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

‘It’s exactly the kind of thing people forget,’ Grandma disagreed. ‘They are often so engrossed with their jobs and the tiny things that they do day to day, that they lose sight of what’s really important, often until it’s too late.’

She was right. Of everything my brother had been accused of, forgetting to live was not one of them.

‘I need to run,’ I told Grandma. ‘Thank you for talking to me, and for letting me stay the night. I promise I’ll ring you straight away if we hear anything.’

‘Thank you for coming to visit me,’ said Grandma Sylvie, ‘it’s been wonderful to see you.’ And for the first time in what seemed like ages, she pulled me in for a bony hug.

Nine

It was freezing outside so I borrowed one of Grandma’s thick cardigans for the cycle home. The rain had finally stopped, and the gentle touch of sun made everything appear brighter. I took a shortcut through the field, the sandy path sparkling and crunching like sugar under my wheels. In the tufts of grass at the edge of the playing field I spied the tiny green humps that promised daffodil leaves. I hoped that the frost wouldn’t get to them before they managed to flower.

But when I got home, hope evaporated. Mum looked so pale that I wasn’t sure whether she’d gone to bed at all. Last night’s phone call had clearly made her feel worse about everything. I knew Pickles was only doing his job by updating us, but I couldn’t help but feel annoyed with him.

The news on TV no longer featured regular updates on the earthquake, so Mum had taken to trawling the internet for any smidgen of information she could find. She was sitting on the sofa scrolling frantically on her laptop. She reminded me of a sad ghost.

‘Hi, pet,’ she said, looking up as I walked in. I noted the flicker of surprise at my cardigan, before she remembered where I’d been. ‘How’s Grandma?’

‘Yes, she’s fine. Gertrude is nice. Grandma really seems to like her.’

‘Oh that’s good,’ she said. ‘And how are you feeling?’

‘All right.’ A part of me wanted to tell her about everything that I’d discovered, because I thought it might make her feel better, but at the same time, I wanted to spend longer mulling over all this new information about Jack to make sense of it. So I gave Mum a hug instead.

‘It’s lovely to see you,’ she said, braving a smile. ‘You cheer us up, you know. If you want some breakfast, Dad’s in the kitchen. I promise we’ll try to cook something nice tonight. I’m going to do my best to drag myself away from all this news – it’s not doing me any good.’

I walked down the hallway to find Dad sitting at the kitchen table, scribbling a shopping list on a piece of paper. A tuft of hair stood up on the top of his head. He looked young and helpless. Not like my dad at all.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked him.

‘Oh, Flick. Yes, well – I’m trying to do something practical, so I thought I might go out and do the food shopping. It’s all this waiting that’s killing me,’ he admitted, and then his brave face suddenly disappeared.

‘What is it, Dad?’

‘I keep thinking that if he was all right, surely he would have called us. He would always call, wouldn’t he? Especially if he knew that we were worried.’

‘Of course. But aren’t the power lines still down in a lot of Peru?’ I asked.

‘Actually I think mostly the power’s back to normal, apart from some parts of Lima which were badly affected.’

‘Maybe he’s somewhere far out though, where there’s no signal.’ I could hear the desperation in my voice.

‘We need to be patient, as painful as it is. I just hope that Jack has enough medication to last him. How are you feeling about going to school? I can’t believe it’s already Monday.’

‘I’ll be fine. It’s distracting at least.’

‘That’s true.’

‘Dad, we’ll be OK. We will,’ I said, putting my arms around his neck. I don’t know what made me say that.

‘I keep thinking there must be something I haven’t thought of, you know? Another person who might be able to help.’

‘You’ve honestly done everything you can. And people know about Jack from the news. If they thought they could help, they’d let you know, wouldn’t they?’

‘You’re right, Flick. Thank you for saying that.’

I poured myself a glass of orange juice and went upstairs to get changed. I couldn’t resist checking in Jack’s room. I knew instinctively that nobody had been there since I’d visited with Keira. I drew a new branch for Grandma Sylvie, to add to Sutty’s and Manfy’s. I added smaller branches for the photograph of her and Grandpa, the trick that Jack had played on her, and the story the market-seller had told about the key.

I took the key out of my pocket, carefully hanging it around my neck, and shut my eyes. I knew it probably wouldn’t work, because the key didn’t belong to me, but I still held it tightly in the palm of my hand and wished as hard as I possibly could that Jack would be found and that he’d come home safe. I knew how silly it sounded, but Grandma’s wish had come true, so there was a tiny smidgen of hope that mine would too. I chose to keep the necklace on under my shirt collar for good luck.

On the way into school, Keira linked elbows with me.

‘I did some more investigating of my own. I went to see Grandma Sylvie.’

‘Seriously?’

I filled Keira in on last night’s visit.

‘Aha, so it’s not her,’ she said, disappointed.

‘No. She’s not S.F. At least not the S.F. that Jack was thinking of.’

‘You’ve made progress, though,’ she observed.

‘How?’

‘Well, we know from two different sources how much Jack loved playing the guitar. We also know that he enjoyed matchmaking.