The Boy Who Couldn't by Rachel Coverdale

Author:Rachel Coverdale [Coverdale, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Willow Breeze Publishing
Published: 2019-06-14T20:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

* Greg *

It’s strange how different people are when you get to know them properly. I never bothered with James or Ahmed when I was at primary school. Partly because they were two years below me, but mostly they just weren’t the type of kids I’d hang out with. Ahmed was alright and his dad was cool, but James was a bit wet looking and had a weird looking dad.

That night when I thought I was about to be eaten alive by a fox was the oddest night ever for me. James’ mam and dad sat with me for ages in their kitchen. I’d not seen Mrs Taylor before, she was fairly ordinary on first glance – mousey brown shoulder length hair and brown eyes, average height, average weight, nowt special. But when she spoke, you couldn’t help but notice the kind look she has on her face. I don’t know if it was the roundness of her eyes, or her wide mouth, or her rosy cheeks, but she just looked… I dunno… kind. You know when you were little and lost your mam at the supermarket? She’d be the one who’d hold your hand and take you to Security.

Apparently, James’ mam used to be best friends with me mam. I never knew. When she went off to phone Mam, Mr Taylor made me the tastiest hot chocolate ever and I realised I hadn’t even eaten that day until then. I’d thought that as soon as Mrs Taylor had gone, Mr Taylor would start shouting at me or hitting me, but instead he did the strangest thing. He invited me to hang out with James and Ahmed to watch the badgers. He told me that if Andrew (or Sam as he called him) liked me then I couldn’t be a bad person really. Not deep down. It didn’t make any sense. I’d hit their son, they’d caught me hanging around in the woods near their house but they were treating me as though I was a family friend. Weird.

I went round the next evening because I didn’t wanna look like I was scared, but I was scared. I thought it might be a trick. Even though it was after tea time, it was still dead warm. It’d been too hot all day but now there was a bit of a breeze so it was just nice. James answered the door and invited me in. His dad stood behind him and the way he was pressing his fingers into James’ shoulders I could tell James wasn’t happy about the arrangement.

James led the way to the bottom of the garden where there was a big tree. As we got closer, I could see an old ladder leaning against the trunk. James climbed up first and I followed. Above our heads were some planks of wood making a kind of ceiling. James reached up and pushed one section and a square about the same size as a manhole cover flipped open, just big enough for us to squeeze through.

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