3 A Reformed Character by Cecilia Peartree

Author:Cecilia Peartree [Peartree, Cecilia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-12-30T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14 Off on their holidays

Jock didn’t want to leave the shed. It was Darren who just barged out on to the lawn, and stood there staring around him. He might as well, Jock thought, have had a big arrow pointing at his head with a neon sign saying 'He's here.' Quite apart from the police and the mysterious gunman or gunmen who had chased them through the woods, what if the owners of the house happened to look out their back window and see him? They might easily call the police.

It was going to be even more difficult to talk him into giving himself up this time. For one thing, Darren had already had experience of prison before in his short life and didn’t like the idea of being on remand. For another, there was now nowhere safe to go and reason it all out. Jock's house was presumably out of bounds: at the very least the front window had been shattered by some sort of missile, and there was no knowing what other damage might have been done. If the missile had been some sort of explosive device... Jock's imagination ran riot in a way he didn't usually allow it to, and before long he had written off his house as a lost cause, picturing it as a smouldering wreck which would be so far from being habitable that it would have to be demolished. Oh well, he thought. At least we got out in time.

He considered and discarded several other options. He knew his friends would have opened their doors to him willingly, but how could he bring such terrible danger to the door of Jemima Stevenson, for instance? He couldn't see her being able to hide in a shed for very long without complaining about her arthritis. Anyway, Dave would kill him if anything happened to her.

Christopher or Amaryllis would have taken him and Darren in, but he didn't consider their homes as being any safer than his home at this point. Maybe Christopher would let them camp in the Cultural Centre?

Darren wandered off into the woods again, and Jock followed him, reluctantly. He wasn't entirely convinced the gunman or gunmen had gone. But they managed to arrive at the ornamental fence of Jock's neighbour unscathed, and then they both instinctively turned to walk down Jock's road in the opposite direction from his house – they didn’t even look to see what sort of state it was in, but Jock couldn't smell burning which was a good sign - and headed in the direction of the High Street.

That was when their luck changed.

With the roar of a souped-up engine, a pick-up truck screeched to a halt beside them as they walked along what had only moments before been a peaceful back street. It was Dave.

'Going anywhere?' he called from the driving seat.

'Yes,' said Jock. 'Can you give us a lift?'

'Jump in!'

He held the front passenger door open for them, but they both got in the back seat.

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