Hidden Among Us Read Online Free Page B

her eyes. Something beyond the reach of school and homework and normal boring life. She didn’t care about any of it and you could tell.
    She looked terrified and I wanted to help her.
    I wanted to tell her that everything was going to be all right.
    I don’t know what I was thinking. Looking at her
did
something to me, made me feel crazy and reckless, like I’d do anything to help her.
    I didn’t like it.

7
Lissy
    The stranger had just
disappeared
. Had Nick even seen him?
    My heart was still thundering like I’d run a hundred miles.
He knew my name—
    “Lissy?” Nick said, again. He turned, and I realized there was a boy in the front passenger seat, eyes fixed down at a road atlas open on his lap. Nick’s son. Mum had told me about him when she’d first written about Nick.
Other news, darling, is that I’ve met someone nice
. “This isn’t Hopesay, is it, Joe?”
    The boy glanced up, looking at me as if I were the biggest loser on earth. I just had time to notice shortish, ragged hair, a worn-out jacket. Boring.
    “No, Dad,” he said, turning back to the road atlas. “Definitely not.”
    “It was a request stop,” I said, heart still thundering. “I didn’t realize I had to tell them to stop the train.”
You imagined it,
I told myself fiercely.
That boy didn’t really say your name
.
    Nick got out of the car, came round to my side and opened the back door to let me in. My hands were actually starting to sweat.
Calm down,
I told myself.
Jesus
. It was starting to rain, a silver mist of tiny drops spreading across the car window. Nick turned to look at me, releasing the handbrake, ready to drive off. “Are you OK, Lissy?” he said, gently. “Your mam’s been pretty worried. So have your teachers.”
    I took a deep breath. I couldn’t be angry with Nick. He was just too nice. “I wanted to get the train instead.” My voice sounded very small. Small, young and stupid. “Where’s Mum and Connie?”
    Nick frowned again, obviously wondering if I’d gone stark raving mad but too tactful to ask. “Back at the house – Connie’s not feeling well so I said I’d come and pick you up.” Mum and Nick hadn’t been together that long, only about nine months or so, but Nick always spoke to me like an adult. Now he sounded disappointed and sad at the same time, like I’d let him down: in a way, it was worse than Mum yelling at me.
    Cold unease crept over me. Connie was never ill. She just didn’t seem to get bugs and viruses like other kids. And taking that train had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I was moments away from facing up to Mum it seemed like the stupidest thing I’d ever done. She was going to freak out. Completely. I’d psyched myself up to meet her at Hopesay Edge station, just the two of us, but now I’d have to wait till we got back to the house with everyone there. What would she do? What would she say? It was torture. If she’d met me at the station, she could have killed me in private. Now Joe and Nick would be our audience. Great.
    “First left after this village, Dad,” Joe said from the front. And that was it – we just drove off.
    They hadn’t even seen the boy I was talking to, I realized.
    The car smelled of Nick’s tobacco; inside it was littered with service station coffee cups and empty crisp packets. A guitar in an old leather case sat in the seat next to me. It was all so different: Mum’s people carrier is always immaculate, the vanilla smell of air freshener.
I’m in the wrong life
, I thought, staring at the battered guitar case.
I shouldn’t be in this car
.
    When Nick stopped at a garage I leaned back in my seat, shutting my eyes, breathing in the smell of old pipe-smoke and the faint oily scent of diesel. All I could see was the boy from the station looking back at me, eyes like puddles of black ink. Where had he gone?
    It was as if the boy had never been there. How could Joe and Nick not have noticed me talking to him? Why hadn’t they