Zelah Green by Vanessa Curtis Read Free Book Online

the kitchen with a sullen expression on her face. She sits down and hugs her own elbows, staring at the plate.
    Her cheekbones cut through the pale skin underneath her eyes. There is a fine moustache of soft down on her upper lip and her teeth bulge out slightly. Her long brown hair is wispy and unwashed. Despite all this she’s the prettiest person in the house. Except for maybe Josh.
    ‘Now,’ says the Doc, passing round a dishof green broccoli with slivers of grey-yellow Parmesan on top. ‘Have you two met Zelah?’
    There are brief nods from Alice and Lib.
    I don’t mention my meeting with Caro earlier. Something tells me that the less I let on about what I saw, the easier my life at Forest Hill House will be.
    The others begin to eat. Well – Lib does, shovelling rice into her mouth as if it’s her last meal ever. Josh too eats with enthusiasm, grains of rice getting caught up in his beard and then dropping like tiny white maggots back on to the plate.
    The Doc discards her knife and uses her fork to scoop up rice with her right hand, left elbow resting on the table.
    I pull my own knife and fork out of my pocket and slide them into place. The Doc and Josh act as if they don’t see.
    Alice pushes her food around her plate andfrom time to time, brings one fork prong to her lips where she pushes in a single grain of rice.
    ‘Try a small bit,’ says Josh, sliding the bread basket towards her.
    Alice breaks open a wholegrain roll, refuses the butter and picks seeds off the top, placing them between her lips as if they might explode in her mouth.
    Lib is rolling her eyes at me.
    ‘You’ll get used to this madhouse,’ she says. ‘Number one lunatic is upstairs. You’ve still got that pleasure to come.’
    ‘Lib, shut up and get the pudding out of the oven,’ says Josh.
    Lib leaps up and returns with a blackberry crumble and a small yoghurt. She passes this to Alice.
    Alice pushes back her chair, puts the yoghurt in the pocket of her baggy trousers and leaves the room with a murmur of thanks. At least, Ithink that’s what it is. It sounds like ‘ffa’.
    ‘Believe it or not, she used to be worse than that,’ says Lib.
    I look at the plate Alice left behind her. Messed-around risotto lies in cold circular trails.
    ‘Crumble?’ says Josh.
    I’ve brought my own spoon too. I pass my plate and let him pile it up with the steaming purple mess.
    The Doc is waiting in one of the upstairs offices at half past five.
    ‘Come in,’ she says, smoothing down her orange dress and fixing me with her bright, assessing smile.
    The room is painted in careful tones of grey and beige. There is a wooden desk by the window and a tall metal filing cabinet up against the wall.
    The Doc is not sitting behind the desk but infront of it in a black chair with a big circular back. She has slipped off her roman sandals and is rubbing one foot against the other on the rough grey carpet.
    Dirt Alert
.
    This bothers me. All that crap she must be picking up on the soles of her feet.
    She sees my look and puts her shoes back on again, sits up straight.
    ‘Take a seat,’ she says, gesturing towards a smaller version of her black chair.
    I produce a sheet of A4 and lay it over the seat of the chair.
    I see her noting all this as I sink on to the crackle of paper. She doesn’t write it down, but you can see her brain computing it, storing the file away to be clicked upon and reopened later.
    ‘OK,’ she says. ‘First session is about talking. I’m not going to make you do anything. We’re just going to plan out your treatment.’
    I twiddle with the frizzy ends of my hair. It feels like a matted scouring brush. I like the Doc, and all that, but I still don’t really know what I’m doing in this place.
    My eye alights upon a small dark smudge of something on the pale wall ahead. There are tissues in my pocket. I itch to get them out. I grit my teeth and sit on my hands.
    The Doc is watching me with her head tipped to one