Read Online The Memory Keepers by Natasha Ngan - Free Book Online

the skids go to my crew leader, and he trades them on the black market.’
    ‘Do you ever  …  ever surf them first?’
    The boy laughed. ‘Yeah. Course. Every time.’
    He didn’t have to say it; Alba could just see it in the way his grey eyes were shining. Surfing memories was clearly what he lived for.
    Suddenly it seemed as though all of today’s events had been leading to this. Why had Alba discovered the memorium tonight? After sixteen years of living in this house, she just happened to be here at the very same time this boy came to steal a memory.
    She and this boy were destined to meet. She was sure of it.
    Alba drew a shaky breath. ‘Can you show me how to do it?’ she asked, touching the curving back of the Sony Life-Flight. Excitement sparked through her. ‘Show me how to memory-surf, and I’ll let you steal the memory you came for without my father ever knowing you were here.’
    ‘Now? With that?’ The boy pointed at the machine, scowling. ‘No way. I wanna get out of here as soon as possible. And the Life-Flights keep a record of every session. I’m not leaving behind any clues I was ever here.’
    That was her opportunity to back down. But Alba wasn’t ready to give up on the promise of freedom yet. Not when this boy who could give it to her had walked right into her life as though sent from a god, on the very night she needed him most.
    She stepped towards him and looked straight into his eyes, fiercely, daring him to object. ‘Then take me back with you,’ she said. ‘Take me surfing on
your
memory-machine.’

11

SEVEN
    He woke late the next day from a dream about pirates and an endless ocean. Loe had been there, laughing as they’d jumped off the side of a ship into glittering, sun-drenched water. It had been a good dream (not because Loe was in it, he might add). Seven just liked dreaming of the sea. All that open water made him feel clean and free; two things he never felt living in South.
    Eyes still closed, Seven lay in his bed, content. Warm sunlight fell across his blankets. For a while, his mind wandered with bland, everyday thoughts. And then he remembered –
    The girl.
    Last night.
    What he’d promised her for
this
night.
    ‘Oh, effing hell!’ Seven groaned, swinging upright.
    Last night’s events came back to him in a flash of images: the White girl’s fingers curling into fists as she turned; the way her pretty green eyes widened as she saw him; her silk and lace nightdress (and what was – barely – underneath).
    How she’d stepped closer to him, the sweet, floral smell of her skin unfurling in the air, and said fiercely,
Then take me back with you. Take me surfing on
your
memory-machine.
    What could he have said? No effing way? Seven wasn’t really in a position to argue, what with the girl’s father being, oh, you know, just
Alastair White
.
    Anyway, one skid-surf seemed a small price to pay for getting away with the job. It was too much of an important one to mess up. Carpenter never had to know it hadn’t gone quite as smoothly as they’d planned. He’d have his memory. That was all that mattered.
    But still. It was
insane
.
    The trip to Hyde Park Estate felt like one long, crazy dream. Surely, Seven was about to wake up again any second. He couldn’t have made a promise to take that stuck-up North princess back to his flat for her to try out Butler.
    He
couldn’t
have.
    ‘Well, you
did
, you complete idiot,’ he groaned, dropping back onto the mattress and covering his head in his hands.

12

ALBA
    School finished early on Saturdays, which was both good and bad for Alba. Good, as it meant, well, less school, obviously. But bad, because it also meant more time in the house, and more opportunities to incite her mother. After yesterday’s events, Alba actually found herself wishing her last lesson would never end.
    This time, she didn’t run to meet Dolly outside the school gates when classes finished.
    ‘Hi,’ she said sullenly, slipping her uninjured