The doorbell ding-dongs waking me up Pixie barks I hear a rush of tyres and then the front door bangs Weird It’s really late But I can hear Mum and Dad talking softly so I relax and drop back to sleep I hear crying At least I think I do Maybe I’m dreaming I come back up through the layers of sleep like a massive bounce-up on the trampoline It 7
feels like I’m actually moving and I sit up as I wake I turn on my bedside lamp the orange one Dad bought me that clips to the headboard of my bed I can still hear the crying and I’m definitely not dreaming now I reverse-flip so my head is at the door-end of my bed the door I have luckily left open a smidge I can hear voices and even catch a word here and there But then Harry presses his intercom buzzer and I can’t hear anything else The problem with the intercom is that Harry designed it and he has the master box of course In his room And if he’s buzzing me the buzzing will only stop if I hit my receive button or if he stops pressing which of course he never does So I can’t ignore it I can’t ignore him And the sound’s so rude and buzzy Sometimes I press receive and don’t speak just to stop the noise 8
To make it worse Harry designed the intercom so I don’t have a buzzer function on my unit just the poxy receive button As usual he has all the power Older brothers deal in power Floppy what’s going on Harry’s voice crackles through the intercom Shhh I don’t know I’m trying to listen And that’s not my name Poppy starts with a P or do you need help with your spelling Bzzzzzz he presses Stop doing that and I’ll be able to hear Bzzz bzzz bzzz he presses and then shuts up for a bit I hear more talking from the lounge room Voices I don’t recognise And all the while and not in any dream the really sad sound of a small child crying 9
2 I do the special knock on the wall I share with Harry It means I want him to buzz me Because of course I can’t buzz him Bzzzzz I’m going out there to see what’s going on I whisper into the box Okay he says Report back pronto Okay I swing open my door to just before The Squeak and squeeze through the gap I ghost across the corridor and stay low against the wall while I creep towards the lounge room There’s Mum and Dad and a policeman 10
