The Key to Finding Jack by Ewa Jozefkowicz (best classic books to read TXT) 📕

to me hastily. ‘Please, please could you let me know if you hear anything about Jack?’

‘Sure. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything,’ I promised.

‘Well, that was useless,’ I said, as Keira and I walked home. She’d taken the piece of paper from me and was punching Manfy’s number into her phone. ‘All we managed to find out was that she used to hang out with Jack, apparently much more than I ever did. Plus we didn’t even ask her if she knew anything about the key.’

I realised how sulky I sounded, but I didn’t care. If Jack had kept so much of himself hidden from me, what was the point of carrying on with his riddle? I might never find the answer.

‘I’m guessing you missed the two potential S.F.s that were given as clues?’

‘Eh?’

‘Come on, I thought that Jack had trained you well? She gave away some very important information, Flick. The first was Finny, the music teacher. That’s Mr Finnegan from school, isn’t it? My cousin had him last year for her A-levels. We can easily look up his first name on the school website. I have a suspicion it begins with an “S”. The second is your grandma, isn’t it?’

I was so surprised that I stopped dead in my tracks. ‘She’s also an S.F, isn’t she? Sylvie Florenz.’ It sounds silly but I’d completely forgotten her full name. To me, she was always Grandma.

‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘So…’

‘So?’

‘Who shall we visit first?’

Seven

I spent most of Sunday morning sitting in Jack’s room sketching the house that I saw on the wall at Gilmore’s and thinking of both Margot and Jack. I couldn’t feel mad at Jack for long. I loved to sit on his windowsill and watch the world from above. Our road was on a hill, and if I put my face against the glass and looked east, I could see the river and the majestic bridge that had been around for centuries. It was strangely calming to look at something that had remained the same when everything around it had changed. In the summer, the bridge was barely visible because the leaves on the trees obscured it so that I couldn’t see the road below. This was Jack’s favourite view.

‘I can imagine that I’m anywhere in the world,’ he said, ‘on the French Riviera, or in the middle of the Amazon jungle. I wake up, see the light streaming in through the leaves and choose my location.’

Now the bare branches swayed in the breeze like skinny dancers. It had grown steadily colder over the past week and the weather forecast predicted snow. I wasn’t getting my hopes up. Sleet and rain were much more likely. As if in answer to my thoughts, a smattering of raindrops hit Jack’s windowpane. I was about to go downstairs when I spotted a girl wearing a red beret walking energetically down the street. She looked so much like Margot I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She paused at the zebra crossing, tilting her head as if to feel the chill breeze on her face. I noticed that she was carrying a first aid kit – a little box with a cross on it. Perhaps she was a nurse? She looked up and caught me watching and waved. Embarrassed, I stepped back from the window, but realised I was being silly. When I put my hand up to wave back it was too late – she’d gone.

That evening Mum, Dad and I sat down together for dinner for the first time since the earthquake. We were eating our way through the provisions that friends and neighbours had made for us, and today Keira’s mum’s cottage pie was on the menu.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t manage to cook anything,’ said Mum. ‘I can’t seem to focus on anything. Even chopping an onion seems like a difficult task.’

‘It’s all right, darling,’ said Dad, and I was surprised to see him get out of his seat to give her a hug. ‘I think we all know that the normal routine has fallen apart since we found out about Jack,’ and he motioned with his left hand that I should join them.

This three-way hug made me feel safe, but there was also something not quite right about it – like we should be forming a square, not a triangle. There was a vital person missing.

‘We need to support each other through this,’ said Mum.

I desperately wished I knew what to say to make us all feel better. Then the phone rang and our hug broke apart. It was Pickles.

Mum and Dad quickly took the phone into the study and shut the door behind them. Maybe they thought that they were protecting me from hearing any bad news but I needed to know too and decided to listen in through the wall.

‘Nothing at all?’ Dad asked. There was silence and his voice got louder. ‘Of course we can’t be certain that he was in the area, but the last time that we spoke to him he was heading there. We’ve told you this already. Yes, I know that you are – I’m not raising my voice, I understand that you’re doing everything…’

Then I heard Mum burst into tears and I couldn’t listen any longer. I sneaked upstairs, threw my pyjamas and toothbrush into my rucksack and ran outside.

When I knocked on Keira’s front door, nobody answered. The living-room light was on, but the rest of the house was in darkness and I couldn’t hear the classical music that her mum, Charlie, always played in the kitchen.

I fished my phone out of the bottom of my bag and saw a message from Keira that said: Gone to visit Grandpa Miles. See you at school tomorrow! Xx

I sat on her porch steps twisting my rucksack straps round and round my finger as I debated what to do.

In the left-hand hedge I felt for the small fish-shaped piece