If I Could Fly by Jill Hucklesby

thigh starts to ache so badly I feel sick.
    I have to get myself to a safe place, somewhere I can get my head down, think things through. And there’s only one destination that ticks that box.



Chapter Sixteen
    Om mani padme hum.
Bless you, Little Bird. Bless me.
Na myoho renge kyo.
May everything be as it should. May there be peace. May our worries be lifted. May our hearts be full of joy. May Dair and Furball be safe, wherever they are tonight.
    I’m climbing into the hospital through the hole in the café window, the one place that seems not to have been boarded up. Dawn is breaking, but all I want to do is lie down and sleep. I’ve been running for hours across fields and through woods. There was no Mr Carter, no black van, to give me a lift this time. I had to use my free-running skills to stay off the roads. Every part of me feels bruised and battered. I can’t put my full weight on my left leg either.
    It’s a miracle I’ve made it back.
    I am grateful I’ve not been caught. I am grateful Ihave clothes to wear, unlike some kids. I am grateful for shelter in this building. I am trying to remember all the things to be grateful for, so that I don’t turn into a crazy person.
    ‘My
kon dee
.’ That’s what she said, my poor mother. She looked so sad, her arms wrapped round her small body. Was Dad there in the background, ready to come down on me like a ton of bricks for the shame I’ve brought on the family? Has he been twisting her arm, the way he sometimes does, when she doesn’t give him full attention? Has he shopped me to the authorities? Is that why there was a policewoman in the house, waiting?
    I have slunk back here like a guilty cat. I had to wait until first light to enter the grounds. There were FISTS and police swarming all over the place. Then the men in white vans arrived to secure the doors and windows. Lucky for me they weren’t too thorough.
    Back inside, where Dair lay, there are only sodden tiles covered in a layer of thick slime. My feet skid andslide. The muted light of morning is disorientating. I reach for the wooden rail, which is no longer there.
    The steps are slippery too. I place my trainers sideways and climb like a scuttling crab on shifting sand. I reach the landing. There are wide holes where the ceiling has become sky. The corridor is now an assault course of masonry and massive metal lintels, some upended like megaliths. It’s as if someone has dropped Stonehenge from a great height.
    The name above the ward entrance has lost more letters. It just reads
Wonder
now. Maybe that is all we are left with, when our world crumbles. Unanswered questions and awe.
    I’m staring into the space ahead. It’s the same place I left yesterday, but it looks as if it’s had the opposite of a digital make-over. Its muted colours have faded to black. Soot coats the walls, window panes and Dair’s precious chair, which is in its familiar position, but minus its blankets.
    I force myself to look at the strange, dark silhouetteto my right. It reminds me of the woodland cottage in Snow White: ramshackle, with crooked lines. By some miracle, most of my house seems to be standing. I move towards it like a soldier walking through a minefield. The floorboards could give way any minute. If I fall, no one will hear me cry out.
    The front door has disappeared, along with the library. The plastic sheet on the roof has spared the interior the worst of the falling debris, but smoke has penetrated everywhere. All the books have black covers and edges and there is dust a couple of centimetres thick on all the flat surfaces.
    My kitchen drawer has been upturned, its contents strewn across the cotton rug. With a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I realise my lighter is missing.
    I locate my torch and in the glare of its white beam, conduct a more thorough search. This reveals many things I would rather not have discovered: that my clothes store has gone from its box and my curtains have been