LITMIR.BIZ

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was when we came home from school. I don’t think we had opened the windows since she’d been gone. Sometimes after school, you could still smell her when you got home.

      “I don’t have a choice,” Dad snapped. “There’s going to be some redundancies at work. After all these years H. Packaging is downsizing.” He sighed and paced. “They’ve cut my hours. I have to make sure we don’t lose everything.” He wiped his hand over his face and beard. “I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t understand.”

      Luke wiped his nose. He threw his handful of stones in the water. “Try me,” he said.

      Dad sank his hands in his pockets. He stared at the back of Luke’s hanging head. “I’ve sold the house.”

      “Without telling us!”

      “Look,” he said, “we can’t … I can’t afford to stay where we are any more. I’m trying my best.”

      “Try harder,” Luke sniffed. “Isn’t that what you’d say to me?”

      Dad walked off, barely looking over his shoulder. “It’s the way it is, Luke, like it or lump it.”

      He shouldn’t say things like that; he never used to say things like that. It’s not fair.

      “When?” Luke shouted. “When do we have to move to this stupid place?”

      Dad stopped and turned. “Friday.”

      I felt the sob catch in my chest.

      Luke was mad as anything. “Why didn’t you tell us before?”

      Dad kept walking and muttered, “It’s better this way.”

      14.

      WHEN WE GOT BACK, LUKE PHONED GRANDMA and Grandpa Hamblin. He sat on the stairs and asked them to tell Dad to change his mind.

      Then he was silent for a long time, listening, holding the phone loosely by his ear. He said no or yes or but to them now and again, but they kept talking. I could hear their voices, but not what they were saying, like a radio far away.

      “They want to speak to you,” said Luke.

      But I squeezed past him to go upstairs while he held the phone out and watched me go to my room. I blocked my ears so I couldn’t hear what he told them, so I didn’t feel bad about leaving him there on his own. But it didn’t work.

      Luke didn’t speak to Dad for days. I didn’t either of course. Dad didn’t say anything about us not talking. He gave us each two H. Packaging boxes from work, told us to fill them with everything we wanted to keep, just two boxes, no more. I bet he was like that at work. Because he was a supervisor in the warehouse he could say what size box you had to use, do this, do that.

      I packed up my boxes in a special way: books together, clothes together, shoes together, special things together, putting things in compartments with extra strips of cardboard so it was all divided up. Above my bed was a picture Mum and me drew. I had drawn her and she had drawn me. I rolled it up and put it in a small compartment by itself. Sometimes silence is really uncomfortable. Like trying to fit all your things into cardboard boxes.

      Friday, and Mia and Daisy came running up to me. Mia looked excited, but she folded her arms and said, “You don’t have to keep being such a sulker. You could ask someone else to sing in the concert with you.”

      And Daisy said, “She could ask to be in one of the big groups of singers.” Then she laughed. “Oh, but the auditions are closed now anyway.”

      Then Mia stopped laughing with her.

      “I think if you just said sorry for cheating so I couldn’t do the sponsored silence and for being such a loser then we’d let you play with us again. Well?” said Mia, her lips like the top of a gym bag, her eyes fierce. “Are you going to?”

      She tapped her foot. “If you don’t say sorry, we won’t tell you what we’ve found.”

      Daisy elbowed Mia. “I thought we weren’t going to tell her we found a dog.”

      Mia gritted her teeth. “No! We weren’t going to tell her we found a dog over by the gates.”

      “But you just did!” said Daisy.

      Mia blinked hard. “No, you did!”

      Daisy said, “But she’s got to say sorry before we show her or say anything else.”

      Mia couldn’t help herself. “It’s the biggest dog in the world and it’s so friendly. It ate my cheese sandwich, right out of my hand! I’m going to ask my mum if we can keep it.”

      They looked over to the school gates. So did I.

      “It’s gone!” Mia screeched. “That’s your fault, Daisy!”

      “No, it’s not! It’s Cally’s fault. If she’d just said sorry straight away like you asked then we wouldn’t have had to leave it all by itself for so long.”

      Mia grabbed my sleeve. “Typical! You’re always messing things up for me.”

      I ran, leaving Mia holding my empty grey cardigan and shrieking, “When I see it again, I’m never, ever going to tell you, ever again!”

      I went to the library to get away from them and to read about dogs. I found out about Homeless, Irish wolfhound, ancient wolf hunter, loyal friend and protector, about precious silver collars and how in the olden days people paid high prices to own one. There was a story with a brown and white drawing of a famous wolfhound called Cu who saved his owner’s child from a wolf. I looked at the pictures. I stared at the fearless guardian. That’s what Homeless looked like – like he would go to the ends of the earth to save you.

      I wished I could see him again. I wished he was mine.

      15.

      I DIDN’T GO STRAIGHT HOME AFTER SCHOOL ON Friday. I went to the park.

      She was still wearing her red raincoat and rainhat when I saw her across the other side of the duck pond. Homeless was with her. He came bounding round the edge of the pond, straight to me. I saw how happy it made Mum.

      If only dogs could talk. He could tell everyone that he’d seen her. Then they’d believe me. But then it was nice that he didn’t talk, nice that he didn’t say, “Why haven’t you done your maths homework? Where are your full stops and commas? Where’s your PE kit?”

      We sat on the edge of the pond. His eyes traced the snow-white breadcrumbs Mum showered on the water; his ears jumped up when she smiled at us.

      I imagined I said, “Crumbs to find your way home,” and she laughed and said, Just like Hansel and Gretel.

      “Mum,” I said inside, “will you find me again when we move house? Will you bring Homeless with you?”

      I leaned on Homeless and closed my eyes. Imagined it was her sitting there next to me, a kiss on my forehead, a strong, warm, breathing body next to mine. Homeless smelled like a toy rabbit I had when I was little. I laid my head on him, forgot about the time.

      Then Luke was there, crouched beside me, saying they’d been looking for me everywhere. He patted Homeless, said, “Hello, boy, where did you come from?”

      Mum wasn’t there any more. Homeless stood up, towered over us; his tail swayed as he licked Luke’s hand.

      “Dad’s waiting round the corner in the removal van,” Luke said. “We’d better get going before he sees the dog. He’ll only freak out. Where did you find him anyway?”

      Luke put his arm round me, made me leave Homeless behind. He held out a packet of bubblegum.

      “You can make huge bubbles with these, big as a football,” he said. “But you can’t chew properly

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