Running Shoes (The Shades of Northwood) Read Online Free Page B

on her and
take care of her if anything happened and Katie, the
indestructible, take-on-the-world Katie, would be fending for
herself. If she got really hurt or…
    “Mom, I’ll be
fine,” Katie assured her as if she had known exactly what she was
thinking. “Don’t worry about me.”
    “Oh honey, it’s
my job to worry about my baby girl. Going off to college. Growing
up. And then one day you might not even need silly old Mom and
Dad.”
    “If that ever
happens you have my permission to slap me. You’re my parents and
I’ll always need you for something, probably just for someone to
chat to about my day or whatever.”
    “I’m just not
sure about this. You’re only16 still and you’ve been through so
much this last year.”
    Katie took the
pack from her mothers hand and emptied the melting ice into her
empty bowl. A trick the athletics team from school had used was to
make sure the tea towel, or rag of t-shirt which had been always
available then, was properly cold and then just tie it around the
ankle, knee, wrist, whatever was hurting.
    “Ready?” said
Dad. He had loaded all but a few of her belongings ino the van he
had managed to borrow from his brother-in-law for the day. He
leaned down and planted the tiniest kiss on Katie’s head.
    She glanced up
at him and, all at once, a ridiculous amount of tears blurred her
vision. Some of them she managed to force back but some – too many
– found their way out and carved a hundred paths down her cheeks.
Either the tears were silent or no-one noticed because her parents
only seemed to see the smile. “Good to go.”
     

CHAPTER
THREE
     
     
     
    It took almost
fours to get to the tiny town of Northwood. It seemed longer. Dad
had gotten Katie and Dan to help cram the last of the boxes into
the van, said his goodbyes and started the van up to get a
headstart. All the girls would pile into the car and follow him
later, meeting up with him at a service station nearly two hours
down the road for lunch, when the worst of the traffic was over.
Just under half of the drive was motorway and the directions they
had said the rest of the journey would be A- and B-roads.
    “I’ll have a
double cheeseburger, fries and lemonade.” Katie gave her order to
her mother and carted her little sister off to find a table that
was relatively clean. “Dad phoned when you were asleep. He’s about
twenty minutes behind us. Some moron of an Uncle Billy decided to
leave us with less petrol in the van than I can spit. Isn’t family
oh so wonderful?”
    “Is this
conversation meant to convince me or you?”
    “Huh? Of
what?”
    “That your
family’s no great loss.”
    “I’m not. It’s
just that Uncle Billy really is a prize dick. It’s really only fair
that the world is warned.”
    “Not that I’m
arguing but some of your relatives are kind and compassionate and
basically great people.”
    “Honestly, I
don’t know why I ever thought you were delusional.”
    A minutes or
two later, their mother came over with a plastic tray of food,
being careful to dodge the wrappers and chips that dotted the
floor. “Goodness, they really need to employ a cleaner here.”
    “Mom,”
    The older woman
sat down and put a finger to her lips before doling lunches out.
She was famous for bemoaning the lack of cleanliness in restaurants
and cafes. A neat freak by nature, not even eating off a surgically
sterilised plate would be completely faultless. Too cold or
chemical. The girls dug into their burger meals. Katie would
normally have something with a little salad and fruit but today she
was ravenous and craving something so covered in grease her
arteries were blocking as she ate.
    “Why does food
just taste better and better the worse it is for you?”
    “It’s the law,”
Dan said around a mouthful of fries. That girl had the biggest
mouth of anyone in the history of always. “So, I always say, why
the hell do they even make food that no-one enjoys eating? Fruit
and stuff is sweet a