‘Jack!’ Grady shouts. ‘You’re growing bacteria with all those filthy plates in your room! Clean it up. Now.’
Jeremy’s voice drifts from downstairs, sweet and innocent. ‘Don’t be insensitive, bro. Growing bacteria is all the social life he can hold on to.’
Something crashes followed by manic laughter.
‘I am so sick of both of you,’ Grady hollers.
Please go downstairs.
Footsteps stomp away, Grady shouting that they need to grow up.
Sam is out of the bathroom and skidding down the hall into the office before Grady hits the last step. He clicks the office door shut.
And he’s alone.
Safe.
He rests his forehead against the wood and asks himself, for the hundredth time, what is he hoping to achieve? It’ll end badly. And now his skin is red hot and feverish, like his wounds are full of crushed glass. If someone bursts in here, what would he do?
Sink to his knees and cry.
At least they seem to have forgotten they let him in.
The noise downstairs suddenly escalates and Sam’s shoulders tighten. New voices clamber through the crack under the door – Moxie’s higher tone of lemon and sharp corners and their father’s deep rumble. A baby shrieks. And, above it all, Toby’s shout of, ‘AND THEY GAVE ME A B’OON.’
Tension floods out of Sam’s bones so fast his spine turns to water.
Toby really is fine.
‘—hit by a car,’ Moxie is saying.
Voices mix and tumble.
‘What?’
‘Is he OK?’
‘We went to the hospital to get him checked out—’
‘I GOT A B’OON.’
‘It’s a mad epic balloon, Toby. Hit Jeremy with it.’
‘—no, the baby’s fine. He was strapped in the stroller the whole time—’
‘—totally need to get him one of those kiddie leashes.’
‘He’s not a dog, Jack!’
‘And then this kid just grabbed him out the way—’
Sam looks down at his hands. They’re shaking. He cracks open the office door to hear better.
‘Hey, quit hitting me with that balloon, you little terror.’
‘Who grabbed him—’
‘I don’t know. I just …’ There’s a slight lull in the stream of shouting, like everyone’s waiting for Moxie to finish. ‘I mean, I thought it was someone we knew, but it happened so fast and the kid just ran off at the end.’
‘He got hit by a car and then ran off?’
‘How hard did it hit him?’
‘… bleeding everywhere.’
Voices jumble into indistinct coils again and Sam loses track.
So Moxie hasn’t put it together yet – but she will, right? She’ll piece together the boy she saw stealing wallets, with the boy who jumped in front of a car for her brother, with the boy who appeared out of nowhere to eat their Sunday lunch.
And then he’ll have to run again.
He crawls on to the armchair and curls up, pain eating his heart.
Sammy is ten and he lost Avery.
This isn’t happening. This can’t happen.
He gets caught up with a teacher who asks if he started the fight in the playground today, so he’s eleven minutes late to the gates. Avery isn’t waiting.
Avery is supposed to wait.
Sammy rips apart the school grounds looking. Playground. Sports field. The overgrown bushes behind the toilets where he hides from bullies. Trees. Bleachers. Bus shelter.
nothing nothing nothing
Don’t panic. Maybe he walked home alone?
Except they’ve lived with Aunt Karen for three years and Avery’s never walked home alone. Sammy’s not even sure he could without getting lost.
Sammy runs the whole way, tattered backpack punching his spine. He dumps it by their letterbox and runs inside. Aunt Karen’s old station wagon is in the driveway so maybe she picked Avery up?
Aunt Karen’s making chilli beef at the stove and the air’s thick with peppers and oil – which flushes Sammy’s face with anger because Avery won’t be able to eat that – but there’s no time.
‘Where’s Avery?’ he gasps.
Aunt Karen flicks her cigarette in the sink. ‘What are you talking about? Why isn’t he with you?’
no no no no no
Sammy twists his fingers in his shirt. ‘I don’t know where he is! We have to go look. We have to—’
Aunt Karen whacks the wooden spoon against the pot to cut him off, and Sammy thinks he’s going to catch it. But she just looks annoyed, greying hair stuck to her forehead. ‘He’s just avoiding chores, Sammy, and your dramatics are tiring. Go do your homework and—’
‘No, we have to go find him now!’ It bursts out of Sammy in a shout.
Aunt Karen’s lips thin. ‘That’s enough attitude, young man. He’s not a baby. He’ll show up when he wants to.’
She doesn’t understand.
They’ve lived here for three years and she doesn’t understand Avery at all.
Sammy doesn’t wait. He flies out the door like a starburst and he’s on the streets, calling and calling for his brother. He goes to the park, full of prickles and rubbish. Nothing. He flies across footpaths. To the shops. Back to school. Home again. Back to the streets. Nothing.
It’s dark.
The air chills and smells of car exhaust and loneliness.
He trips and skins both knees and running turns to agony.
He runs anyway.
Avery could be lost, or taken by strangers, or hurt or scared or freaking out and hitting his head and no one will be there to catch him.
Sammy trails, dejected and exhausted, back to his street. Blood and gravel stick to his knees, sweaty shirt glued to his chest. Someone leers at him across the street and he wants to cry and hold his brother.
Avery could be dead.
It’s all Sammy’s fault.
He’s nearly at the house before he notices the police car in Aunt Karen’s driveway. His heartbeat stutters and fear pricks his skin. A cop strolls to the front door and knocks while another, a man with the boots and belt and gun and everything, opens the cruiser’s back door. There’s a glimpse of white-blond hair.