Читать книгу The Forever Whale - Sarah Lean, Sarah Lean - Страница 13

8.

“DID YOU THINK SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH Grandad yesterday morning?” Jodie says when I meet her on the quay the next day on the way home from school.

I feel guilty because I’ve been trying to cover up some of the things he did, and maybe I shouldn’t have done that.

“Yes, but most of the time he was fine,” I say. It’s an effort to lie and makes my stomach hurt. “I wanted him to be fine,” I say quietly.

Jodie knows I feel bad and I can trust her not to make me feel worse.

We stare at the statue of the faceless people.

“It’s weird how they didn’t give them faces,” Jodie says.

“Mrs Gooch said it’s so we can all see something of ourselves in them.”

Jodie pulls a face and I know what she’s thinking. Nobody’s faces are the same – they have different shapes and colours and ways that they are put together.

“It’s not like a mirror or anything,” I say. “It’s just that it’s supposed to remind us of things like being safe or rescued or people we know, something like that.”

I see Grandad and me in the statue. He’s the big brave figure in the boat reaching for the small one, to carry them safely back to shore.

“What’s the greatest power on earth, Jodie?”

“That sounds like something Grandad would say.”

“It is something he said, ages ago. He was going to tell me a story … about a journey.”

Jodie screws up her face and tips her head to the side. “Maybe the greatest power on earth is Art,” she says, taking a long look at the statue. “But not this bit of art. It’s weird.”

I notice Jodie has black eyeliner and mascara and her lips are glossy and pink.

“Have you got a boyfriend?” I say.

“No!” she says, far too strongly.

“Thought so. You don’t normally wear so much make-up. What’s your boyfriend’s name?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she says, “I just like him.”

“How much?”

Jodie’s painted eyes open wider.

“Loads,” she says which makes us smile, but our faces drop again straight away. Even that can’t stop us thinking about Grandad.