99 Red Balloons. Elisabeth Carpenter

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       Chapter Eleven

       Stephanie

      Grace has been gone for almost three days. If the police have any new information from the television appeal yesterday, then they haven’t updated us.

      Mum has been making a fuss of Emma, though I don’t begrudge it of course, not now Grace is missing. She’s indulged her ever since she came to live with us. Emma arrived with only a little rucksack. I had just turned eleven and she was ten and three quarters. Her hair was straggly, like it hadn’t been washed for weeks, but it didn’t smell horrible – it was sweet, like sticking your nose in a bag of pick ’n’ mix from the cinema. Her knees were dirty though, and her skirt had food stains all over it. Mum had warned Dad and me that Emma might be in a right state because she’d been alone in the house for at least three days until her neighbours had noticed. ‘Her mother ran away with a man half her age,’ Mum said. ‘All she had left in the cupboards was a tin of Golden Syrup and a can of prunes, which she couldn’t even open.’

      Emma and I didn’t speak for four days. I was a little scared of her, plus she was given my bed under the window. It had been my favourite place to be. I could pull back the curtains and watch the stars when I couldn’t sleep, imagining I was somewhere else. It was only after I heard her crying for the fifth night in a row that I tried to talk to her.

      ‘Do you miss your mum?’ I whispered.

      I heard the pillow move. I took that as a nod.

      ‘Do you want me to turn the lamp on?’

      ‘Yes please,’ she said, as quiet as anything.

      I flicked on the light and I’ll never forget her face. The skin around her eyes was so puffy I could barely see them. Her hair was stuck to her cheeks from the wetness of her tears.

      I opened my covers. ‘Do you want to come in with me?’

      She nodded and almost dived into my bed. Her head snuggled into my chest and she put her arms around me. I turned off the light, and put my arm around her shoulders. I looked to the window. The curtains were open and I could see the stars. Within minutes she was fast asleep.

      The memory is so vivid, I almost forget where I am. I give myself a shake – now isn’t the time to get lost in the past. I go into the kitchen to check on Jamie. I’ve kept him off school and he’s been on his laptop all morning, reading what he can find about Grace.

      ‘They’ve created a Facebook page,’ he says.

      ‘Who has?’

      He shrugs. ‘I don’t know the names. Do you?’

      He points to the screen. I haven’t used Facebook for ages.

      ‘I’ve no idea. They sound Scottish. How can they even create a page when they don’t know us?’

      ‘Anyone can create a Facebook page.’

      ‘That’s a bit creepy.’

      He shrugs. ‘It’s just what happens.’

      He scrolls down the page, which is filled with well-meaning messages: I hope they find her. Praying she gets home safe. Amongst them are comments from her school friends: Missed you at school today, hunnie. They’re written as though Grace might actually read them. Who would let their eight-year-old child write on Facebook?

      ‘What’s that?’ I look closer at the screen.

      ‘Ah yeah. Just some random psychic woman.’

      ‘Doesn’t she realise how upsetting things like that are?’

      ‘Things like what?’ It’s Mum.

      ‘Don’t sneak up on us like that.’

      ‘What’s going on?’ she says. ‘Is that Facebook? You know what I’ve said about that.’

      ‘It’s just some attention-seeking woman, that’s all,’ I say. ‘Obviously on the sherry or something.’

      ‘Let me sit down, Jamie.’

      ‘Sure, Gran.’

      He gets up silently. Why didn’t she choose another chair? There are two spare. I rub Jamie’s arm, but he flicks my hand away. Mum pulls the laptop closer and puts on her glasses.

      ‘I thought you said …’ I begin, but I shouldn’t start.

      ‘What?’ She says it dismissively, but I know she knows.

      She said Facebook was dangerous, that no one in their right mind should ever look at it, or write on it. ‘You never know who’s watching.’ She’s the same with mobile phones; I’ve bought her two now but she leaves them in the cupboard, switched off.

      ‘Deandra,’ says Mum. ‘What kind of a name is that?’

      ‘One created by fairies,’ I say.

      Mum gives me a sideways glance. In an instant her expression has said, How can you be flippant at a time like this?

      Dad would have understood. Whenever something terrible happened, he would always cut through the darkness by saying something light. Three days after his own father died, Dad said, I owed him a fiver, you know. No one laughed, they just smiled. We could say anything to Dad. He’d know that it’s my defence mechanism to try to remain in the present. Otherwise I might fall apart, and I’d be no use to anyone then, would I?

      ‘I СКАЧАТЬ