Obsidian Pebble Read Free Page B

things his dad had brought back from his travels. One day.
    Back in the kitchen, Oz tried to be as quiet as he could, but he had to move some dishes in the fridge to get at the Coke and grimaced as they clinked together. As he backed up with his hands full, the door thudded shut, causing the dishes to clink alarmingly once more and a couple of fridge magnets to fall clattering to the floor. One, shaped like a pink slice of cake, was there to hold the corner of a calendar up on the fridge door. This week’s page had scribbles all over it, like “order four pints milk,” and “hygienist—9 o’clock.” But without its magnetic support, the corner of the calendar had sagged drunkenly downards
    It wasn’t the noise of the dishes, nor what was written on the calendar that made the breath suddenly catch in Oz’s throat. It was what was revealed on the sheet of paper behind the calendar that suddenly drew Oz’s horrified stare, made him gasp and his stomach lurch.
    Once, when things had been very bad, before she’d started the medicine that had helped make her better, Oz had tried asking his mother what exactly was wrong with her. It had been a particularly bad dressing-gown day of constant crying and not eating, and Oz had felt more than usually helpless. With a huge effort she’d looked up at him, sensing for once his desperation, her face full of pleading, her voice a hollow whisper.
    â€œSince Michael has gone, it’s like there’s this old black dog that keeps following me around, Oz,” she said, shivering. “He’s always there no matter what I do to try and shake him off. And whenever I look at him he makes me feel so sad and lonely.”
    Oz had gone to the window and looked outside. There’d been no sign of a dog, but when he’d finally managed to get back to Mrs. Evans’ class at Hurley Street Juniors, he’d drawn an ugly old black mutt in felt pen. At the end of the year, he’d taken home all his artwork and promptly forgotten all about it until, months later when she was better, Mrs. Chambers had found the drawing and pinned it up on the fridge door; she fixed the calendar over the top of it to hide it and explained that this could be their signal. If ever she was beginning to feel sad again, she’d shift the calendar so that some of the dog was showing. And if Oz thought that she was acting strangely, he could do the same. She’d called it their early warning sign. Mostly, the calendar hung square over the picture. But sometimes Oz had come down to the kitchen in the morning and found that a bit of the dog’s ear was showing, or perhaps half its head, and he’d known that he’d have to be careful and not stress his mother out too much.
    He looked at the badly drawn bit of ear again now and breathed in and out to let the ripple of anxiety fade. It was just a kid’s drawing under a calendar, after all, wasn’t it? A calendar that was too thick to be held in place by four rubber magnets, which had a tendency to slip if you closed the fridge door too hard. It was stupid to think of the ear as an omen of any kind. After all, his mother hadn’t moved the calendar for months now, and she was fine; she’d just made brain pâté, for cripes’ sake. He was not going to let a little thing like that spoil the night.
    He repositioned the calendar to hide the drawing completely, put the fridge magnet back in place and pushed all the business about the black dog to the back of his mind.
    Through the kitchen window the night beyond looked inky and solid, the only lights coming from the backs of the smaller houses in Tottridge Street. He imagined being in one of those tiny houses on a night like this with Ellie and Ruff. Yet no matter how hard he tried, he knew it just wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t have ceilings that looked like they should be in an art gallery, or a chandelier with a hunting