Georgina Neilson Age 13 Spilt Milk There was a crash, and a slight skittering as the cat slid across the crowded draining board to its food dish. Dann groaned and bent down to pick up the pieces of broken white china. He was jittery and nervous about the coming evening, and slightly dazed by what he was planning to do. He took out the little black box again and gazed at the glimmering ring inside. Will she like it? Will she say yes? She loved him for sure, she told him so every day – but this was a huge decision, and for life. Dann sighed, dropped back onto the soft red couch and settled down to wait for her, his Emma… Emma tucked a strand of long, dark hair behind her ear and placed her biker helmet over her head. She felt cool in her black leather clothes, and looked it too. She climbed onto her new Harley, a present from her parents after passing her test, and set off into the darkness. The main road was unusually quiet, and though she supposed it was because of the football on TV, it still made her uneasy. The faint roaring of an engine was carried to her on the wind, and thankful to see another vehicle ahead, Emma sped up, air rushing round her. But then she noticed the tanker’s steering, and how it didn’t seem quite right. The tanker didn’t seem to be in control at all, and so she stepped on the throttle to overtake it, and its dangerous driving… The sign for the next rest stop glinted as the headlights flashed by it. The truck driver yawned sleepily but stubbornly drove past the entrance. The radio chattered on in its monologue, failing miserably to pierce his drifting thoughts. His head began to nod; he had been driving since morning but refused to take the rest he so vitally needed. He could make up for lost time if he drove through the night. The blackness beckoned to him, and the night lulled him into a dreamy state, the moon and stars peering out at him from behind a blanket of cold cloud. The tanker began to swerve lazily across the road, its driver too lost in his dreams to register his crazy steering. The dull hum of a motorbike buzzed through his mind. He shifted his arm over to a more comfortable position and in doing so knocked the wheel. The tanker banked sharply, rolling over and grinding across the kerb. Sparks flying, a match striking sandpaper. The noise of the bee was quashed. A strong smell of smoke filled his nostrils, an acid tang of metal swirling round his mouth. He could feel liquid oozing down the side of his head, into his nose, his mouth. It was sticky, it tasted unpleasantly of red, black and hurt. Blood. A wave of black silence washed over him, soothing his throbbing head, and he let himself be carried away by it. Down, down into the rolling sea of unconsciousness… Andrew sighed and switched on the engine. Another call out, three in the one night. And he hadn’t been on the shift long, four hours at most. The car rumbled into life, shuddering and coughing in protest. Cutting a path through the swathe of traffic with his blue lights and piercing wail, he made his way slowly to the scene of the crash. Maybe this would be quick, maybe not fatal. Please don’t be a fatality. He really wasn’t cut out for this job. Sure enough, though, with the fates against him, the smell of burnt rubber and seared flesh hit the roof of Andrew’s mouth. And … was that milk? The last thing he expected to find at a car crash, the officer had to step carefully to avoid cool white pools. A large wreck smoked by the side of the road, some sort of tanker and the remains of a motorbike, nothing but a blackened skeleton. Andrew sighed and stepped round the black bag containing the former biker. He was surprised that the body had not been consumed by the flames and was glad he had not arrived in time to watch it being cut from the wreckage. ‘Good evening, P C Burney,’ another officer greeted him. Is it really? Glancing back at the twisted bag, he felt he disagreed… Dann checked his watch, again. 9.27pm. She was late, Twenty five minutes late. Where was she? His nerves were getting the better of him and he reached out to stroke a cat and stop his hands shaking. It purred with pleasure and rolled over, belly up. Pushing himself up suddenly, startling the cat, he reached for the phone. Placing the little black box on the sofa arm he punched in her number and listened intently to the dial tone. He let it ring once, ring twice, three times… four… |
