The Red Cardigan Read Online Free PDF

‘that’s all she inherited from me’, or whether she intercepts her mother’s thought. She’s become so accomplished at blocking thoughts that there are still times she finds it hard to differentiate a thought from real speech. The lessons have been hard and Evie knows it’s better to keep quiet.
    As a little girl, Evie always answers her mother, thinking it’s the right thing to do. She doesn’t understand it’s a special thing, to hear a person’s thought. She thinks she’s the same as everyone else. No one bothers to tell her otherwise.
    â€˜They’re next to the front door,’ she calls to her mother one day.
    â€˜What’s that?’ her mother replies, looking under the couch.
    â€˜Your sandshoes.’
    â€˜My sandshoes? I can’t find them anywhere.’
    â€˜They’re at the front door.’
    â€˜Are they?’
    Her mother walks to the front door.
    â€˜So they are. Thank you, my darling.’
    â€˜Don’t put them on,’ warns Evie.
    Her mother snorts.
    â€˜I’m not a smartypants,’ Evie says.
    â€˜I didn’t say you were.’
    â€˜Yes, you did.’
    â€˜No, I didn’t.’
    â€˜You did. I heard you.’
    â€˜I didn’t say a thing,’ her mother snaps. She’s loosening the laces and stuffing her foot in.
    â€˜There’s a b-b …’ Evie whispers.
    â€˜Aaagghh,’ her mother screams, ripping off the sandshoe.
    In her head, Evie can see the bee. It’s stuck in the toe part of the shoe, lying on its back, twitching.
    â€˜Did you put that in there?’ her mother shouts.
    â€˜No, no. I promise, Mummy.’
    â€˜Well, how did it get there. How did you –’
    â€˜No, Mummy. I promise.’
    Her mother hops around the doorway, holding her stung foot. She is crying.
    â€˜Mummy, I’m sorry. I saw it –’
    â€˜You can’t, you can’t.’
    She limps away to the bathroom. Evie follows but her mother closes the bathroom door and locks it. Evie can hear her mother crying.
    â€˜Are you okay, Mummy?’
    â€˜Leave me alone, Evie.’
    It’s not until evening, when her father returns from work, that Evie’s mother unlocks the bathroom door. It’s never mentioned again.
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    In the safety of her room, Evie opens the drawing of Alex’s face. She knows she has already given it too much time. She still has a history essay and a poetry assignment tocomplete. But she cannot concentrate on anything else.
    â€˜What’s so special about your eyes?’ she says, distracting herself from a low, monotonous hum that has started in her head. Sometimes if she ignores it, it goes away. ‘Maybe it’s your pupils.’
    She rubs out the black dots in Alex’s eyes and again colours in a new shape.
    â€˜There,’ she puts down her pencil. ‘An eyeball’s an eyeball. Get over it, Evie.’
    Balancing the portrait on the windowsill, Evie takes five steps back. The right eye is good. It’s alive – it looks at Evie like Alex does. It makes the same connection. The left eye stares through Evie.
    â€˜Yuck,’ she whispers. ‘Don’t look at me like that.’
    Evie walks around her bed feeling the left eye follow her. Quickly she spins around as if to catch it out but its focus is still fixed on her. Now the hum is growing louder like it’s travelled out of her head and into the room.
    Evie sits on her bed, watching the black dot watch her. She stares till her eyes water and the face blurs and disappears. She blinks, pulling the picture back into focus, and a face stares back at her. It’s not Alex. It’s not the face she drew. It’s a horrible face. Ugly, contorted, pleading.
    Evie grabs her cardigan and throws it at the window, knocking the picture to the floor. She runs to the bathroom and locks the door.
    â€˜No. Please, no.’ She slides down the tiled wall,