surprise and they both went forward.
    ‘Lean back!’ he yelled.
    They both leaned and they were going quite quickly now. Her plaits were knocking against his arm and he couldn’t be sure they were going straight. The wind made him close his eyes half-up. There was terror and excitement and, just in the middle, a moment of speed and balance where nothing else mattered at all. They weren’t going to fall and it was fast and perfect. Then the