Hidden Among Us Read Online Free PDF

girl in my year not allowed to walk into town on Saturdays. The only girl not allowed on the Easter trip to Rome.
There will only be two teachers
, Mum had said.
It’s not safe
. Always watched, monitored, like a laboratory rat. Not allowed, never allowed. One rule for Rafe, another for me. For God’s sake, soon even
Connie
would have more freedom than I did.
    And why? She would never say. Refused to even discuss it. I’d shown her now, though.
    I heard Mum shouting after me as I picked myself up, palms burning, knees scalded even through my jeans, half winded from the fall. Tears scorched my face. I was glad no one could see them.
    Stay out a few moments to cool off,
I told myself. But at the back of my mind I was thinking,
And let her worry. Just let her
.
    I flew out of the gate, heard it banging behind me, banging open and shut in the wind. Mum was still shouting for me, but I ignored her. Rain slammed into my face.
When did the weather get so bad?
It had been barely even spitting at the station, and now this. I stalked off down the twisting, tree-lined lane. Would she follow? I glanced back over my shoulder; the gate and the house were already out of sight. I walked on.
Just around the next corner,
I told myself.
Then go back. That’ll teach her
. I was soaking already; rain dripped down the back of my neck, slithering between my shoulder blades. So cold. May is supposed to be a time of magic, it’s like the earth takes a deep breath as springtime turns into summer. Not this year.
    I turned the corner and saw I wasn’t alone.
    Moonlight glinted off the plastic sides of a bus shelter cowering against the hedge. There was someone waiting inside, slouching on the metal seat. He got to his feet, left the bus shelter, walked towards me.
    I froze, thinking,
Murderer, rapist, mugger?
And then immediately,
Don’t be such an idiot, maybe he’s lost and wants to ask for directions
.
    It was that boy from the station, hood up against the rain.
    My heart was racing again, a mixture of panic and – something else. Excitement.
    “Come on,” he said. “We’re going to be late. I waited.”

8
Rafe
    I took the Tube. It was rush hour so I changed at Oxford Circus in a hot sweating ocean of people. Hundreds of bodies pressed up together, the stale-coffee breath of strangers in my face, sickening. And all the time my heart was racing like I’d sprinted a mile.
    I hadn’t checked the Reading Room for CCTV.
    Even now the police might be following me, tracking down the manuscript hidden in my shirt, light and tickling against my skin. There was no way of explaining this. I would be arrested.
    I wanted so much to read it.
    I scanned the carriage: too many people with tired faces, sweaty clothes. And
there they were
: pressed against the window I caught sight of a policeman stepping into the next carriage, a flash of fluorescent yellow jacket.
    They were coming. I was trapped. I looked down at my rucksack, staring at the black plastic buckles, concentrating on boring detail to block the panic. That feeling I was going to vomit.
    Bond Street, Marble Arch, Lancaster Gate. Queensway. The train spewed passengers onto the platform and there it was again: fluorescent yellow among dark suits, drab work clothes.
    The policeman stepped off the train, moving down the platform in a rush of commuters.
    Not for me. Of course not. I couldn’t help smiling as we pulled away, back into the black tunnel. I was a step ahead. But for how long? Sooner or later, someone would notice the journal was missing. If they hadn’t already.
    Still no time to stop, no time to look. Even now that librarian could be starting to panic, to make telephone calls, raise the alarm. Notting Hill Gate. At last. I allowed myself to be swept along with everyone else up the escalator, through the ticket barrier. Rushing to get home no faster than anyone else.
    It wasn’t my home, Dad and Elena’s house, just free parking. I didn’t even knock on the door, just went