Six Impossible Things Read Online Free PDF Page B

Persian rugs half covered the unpolished boards. Some of the candles must have been scented because the place smelt like vanilla, and something spicy.
    I opened a few of the cabinet’s drawers – a stash of lollies, some beads, a few little silk tassels, some pens and three dead Christmas beetles.
    The sound of a door shutting loudly made me flick off the torch and listen as though I were one giant ear.
    It was Estelle, singing loudly, the way people do when they’re attached to an iPod. She had a good voice.
    Then I heard someone else, although Estelle obviously didn’t.
    ‘Estelle, Estelle!
Estellle
!’ Knock, knock, knock.
Knock knock knock
.
    That must have penetrated because Estelle said, ‘What?’
    ‘ “Yes, Mum”,’ the person corrected.
    ‘Yes, Mum, what is it?’
    ‘There’s a good documentary on in a few minutes on early Renaissance art.’
    ‘Pass.’
    ‘I wish you’d speak in sentences.’
    ‘I’m not interested in the documentary.’
    ‘How do you know unless you come down and look at it?’
    ‘Instinct.’
    She must have put her earbuds in again, because her mother turned up the volume to say, ‘
How can you study with that thing on?
’
    ‘I’m not studying. It’s holidays . . .’
    Then her mother must have left, shutting the door after her.
    ‘. . . you cow,’ Estelle added.
    ‘I heard that.’
    ‘Give the woman the geriatric audiology medal,’ Estelle said.
    ‘I heard that, too,’ her mother said, from the other side of the door.
    ‘Well if you’d just go
away
you wouldn’t hear anything!’
    ‘If you keep listening to that thing at high volume you won’t hear anything by the time you get to my age.’
    ‘I don’t give a shit.’
    ‘Right! You’re grounded! You do not use language like that to me!’
    ‘I didn’t know you were still there. Why are you still there?’
    ‘To remind you that you
should
be doing homework. I don’t know why I’m spending money on those Alliance classes otherwise.’
    ‘So, stop. It’s not like I asked to do them.’
    Her mother obviously gave up and left.
    There was enough streetlight seeping in through the round window to allow me to creep out without tripping over anything. But then there was the problem of the packing boxes. They’d been easy enough to push through, but how was I going to manage the reverse manoeuvre? I stacked them together and leant them against the wall. I crawled through to my side of the attic and tried to slide the boxes back over the gap, but it wasn’t possible from this side. I needed . . . string. I switched the torch on and started searching. I found a long piece of cord attached to a folded curtain. I ripped it off and took it back to the gap. Climbing through again, I looped the cord around the boxes. Then when I backed through the gap I could pull and jostle them into the right position, and carefully pull the cord away from the boxes and back through to my side. I listened – nothing fell. I rolled the cord up and left it on the floor for next time.
    It probably should have worried me that I was planning so coolly to trespass again, to spy. How did that mesh with wanting to be good? Not at all, apparently. Stick it on the list to worry about later.
    I noticed a tiny cardboard box on the floor next to the wall. There had been a couple in Estelle’s attic, too. I picked it up: ‘Poison. Keep out of reach of children and animals. Pest Control is our business. Rodent Poison. Do not handle.’
    Estelle’s parents must have had the eradicators in. I went downstairs and reported a clean bill of health for the attic.
    There was another visit to the attic. But that’s the one I can’t talk about.

9
    W ITH FRED GONE , I’m back downstairs, still hungry and rummaging for more food. I know it’s to do with growing so much, but there’s not a single time of the day I couldn’t happily bolt down a couple of burgers or meat pies, if they happened to be handy.
    ‘There’s nothing to