The Edge of Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

supermarket. What could they have been doing? Unless of course they’ve been arrested ? For what though? I mean they never do anything , let alone anything that would be remotely criminal in nature. They go to work and they come home. End of. And anyway, what police cars have blacked-out windows? And a van? Boxes of stuff? All their belongings, anything that ties them to this house.
    Except for me of course.
    The house seems to press in on me. The emptiness is suffocating. In its stillness I hear echoes of Mum’s voice shouting at Dad to pick up his coat, the rap of her heels, her fingernails tapping on the counter; Dad’s low growl, the rattle of his cab keys on the stand in the hall; his heavy tread on the stairs when he comes home in the morning. And then what about me? What is there here about me? You could listen all day for it: only my quietness, my obedience. I think again about the photograph and I feel sick.
    The house even smells different. The cloying mix of Dad’s aftershave, glue and garlic are gone – and the place smells like old mushrooms. Mum’s always been a hoarder – she keeps everything: bus tickets, old keys, labels, jam jars. But now there’s nothing. It’s as if all traces of the people who lived here this morning have been deliberately rubbed out. I force myself to go on into the back room: the same. Clean floors, blank surfaces, nothing in thedrawers or cupboards but the odd pencil or crusted coin. The furniture they’ve left is stacked neatly to one side.
    After standing in the middle of the front room for what feels like forever, I go upstairs. Apart from the bed now standing against the wall, my room is empty. He’d lied to me about the painting. Obvious now.
    There are oily marks on the walls where posters and pictures have been. In places, there are little corners of glossy paper still sticking to the walls. All my things are gone – my books, my music, pictures, notes from Lauren. There are deep indents in the carpet where the bed and chest of drawers stood. A bluebottle slaps against the windowpane, trying to get out. I turn, and as I do, I notice something pinned up high on the back of the door: the photograph of the little girl, the hands around her waist.
    I unpin it and put it in my back pocket. Then I take out my phone. I punch in 999 but something stops me from pressing Call. I remember what Dad had said when Andrija was here. No police. I can’t do that to them.
    There’s something on the outside of the window: a black smudge. When I look more closely, I see it’s a piece of charred paper. Down in the garden, there’s the bin: a spire of dying smoke rising from it.
    The back door is jammed in the same way as the front: a wedge of wood forced into the lock. I break the glass with a kick and climb through. The bin is full of blackened, burned paper: it’s still warm but just cool enough to touch. I pull out a handful and it crumples to dust and disappears. A little way off, twitching in the wind,there’s a thin crust of green card with my handwriting on it: part of my geography exercise book. I feel the bile rising in my throat.
    I climb back in and go upstairs again.
    On the landing, the picture of a small dog looking wistful hangs askew on the wall next to their bedroom. They must have forgotten to pack it. Or perhaps they don’t want him either. Their room is the same: empty.
    And then I see something: the loft ladder has been used again and not put back properly. I cross to it, reach up, drag it down and clamber up.
    I switch on the light and pull the ladder up behind me. In the dim glow across the beams, there’s a shipwreck of stuff: an old bed frame at the far end, a threadbare teddy bear grinning at me from a corner, a few pots and pans, a broken deckchair and half-empty cans of paint.
    Things have been overturned; there are shiny scuffs on the boards where the dust has been disturbed. I follow the path towards some upturned boxes under the eaves at the back,