Red Rocks Read Free

curtains blocked out none of the light, so he put the pillow over his head and went back to sleep. Dad had always got up early. Usually by the time Jake sat down for breakfast, his father would have been for a walk along the beach and then written for two hours. Dad said it was so they could spend some time togetherduring the day without him worrying about his work, but Jake knew that he still worried about it anyway. He would sometimes stop what they were doing, holding onto the ball, or the dice, depending on the game, and his face would become vacant, as though he had left his body behind and popped off somewhere else for a few seconds.
    ‘Your turn,’ Jake would have to say. ‘ Dad .’ And his father would smile and keep on playing as if nothing had happened.
    This morning, Jake got up to the smell of something delicious frying in the kitchen. Dad was listening to the radio, humming along to a piece of classical music.
    ‘What time is it?’ Jake peeked into the frying pan and saw pieces of dark sausage cooking next to an egg. Black pudding. Yuck. He used to like the taste of it, until he’d found out what it was made of: blood.
    ‘It’s nine o’clock, sleepyhead!’ Dad rumpled his hair and pushed him towards the table. Jakesat down as his father tipped the contents of the pan onto a plate and set it in front of him. ‘Careful,’ he said. ‘It’s hot.’
    ‘Aren’t you having any?’ Jake asked.
    ‘I had porridge earlier. Besides, I know how much you like black pudding and there was only enough for one.’
    Jake couldn’t refuse it now. Dad was looking so pleased with himself. Gross. He forced himself to put a piece in his mouth. If he closed his eyes and pretended it was regular sausage, he could enjoy the taste without thinking about it.
    ‘Hey, I pumped up the tyres on your old bike,’ Dad said. ‘You can take it out for a spin if you want.’
    This cheered Jake up. There was nothing he liked more than riding along the road by the sea, especially with the wind at his back.
     
    What Jake hadn’t counted on was the southerly. He always forgot about it until it hit, which was often. There was nothing between this partof the coast and Antarctica, as his dad often reminded him, so the wind was laced with ice, and any part of him that was exposed to it quickly became numb. Sometimes Jake fancied he could smell penguins and hear the bark of husky dogs on the breeze. It wasn’t strong today, but it was enough to make him take a sharp intake of breath as he rounded the first corner. He pushed on anyway, pulling the sleeves of his hoodie down over his hands, so he was riding with paws instead of fingers on the handlebars.
    He had planned to bike to the Island Bay shops, maybe see if there was a movie on at the Empire, but once he was out the gate, it was as if the bike had other ideas. He felt the pull of the cliffs again, the beach with its talking stones and seals, the old man in the shack. But as he rode past the houses of Dad’s neighbours, something didn’t seem right. Two boys stood at the gate to a house that had always cheered Jake up when he walked past it. The cottage was painted blue and sparkling white, and the garden had a lotof windmills in it, which in the usual blustery weather would spin crazily. Some of them were in the shape of birds with funny faces, their wings whirling madly. All of them were painted to match the house. Sometimes a smiling Labrador would be in the front yard, playing. It would hide behind the lavender bushes and jump out at the windmills, barking and lolling its tongue. It never seemed to tire of the game, and Jake never tired of watching it play.
    As Jake got closer to the house, he could hear the dog barking, but it wasn’t a happy bark. Its yelps were high-pitched and troubled. What was going on? Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. One of the boys, with dark wavy hair and an oversized brown hoodie, was holding a rope. At the other end of the rope, on the other