When River spotted two letters on the hall table, he picked them up. One looked like a bill. Brown envelope with a window for his name and address. For Mr L. Miller.Look at me reading.The other had been hand-written for River Lawson. It had the look of a birthday card except River only ever had one from Max, and his name and address were always typed.
He slipped them in the drawer. When they got back from wherever they were going, he’d get Newt to open them. He’d been happy to let Max take charge of his mail until he could handle it himself but seeing that hand-written envelope for River Lawson had him worried. Who knew he lived here?
By the time Newt joined him in the boot room, River sat holding his jacket. Newt was carrying a large box.
“I ordered face masks.”
River widened his eyes. “Mill…million?”
Newt laughed. “Not quite. I needed some clothes too.”
He ripped open the box, then used his teeth to tear the plastic on what looked like a blue jacket.
Newt put it on and looked down at himself. “It fits.” Then he took it off again.
River had never bought clothes on Amazon. Newt took a hat and gloves out of plastic bags and pushed them into the pockets of the new jacket. River could see other clothes in the box. It made him wonder again why Newt had brought so little with him.
“Ready?” Newt grabbed a pack of the face masks and headed for the garage. “It’ll take us over an hour to get there so we can do some speech therapy on the way. How about singing?”
River shrugged.
“We tried it before, remember? WithWaterloo? Singing uses different areas of the brain to those we use for spontaneous speech.”
River vaguely remembered being told that by the first therapist who’d come to the house, but he’d been inawkwardmode, not willing to accept he wouldn’t suddenly return to normal. Okay, so it still wouldn’t be sudden, but he had hope now. Proper hope.
The gate closed behind them.
Newt entered a destination into the system, then glanced at him and said, “Hey, Mercedes, play Newt’s mixtape for River.”
When Newt started to sing along to a Bruno Mars hit,Just the Way You Are,River joined in but kept his voice low until he realised how easily he was singing words he’d have struggled to say. When he sang louder, Newt glanced at himand smiled. “I knew you could do it.”
There was a wide range of music. A lot of Bruno Mars.Talking to the Moon, Grenade…Survivor’sEye of the Tiger.James Morrison’sUndiscovered.Coldplay hits—which were a hit and miss for River. More by Take That than he’d have expected, but he guessed Newt had picked songs he was likely to know well. Some he remembered from his teenage years, and some he didn’t know, including an ABBA track calledTiger.River sang along to a Queen hit and was shocked when he managed almost all of it without faltering.
“You were really good,” Newt said as the song ended. “A bit out of tune…”
River growled.
“Not really. But do you feel better?”
“Yes. Be…ten…Hmm. Bet…ter. Better.”
Maybe Newt could hear the disappointment in his voice because he squeezed River’s leg. “Do not slide down. Right? Close your eyes now. We’re nearly there. I want you to be surprised, shocked and amazed, possibly slightly terrified but not enough to piss yourself because I didn’t bring a spare set of clothes.”
River closed his eyes and only opened them when Newt switched off the engine. The sign was right in front of him. A wildlife sanctuary?
“Can you guess what we’re going to see? There were a couple of clues in the songs.”
“Don…key?”
“Damn it. On your first guess? I knewLittle Donkeywould give it away.”
That hadnotbeen on the playlist. Whatever they were here to see, it wasn’t a donkey.
“Face mask on. No scarf. If you feel comfortable takingthe mask off, that’s fine. It’s a private thing we’re doing. Just us and two members of staff.”
“And don…key.”
Newt smiled. “Yes, Shrek.”
