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
and policewoman the police in our lounge room And a kid A little kid bawling its eyes out Not a baby but not a proper child either It has black wispy hair and looks like a chubby elf Mum is sitting on the floor next to it going shh shh shhhh over and over And I hear Dad say There was a knock on the screen door about 9 45 then I heard a car drive off really fast It burnt rubber I opened the door and there she was just there on the doorstep crying Poor little thing Mum croons then goes back to her shh shh shhhhs Dad keeps talking I was expecting to see old Mrs Mackay from next door she often has trouble closing the blinds you know or turning off her oil heater and she comes over to ask for help I certainly wasn’t expecting to find well she was very distressed he says shaking his head And she had this green blanket Mum says 11
holding it up And this note was pinned to it And that was all that was with her the policeman asks Nothing else No bag of clothes or anything No Dad says just what she’s wearing the Wondersuit thing with the blanket around her and the note pinned to it The policeman looks at the note again and reads it out loud Please look after Hmmm how do you pronounce this M-E-I Is it My Mee I think you’d pronounce it May the policewoman says and bends down to the child Hello she smiles gently I’m Jan What’s your name Mei the child wails eyes wide and then calls Mama mama mama Okay well that’s a start the policewoman says turning to the others Where do you live Mei she continues Where’s your house Can you show us 12
