Lost Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

neither envied them nor wanted to join them nor felt irritated by them. He felt nothing at all.
    After the crash, Goose had experienced more grief than he could have imagined possible. He had sobbed for days. His eyes stung from crying and his throat felt bone dry. When he couldn’t cry any more, his grief turned to anger. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs. He wanted to destroy anything and everything. One time in a burst of rage he had kicked Mutt. The little dog had yelped and scurried away, looking shocked, scared and betrayed. Goose was immediately horrified by what he had done. More than that, he was horrified by the fact that he had done it knowingly. It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment reaction. Hehad thought about it. He had had time to stop himself, but he had done it anyway. He had wanted to hurt someone or something. And he had.
    He’d picked up Mutt gently and held him, stroking him lovingly and apologizing over and over again. Mutt wasn’t the sort of dog to hold a grudge. He had licked Goose’s face and nipped his ear playfully. That was the first time Goose had laughed since his parents died. There hadn’t been a second time yet. As a reaction to hurting Mutt, Goose put away his anger. He locked it up, deep inside himself, and threw away the key. Unfortunately every other emotion had to go with it. That’s just how it worked with Goose: lose one, lose them all.
    He let the curtain fall back into place and climbed off the bed. He found his other trainer and put it on.
    Mutt was awake, watching his master. He yawned and waited to see what Goose would do.
    â€˜Come on, Mutt,’ said Goose as he grabbed his jacket and left the room. Mutt jumped up and followed.
    Goose plodded down the narrow staircase; Mutt trotted after. Whatever youthful exuberance Goose once possessed was all but gone. There was a time when he would dash everywhere, always looking to escape, but he didn’t rush anywhere any more. There was nowhere he wanted to be in any particular sort of hurry.
    At school, when he went, he rarely spoke to anyone and kept to himself at break times. At first, both teachers and pupils were sympathetic to his situation. The headmaster had made a moving speech during assembly, urging everyone to give Goose the space he so clearly craved. Then, over time, that just became the way everyone interacted with him. Teachers stopped calling on him to answer questions in class. Not that he ever put his hand up. The other kids didn’t even think about approaching him to see if he wanted to play. Goose knew all the quiet, out-of-the-way places in his school. The places he could go and not be disturbed.
    Over the last year only one significant event had occurred at school that involved Goose. It was when a new kid started. His name was Darren and he had arrived in Manchester from somewhere south. He was big for his age and had decided his role at school was to be respected through fear. He set out to be a bully and, out of all the people he could have chosen, he picked on Goose to assert his dominance.
    He came up behind Goose as he was walking across the playground one lunchtime. Goose was on his way to a small roof behind the gym that practically no one knew about or even thought about if they saw it. Darren shoved Goose viciously. So hard in fact that Goose pitched forward. Goose’s hands were in his pockets and he ripped his jacketin a desperate attempt to get at least one hand free to control his fall. It could have been a lot worse, but he still scraped up one side of his chin and the palm of the hand that he put out to stop himself.
    Goose fought back the tears as Darren loomed over him. The new boy sneered down at him.
    â€˜They say you lost your mum and dad. Bit bloody careless of ya, weren’ it?’ Darren had spent most of the morning thinking up what he was going to say. He grinned at all the kids nearby who had stopped to watch. Had he been paying more