The Glass Children Page 3

  ‘Here?’ She couldn’t hide her surprise.

  ‘Yep – well, in the summer anyway. In the winter we live in a house next door to the restaurant.’

  ‘That’s brilliant!’ Simona exclaimed. ‘The houseboat, I mean.’

  What an exciting life Aladdin seemed to have. Parents who owned a restaurant, and a houseboat in the harbour. Billie felt a sudden stab of envy. Why did she have to live in a horrible old haunted house?

  ‘We ought to be getting back,’ she said.

  ‘Call round any time,’ Aladdin said. ‘I’m nearly always here.’

  He was smiling as he spoke. In fact, he smiled practically all the time. Billie couldn’t help smiling back. Maybe it would be easier to live in Åhus if she at least had a friend.

  They made up a bed for Simona on a mattress in Billie’s room. Her mum sorted out sheets and a towel, and asked them several times if there was anything else they needed. Both Simona and Billie shook their heads and said no, they were fine. When Billie’s mum had said goodnight and closed the door, they lay awake talking for a while. They chatted about their friends in town, and what it would be like when they moved up a year in the autumn. Simona said that she and her parents were going on holiday to Gotland, and Billie told her that Mum had decided they would be spending the whole summer in Åhus.

  As they turned out the light and settled down to go to sleep, Billie thought about the books in the bookcase in her room. The previous family had left a lot of things behind, but it was the books that bothered Billie the most. Who moved house without taking their books with them?

  Chapter Seven

  At first Billie couldn’t work out what had woken her. The house was completely silent. She couldn’t even hear the birds that were usually running about on the roof. She curled up under the covers, listening hard.

  Then she heard Simona moving in her bed.

  ‘Are you asleep?’ Simone whispered.

  ‘No,’ Billie whispered back. ‘Did you hear something?’

  She saw the dark shape of Simona getting up from the mattress.

  ‘It sounded as if someone was tapping on the window.’

  Her voice was so faint that Billie could only just make out what she said.

  ‘But that’s impossible,’ she hissed back. ‘Nobody’s tall enough to tap on a first-floor window!’

  Then the sound came again.

  Simona was right. It sounded as if someone was tapping on the window above Billie’s bed. Cautious, gentle little taps.

  Billie was so scared that she was almost in tears. ‘We’ve got to go and get Mum,’ she whispered.

  ‘Ssh!’ Simona said.

  Perhaps it was only a bird. Billie hardly even dared glance at the window, in spite of the fact that the white roller-blind her mum had put up was pulled right down. What if someone was standing outside? On a ladder?

  Simona tiptoed over to the window.

  ‘Be careful!’ Billie said.

  The tapping suddenly stopped.

  Both Billie and Simona froze. They waited for several minutes for the tapping to resume, but it didn’t happen. Simona walked slowly over to the window and pulled the blind away, just an inch or two. She peeped out through the gap.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  It was pitch dark outside. It was well after midnight, so none of the neighbours were likely to be up and about. All the houses were silent and in darkness.

  Simona tugged at the bottom of the blind and it flew up with a loud crack that made both girls jump. They were already on edge, and immediately got the giggles.

  ‘We’ll wake Mum if we carry on like this,’ Billie said, burying her head in the pillow to stop herself from laughing.

  Simona was looking out of the window again, and Billie went over to join her. At first she couldn’t see a thing, but eventually her eyes got used to the darkness, and she was able to make out the trees in the garden and the outline of the neighbour’s house a short distance away.

  ‘It must have been a bird,’ Simona said firmly. ‘Nobody could reach this high up.’

  Billie pulled down the blind. ‘It was definitely a bird,’ she echoed. ‘Let’s go back to bed.’

  Her heart beat a little slower each time she said ‘bird’. Of course it was a bird. What else could it have been?

  ‘I need the loo,’ Simona said, just as Billie got into bed.

  ‘I’ll come downstairs with you,’ Billie said, throwing back the covers.

  She couldn’t let her friend go wandering around the house all on her own after what had just happened.

  She opened the door very slowly so that it wouldn’t creak and wake her mum. Simona tiptoed down the stairs with Billie right behind her. She might as well go to the loo as well.

  Simona went in and closed the door, while Billie waited in the hallway. She didn’t dare go anywhere else. The house was full of sounds, odd little clicks and creaks everywhere, as if the house was growing and in pain. She wouldn’t mind betting that it wasn’t like this on board Aladdin’s houseboat. Billie imagined he would be able to hear the water lapping against the side of the boat; what a lovely sound to fall asleep to. If they became friends, she and Aladdin, perhaps Billie and Simona would be able to have a sleepover on the houseboat one day.

  Then Billie heard the tapping noise again. It was just the same as before, almost like a whisper, but it was very clear. Billie’s heart was racing. If only Simona would get a move on!

  It sounded as if the tapping was coming from the room beyond the kitchen – the spare room. Billie listened and thought about the little handprint in the dust on the table. That same little hand was tapping on the window right now, she was sure of it.

  Simona flushed the loo and opened the door.

  ‘Can you hear it?’ Billie whispered before Simona had time to speak.

  Simona listened hard, frowning. ‘No – what am I supposed to be hearing?’

  Simona was right – there wasn’t a sound now.

  ‘It was just like the tapping we heard upstairs,’ Billie said.

  They listened again.

  But the sound had gone.

  ‘That’s weird,’ Simona said. ‘Where was it coming from this time?’

  ‘From the spare room.’

  They looked at one another, then they crept along to the spare room and peeped inside. They stood in the doorway. Everything looked just the same as usual – boxes piled on top of one another, and pieces of furniture they had no use for. The table that Billie had liked so much was still standing in the corner. She didn’t want it any more.

  ‘Where did you find that handprint?’ Simona asked.

  ‘There,’ Billie said, pointing.

  The room was dark, but they hadn’t got round to putting up any curtains yet. Simona went to the window and peered out, with Billie close behind her. Everything was quiet, and there wasn’t a soul in sight. Simona turned and went over to the table instead.

  ‘What’s this comic?’ she said.

  Billie bent down to have a look. It was difficult to see in the gloom, but it didn’t matter, because Billie recognized it right away. On the table where she had found the handprint, someone had placed the old comic that Billie had packed away in a box on the very first day when they moved in.

  It looked as if someone had written something on it. Billie’s heart was pounding so hard that she thought it might burst as she leaned closer and read the childish handwriting:

  GO AWAY!

  Chapter Eight

  Under normal circumstances Mum hardly ever got cross, but this time she was furious.

  ‘Do you think I don’t realize you wrote GO AWAY! on that comic yourself?’ she snapped the following morning when Billie made another attempt to talk to her about everything that had gone on during the night.

  ‘Ask Simona if you don’t believe me!’ Billie yelled back. ‘Or ask yourself! I mean, you’ve seen the comic!’

  ‘There’s no point. You could have written on it while Simona w
as in the loo.’

  How could she think that Billie would lie about something like this? Billie was so angry she thought she might actually explode. Simona sat in silence at the breakfast table, watching them argue.

  Billie’s mum had been very cross when they woke her up during the night to tell her about the tapping and the comic. She said that if Billie and Simona couldn’t behave themselves when they were sharing a room, then there would be no more sleepovers.

  ‘You always spoil things!’ Billie had shouted after her as she headed back up to her room after telling them to get to bed at once.

  Mum had turned round and shot down the stairs so fast that Billie had thought she might fall.

  ‘Am I really the one who spoils things?’ she had said, her voice icily calm. ‘You’re the one who spoils things, Billie. All the time. Be honest – you don’t like the fact that we’ve moved to Åhus, and you’re doing your best to make sure we move back to town.’

  Billie hadn’t known what to say. To be fair, her mother was right. She hated living here, but she would never have come up with something like this. Never in a million years.

  ‘I make the decisions in this house, Billie,’ her mother had continued in the same calm tone of voice. ‘Because I am the adult, not you. You’re not the only one who misses Dad and wishes things could go back to the way they were. I feel exactly the same.’

  She paused, looking as if she was about to cry.

  ‘But it’s just not possible,’ she said after a moment. ‘That’s not the way things work. This is how life is now, and we just have to make the best of the situation. And the best thing for us was to move out of town and start afresh somewhere else.’

  With those words she had left Simona and Billie standing in the hallway and gone up to bed. Billie had hardly slept a wink for the rest of the night, and at breakfast the quarrel had started up again.

  ‘I can’t talk about this any more,’ her mum said, getting to her feet. She started clearing the table.

  ‘What are you going to do today?’ she asked.

  Billie looked at Simona, then up at the sky. It was cloudy, but it wasn’t raining.

  ‘How about cycling to the library?’ she suggested.

  Mum sighed when she heard Billie mention the library, but Simona nodded. Billie was pleased, because she really wanted to see that old lady again.

  ‘Good idea,’ Simona said. ‘Maybe we could go down to the harbour as well? We could call on Aladdin.’

  ‘Aladdin?’ Mum said, looking at Billie. ‘Who’s Aladdin?’

  ‘A boy who lives on a boat in the harbour. His parents own the Turk in the Tower.’

  ‘And you know him, do you?’

  Billie shrugged, trying to look as if she wasn’t remotely impressed by either the houseboat or the restaurant. ‘Sort of,’ she said.

  Her mum smiled for the first time that morning. ‘Is he the boy in the red shorts?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Before Billie had time to defend herself, Mum had thrown her arms around her.

  ‘Oh, you’ve made a friend! I’m so pleased!’

  Billie wriggled free of her mum’s bear hug. ‘I don’t know if I’d call him a friend.’

  She had to get her mother to calm down. If she got the idea that Billie and Aladdin were friends, she would never agree to move back into town.

  ‘Off you go, girls,’ her mum said. ‘I’ll finish up here.’

  Billie and Simona went up to Billie’s room.

  ‘Shouldn’t I have mentioned Aladdin?’ Simona said.

  ‘It’s OK – I just don’t want Mum to get the idea that I like living here.’

  Simona stroked her arm. ‘Do you really miss Kristianstad?’

  ‘All the time,’ Billie whispered.

  A big fat fly was buzzing around up by the ceiling. It was flying back and forth, faster and faster. As if it was trapped and frightened.

  Like me, Billie thought. She had begun to think of the house as a prison. Neither of us can escape from here.

  It felt good to get out. Simona suggested that they should cycle along the track leading to the village through the pine trees. Billie had always loved spending time in the forest, and was happy to agree. The wind was sighing in the tall treetops, and the ground was covered in a thick carpet of brown, fallen needles. A small meadow opened out on the far side of the pine copse.

  Billie thought about what had happened during the night. They definitely hadn’t imagined the sound of tapping on the windows. And then there was the comic. Who had put it on the table? Who could get into the house?

  ‘You believe me, don’t you?’ Billie said to Simona when they started to discuss what they had experienced.

  ‘Of course I do!’ Simona said. ‘But I think it’s really creepy!’

  Billie thought so too. ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Simona replied. ‘Sometimes when I go to stay with Grandpa I imagine I can hear Grandma’s footsteps in the hallway at night.’

  Billie’s eyes widened. ‘You’re joking,’ she said, thinking about all the times she thought she had heard her dad in their house in town.

  ‘She had a particular way of walking,’ Simona said. ‘And I can hear it when I stay over at Grandpa’s. But it’s fine.’

  ‘Fine?’ Billie was taken aback.

  ‘Yes,’ Simona said. ‘It’s fine. Because I think it’s good for Grandpa that she’s there. That she’s kind of, like, watching over him.’

  ‘Like an imaginary friend?’ Billie said.

  ‘Something like that,’ Simona said. ‘Only for real.’

  Chapter Nine

  They found Aladdin sitting on the jetty by the houseboat, fiddling with some bits of plastic. His face lit up when he saw them.

  ‘Hi there!’ he said, waving to the two girls.

  ‘Hi,’ Billie said. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Building a model plane.’

  ‘It’s very small,’ Simona said.

  ‘Mum says I can only build small planes, because I make so many of them,’ Aladdin explained.

  He looked at the books under Billie’s arm. ‘Have you been to the library?’

  Billie nodded, and slipped the books into the shopping bag Mum had given her. The old lady hadn’t been at the library, but hopefully she would be there another day.

  ‘Do you like reading too?’ Simona asked Aladdin.

  ‘Not really – I’m more into building stuff.’

  He got to his feet. ‘Would you like to have a look around?’

  It was the cosiest home Billie had ever been in. All the walls were painted white, and small green plants adorned every window. Blue curtains in the hallway, pink in the kitchen. A blue kitchen table and chairs of different colours.

  ‘Fantastic pictures,’ Simona said, referring to the pictures in the kitchen that showed people dancing.

  ‘Mum paints,’ Aladdin said.

  He took them downstairs and into a bedroom with a double bed. The room must be underwater, because the windows were small, round portholes just below the ceiling.

  ‘Mum and Dad’s room,’ Aladdin said.

  ‘Where do you sleep?’ Simona wanted to know.

  A cunning expression came into Aladdin’s eyes. ‘Up top,’ he said.

  They went back to the kitchen, and Aladdin unfolded a ladder that was fixed to the ceiling. He climbed up and opened a hatch. Billie and Simona watched as he disappeared through the hole, waving to them to follow him.

  ‘Wow!’ Billie said as she poked her head into Aladdin’s room.

  When you looked at the boat from the outside, it looked like a big box with a smaller box on top. Aladdin lived in the smaller box. He had a window on every side, and the room was so small that there was only space for a bed, a bedside table, and a lamp.

  ‘This is to die for,’ Simona said when she arrived. ‘I’ve always thought I’d like to live in a lighthouse when I grow up, but this is really cool too.’


  Aladdin threw himself on the bed. ‘Good, isn’t it?’

  That was the least you could say. It was like his very own castle, where the only way in was through a hole in the floor.

  Billie looked around. You could see the entire harbour from Aladdin’s windows.

  ‘Haven’t you got any curtains?’ Simona asked.

  ‘No – I like to keep an eye on things,’ Aladdin said.

  Billie thought about Aladdin, sleeping alone in his box, with his parents two floors below, beneath the surface of the water. ‘Don’t you get scared when it’s dark?’ she said.

  Aladdin looked completely bewildered. ‘I’ve never understood that,’ he said. ‘What is there to be afraid of when it’s dark that isn’t out there when it’s light?’

  Billie and Simona looked at one another. They were both thinking exactly the same thing.

  Simona sat down on the floor. ‘Billie’s house is haunted,’ she said.

  Billie sat down too. ‘Or else someone is coming into the house whenever they feel like it and doing weird things.’

  She explained what had happened since she and her mum had moved in.

  Aladdin let out a low whistle. ‘Now I understand,’ he said. ‘So you and your mum must be living in the Scary House.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Billie said, feeling stupid.

  ‘The Scary House. Something bad has happened to everybody who’s moved in there,’ Aladdin said. ‘Although I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. I mean, there’s no such thing as ghosts.’

  ‘Why is it called the Scary House?’ Simona asked.

  ‘Because it’s so scary that you shake with fear when you walk in,’ Aladdin said, laughing. ‘Stupid, or what?’

  Billie thought it was embarrassing rather than stupid. Obviously their house was well known throughout the village; it even had a ridiculous nickname.

  Aladdin realized what she was thinking. ‘It’s only at my school that it’s called the Scary House,’ he said.

  Good, Billie thought. I’m definitely not going there, then.

  After a short silence, Aladdin said: ‘Actually, my mum believes in spirits and ghosts and all that kind of stuff.’