Название: Girl in the Window
Автор: Penny Joelson
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Учебная литература
isbn: 9781780317823
isbn:
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Electric Monkey,
an imprint of Egmont UK Limited
The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN
Text copyright © 2018 Penny Joelson
First e-book edition 2018
ISBN 978 1 4052 8616 9
Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1782 3
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Stay safe online. Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties. Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet.
For Cherry
‘There’s no one coming to look for me because no one even knows I’ve gone missing.’
Unrest (2017)
CONTENTS
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
USEFUL CONTACTS
No one sees me. I am a ghost. I am invisible. Life for me stopped still, one day – when I was not expecting it. Out there, I know that life goes on, that time moves forward, but it does so without me. I know I shouldn’t but I want to look once more – to take a peek out through the window at a world that is not mine. Do I dare?
It’s dark when I see her. I’m closing my curtains, ready for bed – and there’s a woman hurrying along our street towards the bus stop. There’s something intense about the way she’s moving. She darts like a bird. It’s as if she’s rushing to catch a bus – but there’s no bus there and no one waiting. The street is quiet. I’m not sure why I keep watching but I do. She’s skinny – with long, dark hair, maybe in her late teens, early twenties. She’s barely more than a silhouette in the darkness, but as she passes the street light, it casts her elongated shadow across the road. The glow highlights the long, thin cardigan she’s wearing. She pulls it tight around her, head bent against the chill November wind, but she goes past the bus stop without slowing down.
I see her glance round briefly as two cars pass. Now a silver car’s coming. It swerves and stops alongside her. Her head turns sharply. At the same moment, a man jumps out from the passenger side. He grabs the woman by the arm. She pulls away. They’re struggling – at least, that’s what it looks like. Within seconds, he’s opened the back door of the car and she’s in. He bangs the door shut and jumps back in the front. СКАЧАТЬ