chapter 2

"And the room," Angie continued, grabbing hold of Josie's arms, her voice rising higher and higher. "The room was covered in blood, and bits of his brain was everywhere, on the walls, on the curtains, on the bed, even behind a picture, I heard Mum saying it on the phone, how the hell did it get behind a picture?"

Josie shook her head, scared, weeping in fear and confusion. How did she know how bits of Uncle David's brain got behind the picture? She wasn't there. She didn't want to be here. And, to think, she'd been stoked when she'd first heard about Angie.

"I've got a cousin?"

Josie felt like dancing. Her life was getting more exciting by the minute. She was going to a funeral! Nobody in her class had ever been to a funeral before though Terry Latimer had nearly gone to his great-Nan's funeral once. His great-Nan had told him when she left hospital it would be to go to Heaven so he mustn't be sad at her funeral and he told everybody he was going, but then, when she came out, she changed her mind and went to a Home instead so he missed out.

But Josie wasn't going to miss out. Her Uncle David really was dead. And as she didn't even know she had an uncle until he died she didn't mind him dying one bit. She got taken to the biggest department store in town too, where Mum bought her a cool new black jacket (Josie preferred the pink) and a brand new black dress though, after trying on the dress, Josie generously told Mum and the lady in the shop it was okay, they could keep the dress for some poor little girl in a poor country who might need it more than Josie, she'd decided she'd like to have the doll and doll's pram that she'd seen in the toy section instead.

Mum and the lady in the shop smiled at each other and Mum stooped down low to give Josie a little hug and kiss on the forehead and explained how people had to wear black at funerals, it was just one of those things, but they'd go for lunch to make up for it.

So Josie had been digging her spoon into a huge chunk of glistening strawberry ice cream when her mother told her about Angie.

"She's six, the same age as you, and she even has the name Russell like us because her Daddy and your Daddy were brothers. But she probably won't want to play. Angie and Auntie Pam will be too sad about Uncle David dying."

"Why didn't we never see them before?" Josie asked curiously.

"Oh, they lived too far away."

Unbeknown to Josie, her mother crossed her fingers under the table in a throwback to the superstition of childhood as she smiled into her small daughter's trusting eyes. It was a white lie. Only a little white lie. For Josie's sake.

Josie nodded happily, satisfied with the explanation, thoroughly enjoying herself. Her mouth full of the delicious taste of icy strawberry, she broke off some of the wafer to cut river patterns into the strawberry, banana and chocolate ice cream mix as she always loved to do, wondering what Angie's favourite ice creams were. She couldn't wait to meet her cousin. But it wasn't how she thought it was going to be.

"You're mean, Angie Russell, you're mean!" she sobbed, trying desperately to break free. Angie was acting like she was mad. Josie gulped back a sob and her eyes widened in sudden realisation.

Josie and her friends had overheard a couple of bigger kids in the playground talking about it. The mad kid who lived in the big old house across the river. One of the boys was telling someone he had a mate who went to the same school as a mad kid who rocked up to school wearing old, smelly clothes that were too big for her. Nobody, but nobody played with the mad kid, and sometimes they chased her because it was fun and because her Mum was probably a witch or something. Mangy Angie, they called her, because of the smelly old clothes.

Mangy Angie. The river they'd passed on the long drive here. The old house. The name. It all made sense. Why hadn't she thought of it before? Her cousin was Mangy Angie!

"What?"

It was Angie's turn to be scared. Josie had suddenly stopped crying like she was too frightened to cry anymore. And Angie knew she was in heaps with her Mum again. Not that she cared. Well, okay, maybe she did care but she didn't care much. Her Mum didn't like Angie so Angie didn't like her Mum. Easy peasy.

Josie made another attempt at bolting and, breathless, Angie released her, watching as she ran like lightning towards the house.

The room was covered in blood and bits of his brain was everywhere, on the walls, on the curtains, on the bed, even behind a picture. How the hell did it get behind a picture?

Angie was shocked to find her hands and legs, even her stomach, all shaking. She had quoted her mother word for word. Everything she'd heard from the top of the stairs, looking through the rails, silent as a ghost, watching and listening again. Except she hadn't added that at the end of the rhetorical question her mother had twirled the telephone wire round her perfectly-manicured fingers in the way that always irritated Angie and laughed that usual silly, high-pitched laugh in the way that made Angie hate her.

Long before the Russell family moved in to their isolated house, the kitchen and living area had been knocked down to make one large, spacious room. Pam Russell stood at the kitchen sink now, pouring herself a glass of water, only half listening to the murmurs of sympathy over her bereavement. Out of the corner of her eye she suddenly glimpsed through the window a small figure running towards the house and, imagining for a moment that it was Angie, made some excuse about drawing all the curtains out of respect for the dead. It wasn't Angie. It was the other brat. But she looked so much like Angie that Pam took a kind of perverse pleasure in sweeping her out of sight.

Josie stopped, her bottom lip quivering in fear, astonishment and shock as she saw the look in her Aunt's eyes. Her small face crumpled as the blinds were deliberately closed on her and for the very first time in her short life she was shut out from love and warmth within.