10. Cuckoo
CHAPTER TEN
CUCKOO
We have become, in a way, nocturnal. The days pass through long lie-ins and mindless time spent in front of the television, or helping Carly and Dean with their schoolwork.
Starling complains often about the family walks she is forced on, but they sound nice to me.
Crow is still revising, determined to do it just in case there is a sudden switch around.
Goldie tells us her aunt is driving her slowly insane, and Wren seems to do nothing except watch Netflix in bed.
It is only at nighttime our inertia vanishes and we become alive again.
It’s rare for a cuckoo to be nocturnal, only sometimes when searching for other birds. They have an interesting reputation, but they are one of the sacred animals for the goddess Hera, protector of women, so they’re always going to be good for me. I’m a protector too.
So here I am: protector, nocturnal, finding my other birds. They are waiting for me not far from the estate, and tonight we have no plans. We walk and talk, keeping to side roads, quiet streets with quiet houses and quiet people inside them.
“Our first exam would have been tomorrow,” Crow says. “Isn’t that mad? Who would have thought, six months ago, that we’d be doing this instead?”
“You’d have been in bed by nine,” I say. “Alarm set multiple times, twenty-seven black pens at the ready.”
“Like you wouldn’t,” Crow retorts. “You care as much as I do.”
“Not quite as much, but alright. We’d all have been asleep, with frightening dreams to occupy our minds.”
“Do you think there is anyone from school that lives here?” Wren asks as we turn into another street, home to large, detached houses, individual front gardens, and driveways.
It is dark, the streetlamps off now that it’s late.
A bird—or a bat, I can’t be sure which—flies overhead, but otherwise we are alone, just as we like to be.
“Probably Stacey Fulham,” Goldie says, wrinkling her nose. “She’s always bragging about where she’s been on holiday and the tennis club she’s a part of.”
“What is everyone doing?” Starling murmurs. “Do you think anyone is doing anything as exciting as us?”
“They’re just on TikTok and Instagram,” Wren says. “They’re not going out, not like us anyway.”
“Exactly,” I say. “We’ve always been different.”
We aren’t afraid anymore of walking past the houses.
I always led the way before, but now Goldie and Starling are happy to walk ahead of me, peering into front gardens and letting their hands drift toward hedges, pulling leaves and stems as they walk.
I watch them, Goldie’s hair in one golden sweep down her back, Starling’s red hair bouncing on her shoulders with every step, Goldie taller and more graceful, Starling almost jogging along.
Crow keeps in pace with me, and even she’s less reluctant now, studying the area with interest, analytical as always, no doubt weighing up what we can and can’t get away with.
Only Wren lags behind, so I turn and wait for her, linking our arms together.
One particular house stands out. Painted a sour yellow, they have a bright orange sports car that clashes terribly parked on the drive.
Goldie and Starling stop in front of it, bringing the rest of us to a standstill too.
Behind the car is a double garage, to the left of it a tap with the garden hose still attached.
Without waiting for the others, I enter the driveway, walk up to the tap against their hushed protests, and loosen the hose, ever so slightly.
Enough to leave a gap, but not enough for it to fall off.
The next time someone uses it, the water will burst from the seam.
“Oh my God,” Starling says. She has stepped onto the drive too. “Is this . . . trespassing? Are we breaking the law?”
“We could have a parcel to deliver,” I say.
“At two in the morning?”
I grin. “We’re very keen to keep to our next-day delivery quota.”
I move toward the house, to the front door.
The welcome mat seems brand-new, as if no one has ever actually stepped on it.
I imagine a shiny-faced woman answering the door and telling a delivery driver to step back, please, lest his dirty shoes soil it.
The word welcome is in block capitals, written in curly print, black against beige.
But the house doesn’t feel welcoming. Even the front door is immaculate, not a scuff in sight, the brass knocker practically gleaming.
Engraved in the letter box, also in capitals, are the words no soliciting. Not so welcome indeed.
“Cuckoo,” Starling hisses. “What if they have one of those Ring doorbells? We’ve already done enough. Come on!”
This makes me glance back at the door, but no. There’s no sign of one. No camera around. We’re safe.
“Let’s move their welcome mat,” I say. “Put it right behind their car. That’ll give them a scare.”
“Do we want to give them a scare?” Crow asks. “Aren’t we pushing it? They’re going to know someone was in their drive.”
“And what—moved their mat?” I roll my eyes. “Hardly the crime of the century, is it? It’s only a bit of fun.”
A bit of fun—and maybe, yes, I do want to scare them a little.
These people, with their three-story detached house and driveway, with their flashy car and no doubt others hidden in the garage that are even better, with their stupid pristine welcome mat that has clearly never welcomed anyone in its life, have never known fear.
They live their lives with an implicit knowledge that everything is going to be okay.
There are backup plans. Backups to the backups.
Money in savings accounts. Holidays to look forward to when this is all over.
Life to look forward to when this is all over.
If this small act makes them feel less secure, makes them question even one fraction of their safe, carefully controlled lives, then I’ve done a good deed.
I’m like Robin Hood, if Robin Hood decided to be a petty bitch.
I lift the mat, ready to deliver it to one of the front wheels of the car, when something underneath catches my eye.
A key.
It must be for the house. The way some people put them under plant pots or bury them in a patch of soil.
We used to have one on top of the light outside our door, but it was always scaldingly hot to touch, and our neighbor was broken into after they’d done the same thing.
Around here, these people don’t have such worries.
Here is one of their trusty backup plans.
The mat is surprisingly heavy; I drop it on the path and it lands with a thunk, one half flopping over the other, only me visible from the original word.
Wren picks it up, dutifully places it in front of the car, right up against the left wheel.
Mission accomplished: No animal would do something so precise, and they will know their peaceful home has been disturbed.
“There’s a key,” I say, as if everyone isn’t already staring at it, as if we’re not already imagining all the possibilities.
“We’re not going in,” Crow says, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Jesus,” I say. “Straight to one hundred. That’s your idea, Crow, not mine.”
“You’re thinking it too.”
“Au contraire.” For some reason, I’m reluctant to pick it up. I imagine it burning me like it’s been under a hot light too, leaving an angry red mark in my palm.
Instead it is Goldie who bends down and retrieves it. There is no cry of pain, no scalding. The key rests in her open hand, and she holds it out to us all. “What should we do with it?”
“Use it to scratch their car,” I say, only half joking.
“Too risky,” Starling says, taking me seriously. “We could move it somewhere else too. Maybe put it right back under the mat, but over there.”
“I like that!” Wren whispers.
“Let’s just leave it alone,” Crow says. “Isn’t it scary enough that it’s lying there exposed?”
“No,” Goldie says. “It’d be scariest if it vanished completely. Let’s take it with us.”
“Take it with us?” Crow echoes. “And do what exactly?”
“Nothing. Chuck it in the river. But it won’t be there anymore. And they’ll know right away that it’s gone.”
Oh, that is brilliant.
I can picture them so easily: waking up, opening their front door in their fancy silk robe, realizing the mat isn’t there first, panicking about that.
Finding it in front of their garden, perhaps rationalizing it as silly teenagers, nothing serious.
And then realizing that the key is gone, it has been stolen, and someone out there has access to their home.
Access that they could use at any moment, perhaps that very next night.
Perhaps they’ve been in already.
Their lovely bubble is popped for good.
“But what if they’re good people?” Wren is biting her lip again. “What if we’re messing with someone who doesn’t deserve it?”
I am reminded of her similar reluctance during our discussion with Miss White: I could never murder anyone. The perfect murder is none at all.
She is so innocent.
“Most people deserve something, Wren,” I tell her. “And this is small, in the grand scheme of things. Tiny. They’ll get their locks changed and move on.”
She nods. “Yes. You’re right. Sorry.”
“That’s settled then,” Goldie says, hand closing over the key. “Let’s go.”
We dart out of the front garden, hurry down the driveway, and out onto the street.
I look back, make sure we haven’t been spotted, but the house is still in darkness, unaware of our intrusion.
The other houses along the street are equally as dark, and if anyone has seen us, it’s too late—we’re gone.
On one of the chimneys is a lone magpie, the only creature that knows what we have done.