The Boy in the Photo by Nicole Trope

Author:Nicole Trope [Trope, Nicole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786818645
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2019-06-28T06:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

Daniel – eight years old

This is a shitty flat. That’s what Dad calls it: ‘shitty’.

‘I’m sorry it’s such a shitty flat, Daniel, but I don’t have the money for a better one. We have to keep moving so that the police don’t find us and try to send you to a terrible foster home, where bad things will happen to you.’

‘Maybe the police will take me back to Mum,’ Daniel had said, but Dad didn’t think that would happen.

‘I’m sure she’s told them she doesn’t want you. She probably moved away by now so she can get on with her life without us. She doesn’t know how to love, Daniel; she doesn’t love me and she doesn’t love you.’

‘Maybe I could stay with Nana and Pop?’

‘I don’t think your mother would let them take care of you – she’s a really selfish woman, trust me, I know. Even if they really wanted you, she wouldn’t let them have you.’

‘Maybe I could go to Uncle Connor and Uncle James, then?’ he had asked his dad, and he had been embarrassed because his nose was running and his cheeks got wet with his tears but he couldn’t help it.

‘They have Lucy, they wouldn’t want another kid.’

He hates being in the flat alone all day but Dad is looking for work where people will pay him cash. They need cash so they can eat. He hasn’t had any breakfast, and if Dad doesn’t come back soon, he won’t have any lunch.

Dad had told him to drink water, but he’s tired of water.

The flat smells funny because the person who used to live in it was very old and they’ve left all their stuff here and it all smells like wet dog even though there wasn’t a dog who lived here.

They’ve been in this flat for one month now, ever since they came back to Australia. Dad won’t tell him the name of the town they’re in but he says it’s for his protection. There is a phone in the flat but when Daniel had lifted it up to see if it was working, Dad had ripped it away from him and pulled the cord out. ‘Don’t you understand what will happen if the police find us?’ he had shouted.

‘I just wanted to see if it worked,’ Daniel had told him but then he had to bite his lip because that wasn’t really true. He was going to call Mum. Mum taught him his phone number when he was five. They used to sing it in the car on the way to school. He was going to call Mum from the phone and ask her if he could come back and live with her. Maybe if she heard his voice, she would love him again.

‘If the police find us, they will throw me in jail, Daniel,’ Dad had said. ‘Do you want me to go to jail? Do you want to be left all alone with no one to love you?’

Dad says the same things all the time.

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