Hidden Among Us Read Online Free PDF Page A

mentioned it? Looking out of the window, I watched the dark trees as we drove away from the lit-up forecourt, a menacing tangle of knotted branches looming out of the darkness.
    “Right down this lane,” Joe said in the front, breaking the spell. “We’re here, this is it.” I wished he’d shut up; I was worried about Connie and terrified about confronting Mum, but at the same time my stomach was fluttering with sheer excitement. As we turned into a long, tree-lined drive, a sort of friendly familiarity washed over me, like driving on the left-hand side of the road after being in France for two weeks and finally seeing the same old English petrol station chains on the motorway.
    I climbed out of the car onto rain-swept gravel that scrunched beneath my feet before Joe and Nick had even undone their seatbelts. I breathed in chilly night air, harsh with the faint tang of woodsmoke. I turned to look at the place where I was born. An overgrown lawn swept away towards a long, low house: ancient grey stone at one end, the rest black and white timber like a picture-postcard cottage. A forest of chimneys rose up from jumbled rooftops and small, odd-shaped windows glittered in the moonlight. The front door was enormous – arched and wooden, like you see in churches.
This is my place
, I thought, which was totally irrational.
This is where I belong: an ancient house surrounded by trees, waiting just for me in a puddle of silvery moonlight
. For a moment, I didn’t even care what Mum was going to say.
    I must have been standing there like I’d forgotten how to move, because Nick and Joe edged politely past. Joe reached for the plastic doorbell and I remember thinking how out of place it looked. There was a faint lighter patch on the wood where you could see an old-fashioned knocker had once hung. The door swung open before Joe had the chance to ring.
    Mum had heard the car. My throat felt dry. I tried to swallow but couldn’t. She was going to go mad. What if she started screaming at me in front of everyone? What if she
cried
?
    Inside, we burst into a bubble of light and colour. Mum and Nick were both talking at once. The hallway was painted blood red, and thick wooden beams criss-crossed the ceiling. I looked over my shoulder and noticed a darker patch in the paint just above the door. It was the shape of a crucifix, like a cross had hung there for years as the blood red faded around it, and it had only been taken down quite recently. Nick and Joe were backing quickly away through the door at the end of the hallway.
    “Lissy!”
Mum turned to me, and it was then I saw that she didn’t look furious, more frightened. Tears beaded in her eyes.
Oh, no
. “You caught the train all the way on your own?” She was speaking in French – always a sign she’d lost control. “Why on earth did you do that? For God’s sake, Lissy! Anything could have happened. You could—”
    “Well it didn’t, did it?” I said, deliberately replying in English. Our worst arguments are always in French, for some reason. “I should have asked but I knew you’d say no. I just wanted to come on my own, OK? I’m not a baby any more, I wanted you to—”
    “Never, ever do
anything
like this again! I knew I should never have let you go on that school trip!” Mum roared at me, her voice deep and bloody. She’d totally lost control; I’d expected it to be bad but not like this. “You can’t do these things, you can’t!”
    I stood in the shadowy hallway a moment – frozen – then turned and slammed out of the door.
    Hot angry thoughts skittered around in my head.
She’s going to keep me a prisoner the rest of my life. What’s wrong with her? What’s wrong with me?
    I ran down the drive, tripped on a tree root hidden in the gravel. Fell.
    Stupid, stupid, stupid! What did you expect?
Had I really thought that taking the train on my own without permission would make her
less
overprotective? No, I’d just had enough, that was all. The only