Josie’s bedroom was pink and yellow. The twins had followed up the narrow staircase, which wound around and opened onto a square landing. They now stood in the low doorway as Josie flung herself towards a toy chest. Her enthusiasm was palpable, bouncing off the floral-papered walls. A brightly patterned carpet butted up to the yellow flowers. The boys gawped at each other, shrugged. They’d never seen a girl’s bedroom before. It was different—fuzzy
Josie propped open the lid of a large trunk. ‘Look at this.’ She leant right into it; her long, white socks and black shoes were all the boys saw. ‘Come in then. Don’t just stand at the door. Look what I have.’
She was a strange girl. Elliot wasn’t sure if he liked her or if it even mattered. Something about her made his neck prickle. Dad had always told him to trust things like that.
Oliver was the first to take a step in. Elliot hesitantly followed. They sat on the floor atop a round, pink rug. The room was bigger than it had first seemed. An alcove to one side fitted with painted cupboards and the headboard of a thickly dressed bed. The rest of the room lay open for playing.
Josie pulled out several colouring books, pads full of coloured paper, and the longest pack of coloured pens Elliot had ever seen. Only, he had seen those pens before. The large, shiny copper finally dropped, clunking like the last penny in a seaside amusement machine. He’d seen Josie before. Dad popped back into his mind. He didn’t want him here today. Not now. The thought of Dad only brought sadness and anger. Today, all he wanted to do was play, forget. He looked at Oliver, who eagerly flicked through a book for a picture to colour. Why did he look so calm? But he hadn’t been there that day; he wouldn’t have recognised Josie, hadn’t seen what he had.
Oliver nudged him. ‘Which book do you want?’
Elliot didn’t want any of them. All he could think about was his dad and the strange bedsheet man. It hurt his head. The memories kept surging in like seafoam at the beach until he choked and suffocated. Something felt wrong. He tried to catch a stray thought, yet it swam back out to sea every time.
‘Here you go, Elliot,’ Josie said. ‘You can use my special book if you like,’ she grinned, with two missing front teeth. ‘I haven’t used it yet. Look, it’s new.’ She fanned the pages, all pristine white. ‘Here.’
Even her smile irritated him.
Elliot took the book. A hint of a smile sat at the side of his mouth for politeness, but inside, he was screaming. He picked up a pencil and pressed the graphite nib to the paper until it snapped. The lead flicked across the room. Looking back to the mass of white paper, he wanted to stab it. With a deep breath, he grabbed another pencil and gently set the nib onto the page.
‘Oh, are you drawing a picture?’ Josie asked. ‘What is it going to be? I love drawing.’
Oliver looked over at him, knowing he wouldn’t answer her—when Elliot had a pencil in his hand, he never spoke. He wouldn’t be drawing; he would be writing.
Josie threw Oliver a confused look. He replied with a quick shake of his head and walked to the window. ‘What’s that?’
The back garden looked pretty—it reminded Oliver of home—but there at the back, something didn’t fit. On tiptoes, Josie stood beside him. He pointed towards the other end of the garden, behind a wall of shrubbery, there was a glint, something shiny.
‘Oh, at the back?’ Josie pointed, her fingertip pressing against the glass. Oliver nodded. ‘I don’t know. Mum said I’m not allowed down there. She said that was Dad’s stuff and we should leave it alone. But I did go down there.’
The words came out so factual that they made Oliver shudder. Where was Josie’s Dad? He’d never given it much thought that it was only him, Elliot, and Mum now. To think of anyone else having a dad when they didn’t made him feel sick in his stomach, a pain that kept rising to his throat.
‘Your dad?’ Oliver asked.
‘Yes, he’s dead. Your dad is dead, too, isn’t he?’ Josie didn’t smile, but there didn’t seem to be any sadness either. That worried Oliver. ‘Mummy said he died like mine, but I don’t think my dad died.’
‘He’s still alive?’
‘I think he got lost.’
‘Where did he go to get lost? Was he an explorer?’
Josie gawped, then giggled. ‘No, don’t be silly. He used to drive a van with gardening stuff. One day, he came home with some odd things.’ Her eyes flashed to the garden. ‘I went to school, and then he was gone.’ She was winding her red hair around her finger; the end of it turned blue as a bruise. ‘Mummy said he died. She cried a lot.’ Oliver felt the tears she was holding in but said nothing. ‘But he never had a funeral. Did your dad have one?’
Her eyes drilled through his skin. Oliver nodded.
‘Were you allowed to go? I wasn’t. Mummy said it was no place for a child, but I don’t think there was a funeral. She wore black for a long while.’
‘How couldn’t there be one if your dad died?’ Elliot questioned, his voice loud across the room.
Oliver jumped. Josie smiled and wandered over, leaving Oliver by the window. The sun sent shards of glinting light up to him, signalling him like a secret message.
Elliot sat with his back to the wooden trunk, the pad resting on his knees with an open page full of writing, his pencil mid-word. He looked at Josie. ‘We didn’t go to our dad’s funeral, either, but he did have one. Lots of people dressed in black came to our house afterwards. Mr Beardsmore’s daughter made sandwiches and cakes.’
‘Oh,’ she replied. ‘That sounds nice.
‘Well, it wasn’t!’ Elliot snapped.
‘So, what are you writing?’ she asked. ‘A story?’
The urge to stab and scream rumbled him again, just as it had with the walking stick. Maybe he’d stab the pencil in Josie’s eyes—that would shut up her stupid face. Elliot closed his eyes, wishing the urge and Josie would disappear.
‘You’re strange,’ she said. ‘You write funny too.’
‘What? No, I don’t!’
‘Yes, you do. Your paper is round the wrong way, and your pencil is in the wrong hand. My mummy is a teacher; she taught me how to write properly.’
Oliver joined them on the carpet, his nerve endings on fire, sensing his brother like a rash.
‘Elliot is a lefty,’ he said. ‘I’m a righty.’
Josie looked from one to the other.
Oliver grabbed a pencil and pretended to write. ‘See? I use my right hand, Elliot uses his left. Mum says we’re a mirror image of each other, two halves of a whole.’ He smiled, hoping it would rub off and put an end to it.
She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps it doesn’t make you strange then. Maybe it makes you special.’ She smiled to herself.
They sat in silence, with just the scratch of pencil nibs and brush of pens. Elliot eyed Josie over his dark lashes. He didn’t like her.