THE RIVER

By Tessa Harvey


    Deliberately the car hit the back of the motorbike. It veered left into a ditch. Joe was flung high over the road and straggly bushes into the river. He disappeared.
    Blue scrambled hard down her tree. The temperature had dropped with the onslaught of rain. Icy spicules stung her cut cheek, but she hardly noticed. Slipping on moss and lichen, the girl almost fell from the tree and ran for help.
    She burst through the screen door of the darkened house.
    Despite her fear and haste, she held the screen door softly so as not to bang, a habit firmly instiled over the last two years.
    Elizabeth caught her niece, holding her tight. She had been waiting .
"Joe went in the river," she sobbed. "A car hit his bike on purpose. It was a car...."
The woman bit her lip. "Right, this is what we do...."

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