In Darkling Wood Read Online Free Page B

That baby’s got Mum’s timekeeping abilities, I swear.’
    I grin down the phone. ‘Poor Kate!’
    Lexie’s got two mums – Kate, her real mum, who’s late for everything, and Jen, her mum’s partner.
    ‘Is it breaktime now?’ I imagine a normal school day, with boring lessons and then homework, and think how much I’d rather be there than stuck here.
    ‘Yup. Just had PE. Double Maths is next.’ Then she shouts to someone in the background, ‘I’m taking them off!’
    I picture Lexie in the school changing rooms, undoing her football boots. She hates maths but she’s really really good at football. She doesn’t brag about it either, not like a boy would.
    ‘How was PE?’ I ask.
    ‘Good,’ she says. ‘Listen, I’m so sad you couldn’t come to ours.’
    ‘Me too.’
    ‘How’s Theo?’
    ‘All right, I think. Mum’s not said much.’
    ‘That makes a change!’
    I try to laugh but Lexie’s right: it’s not like Mum to hold back.
    ‘Are you okay?’ she says.
    I look down at my shopping. Some of it’s tumbled out onto the road.
    ‘I’m fine,’ I say.
    ‘What about your grandma? What’s it like there?’
    ‘She’s odd.’
    Lexie giggles.
    ‘D’you miss me?’ I say.
    ‘Course I miss you. I’m having to sit next to Bethany Cox all week.’
    In the background, a teacher tells Lexie to put her phone away because breaktime’s over.
    ‘I’ll text you,’ she says.
    The teacher speaks again.
    ‘You’d better go.’
    We say goodbye and hang up. I follow the road until I see the same field and the same stile I climbed earlier. My head’s full of home. Talking to Lexie hasn’t really helped; it’s just made me miss it even more.
    When I’m back in the woods, Borage starts pulling. His back hair has gone bristly again.
    I tug on the lead. ‘Calm down, mister!’
    But try as I might, I can’t hold him, not with my right arm being yanked from its socket. I have to let go of the lead. He’s gone within seconds. Convincing myself he’s heading in the direction of the house, I set off after him. I just pray Nell doesn’t find him first.
    The woods are silent in that eerie way classrooms are after school has ended. I walk faster.
    Then, behind me, something rustles. Thinking it’s Borage, I spin round.
    Just a few feet away is a girl in a red coat, frozen to the spot. She’s staring right at me. I stare back. We stay like that for one long second. Then she runs away, through the trees, before I can even say hello.

6
    To my massive relief, I find Borage sitting on the back doorstep. Once inside, he heads straight to the room Nell calls the library and presses his nose up against the door: I suppose this means she’s in there. I should probably wait till she comes out again, but I want to ask her about the village and the girl I’ve just seen so I make her a cup of coffee and take it in.
    She’s sitting at a desk over by the window, sifting through piles of paperwork. A little electric heater hums away at her feet but the room is still freezing. It’s dark in here too, despite the big bay window. Borage settles down next to her chair.
    ‘Here,’ I say, offering her the steaming cup.
    She looks surprised. But, with the tiniest nod, she takes it and wraps her hands around it.
    ‘You made it back, I see,’ she says. ‘The locals didn’t eat you up.’ She says it with a wry smile so Iguess she already knows what they think of her in Bexton.
    ‘They weren’t exactly welcoming at the shop,’ I say.
    ‘No, they wouldn’t be. I’m not very popular in Bexton these days. So much fuss about a bunch of old trees. The sooner my wood comes down the better.’
    ‘When is it happening?’
    She looks down at her desk. It’s a mass of papers – bills, letters, maps with coloured lines on them and the words ‘Land Registry’ at the top.
    ‘That, my dear, is a good question. The council say there’s no Preservation Order on any of the trees, and because they’re potentially dangerous,