Moving OUT

Sarah's world was in pieces - and she needed help to salvage it

- Stacey Barrett

Sarah's whole life leapt over the back of the flatbed truck S and landed in the road.

It tumbled end over end before hitting the tarmac, bursting and scattering its contents.

Horns sounded, alerting Sarah to what had happened. She glanced in the truck's wing mirror, watching the box detonate, seeing the cars in their slipstream turn away from it. Then she screamed.

It was the teddy that did it. Ted had a ribbon round his neck, white paws and a serene expression. She'd had him since she was three. In the mirror, Sarah saw Ted bounce, before disappearing under the wheels of a bus.

'Stop!' Sarah cried. 'It's my stuff, it's gone over the back of the truck!'

'Well, I can't very well stop now,' the driver said tetchily. 'The traffic's busy.'

'You can! Pull over, now!'

The driver indicated before heaving the truck onto the pavement, ignoring the angry beeping at their backs. He was a big, able man. When he had pulled up outside the flat, Sarah had thought his glum expression comical, like a deadpan stand-up. But she'd discovered that this was him in friendly mode.

'It's all over the road,' he now said casually. "What are you going to do?'

'I'm going to pick it up!' Sarah cried, then got out into the cold, driving rain.

She was wearing a baggy jumper over the top of a T-shirt, and badly faded and threadbare old blue jeans - part comfort outfit, part moving-house uniform. She felt the chill as she ran along the pavement, scanning the road for wreckage.

It had been the special box. Triple-taped, and supposedly placed in the bottom of the flatbed truck. Instead, it had been piled on the top. Maybe a gust of wind had caught it. Maybe one of the speed bumps had dislodged it.

Sarah hadn't realised she was hiring a flatbed truck she thought she'd booked a van to help her move out. That explained why it had come so cheap.