How long now? It must be getting close to three days. No-one can go for much longer than three days without water.

What a cheery thought. Well done Joe, why not depress yourself further.

Now aren’t I glad I took biology in school. Let me think…Day 3. The mouth stops producing saliva and becomes dry, the lips start to crack. The vital organs, having been deprived of fluid for more than 48 hours start to shut down one by one. The mind starts to falter slightly and the person may become hallucinogenic. 

How cheery. Knowing it doesn’t make it any better.

Knowing who wants to kill me doesn’t really help either. I thought it would, that if I knew then at least I wouldn’t have to die wondering. But now that I know I just want to get out, to tell Frank and go after this kid before he hurts someone else.

Oh god! He’ll go after Frank next, or Dad or Mom, or even his own father. He’s not just mad at me, he’s mad at them all. Frank can’t know about him, and if he doesn’t know then he can’t find me and if he doesn’t find me then I’ll die and then he might end up here, tied up like me. I couldn’t bear that.

Hopefully Frank will find out, and go for help. Maybe, just maybe he will, after all he’s not searching alone, there’s Dad and the guys.

Speaking of the guys, what wouldn’t I give for Chet Morton to be here, he’d fill me full of jokes, tease me to the last and we could reminisce about our many escapades when we were kids.

Chet’s got a natural aptitude for humor, he just does it so well, even when he doesn’t mean to. A normal guy can get through a day with maybe one slightly silly incident, Chet can’t seem to walk down the street without tripping over or bumping into someone or meeting someone he doesn’t want to see. His stories would keep any comedian in material for weeks.

But that’s just a tiny part of him too.

Chet and I have been friends, well….forever, or at least it seems that way. He and Frank and I practically grew up together, although Chet and I, being the one age and in the same class in school, we were that bit closer. The Morton’s farm became my second home.

In the holidays Frank and I would cycle out there early in the morning, sometimes at sunrise and chip in with whatever work needed doing, or maybe take out bikes down to the cove and swim or play football.

Chet’s parents accepted us totally, they scolded Frank and me in the same way they did Chet and Callie, and Mrs. Morton always produced a huge iced birthday cake for us each year, with chocolate frosting for me, and vanilla for Frank.

When Phil moved to Bayport he and Frank became friendly and oftentimes I would head out to Chet’s house alone. That’s probably when we really became close. We would play during the day and in the evenings we would sit on Chet or my front steps, throwing stones into a can, or trying to catch ants in old plastic bottles.

We would talk too, for hours, about school and girls, the places we wanted to see, the things we wanted to do, the jobs we hoped to have.

Around the age of twelve or thirteen he and I started messing with some of the old cars on the farm, in fact we got pretty good at taking engines apart and putting them together, but whereas for me it would always be a hobby, Chet got a real kick out of it. He loves taking some really old beat-up heap of junk and messing around with is until he’s got it going again.

It’s no wonder he ended up studying mechanics, now he spends all his time looking at ways of improving engines, mending and repairing them, taking them apart in order to find ways of making them run better. That’s Chet’s thing. He isn’t awkward or clumsy when he’s bent over the hood of the car, he’s in control.

Vanessa once asked me was Chet and Iola close? I’ve often thought about it. Chet and Iola weren’t like Frank and I. I think Chet always felt that it was his responsibility to look for Iola all the time, and because he spent so much looking after he they spent very little of it together.

Iola was a typical girl, into dolls and clothes, whereas Chet loved anything that involved dirt, be that farm work, engines or anything else that caused a mess. In the evening, when he would come in, clothes covered in mud he’d go over and try to hug Iola and she would scream and run away from him in case he got mud all over her.

The one thing I do know is that they always looked out for each other, and always looked to each other for support when they needed it.

I remember one day when we were maybe 11 or 12. Chet was round at my house and we were out the back playing baseball, when Iola came running in the yard crying. She had fallen and hurt her knee not far from the house, there was mud on her clothes, one knee of her jeans was torn, and there was blood trickling down her leg where she had cut it.

I had never before seen Chet so worried about his sister. He actually picked her up and carried her over to the house, and he and Mom dressed the knee, and then Mom drove them both home. I remember sitting beside them in our station wagon. Chet was sitting beside Iola, one arm around her shoulder, her head resting on his shoulder, safe in his protection.

That’s Chet all over really. He was always the jolly clown in school, constantly getting teased about being a bit chubbier than the rest of us, and always keeping a smile on his face.

But it bothered him I think, the teasing, however mild and harmless it seemed. Frank and I, Tony, Phil and Biff we used to tease him too in the beginning, we honestly thought he didn’t mind until one Saturday when we were all Prito’s restaurant eating pizza and swapping silly stories. Chet had been unusually quiet, until he took advantage of a pause in the conversation

I think what he meant was that he cared about what we thought of him, and that made him that bit more sensitive to our opinions.

We never said anything, and the subject was never brought up again, but we just stopped.

Chet has gone through so much on my behalf, sacrificed so much because through his friendship with Frank and me. He is always, always there to help us, no matter what the danger, no matter how much time he misses from school, or how much sleep he loses.

He is always there.

Even after Iola died.

Thinking back now, I was so selfish. I never went to see him, never even spoke to him the day of the funeral. I was so wrapped up in my own grief and guilt that I couldn’t see past it. I couldn’t see that my best friend was grieving over his sister.

And he was grieving, however silently he did it. There were no scenes with Chet, no shouting or wailing. He just shut himself off for a while. He stopped coming out for about a month, preferring instead to stay close to his parents. I know from talking to him lately, that most days he worked on the farm and went walking with the dogs in the evening, just thinking, about Iola, the bomb, everything.

The first time we talked, really talked, was about a fortnight after it happened. I went out for a drive one evening to clear my head and ended up near the cliff top, where I spotted Chet, sitting on the grass staring into space.

I was going to turn away, but he saw me, and smiled faintly, so I walked over. I can remember that conversation so well, even now.

When Chet spoke his voice was so forlorn, so full of pain……

I’m glad, because friendship like his isn’t offered that often, and I’d like to hold on to it for as long as I can.