Friday Brown by Vikki Wakefield Page A

for me.’
    Which sounded to me like it was an ending. Which it was.
    Three months with Vivienne, forty-two days without her. That’s how I defined my time in that house. I didn’t want to remember any of it.
    The ceiling of the squat seemed to press down. I burrowed further under the blanket and pinned the edges underneath my arms and legs. I felt a burning in my sinuses and a lump in my throat that meant tears were coming, so I pinched the bridge of my nose to stop them.
    ‘Damn ghosts,’ I whispered to the dark.
    Another car drove by. For a few seconds, the newspapered walls lit up.
    My eyes were playing tricks.
    A slow-moving shadow crept down the hallway: the shape of a head, shoulders, a pointed chin. The shadow froze until the car had passed.
    My body went rigid. I kept my head so still. My eyes ached from staring sideways at that shadow and, after long minutes, it started moving in my direction. The dark shape sidled through the doorway. It crouched low and leaned over me.
    I felt the soft weight of a blanket pressing down. Scratchy fibres scraped my cheek. The shadow moved away and I heard the wheeze of laboured breath.
    ‘Silence, what are you doing?’ Bree hissed. ‘Go back to bed.’
    The shadow gave a salute.
    Bree sighed and rolled over.
    Creeping warmth made my toes tingle and my eyes close. When my heart stopped pounding, I fell into ruptured sleep.
    A toilet flushed. Somebody coughed. Shards of morning stabbed between the gaps in the newspaper; the exposed pipes that ran like veins through the creaky old house shuddered. Footsteps overhead and the cobweb-strung globe above swayed. I needed to pee, desperately, but I knew once I released the heat from the blankets it would be impossible to get it back.
    Carrie’s and Bree’s beds were empty.
    I hadn’t heard them get up which meant I’d slept harder than I liked. I curled myself into a ball on my side and waited.
    ‘Wake up, sleepyhead.’
    I jumped and sat up.
    Arden lounged in the doorway dressed in a long, black T-shirt. Her legs were white and endless, with the hard-edged muscle of a dancer, or a gymnast. Lines that begged to be drawn, if I could draw, and I couldn’t. Her dreads were tied in a clumped knot that sat like a sewer-rat on her shoulder. I noticed that her breasts were full, but high, even without a bra—like Vivienne’s had been. I would keep registering these similarities but I didn’t know what to make of them; they brought pain, but at the same time comfort.
    ‘Sleep well?’ Arden drawled.
    ‘Yes, thanks,’ I lied.
    She was hiding something behind her back.
    ‘Was there something you didn’t understand about being invisible?’
    At that moment the creeping light burst into a wall of sunshine. Arden moved to stand in it. A newspaper exploded in my face, the pages separating, fluttering down around me.
    I cowered and put my hands up.
    ‘There mustn’t be much happening in the world today.’ Arden said. She rummaged through the paper and spread a page out over my legs. ‘Look who’s made headlines.’
    I crossed my legs and smoothed the paper.
    TEENAGER SAVES BABY, screamed the front page. There was a picture of me pulling the pram onto the edge of the platform, one of those Big Brother images that looked grainy and indistinct. Below it, a close-up of my face with my hand up, fingers spread, like I was trying to ward off the paparazzi.
    A mystery girl’s quick thinking averted tragedy yesterday morning when seven-month-old Reilly Cooper’s pram rolled…
    ‘But I didn’t…’ I started.
    ‘You’ll have to leave. You’re putting us all in danger.’
    ‘But it was Si…’ I stopped. If Arden was making me leave, what would she do to Silence?
    Arden gathered the scattered pages to her chest, had a second thought, then threw the crumpled mess back on the floor. ‘No hard feelings, hey. It’s for the best.’
    She sounded like someone much older.
    As if she realised it, she laughed at herself. Her expression