Tall Story - Candy Gourlay [39]
The door made a tiny click as I shut it behind me.
Mum and Dad shouldn’t be working today. I mean, it’s Bernardo’s first Sunday!
This was not my fault.
But the thought of Bernardo all alone in the house gave me a twinge of guilt. Poor guy, he had a brain tumour and he’d only just arrived in a strange country, and already he’d been abandoned.
Shut up, Andi. You left a note, remember?
The note said:
Bernardo was not the type to mind. He would probably eat the pizza and put another DVD on.
Wouldn’t he?
20
Bernardo
I read Andi’s note again.
It didn’t tell me anything. Back before Mum and Dad return. What did she mean? Where had she gone?
I looked carefully around the kitchen. There was nothing to see but the pizza and the dark hole where the ceiling had crumbled after my bath overflowed.
A tiny knot of panic began to grow in my throat. ‘Oh no, Amandolina.’ I hurried upstairs, clinging to the banisters as my big feet slipped and missed steps.
‘Andi?’ I croaked. The knot in my throat made it difficult to speak.
Here I was, musing about how I could be a better big brother, chaperone, guardian, confidant … and then I somehow misplaced my sister.
My bedding lay where I had left it, carefully arranged on my mattress on the floor, with my pyjamas neatly folded on top.
Above my bed, Andi’s was a wilderness of quilt and pillows, all in a bright orange basketball print. The trousers and T-shirt she was wearing when we were watching Star Wars lay on the floor. She must have changed before leaving.
Automatically I picked up the clothes on the floor and started to fold them. But then I stopped. Perhaps Andi had left something, some clue in a trouser pocket. But what would she say about me looking through her things? I felt like a sneak but I decided Andi’s safety was more important than my qualms about invading her privacy. I thrust my hand into every pocket. A stick of chewing gum. A few coins. Nothing useful.
I swallowed my guilt and looked through the pile of books on her bedside table. Nothing. I picked up the basketball duvet and shook it out. A scrap of paper fluttered to the carpet.
On the paper was a scribble in blue ballpoint pen:
Sunday. That was today. And it should be turning two in a few minutes. Under the writing was a hasty sketch.
It was a map.
21
Andi
I was feeling a bit sorry for myself when I got to the courts, what with Mum forcing me into playing Evil Sister and abandoning Bernardo to an afternoon of wall-to-wall Darth Vader on his first weekend in London.
But after a few minutes I stopped feeling sorry for myself and began to feel sorry for Rocky.
The Souls were pure and utter rubbish. They could not shoot.
The courts were just round the corner from our new house, on the edge of some playing fields near the hospital. It was just an asphalt space surrounded by high walls of plastic-coated chicken wire.
The team was kitted in metallic blue, with ‘Souls’ across their chests in black, their shorts swishing like skirts over their knees. I wore my plainest of plain Nike gear. I had no desire to attract more attention than necessary.
They kept yelling encouraging stuff at each other like, ‘Oh, bad luck!’ ‘Good shot, otherwise.’ Good shot, otherwise? They sounded like characters from one of those really bad black and white dramas on TV.
Anybody could see that it had nothing to do with bad luck and everything to do with slinging the ball around like they were in a pie-throwing festival.
Did I really want to become one of these clowns? If I believed in magic, I would have felt like I’d wasted a perfectly good wishing opportunity.
Rocky wasn’t even there. Mister Bouncy Dreadlocks was