My heart’s pounding so loud in my ears I run to my room and hide. It’s the only safe place left.
When I wake up the morning sun is streaming through the window, filling my room with a soft, pinky light. And for a while I can’t work out why I’m on the floor, tucked right underneath my bed, as close to the wall as I can get. Then the murderer’s face looms in my brain and Mum’s mean smile flashes shark teeth in my eyes.
“Dad!” I shout.
I know it’s stupid, because our flat’s really small and he would have heard me shouting if he were home, but I can’t help racing from room to room to check.
“Dad! Dad! Where are you?”
My heart starts thudding. I lie down on his bed, rest my face on his pillow and breathe in the greasy stink his hair has left behind. It’s not a nice smell, not anything you’d want to put in a bottle and sell, but it is my dad. Then I remember all the empty lager cans on the front room floor. I leap up and count them. I peer out of the window searching for his car, and then the hospital programme sneers in my eyes. What if he’s had a car crash and died? Seven cans of lager are too much to drink when you’re driving. What if he’s really hurt and lying in hospital somewhere? Or what if he’s run someone over and they’re dead and Dad’s at the police station? How will I know? If he goes to prison, then what about me?
I try calling, but his phone’s switched off. I try Amy’s and it’s the same. I switch on Daybreak to fill the flat with the sound of laughter. I huddle on Dad’s chair with my knees hunched up to my chest, biting a scab on my arm until it bleeds. Please come home, Dad, please! I’ll be really good forever. I’ll do all the washing-up for you. I won’t even complain about Amy any more, I’ll do everything she says, just please come home!
I open the front door and pace up and down the balcony that connects all the flats in our block together. I peer over the edge, stretching my eyes across the green where the Play Rangers go, past the cars, as far as I can see.
I go back indoors. I put the kettle on and make a cup of tea with two sugars and watch it turn cold. I pour a bowl of cereal and stir it round and round until the milk has melted it to mush. I put my uniform on and pack my school bag in a daze. Should I go to school? Should I stay home? Should I call 999 for help?
Fear is nesting inside me, curled up tight in the fist-sized pit where my ribs meet at the front. It’s sitting there with its jaggedy hair and its bright eyes, watching. I lie on Dad’s bed again and count to a thousand. I whisper to Blue Bunny that it’s all going to be OK. I go outside again and peer over the balcony.
And that’s when I can’t believe my eyes!
They’re there.
Standing in the middle of the green! Kissing!
“Dad!” I call. Tears, that I blink away, gather and twist like a hard knot of wood in my throat.
“What happened, Dad? Where were you all night?”
Amy stares up at me. “What are you then, Gabriella,” she snaps, “his keeper or what?”
She clatters up the stairwell; Dad puffing up behind her with his head drooped low.
“If you hadn’t noticed,” Amy says, “we’re grown-ups and grown-ups don’t have to ask to go out. Let alone from a twelve-year-old with manners like scum! And I hope you haven’t messed the place up, Gabriella. I hope your bed is made. It might be nice if just occasionally you appreciated me for bringing a bit of order to your life instead of nagging on about where we’ve been.”
Mrs McKlusky opens her front door and scuttles outside. “What’s the racket?” she says, twitching her eyes. “It’s not even eight o’clock. Some of us like to drink our morning cup of tea in peace! It’s not too much to ask, is it?”
Amy turns on her. “And you can shut it!” she sneers. “D’you hear me? Keep your sharp beak out of other people’s business, you nosy old bat!”
Dad sighs and bundles us indoors. “Calm down, Gabriella,” he says. “What’s all the fuss? Nobody’s died, have they?”
I glare at him.
I fold my arms across my chest and turn my back on him, anger rising like a flooding river inside me. Although I’m angry with Dad I wish he’d hold me tight like that day Mum and Beckett left. I wish he would say something nice to me. “You stayed out all night, Dad!” I shout. “Where were you?”
Dad presses his hand over his mouth, stopping his words from tumbling out.
“Where were you, Dad?” I whisper, tears escaping from my eyes. “I thought you’d had a car crash! I thought you’d died! It’s all her fault – you never did anything like this before Amy was around!”
I dig my nails into my palms and wish they were Amy’s flesh. Dad doesn’t say one word, he won’t even look at me. He just flops on the sofa and sighs. He snaps open another can of lager.
“Oh, give it a rest, Miss Doom and Gloom. We’re getting married,” Amy says in a sharp voice, flopping next to Dad and sliding into his arms. “There, I’ve said it. Your dad is no longer your property, he’s mine. It’s official and it’s going to happen whether you like it or not and for your information it’s not up to Dave who my bridesmaids are, it’s up to me. And I’m having my best mates. We’re having an adults only big flash bash on a sunny beach somewhere exotic, aren’t we, Dave? Somewhere far away from this old dump. It’s none of your business where we were last night, Miss Flappy Ears, but if you must know, we were in a very expensive, very posh hotel! Celebrating!”
Dad’s been weird since asking Amy to marry him. He’s gone quieter than ever, drifting round the flat like a wisp-thin ghost. Amy’s got louder and bossier, like one of those Salvador Dali paintings from my book, all twisted and unpredictable. She’s spending our money on things for the wedding every single day. She’s bought two dresses already so she can choose. But we’re not allowed to see. She shuts herself in Dad’s room with her friends and they coo over them like they were kittens. She’s bought special silky underwear and these pearly shoes that shimmer. She got Dad this smart grey suit with a pink silk shirt and a purple cravat and he says he feels like a turkey all trussed up for Christmas. I’m more invisible than ever. No one’s speaking to me. They wouldn’t even notice if I never came home.
Amy’s the only important one round here. She’s high up, towering above us like a queen, making up all the rules. And I’m getting so used to being invisible that I’m shocked when Mrs Evans tells me I got an A+ for my still-life art project. She says my painting stands out from the crowd and it’s going on the special display board for Parents’ Evening for everyone to see. Dad won’t see it, because he never bothers with Parents’ Evening, but I run home quick to whisper my news to Blue Bunny.
“Here,” says Amy, shoving an envelope in my hand when I get to the top of the stairs. She’s standing by our front door with her sunglasses propped up on her head. “Take it, quick. I’ve got to go.”
She squints from the sunlight and pulls her mirrored sunglasses down so I can’t see her eyes.
“And take this,” she says, dropping a bulging backpack on the ground in front of me. “We put as much of your stuff in as we could.”
“Amy,” I say. “What are you on about?”
“It’s all in the envelope,” she says. “Your dad’s written everything down. Come on, quick,