CHAPTER TEN
I still don’t know how they managed to punk me, but as I lie in bed, every part of me aching is for revenge. The vellum’s spread out on the desk and my throat’s clenched as I try to rip it in half, but it’s way too tough. Stuff it. I have more important things to do before breakfast and I swipe the matches from the cutlery draw.
   The shed’s the same inside. Boys on boxes grinning at me from the shelves, except for the box I dropped on the floor. I’ll start with that one. I already have the matches in my hand as I squat down beside the grinning faces of the kids. I grin back and feel its savageness.
The lid glides off like it’s new. Probably is. Bastards.
And, I can’t understand what I’m seeing.
How have they managed to place the struts and cogs and wheels and angle braces. and... They can’t have – unless they’ve done it with every box, because they couldn’t have guessed which box I would choose first. And even the ultimate punk hasn’t got a $100,000 dollar budget. There’s no way they could set this up and I glance up at the empty windows.
‘Let’s play.’
It’s a boy’s voice – Sammy’s voice.
This can’t be happening again.
I run.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
The shed is still open. I didn’t lock it before I ran away last weekend and I stand on the pavers, hearing my rasping breath. Why am I here? But I know.
... Sammy – who would have been Sam, if I’d been the one who disappeared. Sammy is back, even if his voice has changed.
After he’d disappeared from the park, he came back. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him for weeks. Then I told Mum and Dad – big mistake. They told the psych; the same psych who gave me the bull-shit about deep-breathing and he prescribed these little brown pills. Mum said they were to help me sleep. Another bloody lie. And Sammy was gone – for good.
It’s taken me a week to return. I should have been back the next morning. Hell no, I shouldn’t have run in the first place, but it’s taken me the whole week to get up enough courage to come here and go back. Back to when there was Sammy. When there was Jacky. Back to when I was nine and the world was good.  
And now...
The door swings open almost as soon as my fingers touch it and I’m walking to the middle of the shed, crouching beside the crane kit – waiting.  My ears straining.
‘Come on, Sammy,’ I urge into the continuing silence.
After around an hour, I sit cross-legged, waiting. The minutes on my wristwatch tick around, and around, and around. Eleven, Twelve, Two, o’clock.
I heard him, I know I did. Why won’t he talk to me?
Five o’clock. I have to go in for dinner.
‘Bye Sammy,’ I say before I lock the door.
It takes an age to get back to the laundry, I can hardly lift my feet and when I’m in my bedroom, I pull out my mobile.
Think I heard my brother a week ago
In a secret shed in the back garden
I wait for Tom’s reply.
Nothing.
Seems like all I do is wait.
Then my mobile rings. It’s Tom.
‘Hey,’ I say, surprised. Texts are cheap, words aren’t.
‘Hey,’ he says, and I can hear worry.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah,’ I say and my voice is steady.
‘Your text freaked me out.’
‘I heard him; I heard Sammy.’
‘Have you told your mum?’
He doesn’t believe me.
Tom was in our class when Sammy left me. I don’t know whether that was part of the reason we became friends – he was sorry for me, or whether he saw an opportunity to connect with somebody who had previously been completely absorbed by his other half. Whatever. There was a gaping hole and Tom filled a bit of it, then a lot of it. He plays electric and acoustic guitar like Hendrix and we jammed together, me following his riffs with my sax, We’ve been best mates for years and he doesn’t believe me.
‘Have you told your Mum?’ He repeats into the silence.
I don’t answer. I can’t. And I feel like somebody has kicked me in the balls as I realize this is the last time I’ll hear his voice.
‘Hey, Jack, are you…’
I hang up and grab my sax.
Boulevard of Broken Dreams echoes around the room. Halfway through I spit out the mouthpiece.