By Any Other Name (33 page)

I drink more cider, but that doesn’t give me any answers, just makes me feel a bit more like throwing up.

Lindsay leans forward and kisses Steven on the neck. Openmouthed. Sucking hard. He’ll have a bruise there tomorrow.

Rob laughs. ‘Get a room!’

And Steven waves to him to take the wheel while he cranes round to catch her mouth.

The car swerves and my stomach clenches.

Sarah’s quiet, probably miffed that Charlotte’s after Rob and there’s no one for her.

Lindz whoops as Steven takes the wheel again and floors the accelerator. The car surges forward and hurtles faster and faster down the road.

We hit a straight stretch and Steven spins the wheel from side to side, hands in the air, steering with his knees. Us girls scream and laugh all at once. I force my giggles out.

Something white swoops low in front of the car. Steven shouts out and the car veers towards the hedge.

An owl!

He grabs the wheel and we shriek with relief. My heart steadies again though I feel sicker than ever.

‘Fairy!’ Rob jeers at him and Steven’s face sets harder in the rear-view mirror. His eyes glitter and he slams down on the accelerator.

We’re moving rally-car fast. The January frost coats the hedges in the headlights’ beam as we flash past.

We wheel round another bend into the dip down to Harton Brook. Another twist in the road, and another.

The needle on the speedo reads 70 mph and the girls and I are really screaming. Steven’s knuckles are white on the wheel and even Rob takes his feet down off the glove compartment.

We shoot over the bridge into the bend straight after it.

The stereo bass batters my ears.

And then . . . then the car feels different underneath me. The wheels . . . they glide and spin.

Bumps in the road . . . I can’t feel them any more.

We’re floating.

And I remember. Remember how Mum always nags Dad to slow down here. ‘It’s a frost pocket. There’s black ice here,’ she always says.

Suddenly Rob starts to yell and Sarah shrieks. And I know why the car feels funny. Why it’s skating on the road.

Steven cries out, ‘Shit! Shit!’

The car spins off the road, crashes down the steep bank into the field below.

We’re not gliding any more and my bones shake like they’re falling to pieces.

Thump . . . thump . . . thump from the stereo.

Screaming.

So loud.

I’m thrown upwards as the car turns over.

Then sent slamming down again.

The car rolls once more and my head hits the roof.

Blackness.