Gift of the Gab Read Free

sounded like Dad. He’s got metal tips on the heels of his cowboy boots and they click on lino.
    The thought of seeing Dad made my heart skip with love.
    The thought of him seeing me here in a cell made my heart skip with fear at exactly the same time.
    Then, after all that, it wasn’t Dad, it was Dermot’s mum. She must have metal tips on her heels too.
    When I saw her hair bobbing past the window in my cell door, my heart skipped again. It always does when I see people’s mums. It’s not love or fear, but. I think it might be jealousy.
    My heart’s been doing a lot of skipping today.
    It did a huge one earlier when I saw Dermot and his mates running at me across the carpark, yelling furiously.
    For a sec I stood, frozen.
    I thought I could hear stewed apples bubbling away behind me in Dermot’s car, but then I realised it was my tummy churning with fear.
    My heart started pumping and I ran.
    I thought I could get away because even though I’m much smaller than Dermot, I’m a good runner. Dermot and his mates play footy, but they also smoke and eat heaps of sausages.
    Boy, was I wrong.
    Dermot must have been doing extra training, or perhaps he was just extra furious, because I could hear his pounding feet getting closer behind me as I sprinted along the road back to town.
    The road’s called Memorial Drive. It’s lined with trees and each tree’s got a metal plaque on it in memory of a soldier who was killed in World War One. Their families planted the trees when that war ended, so the trees are over eighty years old and pretty big.
    I was grateful for that today.
    When I started hearing Dermot’s angry breath behind me, wet and raspy, I knew my only chance was to be a better climber than him.
    Dad’s taught me a lot about climbing trees, including how you should never rush at one.
    Except in emergencies.
    I rushed at the nearest tree.
    The trunk was big and smooth, but Dad once showed me some tricks for getting up big smooth trees. Luckily my hands weren’t too sweaty and soon I was hauling myself up onto the first branch.
    I clambered up into the high branches among the foliage.
    Below I could hear Dermot swearing. I was in luck again. His mum didn’t seem to have shown him any tree-climbing tricks.
    My heart was skipping all over the place as I wrapped my arms round a branch and listened to the boons trying to form a human pyramid. I could half-see them through the leaves. The pyramid kept collapsing and there was lots of swearing about people standing on other people’s faces.
    Then something ripped through the leaves close to my face.
    And again.
    â€˜Aim for her head,’ one of the boons yelled.
    They were chucking rocks at me.
    I huddled against the branch, desperately hoping there were enough leaves to camouflage me. And wishing it was an apple tree so at least I’d have something to chuck back at them.
    More rocks crashed through the leaves.
    I heard a car approaching. It slowed down, then drove on.
    â€˜That’s illegal,’ shouted one of the hoons at the car. ‘Driving and using a mobile. I’m calling the cops.’
    The driver must have beat him to it because about ten minutes later, just as I’d decided to climb down and offer to show the hoons how to throw straight in return for my freedom, I heard Sergeant Cleary’s siren approaching.
    â€˜Run!’ someone yelled.
    â€˜No,’ shouted Dermot. ‘I want the cops to see what she’s done.’
    Sergeant Cleary made the hoons stand on the other side of the road while I climbed down. As I slid down the trunk past the metal plaque I noticed the tree was in memory of Private Em Wilson, killed 1917, aged nineteen.
    â€˜Thanks, Ern,’ I said silently.
    When Sergeant Cleary saw the apples cooking in Dermot’s car, his mouth gave a little grin before he could stop it. The police in our town have had a lot of trouble with Dermot’s