Free Loose Connections by Rosemary Hayes

He’d been expecting to see a table, some chairs, or perhaps a fridge, a cooker or a washing machine – but there was nothing, no furniture at all. The
room was completely bare.
    But there
was
something covering the floor – straw!
    Why? Why would there be straw on the floor?
    Jake knelt down on the table and rubbed at the glass. At first he could see nothing, but then he noticed a movement in the straw. He swallowed nervously. There
was
something there! It was
alive and it was moving!
    Hardly daring to breathe, he kept staring, his heart beating fast against his ribcage. Whatever it was moved again, and as the straw fell away from its back Jake could see it clearly. A big
striped snout, black ears tipped with white and a grey back.
    He’d never seen one before but he knew what it was – a badger! A wild animal, shut inside a house! Why wasn’t it trying to get out, crashing against the door, frantic with
fear?
    And how the hell had it got there? Who had put it there? How would you get a big heavy animal like that inside a house?
    The badger raised its snout and sniffed the air, rolled and settled down again. And as it moved, Jake noticed that one of its legs was in a splint.
    A pony with a bandaged leg. A badger with a splint. What is this? An animal hospital?
    Suddenly there was another movement inside the room, right in front of the window. Jake instinctively jerked back and nearly lost his balance as his foot went right through the rotting planks in
the table. He gasped, as a big black crow flew up and landed on the windowsill. It stared at him through the glass with one expressionless eye. The other eye was milky and sightless.
    A one-eyed crow. Poor thing! Surely it must want to be outside.
    But there was nothing panicky about the bird. It continued to sit on the windowsill and stare at Jake, then lifted one wing and started to groom itself with its beak.
    Jake scrambled down off the table and pulled it back to where it had been before. He tried to stick some of the ivy back on the table legs, but that didn’t work. There were telltale drag
marks across the grass, too; it was obvious that the table had been moved and that someone had stood on it. When Verity came back, she’d know that someone had been here spying on her.
    Too bad!
    Jake picked up his school bag and walked thoughtfully down the path and out of the front gate. He wasn’t looking as he turned into the road, and he collided with a man jogging past.
    ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.
    This place. These animals. This feeling of peace. It’s weird. It’s like being in another world.
    He walked slowly up the street towards his own house. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t even bother looking out for Irene. But Irene wasn’t there this afternoon. Her front
garden was deserted.
    He went in through the gate and up the path to his front door, fishing in his pocket for the key. As he turned it and went inside he called out, ‘Hi. I’m back.’
    There was no one in the house, but he wasn’t scared now.
    Why wasn’t he scared? He tried to figure it out. No sign of Gran in the house. A few days ago he would have been frantic, worried about where she was, what she was doing, whether
she’d left something burning on the stove. But he knew it would be OK now. He knew Gran was OK when Verity was with her and that Verity wouldn’t leave her alone.
    Why did he trust Verity? And why did he feel so calm when she was here? The old house, too, had worked some sort of charm on him. A sense of time suspended, of nothing mattering, of peace.
    He put his bag down in the hall and stood still, listening. He could hear them now. They were in the garden out the back. He could hear murmuring and then Gran’s laughter.
    He smiled, and walked quietly to the back door, standing there for a moment, watching them. Verity saw him and waved but, at first, the others didn’t notice him.
    The others. Gran . . . and Kenny!
What is Kenny doing here?
    They were both