Shooting Pigeons

I hung around town all day hoping Danny’d managed to get here. I daresay he’d think to hitch a lift and there might have been time to get clear the other end before the police started looking for him. I asked at the bus and railway stations but all I got were blank looks and shrugs so I just wandered. I’d taken the camera to help pass the time and give me something to do and spent a while stalking the sick pigeons and seeing how close a shot I could get before they took off. They all seemed to have something wrong with their feet – usually they’re red and curled or maybe twisted. Some have missing toes and one had even lost a whole foot and was rolling along on a stump. I got a great photo of a pigeon sitting in the traffic lights and turning red and warm when the lights changed but I got bored after a while and started stealing shots of the homeless in shop doorways, all bundled and crouched tight against the cold. That brought Danny’s trouble back again and I kept my eyes well skinned in case I missed him while I was looking through the viewfinder. He couldn’t have missed me tho. I’d worn my pink puffy jacket with the fake-fur-trimmed hood, pink skirt and tights and pink and silver trainers. I said I liked pink and I wasn’t joking. Silver rucksack for the camera.

I reckon that if he comes here he’s looking for me, his only friend, right? So he’s not going to avoid me, even tho he wasn’t too friendly the last time I saw him. Maybe the escape was using up all his thinking and he had none to spare on me. You’d have thought he’d have mentioned it – he could have asked me for Marz address and he knows I’d wouldn’t dob him in.

Around two I had a bit of a smack in the mouth. I walked past a newsagent and picked up a paper. It seems they think Danny disappearing like that is news enough to go in the local paper – not on the front page but just inside. There was a picture of him too: Have You Seen This Man? and a short paragraph about being unstable and possibly violent and not to approach him but to dial 999. Straight up - it nearly made me sick. But it wasn’t a very good photo as it was taken a year ago and his hair's much longer now so I don’t reckon anyone will recognise him from it.

Marz had gone again by the time I got home but she’d written a note in lipstick and stuck it on the fridge. It said: DON’T EVER DARE GO IN MY PRIVATE STUFF AGAIN YOU LITTLE COW AND I WANT THAT TWENTY BACK.

I made a bacon sarnie with loads of HP then I made another one to finish off the bacon.

What can I do now but wait and keep thinking and hoping?