Close Your Pretty Eyes Read Online Free PDF

as he’d been pretending to be.
    I stood on the stairs, listening to the baby and getting more and more afraid. But I couldn’t stay halfway up for ever, so I didn’t. I went down.
    Grace was in the living room, reading another big, boring book. Maisy was on the floor, playing with her wooden bricks. She wasn’t crying at all. She was laughing.
    Which just made me even more afraid.
    Because if it wasn’t Maisy crying, then who was it?
    Â 
    I don’t do very well when I’m scared. Mostly what happens is, I get angry. I get angry a lot.
    I went into the dining room. Jim was sitting by the fireplace with Zig-Zag on his lap, reading a letter.
    â€œThere’s a baby crying,” I told him. He looked a bit surprised.
    â€œMaisy’s crying?” he said. “Is she? I can’t hear anything.”
    â€œ No ,” I said. “It’s not Maisy. It’s another baby. A baby who isn’t there!”
    â€œOh,” said Jim. “Well, that’s good. I wouldn’t want to think that a real baby was crying.”
    He was laughing at me. He thought I was just being stupid.
    â€œIt’s not funny!” I yelled. “Stop it!” I grabbed his letter out of his hands and tore it up. It served him right. He was treating my important things like rubbish. It served him right if I did the same to him.
    Jim didn’t agree though. He made me do all the washing-up as punishment. People always blame me for everything.

THERAPY
    I had therapy when I lived at Fairfields. It was a waste of time. My therapist was this idiot woman called Helen who kept asking me questions like, “How did you feel about that?” or “Why did you do that, then?”
    I used to turn it into a game. I would pretend to be this sweet little orphan and blink at her and tell her how sad I was because the other kids used to pick on me. I’d tell her everything mean the other kids did, and everything mean the workers did, and hope she’d leave me alone.
    She was pretty stupid though. She kept asking me stupid questions, about Liz, and my old adoptive parents, Grumpy Annabel and Dopey Graham, and all sorts of things I’d made it perfectly clear I didn’t want to talk about.
    â€œHow do you feel about not living with Liz any more?” she’d say, and I’d shrug.
    â€œFine.”
    â€œReally?” she’d say. “How did you feel when she told you?” And I’d shrug again.
    â€œStill fine.”
    Sometimes she’d just sit there and not say anything and wait for me to talk. I hated that even more. I used to make stuff up. I’d tell her I was afraid of ghosts, or monsters under the bed, or some other rubbish. I’d start fights with her.
    â€œWhy are you telling me off when you’re the fat, ugly one? Why don’t you lose some weight and get some plastic surgery before you start picking on me?”
    Disagreeing with whatever she said was also good.
    â€œYou sound very angry.”
    â€œNo, I’m not.”
    â€œHow do you feel then?”
    â€œFine.”
    â€œWhat would you like to happen now?”
    â€œDoughnuts. Jam doughnuts. And laser death rays.”
    â€œDoes acting like this make you feel safe?”
    â€œNot as much as laser death rays would.”
    She wouldn’t shut up though.
    If she’d really wanted to help, she could at least have given me the doughnuts.
    Â 
    I thought I’d get out of going to therapy once I came to live with the Iveys, but no such luck. Some lunatic was paying for a taxi to take me there every Monday after school.
    â€œBut it’s pointless!” I wailed, when Liz told me.
    â€œOf course it’s pointless if you never do anything!” said Liz. “Honestly. How exactly do you think Helen is going to help you if you just sit there and glare at her? Get working, kid. You’re not stopping until you do.”
    This was just another example of bonkers