The Glass Children by Kristina Ohlsson

Author:Kristina Ohlsson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448194162
Publisher: RHCP

Chapter Eighteen

Mum’s holiday came to an end, and Billie was poorly. She had a temperature and a sore throat, and had to stay in bed.

‘Have you got enough books?’ her mum said anxiously before she left for work.

‘Yes,’ Billie said, thinking that the problem with spending a whole day home alone was unlikely to be a lack of reading material, but that the house she lived in was extremely dangerous.

Her mum sighed, looking worried. ‘I don’t like the idea of leaving you on your own when you’re not well,’ she said.

‘I’ll be fine,’ Billie said.

‘There’s food in the fridge for you to heat up.’

Mum bent down and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I’ll call you later,’ she said. ‘You take care of yourself. Promise.’

Billie promised.

Then she remembered that she’d forgotten to ask her mum about something. ‘Have you spoken to the neighbours yet?’ she said.

Billie hadn’t told her mum what she and Aladdin had learned about the family they had bought the house from, but she was curious about what her mum might have found out from the neighbours.

Her mum looked surprised. ‘The neighbours? No – what do you mean?’

‘You said you’d ask them about the family who used to live here, find out when they moved out.’

Her mum didn’t speak for a moment. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Yes, I did speak to them.’

Billie sat bolt upright in bed. In that case Mum must know that they had moved out two years ago, not last year! ‘What did they say?’ she asked eagerly.

Her mum scratched her forehead and screwed up her eyes as if she was thinking about something really complicated. ‘They said they moved out a year ago, just as Martin told us when he showed us the house.’

‘But . . .’ Billie didn’t know what to say. Someone was lying – either Mum or the neighbours. Billie guessed it was Mum.

Her mum looked at her watch. ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘You remember what you promised me, don’t you?’

Billie lay back down. What had she promised?

‘You said that if I spoke to the neighbours, you would stop all this nonsense about there being something wrong with this house. Do you remember?’

‘Yes.’

There was no point in talking to Mum any more. They would only end up falling out.

Mum looked relieved. ‘Excellent. That’s the end of that, then. Now you look after yourself, sweetheart. I’ll be home as early as I can this afternoon.’

Her footsteps made the stairs creak, then Billie heard the front door close. Mum had lied to her.

Perhaps it was because she had a temperature and was sleeping a lot, but after a while Billie started to think that it was rather nice to be home alone. The sun came and went, but it wasn’t too hot, and Billie left the window open. Their neighbour seemed to be cutting the grass, and Billie liked to hear that sound. When Dad was alive, he had been very particular about keeping the lawn nice.

‘It’s the first thing people see when they look at the house,’ he used to say.

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