Читать книгу Sarah Lean - 3 Book Collection - Sarah Lean, Sarah Lean - Страница 28

SAM WAS LEANING ON THE GATE WHEN I CAME home from school. He reached out, swept his hand over my face so he knew who I was. I pushed the gate and he laughed as he swung away.

He had an old-fashioned camera with him. He held the camera up to his face, one hand on my shoulder, and pressed the button. While I watched, the camera whirred and out rolled a greyish shiny piece of paper. Then a photograph magically appeared. My chin was missing, but it was a nice picture of most of my face and the huge green common behind me. Then we swapped places, so I could take a picture of him.

We went inside and Sam gave Mrs Cooper the photographs. She had a machine like a typewriter, but with only six keys and a big one in the middle. It punched the Braille bumps into the card and she stuck my picture on one.

“You really don’t say much, do you?” she said. “How about you write your name on it instead?”

Writing isn’t like talking and it’s good for telling someone something without saying it. On the card, instead of writing my name, I wrote: Sam is my friend. Mrs Cooper tapped the message on Sam’s hand.

Sam gave a felt tip to Mrs Cooper (because he doesn’t find writing easy) and tapped out what she had to write for him on his picture. Mrs Cooper gave me the card and went off to cook the tea.

She had written for Sam: Cally and me, one who feels and one who sees. It was like a little poem. I thought I knew which one was me and which one was him.

I looked closer at the picture I wanted to keep. There was Sam, my new friend, grinning from under his floppy dark hair, the huge green common and trees behind him, and another familiar shape in the background. A silver-grey dog.

My insides lurched; my head felt like it would pop, I could feel my breath caught tightly at the top of my chest. Sam leaned close, tipped his left ear; he put his hand on my arm. He looked thoughtful; he seemed to know something was up. He pulled his boxes of cards over, opened the lids, found a card with the word, WHAT?

Sam smoothed his fingers across the bumps on each card I handed him. DOG – Sam nodded. BIG – Sam nodded. I couldn’t find a card for Homeless, so I gave him the card for LOST.

Sam’s eyebrows bunched up. So I pulled him outside, made him stand where he had been standing, held his arm out, rolled his fingers under until just his first finger was pointing across the common.

Homeless was still there, far away, his nose to the ground. I climbed on the wall, made myself as big as possible in a star shape, waved and laughed and laughed. Homeless’s head rose, his ears twitched forward. And then he came, slowly at first, then galloping straight to us across the common.

I put Sam’s hand on Homeless, but he never let go of me. I felt his hand tighten round mine as he felt all over the tall body, felt for the right way to smooth Homeless’s scruffy fur. Homeless let him touch his great teeth and cool damp nose, find the end of his curved tail. Sam was jittery and laughing. I don’t suppose he’d ever felt anything quite like Homeless before and I was glad they met, that I had someone to share Homeless with. I smoothed Homeless’s ears. Soft as my mum’s hair.

Sam took two photographs of Homeless because the first one just had his tail and back legs. Homeless just wouldn’t keep still, winding round us as if he had to keep us together.

“Wait!” Sam suddenly said.

He left me with Homeless, went inside, bumping into the doorway in a hurry to go in. He came out with some cheese and slices of ham and Homeless wolfed them down.

Sam put his hand where his heart would be, patted his chest, then put one of his cards in my hand. Sam stopped moving. He was so still I wondered if he’d fallen asleep standing up.

I looked at the card. It had a picture just like the one on the Flat to Rent sheet Dad showed us. A picture of number 4 Albert Terrace. It said HOME.