Another World Read Free Page A

blood pressure sky high, she’d never doubted that. And they’d get through the decorating gradually, and at least in a house this size Miranda and Gareth won’t be continually bickering. No, it’s going to be good. She’s looking forward to it.
    Voices in the hall. ‘Come on,’ she says, picking Jasper up. ‘Let’s see your sister.’
    They’re in the living room, looking out into the garden.
    ‘Hello, Miranda.’
    There’s a moment when Miranda clearly contemplates the hypocrisy of a kiss and rejects it. ‘Hello, Fran. How are you?’
    God, she’s cool. Fran always thinks she remembers how cool Miranda is, and yet obviously she doesn’t, because every time it comes as a shock. ‘Not so bad. Glad the move’s over.’
    Miranda holds out her hand to Jasper, who pulls away from her, hiding his face in Fran’s neck.
    ‘He’s tired,’ Nick says quickly, to cover the slight awkwardness.
    ‘Well,’ says Fran. ‘What do you think?’
    ‘It’s a lovely big room.’
    ‘Of course we haven’t started yet.’ She nods at the wallpaper. ‘That’s the first job. I mean, can you imagine living with that? Enough to drive you –’
    She stops abruptly, obviously remembering that Miranda’s mother has just gone into a mental hospital, and Miranda, who wouldn’t have dreamt of resenting the casual remark, notices her confusion and hates her for it.
    Recovering quickly, Fran says, ‘I wish I could make myself like it, because it’s the original paper.’
    A short pause. Miranda tries to think of something else to say and fails. Dad’s gasping for a fag, she can tell, but Fran won’t let him smoke in the house. ‘Stupid little cow,’ Mum said, when Miranda told her. ‘That won’t last.’ And to show what she thought of Fran she’d lit one herself, and coughed.
    Normally Miranda’s good at smoothing things over. Good at hiding her feelings.
    ‘Tea’s just about ready,’ Fran says. ‘Nick, will you give Gareth a shout?’
    Gareth’s died three times in the past hour.
    He can’t see any way of getting through the enemy’s shields without taking at least one direct hit and draining his reserves. Though if it wasn’t for a certain stupid bitch who should remain nameless – look at all that sunshine and you cooped up in here have you done your homework why don’t you try reading a book for a change blah-de-blah-de-bloody blah – he’d’ve wiped the buggers out long ago.
    Nick puts his head round the door.
    ‘Don’t you ever knock?’ Gareth asks, not taking his eyes off the screen. He has to nerve himself to say it, because Nick’s sheer size sometimes frightens him. He’s never hit Gareth and he never will – Mum’d go ballistic, for one thing – and yet the fear’s still there. Ver-y in-ter-est-ing.
    ‘I did, you didn’t hear me. Tea’s ready.’
    ‘I don’t –’
    ‘Yes, you do. Come on, switch it off.’
    ‘Just till the end of the game.’
    ‘No. C’mon, Gareth, we’re all waiting. Apart from anything else, it isn’t very polite to your mother.’
    He always says that when he means it isn’t very polite to him. ‘I haven’t brushed my teeth.’
    ‘You brush your teeth after meals.’
    ‘And before. The main acid attack –’
    Gareth can go on like this for hours. ‘All right, but be quick.’
    You’ve got to hand it to him, Nick thinks, as Gareth sidles past. It’s virtually impossible to tell a child off for paying too much attention to dental hygiene. He looks round the room, thinking how typical of Gareth it is that while every other part of the house is in chaos from the move, this room is orderly. Games, neatly stacked by the computer: Crash, Fighting Force, Mortal Kombat, Shock, Riot, Alien Trilogy, Rage, Streetfighter, Return Fire, Warhawk, Nightmare Creatures, Shadowmaster, Exhumed . In the school holidays Gareth spends, probably, forty hours a week playing these. They know they ought to stop him, and they don’t, because they’re only too bloody pleased