A Year Without Autumn (23 page)

No. No, it doesn’t have to be like that. I’m not galloping. I’m not Mikey. I’ve changed the past. I’m safe. I can do it.

“Come on, Jenni.” Carol’s calling from behind me. I’m gripping the reins tight, yanking Angus’s head upright and making him dance jerkily at the water’s edge. If I’m not careful, I’ll make him buck me off. I’ve got to cross it.

Autumn’s watching me from the other side, laughter in her eyes. Mikey is next to her, staring at me like all the others.

“Come on, Jenni. What’re you waiting for?” he calls.

Why don’t any of you understand? This is serious!

Then Angus makes his own mind up and walks into the water. I can’t look. I’ve virtually got my eyes closed as he gracefully steps across. Two seconds later, we’ve done it. We’re across! I want to scream and laugh. We’ve avoided the accident! I’ve changed everything! It’s not happened to Mikey, and it’s not going to happen to me, either!

I’m so desperate to tell someone. I wish Autumn would listen to me. All the things we’ve talked about, all the sci-fi stories we’ve shared, maybe she really
would
understand, if I could think of the right way to tell her. I’ll find a way, one day.

As we head up the lane, I can feel my confidence growing. I pass a couple of the girls, making my way toward Autumn at the front. I’ll tell her everything, I’ll make it into a joke or something. I’ll enjoy the second hour of the ride as we head back to the stables. It’s all going to be OK; I know it is. Mikey’s riding alongside Autumn, the two of them confident and happy — I feel almost as confident as they look, now that I’ve stopped the accident.

“Autumn!” I call her as I pass the rest of the group. I’m grinning, waiting for her to turn as I go around the outside of the two girls behind her.

“Jenni!” Carol shouts from behind me. “You’re in the middle of the road!”

It all happens so quickly.

The car comes from behind me. Too fast. Tearing along a little country lane at about eighty miles an hour, zooming past, virtually scraping into me.

Angus jumps up, throwing his head high. I grip the reins. Mikey turns at that moment, to see what’s happening. I can see the horror in his eyes.

Pulling hard on the reins, somehow I manage to get Angus to the side of the road. I’m panting, almost breathless with fear and relief. That was
so
close.

But then I look up. I almost see it happen in slow motion, frame by frame. Mikey’s horse, spooked by the car, rears up like a rodeo horse as the car disappears into the distance. Mikey’s face is sheer terror. He’s slipping in the saddle, grasping the horse’s mane, his body hurled forward again as Mouse plunges back to the ground.

“Autumn! Help!” he yells. Mouse is kicking out with his back legs now. Mikey’s completely lost control.

Mikey.
My throat closes up.

And then he’s in the air. Mouse has thrown him off. One silent, almost calm, moment. And then the worst sound in the world — a sickening thud as Mikey meets the ground.

People are leaping off their horses. I just sit, staring openmouthed at my best friend’s little brother lying motionless on the road.

It’s just like before.
I can’t speak, can’t utter a word.

All this. Everything I’ve been through, and it didn’t change a thing.

I
jump down from Angus and pass the reins to Mark, who’s pulled up alongside me. Everyone’s getting off their horses and crowding around Mikey. I join Autumn by his side.

“Mikey, can you hear me?” I ask breathlessly.

Then Mikey opens his eyes and frowns at me. “Of course I can,” he says. And then he slowly sits up. He sits up! He’s all right!

Rubbing his head, he carefully gets to his feet.

“Mikey, are you sure you’re all right?” Autumn asks, holding on to his arm.

He shakes her off. “I’m fine, sis. No big deal.”

A moment later, Carol’s in front of him. “Mikey? Where does it hurt?” she asks.

“It’s just my head. Just banged it a bit. I’m fine, honestly!”

I’m so relieved, I can’t speak. I changed it — I really changed it. Mikey’s fine. Everything’s going to be OK!

And then something happens that feels sickeningly familiar, but I can’t think why. Carol takes her horse back from Sue and walks Mikey’s horse over to her. “Take Mouse back will you?” she says. “I think Mikey should ride back with me on Magic.”

“I’m OK. Stop fussing, everyone,” Mikey says. “I can ride back.”

Carol shakes her head. “Just to be on the safe side.” Then she helps him up onto her horse and gets on behind him. “We’ll take it nice and slowly back to the stables. Follow me, guys. Sue, you bring up the rear this time.”

She starts to walk away, Mikey sitting in front of her, all the others starting to follow after them. And I can’t move. I can’t speak. I can’t do anything — because I’ve realized something terrible. Something I only know from the news report that will be on television tonight.

This is exactly what happened last time.

“Come on, slowpoke. What are you waiting for?” Autumn says as she pulls up alongside me on her horse. We’re walking up the lane by Mile End Farm. I’m trying to figure out what I can say to Carol, and what I can do to change this — even though part of me can’t help wondering whether Mikey really
is
all right. He certainly seems it.

“That was close, wasn’t it? Thought he was a goner for a minute there!” Autumn says with a laugh.

How can she laugh?

I’m trying to figure out how to reply when a car turns into the lane ahead of us.

Dad! He’s here!

He pulls up and gets out of his car, just as Carol and Mikey reach him. They stop beside the car. I kick Angus on, to catch up with them.

“Hey, what’s happened here, then? Got lazy, did you?” Dad asks Mikey with a wink.

Mikey grimaces at Dad. “I’m fine,” he says. “Fell off my horse, so they won’t let me go back on my own. But I’m OK, honestly. Just bumped my head a bit.”

As I pull up alongside Carol and Mikey, Dad glances across at me and smiles. “Hey, sweetheart, you having a good time?”

A good time? Am I having a good time?
I look across at Mikey. That’s when I notice the back of his head, right below his helmet, is swollen up like a tennis ball. Suddenly I can see that things aren’t quite how they seem. What was it Autumn said earlier? The surgeon’s words: that the bleed had spread too far for them to operate because he hadn’t been brought to hospital in time. That even one hour could have made all the difference. How Autumn wished she hadn’t believed Mikey when he said he was fine.

With a shiver that shoots through me so hard it makes my whole body shake, I realize I haven’t changed anything — yet — but perhaps there’s still time.

“Dad, you need to take Mikey to the hospital,” I say, my voice croaky and cracked with fear.

Mikey lets out a breath. “Please, can everyone stop fussing? I’m
fine
!”

“We’ll get him back to the stables and see how he is then,” Carol says. “He’s safe here with me. We’ll be back there in an hour.”

An hour till we’re back to the stables? That’s too long! What can I do? I have to make them listen!

“Dad! Please. He needs to get to the hospital now!” I say. This time, the fear has turned to panic. It’s searing through my throat like fire. “Don’t listen to Mikey. He’s worse than he thinks. If we take him to the stables, it’ll be too late!”

Dad gives me a really strange look. As though he doesn’t understand me or doesn’t recognize me or something. Well, he wouldn’t. Here I am again, Jenni Green, the quiet one who doesn’t make a fuss, barking orders at everyone.

“
Please,
Dad,” I say. “I don’t often ask things of you — but I’m asking this. Please listen to me. We need to get him to the hospital. Now!”

Dad looks at me. Then across at Mikey. Then he nods. “OK, hold on,” he says to me. “Wait up a minute,” he calls to Carol.

Carol turns around in her saddle.

“Can I just have a quick word with Mikey?” he asks. Before Carol can answer, he adds, “I’m trained in first aid.”

She turns the horse around to face Dad, and he smiles up at Mikey. “OK, let’s have a look at your head.” Mikey turns his head around so Dad can see. The bump is so huge, I clap a hand over my mouth to stop me from gasping out loud. I don’t want to scare Mikey. Dad lets out a sharp breath. “That’s quite a lump you’ve got there, kid,” he says.

Mikey doesn’t say anything.

“Mikey, do you feel sick at all?”

“No, I’ve told you. I’m OK.”

“Have you had a nosebleed?”

“Nope.”

“Does your neck hurt?”

Mikey doesn’t reply.

“Mikey, is your neck sore?”

Mikey nods. “Yes. Why? What does that mean? I just pulled it when I fell.”

“I’m sure you did,” Dad says calmly. “I’m just checking. OK, can you tell me where you are, Mikey?”

Mikey laughs. “On a horse,” he says sarcastically.

“And where are you on vacation?” Dad persists.

Mikey stares at Dad. Dad stares at Mikey. All of us stare at them both. Mikey’s face has turned red. “I’m at . . . I’m at . . . I can’t remember what it’s called,” he says eventually.

Dad holds two fingers in the air. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Mikey squints at Dad’s hand. “Um . . . I can’t . . . Wait a minute, hold them properly. You’re moving them around.”

Dad’s hand is completely still.

“Can you tell me how many fingers, Mikey?”

Mikey stares at Dad’s hand, his face gritted in concentration. “Three? Four?” he says eventually.

Dad walks right up to the horse and reaches out for Mikey. “That’s it,” he says. “I’m taking him to the hospital.”

Suddenly, everything changes. Dad’s lifting Mikey off the horse. Carol’s jumped down, too; the atmosphere feels as though someone has shot a bolt of electricity through it.

“Autumn, Jenni, let’s go. Can someone take your horses?”

Carol grabs Angus’s reins as I jump down. Sue rides over to Autumn to take her horse. “We’ll figure it out,” she says.

A moment later, we’re getting in the car. Mikey’s in between Autumn and me, and Dad’s starting the engine.

Mikey’s turned pale. He doesn’t look quite so fine anymore. He looks more like a scared little boy.

Autumn squeezes his hand. “Hey, don’t worry, bro,” she says. “You’ll be fine. Everything will be fine. We’re just getting you checked out.”

I want to say something helpful, but I can’t find the words. All I can think is:
Will he?
Will any of this be fine? Will we get him to a doctor in time to prevent the future I’ve already seen? The future where Mikey never,
ever
recovers from this? Or are we all fated to go through exactly the same thing, no matter how many times I try to come back and change it?

Dad catches my eye in the mirror. There’s a question on his face.
How did you know?
he’s asking.
What made you think I’d need to be here?

I haven’t got an answer — not one that he’d believe, anyway — so I look away before he asks it out loud and I’m forced to think of something. I turn to Autumn. “It’ll be OK,” I say. “Whatever happens to Mikey. I’ll never desert you. I’ll be by your side; I’ll do anything you need — you’re never going to lose me. You need to remember that. We’ll always be best friends, OK?”

Autumn gives me a puzzled look. “I know that,” she says simply, with an attempt at a smile. And then I go back to staring out of the window, with only one thought:
Please let him be all right.
I say it over and over in my head, biting my nails so far down my skin is sore.

Please, please let him be all right.

I’m sitting on a plastic chair in a hospital waiting room, holding Autumn’s hand. Mom’s on the other side of me, and Autumn’s mom on the other side of her. Our dads are walking up and down in the corridor. Craig’s sitting on the floor, playing with his cars.

Mikey’s in a room with some doctors, having his head scanned.

No one is saying anything. It’s as if all the sound has been sucked out of the world, along with all the color and the joy. All that is left is this waiting. And the question going around and around in my head:
Did we get him here in time?

“Tom.” Mom breaks the silence. Dad and Mr. Leonard both turn to look at her. She points down the corridor. “The doctor’s coming back.”

At last.

Dad and Mr. Leonard rush back to join us, and the doctor comes over and pulls another chair over for himself. He’s sitting down; that’s not good, is it?

“Are you all family?” he asks.

Mom opens her mouth to speak, but Mr. Leonard beats her to it. “Yes,” he says firmly. “Dr. Wilson, just tell us how Mikey is.” He reaches out to take Mrs. Leonard’s hand. “Please.”

The doctor breathes in. “Mikey’s had a nasty knock on his head,” he says. “The CT scan shows that he’s had something called an extradural hematoma. That’s a bleed inside his head.”

Mrs. Leonard makes a strange choking sound. Mom claps a hand over her mouth. I shut my eyes. I don’t know how I think this’ll help. If I could shut my ears, I’d do that, too. Anything to put off what he’s about to say.