The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern Read Free Book Online

asleep.

CHAPTER FOUR
The Elephant in the Room
    I awoke the next morning at around six a.m to the sound of the birds calling to one another. Their constant whistling and chatter made me feel as though the house had been air-lifted in the middle of the night and transported to bird world. Their selfish noisy banter reminded me of the builders we’d had working on our swimming pool, who went about their business loudly and cockily, as though we weren’t still living in the house. There was one guy, Steve, who kept trying to get a look at me in my bedroom while I was getting dressed. So one morning I really gave him something to look at. Don’t get the wrong impression; I took three hairpieces and pinned them to my bikini—you can guess where—and I took off my bathrobe and paraded around my room like Chewbacca, pretending I didn’t know he was looking. He never looked again after that, but a few of the others used to stare at me whenever I passed by, so I can only assume he told them, dirty little bugger. Well there would be no such games here, unless I wanted to send a red squirrel flying off his branch in shock.
    The blue and white checked curtains did little to keep outthe sunlight. The room was fully lit like a bar at closing time; all blemishes, drunkards and cheaters revealed. I lay in bed, wide awake, and stared at the room that was now my room. It didn’t seem very my ; I wondered if it would ever feel my . It was a simple room, surprisingly warm. Not just from the morning sun streaming into the room, but it was cosy warm, in an authentic Laura Ashley way and though I usually hated all that twee stuff, it worked here. Where it didn’t work was in my friend Zoey’s bedroom, which her mum decorated to suit a ten-year-old, in an obvious attempt to convince herself her daughter was sweet and innocent. That room was the equivalent of her sticking her daughter into a pickle jar. It was never going to work. It wasn’t so much that the lid came off when her mother wasn’t looking, but more that Zoey liked pickles a little too much.
    The bedrooms were in the eaves of the house, the ceilings sloping towards the windows. There was a cracked white-painted wooden chair in one corner with an old blue and white checked pillow on it. The walls were a pale blue, but didn’t feel cold. There was a white-painted free-standing wardrobe that was just big enough to hold my underwear. My bed had a metal frame, white linen and a blue floral duvet cover with a duck-egg-blue cashmere throw at the end. Above the door to my room hung a simple St Bridget’s cross. On the windowsill was a vase of fresh wildflowers—lavender, bluebells, other things I couldn’t recognise. Rosaleen had gone to a lot of trouble.
    There was a noise coming from downstairs. Plates were clanging, water running, a kettle whistled, there was the sizzle of food on a pan and eventually the smell of a fry drifted upstairs and into my room. I realised that I hadn’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime in Barbara’s, when Lulu had made us divine sashimi. I also hadn’t been to the toilet yet and so mybladder and stomach conspired to get me out of bed. Just as I thought of it, through the paper-thin walls, I heard the door next to my room close and lock. I heard the toilet lid lift and then the trickle of urine as it splashed against the bottom of the bowl. It was falling from a height, so unless Rosaleen pissed while on stilts, it was Arthur.
    Judging by the sounds coming from both the kitchen and the bathroom, I guessed my mother wasn’t in either room. Now would be my chance to see her. I stepped into my pink Uggs, wrapped the duck-egg-blue blanket around my shoulders and sneaked down the hall to Mum’s room.
    Despite my lightness of foot, the floorboards creaked with every step. Hearing the toilet flush in the bathroom, I ran down the hall and entered Mum’s room without knocking. I don’t know what I expected but I suppose something closer to the sight that