Charlie caught himself before he got carried away with his pen-and-ink effigy of Tom Daley, and gathered the sports sketches into a pile with a few other random pieces. He considered the small room Kate had kitted out for Leo. There wasn’t much to it, but the bed and a tiny chest of drawers. Leo didn’t even have a lamp yet.Fliss has two.I wonder if. . . Nah. That wouldn’t happen. Fliss was toeing the line because Kate and Reg had told her to, but giving away her stuff was never going to happen. Shame, because after Charlie had ventured into the study, clambered on Leo’s bed, and tacked the sports posters to the ceiling, Leo’s new life still seemed pretty bare.
The rest of the afternoon dragged out in a dull haze of homework. Charlie was falling asleep over the origins of the universe, when Fliss stalked into his room just before six.
“They’re nearly here. Remember we’re not allowed down till Dad calls us.”
“Iknow.” Charlie sat up and shoved his homework in his bag. It was standard practice to introduce the family one by one when new kids came, though it had been a while. “I forgot to ask Mum if Lila can speak. Does she?”
“No idea. There’s something really bad in their file, though. I caught Mum crying over it last night.”
“Crying?”
“Yeah. Not all of us sleep like babies.”
That’s because some of us get up in the morning.But Charlie kept that to himself. Fliss had a bar job at the pub down the road and seemed to think a few late nights a week gave her license to sleep till noon every day. Not that Charlie cared. Did he want to dodge Fliss in the bathroom every morning? Hell no. “Why was Mum crying?”
Fliss shrugged. “Dunno. I reckon it’s to do with their father, though. I asked Dad where he was. He wouldn’t tell me, and I heard him telling Mum he was going to keep his distance from Leo for a while.”
“From Leo?” That caught Charlie off guard. Kate and Reg specialised in caring for girls who’d suffered abuse wherever they’d been before, and he’d half expected Reg to leave Lila mostly to Kate, to start with, at least. But Leo—angry, disillusioned, struggling at school—was the kind of kid that bohemian woodwork teacher Reg lived for. It didn’t make any sense. “Why Leo?”
“I don’t bloody know. Piss off with the questions, will you? Ask Dad yourself.”
Fat chance. Reg had a thing for respecting privacy. If Fliss hadn’t been able get it out of him, no one could.
The front door opened. Charlie scrambled from the floor and took a step toward the door before he remembered he had to stay put.
Fliss peered through the window, solving the mystery of why she’d come to Charlie’s room in the first place, rather than her converted-attic lair. “Can’t see anything. Mum must’ve brought them in before Dad unloaded the car.”
“Let’s go down—”
“No. Not until they call us. Besides, it doesn’t look like there’s much stuff in the boot, so it won’t be long anyway.”
Charlie scowled, and there wasn’t much to do but sit on his bed, doodling in his sketchbook and straining his ears, until Reg knocked on the door and summoned Fliss downstairs.
It seemed like a lifetime before he came back for Charlie.
Charlie’s frown deepened. “How come Fliss always gets to go first?”
Reg offered a tired smile. “Because that’s how we do this, and routine is good for all of us in times of great change.”
Charlie grumbled and slid off his bed. “You sound a hundred years old when you talk like that.”
“As of today, I have five kids. It’s hardly surprising that I sound old. Now, come on. Leo needs rescuing from your mother and Fliss.”
Charlie refrained from pointing out that, at twenty-five and nineteen, Andy and Fliss didn’t count as kids, and followed Reg downstairs.
Reg stopped at the living room door. “In you go.”
“You’re not coming?”
“I’m going to finish off dinner,” Reg said. “Go on. You can put a film on if you want.”
He disappeared into the kitchen. Charlie put his hand on the living room door and felt a strange shot of nerves that quelled the anticipation he’d harboured all day. From his picture, Leo Hendry appeared good-looking and cool, like the hot lads from lower sixth who played football in the park after school, but the longer Charlie had stared at his image, the more something had felt off. Still felt off. The wait to meet his new foster siblings had been unending, but suddenly seemed nowhere near long enough.
The feeling remained as Charlie pushed open the living room door. A stranger by the window turned and met his gaze.Leo. Tall and curly-haired, like his picture had promised, he appeared just as Charlie expected, save the bandage that covered his entire left arm, and the emptiest eyes Charlie had ever seen.
The new presence in the room irritated Leo. Like it wasn’t enough to watch the rest of them pretending that they gave a shit about Lila, now he had to make conversation with some gangly kid—a kid, if he’d understood his new foster-monster correctly, who was going to be his “brother” for the foreseeable future.
Great.Could this day get any worse? Ha. If the last few months had taught Leo anything, it was that things could always get worse.
