Читать книгу Feather Boy онлайн | страница 25
Scrape, scrape, scrape. Pause. Scrape.
It’s coming from my right. From the small kitchen window over the absent sink. This window is almost opaque, darkened by the steel-mesh glass and the shadow of some bush or tree that’s growing too close to the house.
Scrape. Pause. Scrape.
I see the finger now. And the knuckle – which looks deformed. But perhaps that’s just the trick of the light, the refraction of bone through fibreglass. My heart is beating like a warrior drum. Tom torn torn torn torn torn. But I’m not going to panic. I’m emphatically not going to panic.
I panic.
I leap out of the room into the garden.
I scream: “I can see you!”
A holly bush continues to scrape one of its branches against the glass of the kitchen window. Scrape. Pause. Scrape. In time with the wind.
I’m so relieved I sob. Huge foolish tears rolling down my cheeks. Norbert No-Brain. Norbert No-Botde. At least Niker isn’t here to see. Or Kate. When the boo-hooing stops I look for a hanky. But I don’t have one so I pick a dock leaf and blow my nose on that.
Right. That’s it. I’m going back in. I make for the glass door. I stride there, kick the brick out of the way and go through into a thin corridor. Then I worry about the brick. If anyone sees the brick’s been moved, they’ll know someone’s in the house. I go back out into the kitchen (which compared with the corridor is light and airy and pleasant) and retrieve the brick. Then I discover I can’t shut the door with me on the inside and the brick on the outside. Or I can, just, if I squeeze my fingers around the gap between door and doorpost, edging the brick back into place. Hang on, what if someone jams the brick right up against the door, barricading me in? Change of plan. Better to have the brick on my side of the door after all. That way at least if someone comes in from the garden, they’ll knock it over getting into the house and I’ll hear them. I bring the brick in, lean it against the door my side. Now I’m safe. If the people are outside.