Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

You’ve got to hold my hand!” Trina’s got her cross face on, because we’re late and it’s my fault, ‘cos I didn’t get ready fast enough. Her eyebrows are all bunched up and her eyes are squinty.

“No! You squeeze too hard!” I hide my hand behind my back, but she’s ten and big and I’m only seven and little, so she wins.

“I don’t want you-I want my mummy!”

“Well, your mummy doesn’t want you.”

This is so horrible, I gasp. “You’re a big fat liar!”

Trina really is fat, so she gets even crosser. “Am not! Your mummy’s a wacko.”

“She is NOT.” I try to hit her, but I’ve got my school bag in the other hand and it’s too heavy, so I don’t get a good swing.

Trina gives me a big tug and starts to sing, “Loony-bin, loony-tune, she’s so mad she bays at the moon!”

“Stop it!” I shout. “It’s not true. She’s just op pressed.”

Trina laughs-it’s that loud, hard laugh-when you know it means she doesn’t think it’s funny at all. “It’s not o -ppressed, it’s de pressed-muppet.” She squeezes and squeezes until I cry.

“I’m in charge. And your mummy says you’ve got to hold my hand to cross the road,” she says.

I don’t see why, ‘cos there’s Pelican lights and everyone knows you just have to wait for the green man, but no matter how hard I wriggle, I can’t make her let go. If you looked at her face you’d think she was smiling, but she isn’t, she’s showing her teeth, like Uncle Pete’s dog does when he doesn’t want you to stroke him.

A mummy comes up with her kids while we’re waiting, so I cry harder and shout, “You’re hurting my HAND!” The mummy looks at Trina, and she lets go, but only a bit, so it doesn’t hurt so much.

She smiles and pretends to be nice. “Don’t be silly. You wouldn’t want to get squished, now, would you?” Explaining like I’m a baby. She wipes my nose with her tissue, when I didn’t even need her to and it’s probably full of boogers, anyway.

She has to keep pretending, because the mummy walks behind us. They’re late, too, but the mummy is kind to her children and tells them not to worry, to just tell the teacher the car wouldn’t start. I look over my shoulder because I can’t hear them talking anymore, and she’s at the gate of the county primary, which isn’t the same as our school.

She waves bye-bye and smiles, so they don’t worry. Then she looks at me and I can tell she’s thinking if I was her little girl she would walk me to school and she wouldn’t squeeze my hand too hard.

“Come on.” Trina pulls so hard I nearly fall over and she has to squeeze my hand again or I’ll fall. “Saved your life!” she says. “Now you owe me forever.”

This makes me afraid, in case she makes me eat worms or something to pay her back, but something makes me say, “You nearly killed me, now you owe me forever.”

She lets go of my hand ‘cos we’re on the field now, and the school is at the top of the hill, up the grey path. My fingers have gone white and stiff, so I tuck my hand under my arm.

“Baby.” Trina walks fast deliberately so I have to run to keep up. My fingers are so cold. Trina walks faster and faster, and I’m afraid I’ll get left behind and I won’t know what to say to Miss Irvine. “My fingers hurt!” She pays no attention, but she’s almost catched up to a lady with a dog, and I think about how she felt guilty in front of the mummy, and I shout, “You BROKE MY FINGERS!”

She stops, like a soldier when the sergeant calls halt. Then she turns and marches up to me and bends down, so her face is right in front of mine. Her cheeks are red, but everything else is white, ‘cept her nose. “You’re such a brat!” Her eyes are big and angry.

“I’m not! I’m not a brat, it’s just my hand hurts and my fingers are cold.”

“I told you. You should’ve worn your gloves,” she says, and grabs my hand. I try to escape, but I’m too slow ‘cos I’m upset. “Hm,” she says, examining it like a doctor. “I see… Stone cold. That’s frostbite, that is. I’m afraid those fingers’ll drop off by playtime.”

I snatch my hand back, pushing it into my coat pocket.

“One by one,” Trina says. “Snap! Snap! Snap! Till all you’ve got is stumps and you won’t be able to write or eat or dress or anything and they’ll put you in a home.”

I start to cry again and she gets behind me and gives me a big shove. “Crybaby! Get a move on, or I’ll snap one off right this minute!”

I feel all fluttery, like when Mummy and Daddy used to argue. “Please don’t!”

Trina makes another grab for my hand, but I run onto the grass.

“Snap! Snap! Snap!” she says. I back away and she hunches over like a big bear that would eat you. “Snap! Snap! Snap!”

I turn and run. I run and run and Trina can’t catch me, because she might be able to walk fast, but she’s too fat to run.

“You can’t go off on your own!” she shouts. “You’re not a- loud!”

I run until I can’t even hear her shouting anymore. When I turn around, I can’t see Trina. My footsteps have made a track-pale green shoeprints on the white frosty grass. I run around in circles for a bit, in case she tries to follow me, and I end up in the trees. Can’t go in there on your own, you’re not aloud.

I’m not aloud ‘cos there might be Bad Men, waiting to pounce. But I can be quiet as a whisper. I’ve had lots of practice, ‘cos Mummy needs me to be quiet when she has a headache. My mummy is sick and she gets headaches a lot.

Like a steel band around my head! Like someone’s hammering nails in my skull!

Steel bands make a lot of noise-I know ‘cos they had one at the harvest festival and they’re VERY aloud, so no wonder they give you a headache.

The path is glittery and some of the twigs and stones are white, like a tiny bit of snow is on them. I hear a noise. It might be a lion or a wolf or a Bad Man. But if I tiptoe very softly and don’t look, it’ll be okay. Only I don’t feel okay, ‘cos my heart feels very big and it’s bashing my chest so hard I can see it through my jacket. I’m wearing my new one that I got for Christmas, with the fur trim, so I really hope it isn’t a wolf, in case he thinks I’m a nice juicy deer to eat.

I look in front and behind and on the left and on the right, but there’s nobody, ‘cos me and Trina was already late and all the kids are in school and all the mummies and daddies are at home or in work. I cross my fingers and hold my breath and walk very quiet and pray to God that the wolf won’t eat me.

The sound comes again, and I jump. It doesn’t sound like a wolf, it sounds like a cat’s miaow. What if a kitten has got lost and can’t find her mummy? I take a big deep breath and hold it again, only this time, it’s so I can listen. There it is!

The miaow is coming from under a bush quite near the end of the path where there’s a gate onto the street, so maybe the kitten just wandered off.

“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.” The kitten doesn’t come out, so I kneel next to the bush. It isn’t very muddy and I don’t get dirty at all, because anyway it’s all frozen. “Here, kitty.”

It’s all wrapped up in a yellow blanket. The blanket moves and I’m a bit scared in case the kitten scratches me. But there’s nobody else to rescue it, so I take one corner, where the silky bit is, and lift it very carefully.

“Oh!” It isn’t a kitten at all-it’s a baby. I look around, but there’s no mummies about who might have dropped it-and anyway, you don’t just drop a baby and not know about it. Then I remember Mummy said when you have a baby you have to go out and find him. And the most popular place is under a bush.