Stonebird (5 page)

When I get home I dump my bag on the floor and go straight to Jess's room.

I'm hoping she's in a good mood. Sometimes she can be really nice, like when she lets me borrow one of her DVDs or saves me sweets from the post office. But since we moved, she's been in bad moods more often. And when she's in a bad mood, it's best to be far, far away.

Her music's on so loud I can feel it inside me.

Boom-ch!—boom-ch!—boom-ch!

“Where's Mom?” I yell through the bedroom door.

“
What?
” she calls.

“Where's Mom?”

The door opens a crack, and her face fills the open space. A bright-pink toothbrush pokes out of her mouth, and she's got a towel wrapped around her hair. The music pounds louder in my ears.

“I can't hear you,” she says.

“Mom wasn't there after school. She said she'd pick me up, but she wasn't there.”

She pulls the toothbrush out of her mouth and glares. “So?”

“Do you know where she is?”

“No! Now can you go away? I'm meeting someone. I need to get ready.”

“I was just wondering . . .”

But the door's already slamming shut.

I turn to walk away, then hear the door opening again behind me.

“Oh, Liam, wait!”

She runs into the bathroom, and there's the
hwwaaaaark sput!
of her spitting in the sink and the rush of water from the tap. Then she comes back and takes my hand and pulls me inside her room.

“I'm sorry,” she says. “It's just—I want this to be perfect, and . . .” She shakes her head. “Anyway, come in.”

There's only one rule about Jess's room: DO NOT COME IN. It's in capitals because she only ever shouts it. It's a Very Important Rule, even more important than Mom's old rules like
Turn Off the Light When You Leave the Room
and
Put Your Plate in the Dishwasher When You're Done
.

But Mom's started to leave lights on all the time now, and sometimes it takes days for her plate to go in the dishwasher even though I still put mine in there.

I've only been inside Jess's room once before, when I helped carry her boxes in, and it wasn't decorated then.
Now five boy-band faces smile down at me from the blue-and-pink walls. Jess turns down the music and sits on her bed. You can tell it's a girl's bed because it's got about a million cushions on it and it's as neat as the beds you see on TV, the ones in the sales that never end.

“Sit,” she says. She moves an owl cushion so I can sit down next to her.

“Do you think Mom's okay?” I ask.

Jess opens her mouth to answer, but stops. She closes it slowly and looks at me, tilting her head like Daisy does when she begs at the kitchen door.

“I'm sure she's all right,” she says. “She's probably just gone shopping.”

“She's normally always there.”

“I know. But—Mom's got a lot on her mind at the moment. Perhaps she forgot.”

“Do you think it's wine o'clock again?”

Jess looks at me but doesn't say anything.

“Well?” I say. It comes out short and sharp and I feel bad for snapping at Jess but I'm so annoyed at Mom. If you say you'll be somewhere, then you should be there, no matter what o'clock it is.

“Has it been wine o'clock again recently?” she says.

“Yes. At the weekend, when you were out.”

She sighs heavily. It's a while before she talks again. “I'll speak to her when she gets back. Anyway, how are
you
? Grandma didn't mean it, you know. When she said she'd kill you. That was the demon talking.”

“I know.”
At least I hope I do
.

The thing that's bugging me is there in my mind, but I can't find the words for it. How can you put into words something that you don't understand?

“I can't remember what she was like,” I say. “I've tried to remember, but she's not there. Not the Grandma from your drawing.”

Jess puts her arm around me and squeezes me. At first I try to resist because she's my sister, but I have to admit it does feel quite good, so after a while I let her hug me.

“She was really nice. Granddad too. He showed me how to make a bow and arrow that you fire with one hand. And Grandma—she loved stories. She used to read to us before we went to bed.
The Hobbit
and
The BFG
and ones about King Arthur. Do you remember that?”

I remember the Shire and the giants and the Knights of the Round Table; I remember the stories. I can hear her voice telling them, but I can't see her face . . .

“It's okay if you can't,” Jess says. “But you have to know that the Grandma in the retirement home isn't the real Grandma. Not anymore. She's changed. She'll never be the same again. And that's why Mom's so sad. Imagine if our Mom had a demon inside her and had to go to a retirement home and stay in bed all day—”

“I don't like imagining that . . .”

“No.”

Suddenly there's a crash downstairs.

I rush to the door and press my ear up against the wood, closing my eyes and listening . . . there's the
SMASH!
of
something dropping on the floor and the never-ending happy barks of Daisy. Then a voice says,
Dang it!

Mom!

I yank open the door and run downstairs.

There's smashed glass all over the floor and a dark red pool spilling out underneath it. It spreads over the wood and the dirt stains and trickles into the gaps, seeps toward a ripped plastic bag, which Daisy's nosing around as Mom brushes up the—

I stop on the bottom step. Jess smacks into my back.

It's not Mom crouching in the mess.

It's not Mom saying
CrapcrapcrapcrapNoDaisyoh-crapcrapcrap!

It's not her picking up all the little bits of broken glass.

It's not even a woman.

“Hello,” the man says.

Jess tries to get past me, but I can't move. I want to say,
Who are you?
and
What are you doing here?
and
Why are you bringing us shopping?
but the only thing that comes out of my mouth is a stupid squeak.

Jess folds her arms the same way she does when you pretend you haven't taken one of her DVDs. “What are you doing here?” she says, and even though it comes out better than my squeak I can tell she's pretty scared too.

My heart thumps a thousand million beats and I feel for Jess's hand, and when I find it I grab hold of it and don't let go. But if the man was robbing us, he would have run by now, wouldn't he? And he wouldn't bring food with him. I try to think of something to say, but still no words come.

“You must be Liam,” says the man, looking straight at me.

Daisy sniffs at the ripped bag. Her tail swish-swish-swishes behind her. She should be barking. Why isn't she barking?

And then it hits me. Why Mom wasn't there at school to pick me up, why this man's in our house talking to Jess and me as if he knows us.

Because she was with him.

And thinking about her must summon her, because here she is walking through the door with more plastic bags.

“Hi, guys,” she says, stopping when she sees the mess. “Don't worry about that, Gary. I'll grab a dustpan and brush. Jess, would you mind taking Daisy through to the sitting room? I don't want her treading on broken glass.”

Daisy ambles over and sniffs my legs. I crouch down and stroke her head, and her eyes make smiles and her tail wags and wags. I could tell Daisy about Matt shoving earth into my mouth and she would put her head on my lap and wag her tail and try to make it okay.

But Mom broke her promise and didn't pick me up from school and she hasn't even said sorry.

She looks at me again, and I think she's about to apologize, but instead she walks into the kitchen and dumps the bags on the table. I watch her go without blinking. Sometimes it's hard to say sorry, like when your sister really annoys you and you shove her and she cries and then about a millisecond later you feel like the most horrible person in the world, but if you give in she'll prance around as if she's Queen of the World for the rest of the
day. Or when you use the house phone to make prank calls and when the bill comes in Mom says,
DO YOU THINK I'M MADE OF MONEY?
and she knows it's you, but owning up to it makes it real.

Sometimes it's hard to say sorry. But most of the time it's easy to say sorry to Mom.

And Mom always says sorry to me.

But not this time.

Jess takes Daisy by the collar and leads her into the sitting room. I still haven't moved from the step when Mom comes back through with the dustpan and brush. Before she opens her mouth I say, “I looked for you at school.”

Mom frowns, then gasps and drops the dustpan and brush. She runs over to me and takes my hands and pulls me off the bottom step and into a hug, and it feels warm and right even though I'm still angry-but-not-but-actually-yes-I-am.

“Liam! I'm so sorry! I forgot . . . I completely lost track of time!”

I hug Mom tight and close my eyes. If she did forget, then—

“Is there a demon in you, like with Grandma?” I ask.

“What? Oh, you mean have I got dementia? No, of course not! It's just—I just—I've had a lot on my mind recently, and I was out shopping and I bumped into Gary, and we got talking, and—it felt so
good
, Liam, to have someone to talk to.”

“You can talk to me,” I say.

Mom hasn't had a boyfriend since Dad left. Jess is always saying she should go out and find one, but now
that this man's here it doesn't feel right. I picture Dad in my head and silently let him know that I haven't forgotten him, even though he's probably forgotten me.

“I know, I
know
I can, darling, but it's not the same. Gary—Gary's going through a similar sort of . . . well, it's just—oh, I don't know what I'm saying. I just need you to know I'm really sorry.”

“It's okay.”

“No, it's not,” says Jess through gritted teeth. Daisy's dragging her back into the hall, trying to get to the plastic bag. “Daisy, wait!” she hisses.

“Jess is right,” Mom says to me. “It's not okay. It's not okay, Liam.”

Three lines appear on her forehead above her eyebrows. Her eyes start watering, and I squeeze her again because I don't want her to cry. When Mom cries, it feels as though I've swallowed a hamster and it's running around inside me.

“I'm sorry too, Liam,” says the man called Gary. He stands up with all the broken glass and shakes the dustpan into the trash in the kitchen. Then he comes back into the hall and stands next to me. “It's not nice to be left on your own. I'm sure it won't happen again.”

No one speaks then.

Even Daisy's gone quiet, although her eyes are saying
Please let me in the bag, please let me in the bag, please let me in the bag
. The only noise comes from the birds outside, singing in the trees.

“Are you okay?” Mom asks.

“I'm fine,” I say.

“Excellent,” says Gary. He picks up the ripped bag and puts it out of reach of Daisy. “I suppose we'd better be off.”

“Where are you going?” Jess asks Mom.

“Just out for a drink. But I don't have to go if you guys don't want me to . . .”

“It's okay, Mom,” I say again.

“Okay.” Her eyes stay on me for a moment longer. “Okay. We won't be very long, I promise. Stay in the house, all right?”

“All right,” I say.

Jess nods too, but when I look at her she doesn't meet my eye.

As soon as Mom and Gary leave, Jess rushes up to her room and slams the door. A few seconds later she pokes her head back over the top of the stairs and says, “Don't tell her I've gone anywhere. I'll be home before she gets back anyway.”

I run to the front door and press my nose right up against the glass, cupping my hands around my eyes. The back lights of Gary's car flash red as it trundles down the drive and turns onto the lane and out of sight.

Jess pounds down the stairs with one arm through a jacket. She struggles and squirms into it before she gets to the door.

“Where are you going? Mom said we have to stay here.”

“Since when have I ever done what Mom tells me to do?” she says, checking her hair in the mirror.

“Pretty much all the time.”

“Well, if she's going out, then so am I.”

“You're meeting someone, aren't you?”

She's got to be, because she would never act like this normally.

She opens the door and a gust of air washes in. I rub my arms against the cold, watching as she runs outside.
Where's she going?
She can't have that many friends already, can she? At least I've got Daisy. I know she's a family dog, but she totally prefers me. She always chooses me first for cuddles.

I poke my head out of the door, and Daisy comes up and looks out too. Jess is already at the end of the drive, and in a few seconds she'll be gone. Daisy stands there, wagging her tail, and I wait and wait in the doorway.

Mom said to stay in, but Mom's gone, and Jess is gone, and now it's just me.

Daisy looks up at me as if she's waiting for something.

I'll be home before she gets back,
Jess said.

That means she can't be going very far.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” I ask Daisy.

She leaps up and down in big bounds. I open the door, and she practically flies out of it. I follow her out into the evening cold.

Pebbles ping from my feet as I dash down the dusty drive.

Birds take off and shoot away from the trees. I catch up with Daisy at the gate and grab her collar as we go out onto the lane.

The sun's dipping down behind the trees now, making them look blacker than black.
Where's Jess?
I wonder. I spin around, trying to spot her. She can't have got very far . . .

There. Squinting, I can just make her out in the distance. Walking quickly in the direction of—

The church. Has she found the gargoyle too? Something twinges inside me at the thought of it . . . I don't know why, it's not like it's
mine
, it's just . . . well, it does kind of feel like my discovery.

I let go of Daisy's collar and start to jog. Daisy stays by my side even though she's faster than Usain Bolt if she wants to be.

Maybe she remembers our last trip to the church. Maybe it freaked her out too. That's the funny thing about Daisy. She barks this big, deep bark that sounds like
WOO WOO WOO!
but really she's as nervous as a squirrel. Once when she tried to chase off a pigeon, it turned around and flapped its wings in her face, and she jumped out of her skin and pegged it back inside the house.

“We've got to be quiet,” I whisper.

Daisy understands a lot of words. Most of all she understands
food
and
treats
and
walk
, but I hope she understands
quiet
too, because if she gives us away Jess will probably kill me. Whoever she's going to meet, Jess obviously doesn't want Mom to know about it, and that makes it Top Secret.

We run, run as quietly as we can across the crunching drive until it becomes road and we can run faster, on and on until we get to the grass bank. Behind the gate, the church reaches up as if trying to grab the clouds.

Daisy sniffs the grass, and her tail goes as straight as a stick.

I crouch down behind the nearest gravestone. It's quite small, but it's enough to hide behind. The engraving says:

I start wondering what could have happened to Claire Smith when she was so young, but all of a sudden Daisy springs forward and dashes toward the church.

“Daisy, no!” I call, but it's a whisper-call, because I don't dare shout.

With a quick glance over my shoulder, I rush after her.

Daisy stops at the entrance and looks back, as if saying
Come on, then!

“Is she in here?” I hiss. I squint around, but I can't see Jess. If it was snowing, I'd be able to follow her footprints. Unless she was being Especially Clever and covering up her tracks.

Pushing the door open gently, I peer into the church. Big blocks of light beam through the windows, showing up all the dust in the stale air.

Where are you, Jess?

She could have snuck in before I got here. And if she did . . .

I creep into the church, trying to ignore the smaller gargoyles above me. Past the dust and the broken chairs and the bubble wrap. Daisy sniffs and walks ahead, through the mess.

“Daisy, wait . . . ,” I whisper after her.

She stops at the door to the crypt and turns back.

I make a
shhh
sign with my finger and walk up to her quietly. The door's shut. I press my ear up against the wood.

Sudden giggling makes me jump so high I almost smack the low ceiling. Daisy looks back and cocks her head.

There it is again. Giggling and laughing and—

Jess.

Daisy bolts, and I go after her, cringing at the noise she's making, willing her to stop, because she's going to
run right up to Jess; she's going to give us away. Out of the corner and into the aisle, and there's Jess, at the other end of the hall; she's there with a boy, and he's touching her face and kissing her. I almost throw up on the spot, but thankfully I've got a tough stomach.

The boy's kissing her neck now, and she's giggling and smiling and holding his hand, and then she opens her eyes and she looks right at me.

“LIAM!” she shouts, and her voice rings off the walls.

Daisy bounds over to them, wagging her tail, and Jess doesn't even acknowledge her. The boy does, though. He crouches down to stroke her soft head. Jess has got her hands on her hips, which is always Bad News, and now she's marching right at me.

“What are you doing here?” she says.

And I say, “I might ask you the same thing.”

I heard Mom say it once, and it seems good when anyone questions you. It's like a Get Out of Jail Free card, except this time it only lasts a second, because Jess jabs my chest with her sharp nail.

“I told you to stay in the house!”

“No, you didn't. Mom did.”

“So why didn't you?”

“I might ask you the—”

“
Stop saying that!
”

I gulp one of those loud, slow gulps like you see on TV, because Jess's face is red and her eyes are sharp points and her mouth is one long thin line.

“I was, um—,” I say, trying to think quickly, but the only thing that springs to mind is “I came to look at the gargoyle!”

Why did I say that?

“The gargoyle? What gargoyle?”

The boy comes over now, with Daisy. Daisy's panting from all the excitement. The boy looks at me and holds out his hand, and I shake it.

“I'm Ben,” he says. “You must be Liam.”

And Jess says, “Don't shake his hand! He followed us!”

“I just came to see the gargoyle!”

“So you say,” says Jess, folding her arms again. “Where is it, then?”

Such an idiot, Liam!

“I meant those ones,” I say, pointing up at the small ones above us.

“Then why are you guarding that door?”

She barges past me, shoving her way through.

“There's nothing here,” says Jess.

And I say, “What?”

“It's empty,” says Jess.

And I say, “
What?!
”

My heart thuds. I rush into the crypt behind her. If this was a cartoon, my eyes would be as big as magnifying glasses and sirens would be blaring and exclamation marks would shoot out of my head.

Because there are books on the dusty bookshelves and boxes on the dusty floor and cobwebs dangling from the ceiling. But no gargoyle.

She's right.

It's gone.