A Raucous Time

  Chapter Twenty-Four

   

  Wren shivered and burned on a sofa damp with sweat. Thin clear liquid trickled from his nose and mouth, his eyes turned up in his head showing slivers of white when Rhyllann prised open his eyelids.

  ‘Bloody hell brawd – don’t do this! Don’t do this to me!’ Rhyllann screamed at him. For the second time that day his cousin was dying in front of his eyes.

  ‘Not this time. Not this time.’ He muttered, knocking the coffee table aside and dragging Wren to the floor. He wouldn’t give in again. Rhyllann still had to get him through the kitchen window, across the drive, then somehow manage to reach the nearest town. Without the neighbours spotting them. He thought about leaving Wren here, going for help. Except someone might spot the broken window and investigate. He watched as Wren’s fingers twitched, and his hand moved. Guessing what he wanted Rhyllann nudged the box against his side. Stroking it, Wren’s lips twitched into a ghost of a smile.

  ‘Annie. I’m so sorry. I should never have dragged you into this.’ His voice was barely audible. Rhyllann knelt beside him, propping him up.

  ‘Don’t talk. Just breathe. Just keep breathing.’

  Wren’s eyelids flickered open; after a second or two he managed to focus on Rhyllann.

  ‘No, let me – I need to.’ He broke off to cough. ‘Annie – that day – when I swapped the books. I knew … I knew they were out to get me. I tried to talk to you. But you weren’t listening. I had to get your attention. I told Coleman he had halitosis and dandruff.’

  Something welled up inside Rhyllann, a force rumbled around in his stomach and up through his chest emerging as laughter as he remembered that day. He could feel Wren’s body shaking as they huddled together in a house they had no right to be in, hiding from a ruthless gang. Minutes later he realised the laughter had turned to sobbing, and Wren’s body no longer moved.

  With a sense of hopelessness Rhyllann plugged his mouth over Wren’s and began CPR, pushing down on his chest, trying to remember how to count. He began feeling giddy and light headed, breathing for both of them. Black spots swum before his eyes, his arms started their own protest but Rhyllann kept going long after common sense told him to give up. Images flashed through his mind; Gran’s face when she heard her youngest grandson was dead, Aunt Sarah learning the news from some faceless prison warden. Rhyllann peered into a future where there was no-one to point out freakish insects or explain when he was helpless with hiccups that they were a throwback to when humans had gills. And no one to call him Annie. The room shimmered with silent people watching him, urging him on. Gran’s worried little face, his mum quietly supporting him, Aunt Sarah looking wild eyed. A slim blond youth encouraged him with a smile. For a second or two, a young girl's form shimmered, her hands clutched against her chest, wordlessly imploring with huge greeny brown eyes. And still Rhyllann pumped on thinking wet drowning, dry drowning, inhale, exhale, push push push – turning his head to one side, pinching Wren’s nose and breathing his own lungful of air into Wren's lungs, all the while chanting breathe breathe breathe as he pressed down on Wren's ribcage again. Sounds began to trickle back into Rhyllann's consciousness, the splatter of rain, the ticking of a clock, a gurgle of drainpipes. And most wonderful of all the soft wheeze of Wren’s chest as he started breathing for himself.

   

  Rhyllann sat watching him, knowing this was only a reprieve until the next attack. They needed transport. Wheels of some kind. He wouldn’t manage to get Wren through that window. Not without being seen. If only the front door wasn’t double locked. For the tenth time he cursed Volvo family. If only – of course – Rhyllann jumped to his feet searching for another way out – there had to be a back door – the kitchen faced the front, the lounge overlooked the rear garden – rushing to the patio doors, feverishly he tugged at the top and bottom catches then pulled at the handle. A massive top to floor pane of glass swept open. Rain cascaded in drenching him, drumming against the wooden floor. Rhyllann whooped with joy. Standing on the patio, barely an arm's length away, its coach work glistening with water was something he’d only seen in films. An old fashioned bassinet pram. The type used by royalty to push little princes and princess through leafy parks, easily large enough to hold a baby and a toddler in comfort.

  Quickly tipping water from the padded inside, heedless of tyre tracks, he whizzed the pram over to Wren. Somehow Rhyllann manoeuvred him into the pram’s carriage, still wrapped in the flowery duvet, with his legs dangling over like a life sized Guy Fawkes. Seizing the pram's handle, Rhyllann sped back through the patio doors, across the back garden into a service path, and finally they were away down the lane. If anyone did manage to spot them through the torrential rain, they would surely think they were hallucinating.

  Singing and giggling happily as the pram propelled them back to civilisation, Rhyllann almost hoped to bump into Volvo family – so he could thank them for their hospitality.