Dead Scared by Curtis Jobling

mate,’ I said as Val made to give him a hug of her own. He deftly side-stepped her and kept a clear line of sight for the front door.
    ‘I felt I ought to pop by and say hello,’ replied Dougie. ‘I didn’t get a chance to speak to you at . . . at the funeral.’
    ‘Oh bless you, young man,’ said Val. ‘You’re a thoughtful one, aren’t you, dear?’
    ‘Ask Mum where Dad is,’ I whispered into his ear.
    ‘Where’s Mr Underwood?’
    ‘He’s working out in the gym,’ said Mum, gesticulating toward the staircase.
    ‘I didn’t know you had one.’
    ‘We didn’t used to,’ she replied sheepishly. ‘It’s just now that we’ve got the box room back we’ve done a spot of decorating. He’s on the rowing
machine at present.’
    ‘
Got the box room back?’
I hissed in Dougie’s ear, causing him to flinch. ‘What was I? Some unwanted lodger or what? That was my bedroom!’
    ‘The gym was Will’s old room then?’ he asked her.
    ‘We had a long hard think about what we wanted to do with it,’ sighed Mum. She was about to say something and the words caught in her throat. She tried to smile at Dougie but her lip
quivered, struggling to hold back the emotion. Val reached an arm around her and gave her a comforting hug until she could continue.
    ‘I couldn’t keep looking at it, and I should imagine the last thing Will would’ve wanted was for us to turn it into a shrine, so we cleared it out.’
    ‘That was the
only
thing I wanted! A shrine was just fine – and what’ve they done with all my posters?’ I looked at Dougie, indignantly. He just shook his
head.
    I wanted to ask Dougie to push Mum for answers. If there was anyone left who might know what was going on, it was Mum. But my mate was well ahead of me.
    ‘You look well, Mrs Underwood. You were so sad the last time I saw you. Understandably, of course.’
    Mum gave Dougie a sad, tender smile. ‘We were all sad, Douglas. We still are, for that matter. Nothing will ever be the same. Nothing can ever return Will to me.’
    ‘Yet here I am,’ I whispered, Dougie shivering at my words as Mum continued.
    ‘I didn’t sleep for a week after his death, even with the medicines the doctors prescribed. There were probably enough drugs in me to tranquilise a horse but somehow I kept going. I
was in a terrible state, as only a mother could be. Was it my fault that Will was out on his own that night?’
    ‘He wasn’t on his—’ Dougie began, but Mum cut him off, her eyes wet with tears.
    ‘Look at me. I thought I was done crying. I’ll never be done. I loved my boy – I love both of them – but could I have paid more attention? Should I have been stricter,
ensured he was in earlier? I mean, it wasn’t so late, but I didn’t know where he was. What kind of parent does that make me?’
    ‘He was with friends, Mrs Underwood. He was happy. Will was a good lad, he avoided trouble. What happened – it wasn’t his fault. And it wasn’t yours, either.’
    ‘I know. It was the driver of the car who’s responsible.’
    Instantly I was transported back to the hit-and-run, my bicycle crumpling under the impact of the car, spinning me into the air. I hadn’t thought about it too much, had avoided the memory,
the pain. Only then did it occur to me that Mum had been living with the event all this time, reliving it in her own mind, imagining what I’d been through.
    ‘If they ever find the swine who did it, he wants hanging,’ added Val.
    ‘That’s an argument that we can’t get into, Val,’ said Mum with a sniff, silencing her neighbour before she could get a rant on. ‘An eye for an eye gets us nowhere.
But to find out who was behind the wheel and get them behind bars would be some justice. But what chance is there of that ever happening?’
    I wanted to hug her, more than I’d ever wanted to in life. You take so much for granted with family. You assume you’ll always be there for one another, you don’t tell them what
they mean