章 12: Chapter 12

Then Alex pads down the stairs, surprisingly quietly for his speed, and Ryan grins at him.

“Nan’s going to town in the car. Day trip?”

“What?” Alex asks.

“Day trip. Come on,” Ryan persists.

Alex shoves his feet into the battered trainers by the front door, and fishes a key out of the bowl. He doesn’t tell his mother he’s leaving, or where they’re going, or when he’ll be back, and he shuts the door perhaps too loudly. It creaks in the frame; there is no response from the house.

“You didn’t say you had a sister,” Ryan says as they head back towards Nan’s.

“I don’t,” Alex says flatly, and Ryan pauses.

“You don’t?”

“No.”

“But…yes you do.”

“No I don’t,” Alex gives him a strange look.

“So who is she? The redhead in the photos?”

“Oh,” Alex says. “That sister.”

They cross the green, trainers crackling on the dry grass. Nan waves at them to hurry from beside her car. Milly is there too, clucking away about something.