Fake ID by Hazel Edwards Page B

agreed on the time and I’d try to be around. The phone was in the hall at Luke’s place, and the cord was short, so others could hear when I did talk. Mum wasn’t much of a listener. Sometimes I didn’t know what to say, because her life was so different. She just told me what she was doing on the station, or about the penguins or the icebergs. Sometimes she’d ring Luke’s mum as an extra, but I didn’t always know when that would happen. With the funeral stuff, Mum had been ringing a bit more. It was easier when we talked about stuff like what time and how much and who was there. I couldn’t really talk about Gran being someone else because I hadn’t worked it all out in my head yet anyway. Maybe I’d write down some questions to ask Mum.
    â€˜Luke, if you have another snack-attack and eat all of the left-over spag bol, please wash the plate,’ Luke’s mum reminded.
    After, as I was cleaning my teeth, Luke knocked on the bathroom door. ‘Hey, Zoe! That
Missing Millions
program made me think. Want me to do an online search to find out about your gran’s past?’
    â€˜She’s not missing. She’s dead. Anyway, Sandor already found her here.’ I said. ‘But what if we find out she killed someone? Or was a spy? She does seem to have more than one name… and other lives.’
    Luke whispered, ‘Maybe she changed names for another reason?’
    â€˜So how would we know which name to search? Or what if you find the other Magda?’
    â€˜Try them all,’ said Luke decisively. ‘Night.’
    I slept with both family photos under my pillow that night. Which was real? Or were they both fakes? It was like parallel families. Had Gran meant to scan them onto the computer and send them somewhere? Or attach them to her finalthoughts.com message?
    In my dream that night, I was back at the funeral. Like a replay, with the White Ladies and a little kid who looked a bit like me: big nose and sandy hair, with freckles. Like the digitally enhanced boy in the photo. And a bit like Pa, who had red hair until he went bald and just the fluffy bits stayed around the edges of his head. Even Bark got into the dream and he was barking in Hungarian. In the dream I started to ask the dog in how many languages he could bark, and then I woke up. It was like one of those English essays when you can’t think of anything to finish with so you write…
and it was all a dream.
    This was. There were no other kids at Gran’s funeral, but I must have been worrying about other people from her history that I didn’t know, and the boy had sort of appeared in my dreams.
    That’s what Luke said when I told him at breakfast, anyway.
    â€˜Dogs don’t speak Hungarian or write cyber wills on the Internet. You’re making up stuff in your head because you haven’t got real answers. Ask your mum about the boy next time she rings. Or you’d be better off checking the Red Cross International queries on the Internet,’ said Luke. He was like that.

Chapter 8 The Shady Lady
    So I could watch Fortuna arrive, I went up the steps to Studio 17 in Main Street at 3.50 p.m.
    School had been yuk today. In Mr Grant’s class they were still writing up interviews with ‘oldest family members’. Unless I asked Mum, how could I do mine? But I did ask the science teacher about DNA. Turns out you need a body. Or at least body samples.
    â€˜What sort of samples?’ I’d asked Mr Noel.
    â€˜Medical biopsies taken for hospital tests last up to fifteen years.’
    â€˜Do they take samples in Intensive Care?’
    Mr Noel looked at me a bit strangely. ‘Possibly. They’d be called path. samples. Biopsies. Luke is doing frogs for his assignment. Are you thinking of studying DNA as your science topic for this assignment, Zoe?’
    â€˜Er…Yes.’ I’d forgotten about that science assignment. Too busy with family