One Step Closer to You by Alice Peterson Read Free Book Online Page B

all eat lasagne (delicious, thanks, Gabriella) round the dining room table. ‘Then Polly’s going to teach me how to plait your hair, Emily,’ says Ben stiltedly. ‘Come on, you must be starving.’ He takes the fork, scoops some food on to it.
    Emily turns her head away from him. Ben puts the fork down. ‘You need to eat,’ he says, fighting not to lose his patience.
    ‘Mummy says if I don’t eat I’ll shrivel up!’ Louis waves his fork in the air.
    ‘I don’t have a Mummy anymore,’ Emily says. ‘She’s dead.’
    It’s the first thing she has said this afternoon and it makes me want to cry. I glance at Ben, who looks lost.
    ‘I’m so sorry, Emily,’ I say. ‘You must miss her very much.’
    She nods. ‘Her heart went wrong. Mummy said you go to heaven,’ Emily continues, shoving food from one side of the plate to the other.
    ‘What is heaven?’ Louis asks.
    ‘It’s a place where all the most wonderful things are,’ I say. ‘All the things that make you happy.’
    Louis thinks about this. ‘Custard tarts?’
    ‘Oh yeah, loads of custard tarts.’
    ‘Is there a garden?’ Louis continues, ‘So I can play stomp rocket?’
    ‘Yes,’ Emily says to my surprise, ‘there is one big garden with flowers and lots of dogs.’
    Emily is a beautiful girl with her long shiny auburn hair, heart-shaped mouth and oval green eyes. She just needs to eat. She’s nothing but skin and bones. A puff of wind could surely blow her over.
    ‘And cars? We don’t have a car. Do you have a car, Emily?’
    She nods. ‘Uncle Ben has a car with no roof.’
    ‘Not for long,’ he mutters.
    ‘I want to see heaven,’ Louis announces. ‘When can we go, Mum?’
    ‘We can’t. People don’t come
back
from heaven.’ Please stop asking awkward questions, Louis.
    ‘Oh. Why not?’
    I cough. ‘Well …’
    ‘Maisy’s name was written in the red book today,’ he interrupts me, thankfully. I remind Ben that Maisy is Jim’s daughter, noticing how relieved he looks that we’ve changed subjects too.
    ‘Why was she in the red book?’ I ask.
    ‘She flushed lots of paper down the toilet.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘She came into the classroom with toilet paper stuck on her skirt!’ Again Louis howls with laughter, thinking this has to be the funniest thing ever.
    ‘What’s the red book?’ asks Ben.
    ‘If your name is in the little red book it’s because you’ve been very naughty,’ says Louis, rather self-righteously.
    ‘Do you think your name is in it?’ I ask him.
    He blushes, even his ears turning pink. ‘I don’t think so, Mum. No.’
    ‘Do you think your name might
possibly
be in there?’
    He pauses. ‘Possibly.’
    ‘Do you think you probably
are
in the red book?’
    Louis puts down his knife and fork, taking his time to answer. ‘I probably am, Mummy, yes.’
    There’s a pause before we all laugh, even Emily. I catch Ben looking at her, as if she has never laughed before. She eats a mouthful of lasagne, and then another. Mentally I am urging her to eat just one more. As we clear up the plates,Ben tells me that Emily’s eaten more tonight than she has in weeks. ‘You’ll have to come over more often,’ he whispers.
    *
    ‘OK, so you take a strand in the middle, here,’ I say, ‘and then you go to the sides …’
    ‘He’s not scratching the floor, is he?’ asks Ben, looking over his shoulder at Louis racing his car around the flat.
    ‘Concentrate on this, please,’ I tell him before muttering, ‘control freak.’ It takes one to know one.
    He raises an eyebrow. ‘Bossy-boots.’
    ‘Ow.’ Emily pulls away, touching her hair.
    ‘Sorry, sweetheart. You take this strand over the other and then you take another from here …’
    ‘I’ll never be able to do this,’ murmurs Ben, watching avidly. ‘It’s harder than astrophysics.’
    ‘Don’t be silly.’
    ‘Don’t be silly,’ Emily repeats.
    ‘And then you plait some more … like this … and look …’ I tie the