The Runaway Summer by Nina Bawden

‘Don’t tell lies, Mary,’ and sometimes, when they were kinder, ‘Oh Mary, you have such an imagination!’ As if imagination were a disease, like chicken pox, or measles.
    Mary thought she wouldn’t be able to bear it, if Simon said something like that. She clenched her fists and held her breath, almost as if she expected him to.
    But all he said was, ‘I’m sorry. I suppose it was the twins, then. I thought it might be. But you shouldn’t have worried, honestly. I know they’re awful, but they’re not sneaky. Least, not when they understand. They wouldn’t have said anything …’ Mary stared at him and he blushed and added, lamely, ‘About this morning, I mean …’
    This morning seemed a long way away and a long time ago, like a dream she had almost forgotten. Remembering it now, Mary hung her head. ‘It wasn’t that, stupid.’
    â€˜What was it, then?’ Simon’s voice was still patient, but Mary thought she could detect a sharper note, as if in a minute or two he would begin to get bored with this one-sided conversation.
    She looked at him quickly, prepared to be angry, but he only looked puzzled and interested and kind. Suddenly, she wished she could tell him. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ she said, and stood up because she couldn’t bear to sit still any longer. As she stumbled down to the creamingedge of the sea, her heart was beating fast and the palms of her hands felt sticky. Perhaps a policeman had found the boy! Perhaps he was even now shut up in jail, in a dark, airless cell! Or worse, dying in hospital with a doctor standing beside him and shaking his head and saying, Of course, if we had found him earlier, we might have saved his life …
    â€˜How d’you know I wouldn’t believe you?’ Simon said, behind her, and all at once the guilty fears that were simmering inside her seemed to bubble up and spill over. She turned on him furiously.
    â€˜Oh do shut up talking—talking’s no good— we’ve got to do something quick.’ Hot tears came into her eyes and blurred her vision. ‘It’s awful,’ she said, half-sobbing, ‘anything might have happened to him …’
    â€˜Who’s him?’ Simon said, and when she didn’t answer—she tried to, but her throat seemed to have swollen up—he took her by the shoulders and shook her, quite hard. Then he let her go and said, ‘Come on, tell me! Who’s “him”, and what’s up?’
    He had spoken in a jollying uncle-ish voice, as if Mary wasn’t a girl his own age, but someone much younger—Poll, say, or Annabel. Another time Mary might have resented this, but now it comforted her. His sounding so calm and grown-up brought back the feeling she had had earlier; that here was someone who would know what to do.
    Once she had begun to tell him, she couldn’t get it out fast enough. ‘You know those two men the policeman took away—well, there was a boy, too—he was running on the beach and—and I jumped at him and he fell over Grampy’s stick. Then he didn’t move and I thought—I thought he was dead—and I went to find someone and I saw the men with the policeman and I couldn’t tell them because of Bill Sykes and OliverTwist and—and then I wanted to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen—you just acted silly so—so I ran back and—and he’s not here anymore … He’s gone …’
    She was out of breath and her legs felt funny, so she sat down on the breakwater.
    Simon said slowly, ‘Well, he can’t be dead then, can he? I mean, corpses can’t walk!’
    Having made this practical point, he stopped and looked at Mary, frowning a little. Then he said, ‘But I don’t see—I mean, what you said about Bill Sykes and Oliver Twist. I don’t see what that’s got