The Hook by Raffaella Barker Page B

be wearing later, viscous and apparently doused in dressing. The bread was a hairbrush wrapped in a napkin and the sauces were shampoos and conditioners drifting a sweet synthetic smell across the room. Christy suddenly felt very hungry.
    â€˜God, this must have taken you ages.’ Walking around the table eyeing the feast, she was annoyed that she could ever have mistaken it for food. Maisie’s joke was revolting; Christy couldn’t laugh as Maisie and Danny were.
    Maisie was almost hysterical, clutching her stomach, knees together, back hunched, so she was a string of knots and curved corners enjoying her own joke with childlike abandon. She hadn’t meant it to be creepy. That was the trouble with Maisie: she was always upsetting people without meaning to, especially people close to her. Ben was lucky to live in the middle of the North Sea; on days when Maisie really lost control Christy liked to imagine her sailing off to join him, never coming back, but wreaking red-hot havoc on the oil rigs.
    Maisie didn’t give Christy hair extensions in the end.
    â€˜Your hair is long enough and anyway, I don’t think green would really suit you.’
    She did it to Danny instead and Christy was her assistant. He looked like a fairground troll when his sisters had finished soldering seaweed strands on tohis dark hair. He posed on the motor bike while Maisie darted round with her comb, flicking wisps of hair into ever more absurd peaks. Christy ached with laughter, wandering through the flat looking for the camera. She was halfway through Maisie’s wardrobe, throwing clothes out in a jigsaw swirl of colours, when the door bell rang.
    Maisie leaned out of the window dangling the key from a lock of green hair.
    â€˜It’s Mick.’
    â€˜What’s he doing here? I didn’t even say what I was doing this evening.’
    Christy crawled out from the scented folds of Maisie’s clothes and ran to look out of the window. The pavement was empty. Mick was already in the building.
    Danny scuttled in from the living room, his neck pushed down into his shoulders, trying to hide his head like a tortoise.
    â€˜Get this crap off me. I’m not your doll, you know.’ Grabbing Maisie’s scissors he slammed himself inside the bathroom.
    Christy stared in astonishment at both the doors, the front one through which Mick was about to appear and the bathroom one echoing with Danny’s anger.
    â€˜I don’t think he wants cool Mick to see him dressed up as My Little Troll,’ whispered Maisie.
    Mick was breathless and had running clothes on when he opened the door. Sweat glistened on his forehead and his eyes gazed blank and tired. Christy was disappointed: Mick should be equal to anything.And he shouldn’t wear tracksuits. No one should wear tracksuits.
    She stepped back from him.
    â€˜How did you know I was here?’
    Mick ignored her and tried to open the bathroom door.
    â€˜Danny’s in there, you’ll have to wait.’
    Christy followed him into the kitchen and gave him a tea towel to wipe his face on. His skin was pasty white and looked as if it would crumble like cheese if he rubbed it. She averted her eyes. He drank a pint glass of water in one slide and revived, wetting his hair under the kitchen tap so he looked like a boxer with the tea towel slung around his neck. It was better than looking like a jogger.
    â€˜Your dad told me you were coming round here. I thought I’d drop by and make sure your sister wasn’t pulling out your teeth.’
    Maisie glared at him and Christy laughed, pleased he had come charging in to find her like a knight in shining armour.
    â€˜Why would she be?’
    â€˜Well, when your dad said she was doing some kind of experiments on you I wasn’t sure what he was meaning, so I thought I’d get myself here and find out.’ He grinned at Maisie who raised her chin and scowled disdain.
    â€˜I’ve got a