Read Online The Amazing Spencer Gray by Deb Fitzpatrick - Free Book Online Page A

else is wrong with you, Dad? Is it shock, or something?’
    Dad sucked in a breath before saying, ‘Donno. Not shock.’ His forehead creased up, like he was in pain, or was really concentrating.
    Spencer squeezed his hand and knelt forward so he was directly above Dad’s head. He checked out the bloody area without touching anything. ‘It looks like you’ve cut the back of your head. There’s a bit of blood there ... Is it hurting?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Really? Okay ... but I’ll look at it in a little while just to make sure. I’ll have to move your head a bit to do that, Dad, is that okay?’
    â€˜Yesh.’
    â€˜One other thing—the two-way—I can’t get it to work. No one’s answering, anyway. Is there a trick? And I found your mobile and tried to call Mum and then I tried to call Reg but there’s no reception up here.’
    Spencer could see his dad struggling to open his eyes.
    â€˜Flight notice _____ Reggggh.’
    â€˜Huh? Flight notice? What’s that?’
    â€˜Reg _____ has _____ route. Duty _____ pilot.’
    â€˜Do you mean that Reg knows where we were going—the route we flew?’
    â€˜Yesh,’ Dad said thickly, his face slumping back into sleep.
    That was good to know. Very, very good to know.
    â€˜Rest up now, Dad.’ Spencer said quietly. ‘You need to rest up.’
    Spencer tried to make him more comfortable in the limited space, shoving anything soft underneath and around him. He kept away from the leg. The Leg. It wasn’t nice, that thing. The angle of the lower part to the knee was hideous.
    He knew he couldn’t avoid Dad’s head much longer. Even The Leg was better, somehow, than blood oozing from your dad’s head.
    He took deep slow breaths, like Mr Petrich showed him to do when he had a stitch and wanted to stop running. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
    And again, Spence, in through the nose, out through the mouth...

27
    â€˜Shall we head off, Pips?’
    Pippa sighed. ‘I s’pose.’ She paused, an idea brewing. ‘Will you play Monopoly with me when we get home?’
    Mum noted the greying sky and shunned a little nub of worry that was trying to make its way in. She took a breath and looked at her daughter. ‘I’ll have to get the washing in off the line, but after that, yes, I don’t see why not. So long as I can buy the railway stations.’
    â€˜Mum, you can’t always get them, you know.’
    â€˜And why not?’
    Pippa rolled her eyes. ‘Well, it’s not fair, is it?’
    â€˜Says she, who always racks up hotels on premium real estate!’
    â€˜M-u-u-m!’
    â€˜All’s fair in love and Monopoly, Pippa-Poppa. Race you to the car!’

28
    Flares! Spencer thought. Boats had them—what about gliders? He peered through the diminishing light at all the gear that had been flung around the cabin. Or—what were those other things? E-things? Charlie’s dad’s boat had one; his mum’d insisted on it when they got the boat, otherwise ‘there wasn’t gunna be a boat’—Charlie had said, doing his best-ever impersonation of his mum in scary mode. EPIRB: that was it. He had no idea how they worked, but it was possible that there was one in the Drifter somewhere. If only Dad were awake and sensible, he could ask him this stuff. Spencer looked over at him, spread awkwardly with jumpers strewn this way and that. He looked pale. He hadn’t eaten anything since the crash. Or had any water. Spencer was going to have to get him to have something, to keep his energy up, as Mum would say. In fact, neither of them had had anything since that apple on the tarmac back at Skippers.
    Spencer reached over and grabbed the esky bag. Mum. Thank you. He was ravenous, he realised, looking at the food. Go easy, champ. Don’t know how long you’re gunna be stuck up here.
    His throat