I can’t believe I didn’t think about this.
To get to our neighborhood, we have to take a pedestrian bridge over a four-lane-highway. It’s the main artery between the burbs and the city — a big, hideous thing flanked on both sides by sound barriers.
For now, the barriers block our view, but once we get to the top of the bridge, we’ll see everything.
“Evie? What’s making that noise? Is someone hurt?” Darcy asks.
“I think someone must have fallen over in their back yard,” I lie, frantically trying to think of another route home.
But there isn’t one. Not unless we want to scoot for hours.
I can’t let Darcy see this…
“Darcy, Truth or Dare?” I ask.
“Umm…. Dare.”
Perfect.
I try to sound normal, “I dare you, to go the rest of the way home, both blind and deaf.”
“Easy peasy,” he says.
I tie my scarf around his head so he can’t see, and put my headphones over his ears. “What do you want to listen to, dare devil?”
“In a town, where I was born,” he sings.
Most kids are brought up on the Wiggles and Yo Gabba Gabba; but Darcy was brought up on The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. He calls it Dad’s ‘old fashioned’ music, which Dad doesn’t appreciate.
I cue up Yellow Submarine and push Darcy up the ramp on the scooter.
The local council really tried to make a statement with this bridge. I wish they hadn’t. The giant plastic orange spirals are hideous, and the kids in the ‘street art’ mural look borderline demonic — especially now. Their spray-painted smiles glare at me accusingly as we scoot past.
I arrive at the top of the ramp and stop to catch my breath. In another step, I’ll be able to see the highway.
“Why have we stopped? Keep going Evie! We all live in a …”
Okay, here goes.
I crouch down behind the scooter and start shuffling, concentrating hard on my feet. I’m not going to look up. I’m not going to look up. I’m not going to look up.
Half way….
Three quarters…
“HEY YOU, HELP!”
Instinctively, I look up. I wish I hadn’t.
It’s pandemonium.
Of all the car-crashes I’ve seen in all the disaster movies I’ve watched, nothing compares to this. I feel sick.
The road is completely blocked: a dozen cars are piled, twisted, stacked, and thrown across the highway. A disheveled arm hangs out of the window of a red sports car. A pool of blood drips from a silver soccer-mom SUV. A motorbike lies on its side in a drain — the rider nowhere to be seen.
“Help! I’m over here!”
A boy about Darcy’s age is stuck in the back of a green sedan.
Only the sedan is perched upside-down on top of a delivery truck, at the edge of the pile up. Gas pours from its fuel tank onto the road below.
My stomach churns again. The accident today at school was bad enough… this is insane.
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The Sleep Part I: The Fan & The Things That Hit It
General FictionAt sixteen, could you run the world? Could you look after the food, the water, the electricity, the government... the children? Evie Ballentrae isn't equipped to deal with any of that. But like everyone else her age, she doesn't have a choice. 'The...
