Lisa Heathfield - Flight of a Starling

The fountain boy seems different, though. And something about Lo is different too. Something on the edge of her skin lights up when she talks about him.

We’ve barely finished cleaning up when we walk off, the candy stripe of our big top growing smaller behind us. Lo’s bottle-white hair shines messy in the night’s darkness. She’ll be cold without a coat, but there’s no point me saying. I’ve told her that Lil knows more rain is coming, but she might as well not have heard.

‘Will Spides and Ash mind that they’re not with us?’ she asks, linking her arm through mine.

‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘But I think they’ll mind even more that we’re looking for a flattie, so I’m not going to tell them.’

There are three figures ahead of us, on the edge of our site, lit by one of the street lights.

‘He’s there,’ Lo says, without looking at me.

‘Are you sure?’

They’re standing, all with their hands in their pockets. Two have got their hoods up, almost covering their faces, but the other one turns to us, as though he senses that we’re near. It’s Lo’s boy from the fountain.

‘Do we just walk by them?’ I ask.

‘No. We stop and talk,’ Lo says.

‘What if they’re waiting for someone else?’

She looks at me. ‘He’s waiting for me,’ she says. It’s there, in her eyes, and it makes me feel I’ve made a mistake. We shouldn’t have come.

The fountain boy raises his hand and waves at us, at Lo.

‘I think maybe Ash and Spider should be here,’ I say, slowing down so much that I’m barely moving. Lo doesn’t stop; she unhooks her arm from mine and just looks back at me and smiles.

‘They’re fine, Rita,’ she says. ‘They’re good ones.’

‘How do you know?’ I’m walking to catch up with her, because she can’t go on her own.

‘I just do.’

‘Hey,’ Dean says as we get close.

‘Hey back,’ Lo smiles. A strange silence sits in the middle of us all. The boys in hoods look at us as though we’re from a different land. Maybe we are. Maybe they are.

‘We watched your show,’ Dean tells Lo.

‘What did you think?’ She’s all jutting elbows, hands resting on hips.

‘It was good.’

‘Just good?’ she smiles.

‘Better than good.’

One of the boys pulls back his hood, even though Lil’s rain is starting to spit. He’s the one with his skin scalded from too many spots and he looks straight at me.

‘Don’t you get jealous that your sister is the star of the show?’

‘I’m not.’ Lo has anger in her voice. ‘We’re all equal.’

The boy puts his palms up, as though stopping her.

‘No offence meant.’ And I think he means it. ‘Anyway, I thought the motorbike bit was the best,’ he says.

‘Typical flattie,’ Lo mumbles.

‘What’s a flattie?’ the boy asks.

‘One of you. Not one of us. Do you know that Rita nearly died when we practised that?’ Lo exaggerates.

‘I’m not surprised,’ he says casually, but he looks impressed. Strange that the closer we come to death, the more they like it.

‘What happened?’ Dean asks.

‘I misjudged my jump,’ Lo says.

‘It could easily have been my mistake,’ I say. I don’t like the guilt that still sits in her.

‘Does it really come down to that?’ Dean asks. ‘Just a split-second mistake between you and death?’

‘It’s the same for us all,’ Lo says. ‘Every day you walk the line between dying and surviving too. It’s not just us.’

The boy with the hood still covering his face nods, his hands still in his pockets, staring hard at the ground.

‘You’re pretty bendy,’ the boy with the crumpled skin says.

‘Will.’ Dean sounds annoyed.

‘What? They are.’

‘Do you get scared?’ Dean looks at both of us, but I know he’s asking Lo. ‘When you’re up high? That you’re going to fall?’

‘No. Never,’ Lo says. And I know it’s the truth, because it’s the same as I feel. ‘But I have nerves. That’s different.’

‘How?’ Dean asks.

‘Being nervous keeps you aware,’ Lo says. ‘It brightens everything around you, so that you notice it all. Being scared just burns everything, so nothing is clear.’

‘Burns everything?’ Will asks.

‘Fries the edges of everything,’ Lo says. ‘So you can’t see clearly any more.’

‘Sounds a bit nuts to me,’ the boy in the hood says.

‘No,’ Dean interrupts him. ‘I get it.’

‘You would.’ The boy in the hood half laughs. I recognise him now – he was at the fountain too.

The rain is getting heavier, enough to wet our faces and make our hair cold.

‘I like the sound of it,’ Will says. ‘Frying edges.’ And he walks to the middle of the road and sits down.

‘What are you doing?’ Dean asks, looking around.

‘Getting scared,’ Will shouts, lying his whole body flat on the ground.

‘You’re being an idiot,’ Dean says.

‘I want to see things burning.’ Will stares up at the black sky, blinking hard into the raindrops.

‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ Lo says. She’s confused and it makes her shoot anger at the boy.

‘He knows that,’ I tell her. He’s just acting up because he’s a flattie who can.

‘A car’s coming,’ the boy in the hood says. He’s taken his hands from his pockets as he stares deep down the road.

We can all hear it now, the drumming of wheels on tarmac, getting bigger and wider. It sounds more than a car.

‘Get up,’ Dean says, but Will just lies there.

‘I’m getting hotter,’ he laughs.

‘You’re not,’ I tell him. He’s a fool, tapping into the wrong side of danger.

It’s a van, on the opposite side of the road to us, but with no space to go past Will.

‘Get up,’ Dean says loudly.

The van must see the figure lying down, but it doesn’t slow. Instead its horn is pressed and blares towards us. It seems to speed up as it comes and Will lies flat. None of us move. We watch the van swerve, missing Will by just inches. It crashes its wheels up across the pavement, fumes filling the air. The driver screams at us from behind the glass, before the van thuds back on to the road, all noise and lights and anger until it disappears and leaves us all staring at this boy in the road.

He jumps up in one movement and hollers like some sort of wolf.

‘Burn baby burn,’ he shouts, walking back towards us.

‘You’re an idiot,’ Dean says, turning away from him and looking straight at Lo. ‘Sorry about him.’

‘We’re going,’ I say, pulling on Lo’s arm. But even now she’s hesitating and I know she wants to split herself in two so she can come with me away from Will, but also stay talking to her fountain boy in the rain.

‘Can I see you again?’ Dean asks and Will smirks and thumps him light on his arm.

Lo looks up at Dean, shielding her eyes from the streaks falling from the wet sky.

‘You will,’ she says. And I know I have to get her away from here, before her heart gets too entangled with his.

‘We’re going,’ I say and I pull her with me, giving her no choice. I make her run from him, heading towards our circle of vans sitting tight against the rain.

The light in Mada is on, so we go up the steps, push open the door and stamp our wet feet on the mat.

‘You’re not coming in like that,’ Ma says, getting up.

Ernest and Spider are sitting with Da at the table, each holding a fan of cards.

‘We’re fine, Ma,’ Lo says, but we wait as she gets a towel and makes us rub through our hair and wipe dry our hands.

‘Where did you go?’ Spider asks, as Lo and I take off our shoes and put them neatly in the small shoe rack. ‘Ash and I were looking for you.’