R E C K L E S S . . . 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE-

“Come on, Annie!” begged my little brother, tugging on my hand and jumping up and down in what seemed to be the permanent state of excitement that he’d entered since I’d arrived back home. “We’re going to be late.”

 “Late for what exactly, Evan? We’re going to the shops,” I asked exasperatedly, rolling my eyes at him.

He stopped the tugging, pouted, and then restarted his incessant yanking of my hand. “But they might close!”

I laughed despite my bad mood and shook his hand off. “It’s half seven, Evan, you got me up insanely early just to go; I hardly think that the shops going to close that early.”

 “But what if they do close?”

“Fine then, we’ll go now if you really want to.” I smiled down at him. “Although it’s more likely that they haven’t even opened yet at this time of morning.”

He did a little victory dance and then sprinted out of my room, heading towards the door. I could hear his feet pounding noisily on the stairs as he galloped down there.

Just as I stepped into the hallway Kate’s head popped out of one of the doors. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she complained groggily. “It’s the morning… and it’s like really early in the morning. Couldn’t you have waited a little longer before bouncing around the house?” Her brown hair stuck up irregularly and there were large bags under her half-closed eyes.

I shrugged. “Evan’s fault.”

“Then tell him to shut the hell up,” she snapped, slamming the door shut between us.

Laughing to myself, I made my own way down the stairs, making sure to create more noise than needed as I did so. Kate’s so going to hate me, I thought cheerily.

Evan met me at the bottom of the stairs, still bouncing up and down enthusiastically. He seemed to be so excited that he forgot to breathe in between words when he spoke to me. “Canwegonow?” he said in a rush. “Canwe,canwe?” I wondered how he could be so constantly hyperactive this early in the morning, let alone any other time.

“One second,” I sighed, swerving around him and into the kitchen.

My mum was in her fluffy pink dressing gown, sat on one of the stools that faced the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee grasped firmly in her hands. She stared down at it with a vacant, sleepy expression in her eyes, like she couldn’t quite believe that she was awake yet. She looked up slowly as I entered the kitchen. “Morning, Anne,” she murmured.

“Hey, mum. You look awake,” I said cheerily, opening the fridge and stretching up on my tiptoes to reach the top shelf. I took out a carton of smoothie then busied myself with finding a glass.

“I’m not. Work woke me up about ten minutes ago by calling me and demanding that I rush into work for some crisis that they’re having – I’ve got an hour till I have to go in.” She sighed and took another long sip of coffee. “I can trust you and Kate to look after Evan, right? Your dad’s out today.”

I took a glass out of another cupboard and poured myself a glass of smoothie. “Yeah, sure. Evan and I were just about to go down to the shops, anyway.”

Our cat, Sasha, padded into the room and leapt onto the counter next to me. I stroked her behind the ears and she purred loudly.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay walking down? Kate could drive you there if you want.”

I put the smoothie back in the fridge and scooped up Sasha, taking her and the glass of smoothie along with me to the table. I took the seat next to my mum and put the cat on my lap. She glanced over at me and then brought the coffee cup up to her lips again, inhaling the strong smell deeply as she did so.

“I wouldn’t want to disturb her. She’s already in a mood with me and Evan after we woke her up this morning.”

She laughed. “Typical Kate. Is she up now or did she go back to sleep?”

I shrugged and took a sip of smoothie. “I really don’t know. She’s probably asleep again… or curled up in bed muttering to herself and contemplating killing us all.”

“Well I’ll try to stay clear of her, then.”

“Good idea.”

We fell silent for a while, each of us paying attention to our drinks as we clutched them in our hands as if they were our lifelines. Occasionally we would mutter something to the other and they would reply in a sleepy mumble, but otherwise we would continue to stare vacantly into the distance, both annoyed and infuriated at the injustice of an early morning.

Our sleepy trances were broken when Evan rushed into the room, his little feet thumping noisily against the kitchen tiles. Sasha’s ears perked up and she sprang from my lap, running out of the room as quickly as Evan had entered it.

“You said one second, Annie. You’ve been gone for aaaaaages,” he complained, pouting and crossing his arms grouchily as he slid to a stop beside me.

I glanced up at the old clock that was mounted on the wall and saw I’d been in the kitchen for at least ten minutes. It was a wonder that my little brother had amused himself for that long. Only his presence stopped me from swearing under my breath.

“I’m sorry, Evan. I forgot all about that.”

“How could you? We were going to the shops and it was going to be really fun and you-“

“Okay, okay,” my mum interrupted Evan, seeing that he was working himself up into a rage. “Why don’t we have some breakfast first, and then you can go?”

I sprang up off my chair, eager to quell my little brother’s rage before my he could start stamping his feet and yelling at the injustice of it all. “What a good idea, mum!” I said in an overly cheery tone, going to another cupboard and taking out one of the boxes of cereal that was crammed into it. “Hey, Evan, what do you want to eat?”

He sat on one of the chairs at the kitchen table, looking thoughtful. “The chocolate one… the one with the squirrel on the box?”

“Sure,” I told him, taking out a large brown box with a picture of squirrel eating cereal proudly emblazoned upon it.

I put the cereal boxes on the table along with two bowls, two spoons and a carton of milk. Evan immediately grabbed the box and started trying to open the cardboard top, ripping it along the way. Cereal spilled out of the packet and onto the table, making him laugh delightedly.

Well, at least he was happy again.

My mum got up off her stool and poured the milk in to the bowl for him, eager to avoid any more spillages on her table, while I brushed all of the stray squares of cereal into my hand and put them back into the box.

I sat down at the table next to Evan and poured my own bowl of cereal, being considerably more careful than he had been. He looked disappointed when the squares rained down perfectly into the bowl and the milk covered the cereal without splashing anywhere, but after realising that nothing else was going to happen he went back to shovelling cereal into his mouth at an alarming speed.

Taking a more dainty approach, I scooped up a spoonful of chocolate squares and put them into my mouth, chewing slowly.

“So you’re going shopping today?” my mum asked Evan.

“Yes!” he said excitedly through his mouthful of cereal. His cheeks bulged like a hamster’s as he chewed. “We’re going to go to the toy shop and everything.”

My mum looked over at me to clarify and I shrugged. “I’m fine with buying him some stuff,” I said. “Anyway, I’m interested in this new shop – Evan doesn’t seem to shut up about it. Apparently it’s the best thing to happen to the town since we got that new play park.”

We fell silent for a few minutes, all content with our breakfasts. Evan seemed to finish his in record time, and was out of his seat and running about the kitchen like a maniac before I’d even got half way through my bowl of cereal.

“Why don’t you get your colouring out, honey?” my mum sighed, resting her head in her hands. “Just don’t run about like that when it’s this early – you’ll wake your poor sister and annoy me.”

“Okay!” Evan chirped, and sprinted out of the kitchen.

“I love him, but he’s way too hyperactive for his own good,” she groaned, taking another sip of coffee. She had to be on at least her third mug now.

My little brother sprinted back in and jumped into the chair next to me, colouring book and pencils in hand. “Want to see my drawings, Annie?” he asked eagerly, flicking open the book before I had time to answer. There weren’t many drawings to speak of, since it was a colouring book, but Evan had decorated the pages with his own attempts at drawings – mostly chunky squiggles that jutted across the pages and messes of scribbles. He’d coloured in each picture with a blinding array of bright crayon colours.

 “Those are great, Evan,” I told him, smiling.

He grinned back at me and turned his pencil case upside down, pouring wax crayons all over the table.

My mum groaned as they clattered around and rolled off the table, but Evan was oblivious. He’d picked up one of the crayons and was colouring in a butterfly, a delighted expression on his tiny face.

“Well, have fun, you two.” She put the coffee cup down and pushed herself up from her chair. “Anne, dear, would you mind clearing up everything once you’re done?”

“Sure,” I told her. “You go get ready for work.”

I watched him colour as I ate my breakfast. His main aim wasn’t in keeping in the lines of the drawing, which was made clear enough by the mad scribbles that adorned the page and leaked out of the thick black guidelines, but in colouring it in with the widest variety of colours that he could. The butterfly was in bright blues, greens, oranges, yellows and reds – a spectrum of colours.

“What about pink?” I asked, picking up one of the stray crayons from the table.

Evan made a face. “That’s a girl’s colour.”

I shrugged. “It’s a nice colour, though. Did you know that a long, long time ago pink used to be a boy’s colour?”

“That’s silly,” he said, picking up a brown crayon and scribbling in the butterfly’s body.

“It’s true, though.” I scooped up the last spoonful of cereal into my mouth and chewed slowly. Then I went about the arduous process of stacking up all of the empty bowls, plates and cups that littered the room. I’d only expected to have to clear up everything from the morning but it seemed that mounds of stray cutlery and crockery was littered around the kitchen, far more than a morning’s worth. Carrying the last pile of dishes precariously to the other side of the kitchen, I put them on the counter above the dishwasher. Much to my pleasure the dishwasher was empty except for a few dirty plates from the day before, so all I had to do was deposit all the bowls, plates and cutlery that I’d collected into their places and close the dishwasher up again.

I walked back to the table, careful to avoid the stray crayons that littered the floor. “Hey, Evan. Want to go out now?”

He leapt up eagerly, scattering even more of his crayons across the room with the sudden movement. “Yeah!”

“Okay – go grab your coat and we’ll be right out the door.”

He ran down the corridor and skidded to a halt at its end, next to the front door. He stretched up, reaching towards the pegs where we hung our coats, and grabbed the edge of his coat. It came down on top of him and he stood there, grinning at me and holding it proudly.

I smiled at him as I quickly pulled on my heavy black boots and took my leather jacket off the coat peg. “You ready?” I asked.

He’d got to the point of bouncing up and down again. “Yes!” he cheered.

My purse and my phone were already in my jeans pockets, and I had nothing left to bring, so without any further complications I opened the door and we stepped out.

“Bye mum!” I yelled over my shoulder before I closed the door, hoping she could hear us leave.

“Have fun!” she called back from somewhere upstairs.

As soon as I closed the door Evan sprinted towards the gate. “Quick, Annie!” he exclaimed, tugging at the gate in an attempt to open it.

I walked up to him and tried to turn the gate latch, which was yet again stuck. “We’ll have to jump over,” I muttered.

Evan looked up at me. “Really?”

“It’s less than a meter tall, Evan. That’s hardly a demanding jump,” I told him, stepping over it as I did so and holding my hands out to him.

He hoisted himself up on top of the fence and tumbled over, leaving me hardly any time to catch him.

“You’ll learn,” I told him, lifting him back up and dusting his coat off.

Evan shrugged my hands off and started sprinting down the road again, occasionally stopping to spin round and laugh. I had to run to catch up with him, and no amount of yelling from me would slow him down.

Luckily he stopped when we reached the busy road that lay at the end of the close, making me sigh with relief and reconsider my views on him as a complete and utter idiot. He glanced up at me as I reached him as if he was expecting something.

“What?” I asked.

“Which way?”

“You don’t know your way, Evan? You’ve lived here since you were born.”

He pouted. “I normally follow mum.”

I sighed, but I couldn’t blame him; he was a five year old, after all. “Left, Evan. We go left. Then we follow the path on the side of the road till we get to the bridge. Got that?”

Nodding vigorously to show he’d understood it completely, he grabbed my hand, pulling me to the left. “We can go to that new toy shop, and buy swords and costumes and Frisbees and soft toys and…”

He continued to list every single thing he intended to buy at the toy shop with the five pounds pocket money he’d saved up and a ‘little’ contribution from me, as we walked down the roadside path. I nodded as he did so and exclaimed in excitement when he looked up at me expectantly.

“…and we can buy some sweets as well! Can we buy some sweets, Annie? Like those tubes of rainbowy stuff. I like that rainbowy stuff…”

“That sounds nice, Evan.”

The walk to town took at least half an hour, and it seemed that Evan intended to talk for the whole duration. Not that I minded – it was nice to just listen for once, instead of having things demanded of me constantly.

As if my thoughts had triggered it, my phone began to ring. I already knew who the caller was going to be before I took my phone out of my pocket.

Evan stopped talking for a second to glance at the phone in my hands. “Who’s that, Annie? Is that mum? Is she coming? Can we meet her in town? Can she buy my rainbow sweets?”

“Hang on one second, Evan,” I said, holding up a hand and pressing accept.

Blake’s voice blazed out of the end of the phone as soon as I held it to my ear. “Anne? Where are you? Why aren’t you at school? Did you leave? Has Chris been near you?”

“What’s with all the questions,” I growled. “I’m at home, since it is the school holidays, in case you didn’t notice.”

“You didn’t reply to my text.”

“I’m trying to have a week without worrying about any vamp stuff, Blake – you’re not exactly helping,” I said wearily, the annoyance seeping out of me as quickly as it had come. “Look, I’ll text you later. I just can’t talk right now.”

I hung up.

“Who’s Blake?” Evan asked. He’d paid more attention to the conversation than I’d thought he would. I wondered how he’d interpreted ‘vamp stuff’ – had he registered it or had he simply passed it as something not worth his notice compared to the person on the other end of the phone?

We approached the brick bridge that stretched across the river and away from the road, leading to the town. I turned to it and walked across, not wanting to reply.

“Who is he?” Evan demanded again. “Annie I want to know.”

“He’s a friend of mine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Is he your boyfriend?” he asked gravely.

I couldn’t help but laugh, stopping for a second to clutch the side of the bridge till I could walk properly again without shaking with laughter. “My… boyfriend? What gave you that idea?”

“Well Ben told me that if you’re friends with a girl then she’s your girlfriend. He says that Margaret’s my girlfriend, but she’s his as well because he’s friends with her too. He says that we’re her boyfriends.” Evan explained matter-of-factly. “But Ben isn’t my boyfriend because I’m not a girl – we’re just friends.”

This nearly set me off laughing again. “It doesn’t work like that, sweetie,” I said, grinning at him.

Evan frowned, his brow furrowing. “So Blake isn’t your boyfriend?”

Fleetingly, I imagined going out with Blake. He’d make a good boyfriend, I had to admit. Blake was charming, nice to me and I’d enjoyed his company over the past few months more than anybody else’s. He listened to me, he understood. On the other, more realistic hand, me and Blake were exact opposites at times, and hadn’t our phone call just proved how easily annoyed I could get with him? There were times that he could be overbearingly protective and infuriating.

Besides, since when had I had the choice to go out with him? And when had I ever had a lasting relationship? Why was I even thinking about this?

“No,” I concluded finally. “He’s not.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

I started to walk again, taking his hand and pulling him along with me. “Definitely not.”

“Do you want a boyfriend?”

This totally wasn’t the conversation I’d envisioned having with my five year old brother. “Definitely not,” I said again, and then resolved to change the conversation as soon as I possibly could. “What other sweets do you want to get?”

With all talk of boyfriends forgotten with a simple question, Evan began to explain every type of sweet that you could get at the local sweet shop as we walked along the house lined street that led to town.

“There are rhubarb and custards,” he told me, “and sherbet lemons, and caramels, and bars of toffee…”

“What about jelly beans? Are those there?”

“Yes!” he said excitedly. “There are banana ones, apple ones, orange ones, chocolate ones… there are even centipede flavoured ones in these special packs…”

I frowned. “Why would you have centipede flavoured ones?”

“Because it’s funny to watch people eat them. Ben’s mum bought us some once and he was nearly sick when he ate one!”

“Oh… joy.”

The pavement eventually brought us to the town centre, a large square surrounded with shops and cafés. There was a market cross in the middle which was decorated with big pink flowers that had begun to wilt in the cold, sunless weather. The sun was late coming out this year and the weather had been cold and relentless for the past few months.

Evan spun round for a few seconds, taking in our surroundings and gaining his bearings, then with a returned determination grabbed my hand and steered me down one of the streets that branched off the centre. “This way!”

“Okay…” I doubted his sense of direction, since he hadn’t known how to get to town earlier, but he was my best bet at finding the shops he so wanted to go to.

He ended up dragging me to a shop I’d never seen before, and according to his grinning face this was the intended destination. The whole of the outside wall was painted a bright purple, except for the fringe of the windows and the door which were a vibrant, lime green that stood out and blinded anyone who so much as glanced in the shop’s direction. The large windows displayed all matters of bright toys on raised shelved or hanging from the ceiling.