After Brock Read Online Free Page A

half than many people go through in a whole lifetime, and hasn’t Dr Warne told him to go gently with everything, however ‘normal’ he might be feeling?
    â€˜Joel Easton? Don’t know him!’
    â€˜I think you would know him, Nat. If you were to see him!’
    â€˜How’s that then, Luke?’
    Fear’s licking him now with its long, rough, stinking tongue. As it’s done several times these last few days, face to face with nasty-minded, insensitive, pitiless hacks, of which this one sitting on his chair by his bed in his room is the worst. Does he really want to go to Uni to learn their skills?
    â€˜Because it was Joel you gave that package to on the Monday afternoon. You asked him if he would be so kind as to post it for you next day,’ says Luke Fleming, ‘you know the item I’m talking about? The jiffy bag you addressed to The Manager, The Cooperative Food Store, 59-63 Church Street, Lydcastle, Shropshire.’
    His experiences out in the wilds, all the wind and sun, have left Nat with quite a tan. So hopefully his blushes won’t show up like they normally would. Because he is blushing! What a strangely instantaneous response a blush is! Why can’t a human have better control over the process? There is surely no equivalent in the animal kingdom.
    He thought he’d taken care of absolutely everything.
    Of absolutely fucking everything!
    Think of what he was thoughtful enough to do…
    Obviously Nat hadn’t wanted any guy he entrusted the parcel with to know his name or where he came from. Therefore he couldn’t put his dad’s name on it, or that of the kite shop either. So he fixed on, as addressee, the manager of the Lydcastle store where Pete Kempsey was best known, being a hundred per cent sure, once that lady had opened it, and seen its contents, she’d take it straight up to him at High Flyers. As indeed she did!
    So his helper was called Joel, was he? Name suits him, he thinks. Back he comes into his life, if only in the form of a memory flash.
    He himself was standing on the metal bridge close by the little hostel-cum-cafe, Tan-y-pistyll. He had just thrown his mobile phone (item number one of his plan) down into the river which the waters of the great fall form after their descent from the rock plateau. And nobody had seen him do this. He let himself enjoy for a few moments the flying spray on his head and shoulders. And then he noted this guy roughly his age, perhaps a year or two older, coming onto the little bridge from the lower reaches of the Afon Rhaeadr valley. He had a dog with him on a long leash, the sort Nat liked best, a Border Collie, after so many centuries indige-nous to the region. Black and white, but with tan on the legs and paws. Nat stretched out a hand and started to make a fuss of him. The owner was pleased at this, adapted his stance to suit Nat’s attentions, and told him the dog’s name was Mister. ‘This valley’s one of Mister’s very favourite walks. We live just the Oswestry side of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, we do, and we often get in the car and go for a good long walk out here.’ Nat took to him, not least for talking about the collie and himself as ‘we’, and thought, ‘He’s just the reliable sort of guy I’m looking for.’
    So there and then he asked him the favour, the wording of which he’d rehearsed so many times, hoping for a break like this. Though reality had exceeded hopes.
    â€˜I’ve been so stupid and selfish, I promised on my honour to send this parcel off today (it’s already got the stamps on it), and then – can you believe it? – I clean forgot. I don’t have a car, and anyway it’s too late for the post office now, and I’m joining up with a friend in a minute for two nights’ camping and trekking in the mountains. On the far side of this waterfall. You couldn’t possibly be so