Read Red for Free Online

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    It grew darker. They found more beanbags scattered around the library and made a nest for themselves under the window.
    â€˜I could read you a story,’ said Red. ‘Put you to sleep.’
    â€˜Weird. No one’s ever done that for me before.’
    â€˜Or I could tell one.’ Red sat deep in her bag and tucked her knees up under her chin. ‘Once upon a time there was a famous actor called James Martin and he lived near the coast and he had a boat and he used to go out sailing everywhere and sometimes he’d go with his family and sometimes he’d go by himself and one day he went out and he didn’t know it but there was a big cyclone coming and his family thought he was dead but what they didn’t know was that his boat got washed all the way in onto the land and he got tossed out and he hit his head and he couldn’t remember who he was and so he wandered around for a while till he got better and then he remembered that he had a daughter and he had to find out if she was all right and so he went to the Centre to see if she was there.’
    â€˜And was she?’
    â€˜No. But she’d put her photo up and every day she’d come to see if her dad was there and one day they found each other.’
    â€˜And what happened then?’
    â€˜They lived happily ever after.’
    â€˜It won’t be like that, Red. You’re kidding yourself.’
    â€˜It’s just a story.’
    â€˜Maybe.’
    â€˜And anyway, I want to go back to that place, the Centre, and look in the morning.’
    â€¢ • • • •
    Red woke early. Peri still slept, stretched out on the floor where he’d rolled from his beanbag.
    She pushed herself up and moved quietly across to the window. Pink morning light washed over the courtyard below her. She flicked a layer of dead flies off the sill and stared down at the seats around the stump of a fallen tree. Did I sit there? Is that where I ate my lunch? With friends? Why can’t I remember them? And why aren’t I in that final photo? She went back to the librarian’s desk and stared at the photos.
    She tried to put names to the kids who were standing around her. The girl next to her in Year Five with curly black hair and her arm in a sling. Had she broken it at school when Red was there? Were they all playing on the monkey-bars or racing round the playground and she fell? Or the one holding the sign. She was shorter than the others but she had the biggest grin. Is that why they gave her the sign? What was her name?
    Red wandered into a side room off the main part of the library. More computers lined walls that were covered with posters: Join the Reading Challenge , Defeat Bullying , Celebrate Diversity and Love Your Library . Desks were set in a horseshoe shape, ready for a discussion group. Red picked up a backpack lying on the floor. She flipped it to see if it was empty. Two blackened bananas fell to the floor.
    She took the pack out to the main desk and put into it some of the food that Peri had found, drinks and chocolate bars. Then she went over to the bookshelf. She slid the book with the haunting face of the girl out from where she had hidden it. Why had she done that? She stuffed the book into the pack without looking at it.
    Peri was stirring. ‘You’re up early.’ He rolled onto his stomach and rested his chin in his hands. ‘What are we going to do today?’
    â€˜The Centre,’ said Red. ‘I want to see if anyone has written on our photo. I know it’s crazy, there won’t be anything, but I just have to know.’ She tossed an energy bar to him. ‘That’s breakfast.’
    They walked along the top corridor and down the internal staircase. Stories and poems were Blu-tacked to the wall. Red didn’t linger to read.
    They cut across the oval where the grass was ankle-deep and they had to step between the bits of rubbish strewn around. The sun was hot