Free The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

bed, reading book after book, until
Ursula Monkton appeared in the doorway of the room and said, “You can come down
now.”
    My sister was watching television downstairs, in
the television room. She was watching a program called How, a
pop-science-and-how-things-work show, which opened with the hosts in Native
American headdresses saying, “How?” and doing embarrassing war whoops.
    I wanted to turn over to the BBC, but my sister
looked at me triumphantly and said, “Ursula says it can stay on whatever I want
to watch and you aren’t allowed to change it.”
    I sat with her for a minute, as an old man with a
moustache showed all the children of England how to tie fishing flies.
    I said, “She’s not nice.”
    â€œI like her. She’s pretty.”
    My mother arrived home five minutes later, called
hello from the corridor, then went into the kitchen to see Ursula Monkton. She
reappeared. “Dinner will be ready as soon as Daddy gets home. Wash your
hands.”
    My sister went upstairs and washed her hands.
    I said to my mother, “I don’t like her. Will you
make her go away?”
    My mother sighed. “It is not going to be Gertruda
all over again, dear. Ursula’s a very nice girl, from a very good family. And
she positively adores the two of you.”
    My father came home, and dinner was served. A thick
vegetable soup, then roast chicken and new potatoes with frozen peas. I loved
all of the things on the table. I did not eat any of it.
    â€œI’m not hungry,” I explained.
    â€œI’m not one for telling tales out of school,” said
Ursula Monkton, “but someone had chocolate on his hands and face when he came
down from his bedroom.”
    â€œI wish you wouldn’t eat that rubbish,” grumbled my
father.
    â€œIt’s just processed sugar. And it ruins your
appetite and your teeth,” said my mother.
    I was scared they would force me to eat, but they
didn’t. I sat there hungrily, while Ursula Monkton laughed at all my father’s
jokes. It seemed to me that he was making special jokes, just for her.
    After dinner we all watched Mission: Impossible . I
usually liked Mission: Impossible, but this time it made me feel uneasy, as
people kept pulling their faces off to reveal new faces beneath. They were
wearing rubber masks, and it was always our heroes underneath, but I wondered
what would happen if Ursula Monkton pulled off her face, what would be
underneath that?
    We went to bed. It was my sister’s night, and the
bedroom door was closed. I missed the light in the hall. I lay in bed with the
window open, wide awake, listening to the noises an old house makes at the end
of a long day, and I wished as hard as I could, hoping my wishes could become
real. I wished that my parents would send Ursula Monkton away, and then I would
go down to the Hempstocks’ farm, and tell Lettie what I had done, and she would
forgive me, and make everything all right.
    I could not sleep. My sister was already asleep.
She seemed able to go to sleep whenever she wanted to, a skill I envied and did
not have.
    I left my bedroom.
    I loitered at the top of the stairs, listening to
the noise of the television coming from downstairs. Then I crept barefoot-silent
down the stairs and sat on the third step from the bottom. The door to the
television room was half-open, and if I went down another step whoever was
watching the television could see me. So I waited there.
    I could hear the television voices punctuated by
staccato bursts of TV laughter.
    And then, over the television voices, adults
talking.
    Ursula Monkton said, “So, is your wife away every
evening?”
    My father’s voice: “No. She’s gone back this
evening to organize tomorrow. But from tomorrow it will be weekly. She’s raising
money for Africa, in the village hall. For drilling wells, and I believe for
contraception.”
    â€œWell,” said Ursula, “I