Rockoholic by C. J. Skuse

Author:C. J. Skuse [Skuse, C. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780545470049
Publisher: Scholastic
Published: 2011-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Cree toddles on ahead of me and Mac and rounds the gravel path into our back garden. When we get there, all we can see is her headless body sticking out of the cat flap. There comes one almighty scream from inside the garage.

Mac lunges toward Cree to pull her back, but her head is stuck fast.

“Shit, Jode! She’s stuck.”

“She can’t be,” I say, joining him to try and ease Cree’s head back through the hole. At this point, Cree gets upset and starts panicking herself. Jackson is still screaming inside the garage.

“For God’s sake, shut him up, will you? What’s the matter with him?” Mac barks at me.

“I don’t know, do I? Jackson,” I call through the door, “it’s OK, we’re here, it’s OK.”

“Get it away, get it away from me!” he yells back.

I peer through the window. “He’s trying to climb up the wall. I think she’s scaring him.”

Cree’s screaming her head off, and Mac’s talking to her really calmly, gently easing her head back through the little square hole. “There we go, easy, easy, easy . . . there you are.”

And she’s out. He lifts her up and cuddles her in, looking at the thin red line around her hairline. She clings on and wails into his shoulder. “Kenzie’s got you. Shit that was close, Jode,” he says. “What if we had to call the fire brigade?”

“Oh God, it doesn’t bear thinking about,” I say. “Is she OK?”

He nods, kissing her forehead. “All gone, Creep. All gone now.”

She sobs on his shoulder, looking at me as we enter the garage. “My hurt my ned,” she says.

“I know. All gone now,” I say.

Jackson’s nervous to say the least when we approach him. He’s huddled in a corner on his feathers like the last chick that won’t leave the nest, eyeing Cree like she’s got a forked tail.

“I just saw this head, c-c-coming through the door,” he cries. “Scared the shit out of me. Thought I was seeing things. I wasn’t, was I? I wasn’t seeing shit again?”

“No, it’s OK. It was Cree, Mac’s little sister,” I say, gesturing toward her. “Jackson, we’ve come to take you out of here for a little while. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” I start to tell him about my plan about the market, and he shuffles away from me.

“No, I don’t want to. Someone will recognize me.”

“No they won’t. And it won’t take very long,” I explain. “You can put on a baseball cap and we’ll just take a couple of photos of you reading an Italian newspaper under an Italian awning and then you can come back here again. It’s just to throw the papers off the scent.”

“But if the South West of England is hunting for him, isn’t he going to be spotted in a crowd full of people?” says Mac. Cree looks up from Mac’s shoulder and stares at Jackson. Jackson is looking back at her and I’m waiting for him to make the sign of the cross.

“Don’t think so,” I say.

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