No Alarms Read Free

fail twice, that’s all.’
    ‘It’s not deliberate.’
    ‘Nah, s’pose not.’ He had thin brown hair that lay flat on his skinny head and when he talked he had a way of focussing on an invisible point in the air, like he could see things other people were missing. Sharon had said something about it once and he’d said ‘nah, it’s just some shit wrong with my eyes’, but with him you never knew if he was being serious.
    ‘So what are you doing now?’ Justin asked.
    ‘Not much.’
    ‘I might go up home a while. Want to come?’ He asked like she was always calling in, even though she’d never been to his house before.
    ‘Guess.’ It’d be interesting to see what sort of space a guy like him would fill.

two
    SHARON KNEW THE STREET. Her best friend at primary, Carla, had lived there, before her Dad got a job and they moved away. It only had houses on one side, the other was the beginning of an industrial block, not that there was much happening there these days. The houses were all state designs, packed tightly together hard up against the railway line.
    Sharon remembered the way her and Carla used to put their heads against the iron fence and feel the vibrations of the passing trains. On a good day there’d be so much noise and shaking inside your head you could believe it was going to take you with it. It hadn’t though.
    Meantime the houses looked like they’d shrunk. Maybe it was time doing that, or the grass growing up so high against their walls.
    ‘You live here?’
    ‘You know it?’
    ‘Sort of.’
    ‘How do you sort of know something?’
    ‘Sort of know you don’t I?’
    ‘Here, stay outside while I tie up Tua.’ Justin slipped through the gate just as a huge creature, part dog part steroid, rushed toward them, barking and slobbering and twisting its head with excitement. Justin was as bad, whooping it up as the two ofthem danced around the lawn then disappeared down the side of the house. The barking turned to high pitched whines and Justin reappeared.
    ‘He hates being tied up.’
    ‘Funny that.’
    ‘Yeah.’ Justin looked around, like he’d only just noticed the place.
    ‘Oh, sorry about this. We were going to clean the place up but we decided it might look a bit suss. Here, inside’s better.’
    Walking in through the front door was weird. Two worlds that needed more than just a wall between them. Sharon stayed stuck half a foot inside, not quite ready to move on.
    ‘What is it?’ Justin asked.
    ‘Dunno,’ she said, because she didn’t. Not exactly. It was the clutter of it, the way there was no space left alone just to be space. All sorts of stuff, spread round the kitchen like they had been transported to an appliance store showroom. Microwave, oven, dishwasher, food processor, everything new and flash, like it had never been used. And a silver polished thing on the bench, a coffee machine she thought, though she’d never seen one. When Justin opened the fridge and offered a drink she caught a glimpse of bright fresh colours way too good to eat. It was like someone had just gone mad on the HP, or won lotto, except in a different suburb. Round here winning would be a party and more smashed glass than you’d ever be able to clean away.
    ‘How many of you live here?’ Sharon asked, because it was the only thing she could make into a question.
    ‘Just me and Simon.’
    ‘He’s your older brother eh?’ She’d heard of him.
    ‘Yeah. Mum and Dad live in the other house.’
    ‘Other house?’ She could tell she was meant to ask.
    ‘Yeah. They were separated but now they’re back together only Social Welfare don’t know so they still get two houses. One for them, one for us. Sweet as.’
    ‘You’re lucky.’ She meant it too. If she closed her eyes and thought of escape, maybe it would look a bit like this.
    ‘So what does Simon do?’
    ‘Unemployed.’
    ‘What about your Mum and Dad then?’ Because the gear came from somewhere.
    ‘Same. It’s a family