Other Alice by Michelle Harrison Read Free Book Online Page A

toes nudged something within the folds of the bedclothes. I fumbled through them, already guessing what it was. I found it hidden in
the pillowcase: Alice’s notebook. The one she’d been writing in last night. I picked it up. It was heavier than I expected it to be, like there was a secret within its pages. I
hesitated. Alice would be furious if I peeked.
    But she doesn’t have to know , I told myself. If I just had a quick look, it might offer a clue as to where she could be. Sometimes Alice did things to research whatever she was
writing about, or went to certain places. Once she’d made Mum shut her in the boot of the car when she was writing a story about someone being kidnapped and driven off, just to see if
she’d fit. We’d had some odd looks from our neighbours after that.
    Another thought was untwisting in my head like fraying rope. I wanted to get a look at the characters in case . . . just in case . . . I shook the thought away,
then lifted the cover and looked inside.
    My sister’s curly, black writing covered the first page from top to bottom in a numbered list. It went up to number seventeen and each number had something written after it, a word or
short phrase. Could they be story titles?
    On the next page, I found what I was searching for. I was looking at a character description. It was about a page long, with a chart of likes and dislikes and longer passages with more detail.
As I read it, the skin on the back of my neck began to tingle.
    Tabitha, an enchanted black cat that was once a human. Talks, fond of tea and riddles. Six of her nine lives remaining .
    I turned the next page and found another one, and at this my hand froze.
    I stared at it, then read it again.
    Gypsy, a sixteen-year-old storyteller. Unable to speak, uses a notebook to communicate. Blonde hair, green eyes .
    So I hadn’t imagined the girl’s eye colour.
    The girl and the cat were characters from Alice’s story.
    I collapsed on the bed, feeling squirmy and shaky. There was no holding it back now. The memory flooded into my head like an unwelcome guest turning up unannounced.
    The memory of climbing up into the attic last year, the roof space stifling hot and airless as it always was in the summer. It was dimly lit, so dingy that I heard Alice
before I saw her. The crackle of papers being shuffled, over in the corner of the room.
    ‘Alice?’ I whispered, snapping on the light.
    A figure flew at me, teeth bared through tangled, damp hair, hissing.
    ‘Turn the light off! He’ll see!’
    The sour smell of sweat filled my nose as she reached past me and snapped the light off, before scuttling back to the corner like a beetle hiding under a stone. I ducked down and crawled
towards her, my heart drumming hard.
    ‘Who?’ I whispered. ‘Who’s out there? Should we call Dad?’
    ‘No!’ Alice’s fingers dug into my arm, bruising my skin. ‘Don’t call anyone! Just shut up, I need to think.’
    I shrank into the corner next to her, stung. It wasn’t often Alice spoke to me that way. Most people that I knew with brothers and sisters fought all the time, but not us. We were a
team.
    I watched her in the faint glow of a single tea light on the desk. Her face was sickly white, and her forehead and upper lip were beaded with sweat. Her eyes were glazed and staring, and her
hands shook as she fumbled through the pages of a notebook.
    ‘Alice?’ I whispered, even more quietly than before. ‘I’m scared. Who’s out there?’
    ‘Someone who shouldn’t be. But you don’t need to be scared. It’s me he wants, not you.’ She paused, then her voice rose, becoming more panicked. Her breath was
stale as it carried to my nostrils. ‘But then he could still use you to get to me . . . to force me to give him what he wants!’ She turned to me, grabbing my arm so hard
it felt like her fingers were bruising me. ‘If anyone ever approaches you, Midge, anyone you don’t know that asks you about me, don’t trust