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The House That Wasn`t There - Chapter 2

by  purplemurph

Posted: Friday, April 29, 2011
Word Count: 2676
Summary: Chapter 2 introducing the other key character and starting to build the effect of the house on the 3 children, particular main protag. Josie




Their friend Parrot was sitting across his bed with his head propped against the wall, his knees drawn up and arms wrapped around his legs. His foot tapped unconsciously against the mattress as he chewed furiously on a piece of gum; his bright blue eyes staring ahead into space.

“ ..So you’re saying that your parents really couldn’t see that ’ouse and you two could?” he said.

Josie and George nodded from beneath him on the bedroom floor. Neither could speak as they each had a mouthful of chocolates from an open packet propped against one of Parrot’s ancient Lego bricks. George swallowed.

“It’s true." he said "It was really weird. Has anything ever happened to you like that?”

Parrot gave a little laugh “All the time round ‘ere!”. Then he stopped short and his eyes narrowed as he stared at his two friends “ You sure you’re not winding me up?”

“Come on Parrot. How could we do that to you? You always know if we’re not telling the truth!” Josie said.

It was true. Parrot, real name Lee Fisher, was what their father called ‘streetwise’. Although Josie knew he was the youngest in the family, it seemed like he was in charge. He seemed to do everything for himself as there didn’t seem to be anyone else around at home. Josie had only seen his older sister once, and had never met his parents at all in all the two years they had been coming to his house. Parrot never mentioned his parents much and it didn’t seem to bother him that no-one was there - he just sort of got on with things. He could come and go as he liked and have dinner and go to bed when he wanted. Josie wished she could be like Parrot: no-one telling her what to do or where to be every minute of the day.

Parrot ran his fingers through his short blond cropped hair. “So” he said “How abouts we go and see this ’ouse then? Why don’t you show me it?”

Josie and George looked at each other. “There's no time now. It's over the other side of town" said George. "It’d take us forever to get there and back. We would need at least two hours. We’ll have to go another day”

“What about this weekend?” said Parrot

“Can’t” said George “Saturday we’ve both got dance and play rehearsals, And Sundays are definitely out”

"What, every Sunday?" asked Parrot

"We’ve started to go to Gran's every Sunday for dinner" said George. "It's so boring. All we do is sit around watching TV soaps all afternoon. The only good bit is the cakes at teatime."

"I tried to get out of it once" said Josie " but Dad said we had to go: "We're the only family she's got here and she’s not well" he said. He was getting really upset, it made me feel so bad I never asked him again."

“Well can’t you skip a few classes in the week then?” said Parrot.

“You’re joking! If we got found out Mum would kill us!” exclaimed Josie

“Come on..are you going to spend the rest of your life wondering about that ‘ouse” cried Parrot “How can you NOT wanna go back now you’ve seen it?”

“ He is right” Josie thought. She spoke “We need to think of a way to get there and back here without Mum and Dad knowing. How about if we pretend there’s an extra lesson in the evening, get them to drop us off then go and visit the house, come back and get picked up”

“Good idea, Jose” said George with a mouthful of chocolate “But when? Because of the school tests, my play and your ballet thing - we’ve got something on every night this week, and for the next 3 weeks, till 8 o’clock at least. The only reason we’re here is because our maths tuition got cancelled today”

“Yes - but we don’t go together everywhere. You have singing on Wednesdays, I have dance on Tuesdays. We could take it turns to go to the house” said Josie.

“I’m not going out there on my own!” cried George.

Josie rolled her eyes, why did her brother have to be such a boring scaredy-cat or a ‘wuss’ as Parrot would say – she like that word.

“Yeah! Quite right Georgie!” said Parrot - “What would the fun be in that? No. whatever we do, we do together”

Josie nearly choked on her caramel – she hadn’t expected Parrot to agree with him! She thought desperately: “We could both pretend to be sick and go then”

"We can't do that!" cried George, who actually liked school "Anyway, even if Mum couldn’t take the day off, she’d just arrange for someone else to be there with us. How would we get away?”.

Lost for any other ideas, Josie and George helped themselves to more chocolate while Parrot went into thinking mode. He rested the back of his head against the wall and closed his eyes. His whole head was framed by a faded Spiderman poster that looked to Josie like it had been there forever: a close up of the superhero casting websilk out of his wrists. Because Spiderman’s hands were blocked from view, it looked to Josie as if the web strands were radiating out of Parrot’s head, as if his brainwaves were working so furiously on a plan to get them to the house, you could actually see them. Josie grinned at this thought – and it broadened when she saw the intense concentration on Parrot’s face.

It reminded her of when she and George had first met him in the library. He was lying on his side on the floor in the science section, one arm propping his head, the other flicking through a book on the human body. He was staring at a particularly gruesome page showing photographs of people who had been attacked by sharks. The bottom lip folded under his teeth, furrowed brows as now - as he poured over the picture of a man with a crescent shaped gap where his thigh used to be. Josie had almost tripped over him at the end of the aisle and on seeing the picture had let out a little scream, this startled Parrot into looking up.

He looked at her, grinned broadly and said "you fink that's bad. Look at this one!" flipping dramatically to a large double spread of – well - Josie didn't really want to know really. She tried to move away but George came up behind her and, completely fascinated, moved in for a closer look. And so the friendship began. They spent over 2 hours laughing and joking over various books. In the end, they had been firmly asked to leave by the Head Librarian. This had not stopped Parrot returning to the library every single weekend since, to read as many books as he could get his hands on - about every subject from biology, natural history, astronomy to history; he brought even more books home with him. They were the only books Josie ever saw in the whole house.

Back in his bedroom, Parrot finally he came out of his trance.

“Got it!" he cried sitting bolt upright "Your school trip, next week out in Sampson Wood, remember - we were there last year?"

Josie did remember. It had been the last school day before the Easter break and Parrot, being a year older than George and at secondary school, was already on his holidays. He had been playing in the wood when Josie and George had arrived for their field trip. In the weeks prior to the trip, Parrot had had a particular obsession with a panther believed to have escaped from the local zoo and living in the area, he had been on about it for weeks. So when he spotted Josie and George in the group and suddenly pounced on them from behind one of the logs, it had almost sent George into shock. Once George had (almost) forgiven him, they’d found that being with Parrot that day had brightened up what would have been an extremely boring last day.

Parrot was speaking now "What was it?, a map, a target and getting from A to B by 5pm? Can’t see the teachers being around all of you the whole time, can you? And from what you say, the ‘ouse ain’t all that far from there, is it?”

“No! you’re right!" said George. "I remember seeing the signs for Sampson Wood when we drove up to the house!. It was a bit further up to where we turned off on that lane – about a mile I reckon”.

“Good memory Georgie boy! That’s what we’ll do then! Ha!” Parrot lept to his feet and stood on the bed: head tilted back and mouth open - he nodded to George: “Chuck us a choccie then”.

And they spent the rest of the time fine-tuning the plan over more chocolate.

* * * * *



The next week could not go fast enough for Josie, she was so excited at the thought seeing the house again. In lessons, she found it hard to concentrate, particular maths which she found hard enough anyway. As she stared at the numbers and symbols in her text book, they lifted off the page and merged together into a path that began to bend and get longer; the path wound its way out of the text book, out the window and beyond to the purple house in the distance. Josie could see every detail, the turret, those huge windows with strange shadows wisping across inside, not people, more like birds – and then the face of the woman in pink appeared. From the car that weekend, Josie had not been close enough to see her in detail but she imagined a round face with ruddy cheeks smiling at her. The face grew larger, sharper in detail. The woman raised her index finger and flicked it towards herself, beckoning “Come here, come and see, Josie...”

“JOSIE MILES – ARE YOU STILL WITH US?” Her teacher Miss Mole, stood arms folded, glaring at her. The whole class turned towards her and fell about giggling because she started so violently that she knocked her pencil case to the floor. The whole class watched with her as her favourite rubber rolled all the way to Miss Mole’s feet. Rather than meet her eye, Josie ducked under the table to pick up her things. Her friend Jade appeared under the table to help her. “Don’t worry about it” she hissed “ I’ve got something to show you after this – you’ll love it!”

After lessons, Jade and Josie made for their secret place, which they called the Roots. A large tree grew in the farthest corner of the playing field very close to the wire fence enclosing the field. The foot of the tree facing the fence was all gnarled and deformed from lack of light. A great hole had formed like a gaping wound in the bark, just room enough for 2 girls to sit and not be seen by anyone.

It turned out that Jade’s grandmother had sent her another present. It was a musical box decorated on the outside in brilliant peacock blues and coral pinks, lacquered and embossed with gold. The gold clasp slid smoothly apart and the lid opened to show a beautiful ballerina doll about four inches tall, dressed in turquoise silk and tutu with matching ballet shoes. Her hair was loose and dark like Josie’s and she was unlike any other doll Josie had ever seen. As the music started to play, the dancer’s arms and legs actually moved as she turned. She moved so gracefully, as she pirouette’d and spun on her spot, and her arms flowed out to wide beautiful arcs, each hand and finger moving independently to flick out from wrist to fingertip and ‘finish the line’ as their dance teacher would say. All the time, even here - in the darkest corner of a school playing field - her dress sparkled and shimmered like the sun on water.

“How is it doing that?!” cried Josie, completely spellbound.

“I don’t know” said Jade, “I’ve played it so many times trying to work it out. There’s no wind-up key at the back, no wires anywhere that I can see. It must be computer generated - like a hologram or something, but it looks so real, doesn’t it?

“It’s amazing, Jade! Come on, you have to show the others!”

“No!” cried Jade, her face suddenly anxious. “I want to keep it secret” she said “ Just between us – you promised”.

Josie was always puzzled by this. This was not the first time Jade had shown her presents from her grandmother. And they all seemed to be like nothing she had ever seen before, though this one - the ballerina - was by far the best yet. According to Jade, her grandmother lived in Eastern Europe somewhere and worked as a housekeeper for this rich Count who lived in a great castle out in the middle of nowhere, and this Count loved to collect and make toys. Because her gran had worked for this Count for so long, helped bring him up when his own mother died and then looked after the castle when his father left it to him, she had become like family to him. So every now and then the Count would make something for her as a sign of his gratitude. She would always have him make something for Jade and send it to her. Not only that, she sent letters - wonderful letters with fantastic stories in them. Josie loved to listen to Jade read them aloud to her. But all this Jade kept hidden, even from her own mother. There had been a few close calls where Jade had just managed to hide a letter she was reading to Josie just as her mother entered her room.

Back at the Roots, Josie said “OK. If it was me I’d want to show everyone this. But if you really don’t want to, then I promise I won’t say anything”.

Josie knew one day Jade would tell her what was really going on, but sensed that now was not the right time. In any case, Josie had her own secret. At first, Josie couldn’t wait to tell Jade all about the invisible house but as the week had gone on, she had felt more and more that she wanted to keep it to herself. She felt terribly guilty not telling her friend, after all Jade had shared with her – but something stopped her. “Maybe if we get closer” she thought “if we see inside the house through the windows – then I’ll have more to tell her. I’ll tell her everything then”.

Back at home, Josie willed the days to pass till next Friday. In her room, she sketched the house over and over again. From a distance. Close up. Each window. And imagined what it looked like inside. She drew a huge spiral staircase leading up to the turret. Added a large fireplace surrounded by the biggest, squishiest sofas in the world. She drew Vincent sprawled out on a deep red rug in front of the fire. Candles everywhere. And a ballroom – though she knew the house was probably too small for one - she drew it anyway. She spread her drawings out on the floor.

Vincent padded in to see what she was up to. He studied the drawings and looked up at her, raising a quizzical eyebrow. Josie laid down on the floor, hugging Vincent at the same time.

“Come on Friday! Come ON!” she whispered.

Since he recognised neither “walk” nor “dinner” in this sentence, Vincent just snorted, as if in disgust at not getting either, and laid his head down to sleep beside her.