Cicada Summer Read Free Page B

shadings of grey. A mist of sadness spread through her as she realised something she hadn’t really noticed at the time: the ghostly girl was so happy . Eloise hadn’t been happy like that since . . . not for a long time . . .
    Curled on the white bedspread, Eloise fell asleep.

3
    I t was cold. Eloise pressed herself into the mattress. Her head swirled with images of floating pale figures, sunken ships, dark ribbons of seaweed twined through portholes. She was swimming from room to room, swimming after a ghostly girl who drifted just ahead of her. A voice called, I’m coming! But Eloise didn’t know if it was herself who spoke, or the girl she was chasing through the dim green water. Eloise swam through the dark, deeper and deeper, colder and colder, until she shivered awake.
    The first three seconds after Eloise woke were always the same. In the first second, she knew there was something she had to remember, but she didn’t know what it was.
    In the next second she did remember. Mum .
    In the third second she squashed that knowledge into the tightest ball she could and wedged it right into the very back of her mind, so she could pretend it wasn’t there. Then she opened her eyes.
    Eloise blinked. All the things that didn’t really matter came flooding in: Dad, the house, Mo, the boy next door.
    The bedroom was almost dark. Eloise slid unsteadily off the bed and stumbled out into the hall. Mo was in the kitchen, dipping a chunk of bread into a bowl of beetroot soup. She gestured to the stove. ‘Plenty left if you want some. Bread’s on the bench.’
    Eloise looked around for Dad.
    ‘He’s gone,’ said Mo. ‘Back to the city. Sent you his love. Said he’ll be back soon.’
    A lump came into Eloise’s throat. Mo grimaced. ‘Couldn’t face saying goodbye to you, so he ran away. We McCredies are good at running from our problems. Runs in the family, you could say. Ha!’ She scooped up a spoonful of soup. ‘Go on, sit down. Don’t stand there like a shag on a rock. Eat something.’
    They sat on either side of the kitchen table in silence. Presently Mo pushed her bowl aside and looked at Eloise over the top of her glasses. ‘Since we seem to be stuck with each other for the time being, we’d better set up some rules of the house.’ She ticked them off on her fingers. ‘One: you don’t disturb me while I’m working. Two: my study is out of bounds. At all times. Is that clear?’
    Eloise nodded.
    ‘Three . . .’ Mo stopped, and sighed. ‘How shall I put this? You might think I’m a crazy old woman, but the fact is, I don’t . . . I don’t like to leave the house any more.’ She narrowed her eyes at Eloise. ‘Young Tommy runs my errands and so forth these days, bless him, and his mother’s been kind enough to pop in and have a look at me if I’m ever sick, which, touch wood,’ she rapped on the table, making Eloise jump, ‘so far, I haven’t been, very. The point is, I’m not going to ferry you about . Understand? You want to do any,’ she waved her hand vaguely, ‘ activities - netball or soccer or hanging about the train station or whatever it is the young do for fun these days – you organise it yourself. There’s a bicycle in the garage and a helmet somewhere, you’re welcome to use them. Just don’t get into trouble . . . Ha! That can be rule number three: don’t get into any trouble. That should cover most eventualities.’ Mo popped a piece of bread into her mouth. ‘You could get Tommy to show you around. He knows what’s what.’
    Eloise kept her face neutral. She didn’t want to join in any kind of activities; activities filled her with dread. At the last few schools she’d been to, she’d spent most of her time avoiding them. And she certainly wasn’t going to trail around after that boy; she’d die of embarrassment. At least Mo wasn’t going to make her do anything.
    ‘And, of course, there are rules about water,’ Mo was saying. ‘Dishes are washed in that little