Page 60 of 59 Minutes

MRS DABB

She’s hit with the frantic body slam of a hug. ‘I’m so sorry, Mum.’ Bunny is sobbing so violently that her ribcage shakes through her coat.

‘It’s okay, it’s okay.’ It’s all she can say, the words running together. Because Bunny is here, she’s alive!

‘You’re just in time,’ she manages to say, but the tears are coming now, thickening her throat as she takes in her daughter’s buttoned coat, her messy hair, her laddered tights.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Bunny sobs, breathing hard. ‘It’s all my fault.’

‘Nothing is your fault. You’re home. That’s all that matters.’ The words come out as a series of exhausted exhalations that drain the last of her energy with them. She could collapse in relief. She could actually collapse. She clings to her daughter to stay upright, her face wet with tears.

‘Bunny!’ Mary shuffles out into the hallway and grabs the girl, peppering her with kisses while her mother double locks the front door. Bunny looks up from Mary and watches the bolt as it’s slid across.

‘There are some really bad people loose out there today,’ she says, shaking the door now to test it even though this is a tungsten bolt, strong enough to hold back a lion.

‘I know there are,’ Bunny puffs, struggling free from Mary and wiping her eyes on her sleeve. She’s still breathing hard, her face pink and sticky with sweat. She’s clearly had to run to be here.

‘You’re safe now,’ Mary says, receding into the kitchen and leaving mother and daughter alone. They sit on the stairs, side by side.

‘I’m really sorry but I think my key fell out somewhere,’ Bunny says, her red eyes fixed on the door. ‘Someone could find it and—’

‘Even if someone found your key, that bolt is the best in the business.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Double sure.’

Bunny sags.

‘Are you okay?’

‘I feel sick,’ she manages to say before Mary appears again, placing a bucket in front of Bunny as her head drops between her knees.

‘You stay here with her and I’ll put the television on,’ Mary says, quietly. ‘It’s nearly time.’ The weight of today is visible in the way Mary carries herself. Shoulders sloping and face pinched.

Bunny spits into the bucket, her head drooping just like it did when she was little and they’d push her home from nursery. She keeps her arms wrapped tightly around Bunny’s shoulders.

‘I was out looking for you,’ she says, squeezing her to test she’s really here.

‘I’m sorry,’ Bunny says, her voice weak and her head still flopping.

‘I’ve never been so frightened.’

‘Never?’

‘Well, this was … it was as scary. Different scary but as scary.’

Bunny snaps forward and a spray of vomit hits the bucket.

She waits for the heaving to stop, rubbing her daughter’s back gently.

‘Okay?’

Bunny nods her head but she’s whimpering slightly, her face drained of all colour.

‘Better out than in.’

Bunny sniffs. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you, Mum.

I really thought I’d be home in time. I was gonna get the 118 back to school and then get on the usual school bus and you’d never have to know.

But I got the timing completely wrong and then the police came along and locked everything down and they were shouting at everyone and no one could leave and I was stuck and it was ages before they let any buses out. ’

She wipes her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Mum.’

‘Oh, Bunny Rabbit, I know you are. I’m sorry too. So sorry about … about whatever you had to face today.’ The 118 bus? Where does the 118 go from? But it doesn’t matter now.

She looks at her old watch. ‘Hey, Dejav who,’ she says.

Bunny frowns. ‘What?’

‘Your joke, you have to finish it. Dejav who?’

Bunny smiles then, finally. ‘Knock knock.’

‘Who’s there?’

‘No, Mum.’ Bunny laughs. Just a little, her cheeks growing pink. ‘That’s the joke. You said déjà vu and I said—’

‘You two, come in here!’ Mary calls from the living room.