Chapter 45

 

I’m going to choke, Daisy thought. The handkerchief, Michael Benson had tied around her mouth was tight and it smelt of oil and it was disgusting. Every few seconds a feeling of wanting to be sick made her mouth water and brought a stone cold feeling to the pit of her stomach.

I can’t be sick, she thought, still in the grip of panic after he’d tied the hankie and swearing and shouting had thrown her into the stone shed. The shouting really frightened her because she thought he wouldn’t do that for fear of someone hearing him so they must be really far from any chance of that happening or else he was past caring and that thought made everything scarier.

She made her thoughts dwell on Barney, on his coat and how warm and snuggly it was and how he licked her face and she pretended to be cross. She made her mind go through their trip to the brook at the bottom of the cow parsley meadow. She’d make a picnic which was just big slices of bread spread with damson jam and a bottle of milk and Barney would wag his tail and be crazy with excitement despite the fact that they did this every day nearly in the summer holidays.

Daisy came back though now, to the hard ground. Her daydream had almost worked. The sick feeling had gone and she managed to slow her breathing because in her panic she’d been trying to gulp in air around the handkerchief and that had made the choking, sick feeling worse.

It was getting cold. He’d tied her hands too with a rope, pulling and pushing her roughly and swearing all the time. Her arms ached, but that wasn’t as bad as the sick feeling had been. Daisy heard a sound then, a shouting and a banging and her heart hammered.