The If Game Read Free

then to miss a beat, then to knock urgently on his chest wall. At the same time, he felt muzzy. Everything around him seemed to be moving faster than he could understand. He wondered if he could be going to faint. Was this what fainting felt like? Then it passed, and he was standing steadily on the opposite side of the road and gazing at the door. He knew, without a shade of doubt, that he had to go through that door. There was no reason in the feeling, but it was as compulsive as the need to drink when you are parched, or the impulse to hit back if someone attacks you. He crossed over so that he was at the bottom of thethree shallow steps leading up to the door. Now he saw that it had a large keyhole. A huge keyhole, like a mouth open to swallow something. He was sure that it was waiting for his key.
    He stood there for some time before he turned and went home. Luckily Dad must still be asleep. No voice challenged him as he went across the passage to his room. He took the big key out of the jar and put it in his pocket. Then he began the return journey. He wanted to hurry, as if the big keyhole in the door might disappear. It was when he turned into Bridge Street that he saw the boy.
    He was a boy of about his own age, with brown hair, worn rather long, in shabby jeans and an amazing shirt, bright turquoise coloured, with yellow dragons. The sort of shirt Stephen might have admired in a shop window, but which he’d never have had the courage to wear.
    When the boy spoke to him, he was surprised. ‘Hi!’ the boy said.
    Stephen said ‘Hi!’ too, though he didn’t like being spoken to by this stranger.
    â€˜You’re Stephen,’ the boy said.
    â€˜So what?’
    â€˜I’m Alex. Remember? You were in your garden. Weeks ago. We talked through the fence. I was there with my mum. We were visiting her uncle.’
    Stephen did remember. ‘How did you know me?’
    â€˜You came out of next door. And you were whistling the same tune.’
    â€˜Holmes, you are wonderful,’ Stephen said.
    The boy said, ‘I wouldn’t want to be Sherlock. I’d be Mycroft.’
    â€˜Mycroft?’
    â€˜He was Sherlock’s brother who was cleverer than Sherlock.’
    â€˜But you’re not either one of them,’ Stephen said, andthought he sounded just like his dad, squashing any sort of play of the imagination.
    â€˜I know I’m not. But it doesn’t hurt anyone if I think about what I’d be like if things were different. I mean, if I was very rich or one of those people who are brilliant at something like tennis.’
    Stephen recognized this as the sort of game he played in his own mind. The wishing game. He said, ‘What would you be like?’
    â€˜I don’t know, do I? It’s a sort of game I play with my mum. Don’t you ever do it with your dad?’
    Stephen said, shortly, ‘No, I don’t.’ He looked up and down the road to show that he meant to be on his way.
    â€˜Where are you going?’ Alex asked.
    â€˜Going to look at a house.’ Stephen was not pleased by the question.
    â€˜Mind if I come with you?’
    â€˜What about your mum? Won’t she expect you to be back home?’
    â€˜She won’t for ages. She’s cooking supper for Uncle Joe. It’s going to take her years, because she never knows where he’s put things, and she has to look all over for them. In funny places.’
    Like keys in a chutney jar, Stephen thought. ‘What sort of funny places?’
    â€˜Last time she wanted to find the tomato sauce, he’d put it in the bathroom.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜No idea. He couldn’t remember. So there’s no hurry.’
    â€˜Is he crazy?’ Stephen asked.
    â€˜Not specially. So you see, my mum won’t mind. But not if you’d rather I didn’t.’
    Stephen would very much have rathered that he didn’t, but he didn’t know how to say so. He