The Other Side of Summer by Emily Gale Page B

around again and started swearing under his breath. Then he got onto his knees and crawled to the edge of the rock. He looked as if he was going to scoop up some water, but instead he just stared at his hand.
    ‘Be careful,’ I said, surprising myself. ‘It could be deep.’
    I couldn’t explain why I was worried about him. It was stupid. I got up again. What was I even doing here? Dad would go spare if he could see me. ‘Come on, Bee.’
    ‘Wait! Please! Don’t go.’
    He looked so scared again. But what did he think I could do about it? My brain kept winding back through memories to find where his face fit in. Train station, swimming pool, the queue for the cinema …
    ‘This is a dream, isn’t it?’ he said.
    ‘What are you talking about?’
    ‘I’m lost. I don’t know …’ He bent over and rested his hands on his knees. ‘I don’t know where I am.’
    ‘I can’t help you. I’m sorry. I only know how to get back to the main road from this side.’
    I had to stop talking. This boy might be crazy. Otherwise why would he think he was dreaming? He could be on drugs. Look at him, I told myself, he has wild dreadlocks and his clothes are shabby and … I stopped that thought, angry with myself for sounding like an adult full of prejudices. It didn’t matter how this boy was dressed. The reason I needed to leave was that he was a stranger acting strangely.
    ‘What’s your name?’ he said.
    I panicked. ‘Sophie.’
    ‘Where are you from? You sound different.’
    ‘London.’
    He sat down and started shivering. ‘Why is it so cold here?’
    I couldn’t feel the cold at all. ‘I’m going,’ I said. ‘My dad’s waiting for me up this path.’
    ‘No! I don’t know how I got here. I know how strange that sounds, but I was asleep. I think.’ He held his head again. ‘I don’t remember. Then suddenly here I am. It doesn’t make sense.’
    I turned. ‘I can’t help you!’ I shouted back. At first my feet seemed to stick, but then a sudden rush of air hit me from behind, and I found I could run as fast as I wanted. I looked back once but couldn’t see him. Was he hiding? Would he jump out at me someplace else? I ran clumsily up the side of the bank. The brambles tore lines into my skin as I pulled out Sophie’s bike.
    The fear went deeper than seeing a stranger across a river. It felt like my heart would never slow down.

The journey back to the house had none of the fizz of the journey to the creek. I wasn’t an adventurer after all. Bee ran alongside me. When she looked at me her eyes seemed reproachful but I didn’t really trust what I was seeing. She barked once and it unnerved me; I almost fell off the bike. Then I felt betrayed. I’d finally let her in but she hadn’t been on my side back there.
    I noticed different things on the journey this time. The way the trees held out their bare arms like old wicker chairs left out in bad weather. They looked helpless, like they’d been unravelling slowly. Unravelling was what could happen to me if I wasn’t more careful.I made a fresh promise to stay coiled up tight, not to go out, and not to let anyone in.
    Floyd? Are you there?
    Always. You know that.
    But you weren’t with me back at the creek, were you? You didn’t see the boy?
    Calm down, Summer. Just get home.
    Finally the roads became familiar, and then I hit Lime Street. ‘ Sensationally positioned! The family home of your dreams. ’ That boy had thought he was in a dream …
    A pair of pink rollerblades lay abandoned on the pavement but a moving object caught my eye: a grasshopper girl bouncing on a giant trampoline enclosed in high mesh walls.
    ‘There you are!’ Sophie whined through her cage. ‘You were aaages !’ She stopped bouncing and pressed her face into the mesh like a tiny bank robber.
    I propped her bike against the fence.
    ‘You stole my bike, Summer. You went really far. I timed you – you were thirty minutes and forty-six seconds exactly. I’m