This Winter by Alice Oseman

Author:Alice Oseman [Oseman, Alice]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-09-13T22:00:00+00:00

OLIVER JONATHAN SPRING, 7

First Charlie disappeared, and then Tori disappeared, and I’m starting to wonder whether I’m next. Nobody seems to be saying anything about it, which makes me wonder whether my family are behind it, and they’ve all been possessed by some ghosts or evil dinosaurs or something. I’m playing Mario Kart right now in front of the TV to take my mind off it, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not very worried.

Mario Kart’s kind of boring when you play it by yourself.

Rosanna keeps touching my hair and it’s really annoying me.

Mum comes up to me just as I’ve finished Luigi Circuit and asks if I need another drink. I shake my head and ask, “Where’s Charlie and Tori?”

Mum sits down on the sofa to my right. She’s got a glass of wine in one hand. “They’ve just gone out for a little bit.”

“Have they been kidnapped?”

“No, oh, darling, no.”

“Where’ve they gone?”

Mum doesn’t say anything for a little bit. Maybe she doesn’t know …

“Charlie was a bit upset earlier, so he went to Nick’s house.”

Nick is Charlie’s boyfriend, who comes round our house all the time. I think they’ll probably get married one day so they can have their own house and not have to walk to each other’s houses every single day.

I put down the Wii remote. Charlie’s been upset quite a lot lately. Mum says that he’s got something wrong with his brain that makes him upset all of the time. He had to go to the hospital for it.

“Is it because of what’s wrong with his brain?”

“… Sort of, yes.”

“Oh. Is he going to get better soon?”

Mum sips her wine. “I don’t know, sweetheart. I hope so.”

“Where’s Tori?”

“I think she’s gone to see if Charlie wants to come home yet.”

“Oh.”

“I said some … not very nice things,” Mum says, and rests her chin in one hand, “to Charlie.”

I suddenly realise that she looks really sad. Mum’s never ever sad about things – she gets angry sometimes and complains when I leave all my tractors on the lounge windowsill or make too much noise in the car, but she doesn’t really get sad.

I get up off the floor and go and give her a hug, which is what you have to do when someone is sad.

She laughs and pats me on the head. “Aw, Oliver. I’m okay.”

“You could just say sorry,” I say. “That’s what you have to do when you say something bad. Say sorry.”

“You’re completely right,” she says, and when I step back, she’s smiling, so I must have done a good job with the hug.

And then I hear the front door open.

I immediately run out of the lounge and down the hallway and there, taking their shoes off, are my big brother and sister, soaked from the rain. I run towards Charlie because he’s the only one left in my family who still picks me up and when he sees me he grins and holds out his arms and lifts me into the air and says, “Cor, you’re getting so heavy.

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