The Summer We All Ran Away by Cassandra Parkin

But
pretty
’s a close second.” Davey watched as she restlessly sketched a stick-man dangling from a noose. After a minute, she added a woman poking him with a stick. “See, most houses have knives and hammers and stuff. If you were in the mood to kill someone, I mean. But if you had a gun, chances are it’d be the only gun in the house. So if I had it and you didn’t, I’d have the advantage.”
    â€œLook, I promise I’m not a murderer, okay?” said Davey desperately.
    â€œIf you say so.” She smiled at him as if they’d beenexchanging small talk in a queue at a café, and picked up her notebook again. “That’s quite disappointing, actually. I’ve never met a murderer.” She considered this for a moment. “Well. I don’t think I have. S’pose you never know.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said again, unable to stop himself.
    â€œSorry ’cos you haven’t done someone? Is there anything about your existence you’re
not
sorry for?” She took the bowl of porridge out of his hands. “You’re too much of a fuckin’ drip to be a murderer. Right. I’ll show you around. This is the maddest house you’ll ever see.”
    He wanted to finish his breakfast and drink his coffee and rest his head against the wall and try and put together what was happening, but Priss was like a cat that wants something. Suddenly she was all over him, taking the cup from his hands, moving his bowl away, steering him towards the door, her hair in his face and her jewellery snagging on his t-shirt. It was easier to give in, so he did.
    â€œHave you lived here long?” he asked, struggling up the stairs and down the long corridor of bedrooms.
    â€œKate’s room,” said Priss, tapping on one of the doors in the upstairs corridor. “Tom’s room. This one’s empty. This one’s empty. This one’s empty and it’s got wallpaper that’ll send you off your nut. This one’s empty but it’s got a massive black and red bath with gold taps, it’s fabulous but knock first in case I’m in it. This one’s mine, don’t ever go in it without my permission or I’ll have you. Empty. Your room. Empty.”
    Across a landing, a door loomed open to a dusty corridor with bare floorboards.
    â€œWhat’s through there?” asked Davey.
    â€œThe Dark Side. Only half the place has been renovated.” She clattered ahead of him back down the stairs. “Don’t go in on your own, the floorboards are dodgy.”
    â€œSo how long have you all - ”
    â€œNone of your fuckin’ business.” Back downstairs in the hall, she opened a door. “This is the office.” The door disclosed a room of angles and functional steel, with black swivel chairsand a sharp grey desk that looked naked, or perhaps robbed. “What’s wrong with this picture?”
    â€œNo computer,” Davey said triumphantly.
    â€œForget that. Check out the ceiling.”
    Davey looked up. The ceiling was pierced with huge metal hooks.
    â€œGame parlour,” said Priss, waving an airy hand. “They’d hang the birds until the maggots dropped out. And then eat them. The birds, I mean, not the maggots.
What?
”
    â€œCould we not talk about maggots?”
    She was away and opening another door, as if this was beneath her consideration.
    â€œLibrary.”
    A terracotta stove relaxed in a sunken pit scattered with cushions. Sleek leather sofas were surrounded by walls and walls of books. They began with names he knew only from being told he should read them:
Symposium, Lysistrata, Metamorphoses, The Odyssey, The Birds
. Then suddenly some familiar titles:
The Canterbury Tales, The Jew of Malta, The Revenger’s Tragedy
, and an entire shelf of Shakespeare, collected works and single plays, including seventeen editions of
Hamlet
. He moved on through time, passing
The