Page 9 of From Now On

‘FromThe Jungle Book? I love that film!’ Sasha says. Duke loved it too. They’d watched it at the house of one of the other home-ed kids.

Nina tucks her hair behind her ears. ‘Okay.’ She begins to sing a slowed down version, not the fast tempo one they’d sometimes do with Dad on guitar and Mum batting a tambourine against her thigh where they’d all dance and shake their bottoms like Baloo the bear.

He doesn’t enjoy it as much.

Later, they eat Veggie Volcano pizza straight from the box and afterwards Billie licks the grease from Duke’s fingers.

‘Billie Holiday!’ Sasha suddenly shrieks, making them all laugh. ‘Your mum really goes all in, doesn’t she?’

‘Not always, no,’ Charlie mutters.

Sasha asks if they have any games. Duke suggests KerPlunk but Nina complains it takes too long to set up. She loves Twister but Duke’s arms and legs aren’t as long as everybody else’s – he’s small for his age – and so they play Monopoly. Duke is the banker because Mum always says he’s good at maths.

Charlie wins.

Duke had been determined to stay up until midnight, but he must have fallen asleep because he wakes up in his own bed. At first, he isn’t sure what has disturbed him. It is still dark outside. But then there’s the sound of the bell, quickly followed by a frantic knocking on the front door. Duke pulls his covers up to his chin and clutches them tightly. His stomach spins like the washing machine churning up the fiery jalapeños he had eaten. But it isn’t just the chillies making him feel this way.

He’s scared.

The banging brings with it a sense that somehow his life is about to be forever changed. No one ever knocks on the door in the middle of the night.

Something is wrong.

He closes his eyes and tries to imagine his mum perching on his bed, her hands smoothing his hair as she softly sings ‘All The Things You Are’.

Funny.

Brave.

But this isn’t funny and he doesn’t feel brave.

Somehow, he knows that his world is disintegrating, turning to dust, just like the stolen cookies he had forgotten to eat that will now be just crumbs in his pocket.

The knocking comes again, loud and urgent.

Duke hides under his covers but he can still hear it.

Chapter Three

Charlie

Charlie cannot sleep.

By the pale moonlight penetrating the thin curtains he watches Billie, curled in her basket, snoring gently. Her legs twitch furiously. He wonders what she is chasing in her dreams and whether she’ll catch them. Charlie’s dreams have always seemed so far out of reach, unobtainable, but then he’d met Sasha who is his future. However, lying on the uncomfortable sofa bed he can’t help turning over his past.

Pippa had been friendly albeit distant earlier but then what did he expect? He had hurt her immeasurably once and that, coupled with not coming home for her grandma’s funeral, is inexcusable, unforgivable. It isn’t only that he should have been here to support Pippa; her grandma was such a big part of his own childhood.

Sasha rolls over, clutching the duvet to her chest. Although not their usual London party, she seemed to have had a good time playing board games, eating pizza, more relaxed around Duke and Nina than he was.

It saddens him that he barely knows his siblings. What they think.What they feel. What makes them happy. Separating himself from this house, distancing himself from the memories of what had happened to him when he lived here has meant he has missed out on so much.

He only sees Duke and Nina two or three times a year and each time they have changed enormously.

On the surface today Duke had reminded him a lot of himself and it was this that had created an awkwardness between them. Charlie didn’t want to think of the child he had once been.

He had softened when Duke had fallen asleep on the sofa, his head lolling against Charlie’s shoulder. He’d tenderly scooped up his brother, thankfully not as heavy as he’d feared, and carried him up to his bedroom, the space that used to be Charlie’s before Duke came along. Charlie had been twenty-two and had already left home when Duke was born but it still stung that his mum had given his room away. Now it was decorated a bright blue rather than grubby white, but bookcases still lined the walls. After settling Duke into bed, Charlie had crouched and scanned the spines, squinting in the dim light that rolled in from the hallway. The shelves were groaning under the weight of tatty paperbacks, faux-leather hardbacks, even some old encyclopaedias. Duke had eclectic taste. Charlie made a mental note to send him some books when he returned to London.

He hadn’t been sure how to relate to Nina, but Sasha had bonded with her in a big sisterly sort of way. They haven’t planned children of their own. He isn’t cut out for parenting and that is his last thought before someone raps sharply, insistently, on the front door.

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