Chapter 4
The scream is coming from the top floor of the house (told you we were getting there).
Aunty Bec, poised with a pan of scrambled eggs in one hand and a plate in the other, is the first to decide she’s not imagining it. “What was that?”
There’s the drumbeat of running feet and then Aunty Vinka arrives in the kitchen with her bathrobe flying open like it’s a pair of wings trying to launch her into the air.
“Vinx, what—”
“It’s Gertie!”
Dylan appears, looking like he might technically still be asleep. The gap between his T-shirt and pajama pants is a reminder of the foot he’s grown this year. Not that I notice.
“Did you guys hear that?” he asks.
Dad puts down his coffee, ignoring Dylan. “Is the old duck okay?” He’s aiming for casual but failing.
“No.”
Dad follows Aunty Vinka out of the kitchen, and I hear their feet going up the stairs. Fast.
“What’s happening, Mum?”
“Something to do with your, uh, with Gertie.” Aunty Bec is struggling with what to call GG. Not to get ahead of myself, but that’s not going to be such a big problem in a minute.
“Should we go up?” Dylan asks, and I’m not sure if he’s asking me or his mum. He’s definitely not asking Shippy, who’s taken his breakfast of honey on toast into the living room so he can watch the cricket.
I’m on my feet. Maybe it’s my fault for reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd too late last night, but something is happening and I want to know what. My first thought is the snake Nick failed to catch—could it have gotten into GG’s room?
Dylan’s behind me on the stairs. “What is it?” he asks, like he can’t see I’m two steps ahead of him.
I twist around, nearly missing a step. “Snake, maybe?”
“What?”
“The brown snake.”
“How’d it get in the house?”
“I don’t know!”
It’s not a snake.
We reach the landing outside GG’s room just as Dad comes out with a face that looks a lot like Aunty Vinka’s did when she ran into the kitchen to blow our morning apart.
“Is it a snake?” I look down for a tail licking at the bottom of my leggings. I’ve always been scared of snakes. (I refuse to use the word phobia, because a phobia is an irrational fear, and it’s perfectly rational to be scared of a venomous animal that could kill me with a nibble.)
“Ruthie, go downstairs,” Dad says.
“What’s going on?”
“Downstairs!”
“Dad!” This is so like my dad, treating me like I’m still the ten-year-old who was scared of Star Wars.
Well, I’m fourteen and I’ve seen all the Star Wars movies, even the bad ones; I’ve kissed a boy (Jeremy, at a school party—it was so grim); I got my period; and I’m nearly as tall as Mum.
Shakespeare married off Juliet at my age, although I guess that didn’t work out so well for her.
I don’t say any of this, obviously, because how weird would it be to start shouting about my period right now?
“Where’s GG?”
“Downstairs!”
Dad scoops me up and throws the top half of my body over his shoulder in a way I wouldn’t have imagined he had the upper-body strength for. Is it possible he really does still think I’m ten? I have time to let out a yelp, and Dylan has to dodge my feet as Dad starts down the stairs.
Over Dad’s shoulder, through the gap in the door, I can see GG’s quilt on the floor next to—bizarrely—her old typewriter. I get a glimpse of a broken bedroom window and only have a second to wonder why there’s a ladder propped against the frame.
“Put me down—you’re hurting me.” Technically I’m only at risk of death by embarrassment, but it works and Dad sets me down at the bottom of the stairs.
“I could do that all day once.”
“Yeah, when I was two. Can you please tell me what’s going on?” I try to rearrange my clothes, since the leggings I slept in have slid down and the T-shirt on top is bunched up. At least I put on a bra this morning or I’d never be able to make eye contact with Dylan again.
Aunty Bec chooses this moment to finally come out of the kitchen, a Band-Aid on one finger suggesting she was at least distracted enough by the uproar to burn herself on the stove, if not enough to actually stop making breakfast.
“What’s wrong?” she asks Dad.
“I’m going to get the police.”
“Should I come?”
“No, stay—Vinka needs you. I’ll take the kids.”
Dad doesn’t pick me up again (he really does look quite winded—is he even doing cardio at the gym?) but heads for the front door, clearly expecting Dylan and me to follow, which we do, still wearing the clothes we slept in. Shippy looks up from the cricket (probably a tea break).
“What’s up?”
“Gertie,” Dad says. “Don’t go upstairs.”
“Why not?”
Dad shouts something as he snatches keys off the table with one hand and his phone with the other.
My feet are doing their best to trip me as I follow Dad out the door.
I’ve barely buckled my seat belt before the car is speeding down the driveway.
Nobody mentions calling an ambulance, which is normally a good sign but right now feels like a very bad one.
When I twist around to look at Dylan in the back seat, he’s not even reaching for his own seat belt.
Uncharacteristically, I don’t ask any questions as we skid over the gravel. Dad already answered the biggest one I had when he shouted to Shippy.
“It’s a crime scene!” he yelled.
I’ve seen enough TV cop shows to know what that means.