Bang Bang You're Dead by Narinder Dhami

Author:Narinder Dhami [Narinder Dhami]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781407048482
Publisher: RHCP

Eleven

I'm a coward, as you know, and I didn't say anything to Jamie about my suspicions. But for the next few weeks I checked the local newspaper every day to see if the person who wrecked Dr Zeelander's car had been caught. In fact, I almost got banned from the minimarket because I was in there every day after school, leafing slowly through the paper, scanning every page intently but buying nothing.

But I never saw anything more about Dr Zeelander. So what did I do then?

I simply tried to forget all about it.

And yet, in the deepest, darkest, most remote corners of my mind, those places where we dare not go in the light of day, I absolutely believed that it was Jamie. That he had returned to the surgery with revenge in mind, and had taken out his fury with Dr Zeelander on her car.

I could deal with this terrifying thought fairly successfully by keeping busy and refusing to think about it. But it would surface with relentless, agonizing regularity in the middle of the night and keep me awake for hours.

I did not want to believe it.

But I did.

So where did I go from here?

Well, nowhere.

What could I do?

I had no proof of anything and Jamie was my twin brother and I loved him and I needed him. He was the only person I could lean on and even if his support was waning, I was clinging on tenaciously because it was all I had.

'What do we do now?' I asked Jamie the day after I'd read the newspaper report. I did not mention it, of course. I would have cut my tongue out first. Nor did I say anything about what had happened in Dr Zeelander's office because I knew instinctively that Jamie would not talk about it.

'Excuse me?' Jamie said politely, as if I was some kind of crazy stranger who'd accosted him in the street. 'What do we do about what?'

I stared at him in perplexity. 'Well – Mum, of course.'

Jamie pressed his fingers to his temples as if he was in pain. 'How many times have we had this conversation before, Mia?' he murmured, still in the same polite tone. 'Let's go through the options again, shall we? We could ring Social Services—'

'No, Jamie.'

As far as I knew, Social Services weren't aware of our problems as we'd lived such a stable life with Grandpa for the last eleven years or so. And I wasn't even certain that we would be a high priority for them, anyway. I mean, it wasn't as if Jamie and I couldn't take care of ourselves and Mum wasn't dangerous or abusive. Not really. She yelled a lot and threw things, but she'd never been violent. We had food and we had a roof over our heads.

On the other hand, I always had a terrible, lurking fear that, if Social Services got involved, they would find some way to split us up.

Jamie sighed. 'What are you so afraid of, Mia?'

'I don't want to be taken into care,' I cried.

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