A Pocket Full of Posies (Book 2)

Chapter Ten (Part 1)

My mouth turns dry. She's lying. Why is she lying? I know she wasn't in the car with us, let alone sitting in the passenger seat. I saw it. Maybe she has her memory confused. Even then, why hasn't she mentioned the older man who was actually sitting in the front? Who the hell is that guy?

"Hello?" Lucy's voice brings me back to the present. She and Annabel are staring at me expectantly.

"Sorry, I think my head's still a bit messed up from yesterday."

Annabel goes to speak, but I'm walking back towards everyone before she can get anything out. Why is she lying?

I act as normally as I can around Annabel from then onwards. She might just be getting her memories mixed up. She might be thinking of a different car ride that has nothing to do with the crash. She might not be lying. It might just be a complete misunderstanding. Muddled memories still don't explain why she wasn't in the car with us that night, though.

We're queuing to board the plane, and my thoughts are so tangled up that it takes an elbow in my back from Tom for me to notice I'm at the front of the queue, and there's a man dressed in the airline's uniform gazing at me with his hand out.

"ID?" he asks impatiently.

I mumble an apology as I hand it to him, and he mutters something about seat numbers as he hands it back to me with a bit of paper. I need to speak to Ava.

I walk through the doorway behind the man who just checked my ID, and find myself in a long square tunnel. There are small windows in the walls with posters advertising holiday destinations squeezed in-between them. The ads are unnervingly cheery. I don't know if this is the normal set-up for boarding a plane, but it makes me feel like I'm about to be smuggled off to some highly suspicious destination.

I follow the queue until I arrive at the end, where an air hostess stands with a smile that's way too broad next to the plane door, which sits open. As I step onto the plane, I struggle to hide my disappointment. I don't know what inflated expectations I had about flying, but this thing is tiny. Ah well, the flight is only an hour or so. As I near my allocated seat, I notice Jamie moving towards the row Ava's sitting in.

"Swap?" I ask him before he has the chance to reach her.

He narrows his eyes. "What? Why?"

"I'll take that as a yes. Thanks, you're the best," I say as I ruffle his hair, which makes him literally growl.

He hesitates, but soon lets me pass. "Fine, but whatever it is, you better share it with the whole group later."

Watch me not do that. As I sit down beside Ava, she lifts her head and a hint of surprise surfaces on her face. I'm about to explain why she now has the pleasure of me sitting beside her instead of Jamie--an upgrade in everyone's book, I'm sure. Although based on recent events, maybe a downgrade. Yeah, probably a downgrade. Whatever the case, before I start to explain that I need to speak to her about something, the small child in me that bursts out way too frequently gets there first.

"Hey, can I sit by the window?"

Ava just laughs. "Sure."

We swap chairs, much to the dismay of the man sitting in the aisle seat, and I'm so distracted with looking out the window that I half forget why I'm here in the first place. We're sitting in line with the wing, how cool is that? I didn't realise we were so high up. Are planes usually this high up from the ground?

"So..." Ava starts beside me.

"Huh?" I ask, finally pulling my eyes away from the window. "Oh! Yeah, sorry, why I'm the one annoying you instead of Jamie." I quickly check my surroundings for Annabel, and see her standing in the near empty aisle, gazing over my head to catch a glimpse of what's outside the window. "I'll explain later."

Take off is horrific. It's great fun to start with--the plane starts humming, getting louder and louder until it starts rolling forward. It begins speeding, and just when I think it's going to dive headfirst into the motorway or something, I suddenly feel weightless and I realise we're no longer touching the ground. Great fun. I gaze out the window, and have to blink several times to believe how quickly everything starts turning smaller and smaller. For a guy who sees dead people, it's incredible how much this whole thing blows my mind.

Then my ears start hurting.

I'd heard about this, about how flying makes your ears pop, but my ears have popped before. This is not that. This is excruciating.

"Here." Ava's voice sounds distorted beside me, and I can barely hear her. I turn, my fingers furiously massaging both my ears, to see her holding out a packet of jelly sweets. "It helps, I think it's the swallowing that does it. Don't worry, it's groovy, they're gelatine free."

She could be offering me a packet of chopped up pig trotters and I wouldn't care if it means stopping this pain.

"Is it meant to be this bad?" I grimace as I take a sweet. "Not to alarm you, but I think I'm going deaf."

I've got no idea if Ava can hear what I'm saying because I can barely hear myself, but she starts laughing, which is downright mean of her.