Distant ringing wakes me up. In my sleepy fug, it takes me several seconds to figure out it isn’t part of the dream I was having, and then a few more to work out it’s the landline. I hear Grace’s door creak open and her footsteps cross the landing and head down the stairs.
I roll onto my front and reach for my mobile. It’s already gone ten. I usually love the first weekday of the summer holidays, waking up and knowing I have nothing to do and nowhere to be. Not today, though. I wonder how long my friends are going to stay mad at me for. Another week? Two? A month? The whole summer?
For ever?
I could message someone else, I suppose. Stacey or Kat or Tamsin. I scroll through my contacts and even compose a few messages, but I can’t quite bring myself to press send. That’s the problem; me, Stella, Mikey and Kimmie come as a team of four and everyone knows it.
It’s raining out. I can hear it splattering against the windowpane. Maybe I’ll just stay in bed today, hide from the world. I yank the duvet over my head and make a cave. It reminds me of the dens Grace and I used to make when we were little. We’d take every sheet and duvet cover we could find and drape them over the dining-room chairs and table to create a tent. We’d sit under it for hours, and if Mum was in a good mood she’d let us have a little picnic in there, and Grace and I would take it in turns to make up stories, and it would feel like the cosiest, safest place on earth.
‘Audrey!’ Grace hollers. ‘Phone for you!’
I stay where I am as Grace makes her way up the stairs, her voice getting louder as she continues to call Audrey’s name. A few seconds later the door bursts open.
I peel back my duvet so my head is poking out. ‘Ever heard of knocking?’ I ask.
Grace ignores me and walks over to Audrey’s bed. ‘Auds,’ she says. ‘Phone for you.’
‘God, just let her sleep for once,’ I mutter.
Grace glares at me over her shoulder. ‘It’s hardly the crack of dawn. I’ve been up since eight.’
‘Well, of course you have,’ I mutter, rolling over so I’m facing the wall.
‘Auds,’ Grace says. ‘It’s Lara on the phone. C’mon, Audrey, wakey, wakey.’
There’s a gasp, followed by a clunk.
Now what?
I roll over and sit up. The phone Grace was holding is lying in the middle of the carpet and Audrey’s duvet has been pulled back to reveal a row of cushions.
‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ Grace whispers, grabbing at the cushions and tossing them aside as if she’s expecting to find a pocket-sized Audrey hiding beneath them. As she’s doing this, a piece of paper flutters through the air. I jump out of bed and scoop it up just before it hits the floor. It’s folded in half, our names printed on the front in Audrey’s familiar round, fat handwriting.
I bend down to pick up the phone. ‘Lara?’ I say. ‘We’re going to have to call you back.’
Grace snatches the note out of my hand. I snatch it back.
‘Just open it, for God’s sake,’ she says.
‘Fine,’ I snap, unfolding the note.
We read it in silence.
Dear Grace and Mia,
I’m not sure how long it will take for you to realize I’m gone, since half the time you don’t seem to notice me anyway. I’m sorry if you’re worried or anything like that but I’m just so sick of being stuck in the middle of your arguments all the time. No one tells me what’s going on. I don’t know, maybe with me out of the way you’ll sort things out finally.
Love,
Audrey x
‘Shit,’ Grace says, sinking down onto Audrey’s bed.
I haven’t heard her swear in ages. It sounds weird, like she’s speaking lines from a play.
‘Didn’t you see her leave?’ she asks, looking up at me. I’m still in the centre of the room, the phone dangling from my right hand.
‘No.’
‘But you share a bedroom with her!’
‘Do you think I don’t know that? What about you? You’re the one that’s been up for hours.’
‘She must have left before I got up. I would have heard her otherwise.’
Which means wherever Audrey’s gone she’s got at least a two-and-a-half-hour lead on us.
‘Lara’s been trying to get hold of her since before nine. That’s why she ended up trying the landline,’ Grace says. ‘She couldn’t get through on Audrey’s mobile.’
I toss the landline phone on my bed, grab my mobile off my bedside table and call Audrey’s number.
‘Voicemail,’ I report. ‘Should I leave a message?’
Grace heaves herself up off the bed and plucks the phone from my hands.
‘Oi!’ I cry.
‘Audrey,’ she says into the phone, turning her back on me. ‘It’s Grace.’
‘And Mia!’ I shout. ‘I’m here too! In fact, it’s my bloody phone we’re calling you on!’
Grace lowers the phone to her chest. ‘For God’s sake, Mia, will you shut up for one minute!’ She returns it to her ear. ‘Audrey, we found your note and we’re worried about you. We need to know where you are so we can come get you and bring you home. Ring me as soon as you get this message, OK?’ She hangs up.
‘Now what?’ I ask. ‘We sit and wait for her to ring us back with her location? Because that sounds like a foolproof plan.’
‘She can’t have gone far,’ Grace says, pacing up and down on the rug. ‘This is Audrey we’re talking about. She never goes anywhere by herself. She’ll probably be back by teatime.’
Although she sounds decisive, I know Grace well enough to hear the doubt in her voice. I go over to the window and shove aside the curtains, my eyes immediately drawn to the bottom of the garden.
‘Don’t count on it,’ I say.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come look.’
Grace joins me at the window. ‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’ she asks.
I jab the glass with my finger. ‘Beyoncé’s hutch,’ I say.
Grace’s eyes bulge. The hutch door is hanging wide open.
‘She’s taken Beyoncé with her,’ I say.
Translation: Audrey means business.
‘How did she seem last night?’ Grace asks.
We’re slumped on the floor, our backs against my bed frame. We’ve called everyone we can think of and not one of them has seen or heard from Audrey.
‘I don’t know. Normal, I guess.’
‘Did she say anything?’
‘No. She just put her pyjamas on and turned out the light.’
‘But she must have left some sort of clue as to where she’s gone,’ Grace says. ‘She can’t just vanish into thin air. Are you sure you have no idea?
‘I told you, no.’
‘But you’re her sister!’
‘So are you!’
‘Well, you share a room with her!’
‘Exactly. A room, not a brain.’
Grace checks the time on her phone. ‘Mum and Dad don’t land for another five and a half hours,’ she says. ‘We need to find her before then.’
‘Oh, I see, so that’s what you’re worried about. Audrey going missing on your watch.’
‘Of course not,’ Grace snaps. ‘How could you say something like that?’
‘Sorry,’ I mutter, only half meaning it.
We sit in silence for a few minutes.
I take out my phone and google ‘popular destinations for teenage runaways’. Loads of stuff comes up about illegal raves and festivals and drugs. I try – and fail – to imagine Audrey at a rave. She doesn’t even like school discos very much.
I let my eyes drift around the room. Something doesn’t look right. Something else is missing, something we haven’t noticed yet. But what?
My gaze keeps snagging on the noticeboard that hangs over Audrey’s bed. It’s covered with cinema tickets and clippings from magazines and old birthday cards. Something about it doesn’t look right, though. There’s a big gap in the centre.
A postcard-sized gap.
That’s when I realize what’s missing. A postcard with ‘Greetings from Windermere’ on the front.
I leap up. ‘I think I know where she is,’ I say.
‘Where?’ Grace cries.
‘Frankie’s of course. She’s gone to the Lake District.’