Free The Story of Before by Susan Stairs

can’t you run on home and go?’ Dad said. ‘You’ll be there in two minutes.’
    ‘But . . . I’m bursting. I really need to go now.’
    Dad looked at Liz. ‘I’m sorry, is it all right if she . . . ?’
    ‘Go on!’ she said, with a false
little laugh. ‘Top of the stairs.’ She followed me out to the hall, then lowered her voice: ‘Ye’ll be able to have a good nose around while ye’re up there.
That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?’
    I felt like pulling the snake out of my pocket, flinging it at her and telling Dad he didn’t have to paint her kitchen after all. Why had I felt the need to say I’d thrown the snake
away anyway? When Liz had called to the door, I could’ve admitted I had it. But there was something about her that sort of forced me to lie, as if it was what she expected. Producing the
snake might’ve made her like me, and I realised now that I didn’t want her to.
    All the bedroom doors were open, and none showed any signs of life. The first had a big double bed with lacy pillowcases and a plum-coloured velvet headboard. Clothes and towels were tangled up
in balls and tossed all over the floor, and the scuffed toe of a cowboy boot peeked out from under the fringes of the bedspread. In the next room there was a small unmade bed, a huge white wardrobe
with oval shaped mirrors on the doors, and a black plastic chair piled high with a tower of yellowing magazines. I presumed this was Shayne’s room, as the third bedroom was stuffed almost to
the ceiling with cardboard boxes and junk. The bed was visible, but only just. But if the room with the white wardrobe was Shayne’s, why wasn’t he in there? And where was David?
Confused, I began to look around the landing.
    Then I saw it: a narrow, twisting, uncarpeted staircase that led towards the ceiling. Shayne’s room was in the attic.
    Before I’d thought about it, I found myself on the top step, staring at the words ‘Go Away’ that were carefully written in green marker on the door. I could hear the low buzz
of mumbling coming from behind it and was trying to make out what was being said when David opened it up. His face didn’t register even mild surprise.
    ‘Well, if it isn’t Rapunzel herself, come to dangle her hair out the window and wait for her prince to ride by.’
    ‘What the hell’s she doin’ here?’ Shayne asked.
    ‘I fear the fair maiden hath followed me,’ David said. ‘We met out in the meadow, did we not?’
    ‘Did ye not read what it says on the door?’ Shayne asked me.
    ‘I . . . I was looking for the bathroom. Your Mam said it was at the top of the stairs.’
    ’Hardly all the way up here, is it?’ he said. His hair stuck out from his head in thick tufts and he wore only a pair of striped pyjama bottoms.
    ‘How come your room’s up here?’ I asked.
    ‘Just is.’ He scratched his chest and stared at me.
    ‘But why don’t you have one of the other rooms? Why is yours up here?’
    ‘I dunno, do I?’ he said, annoyed. ‘Cos me ma got me uncle Keith to make it, all right?’
    I’d seen Uncle Keith once or twice. He wore blue overalls like Dad that hung loose from his bony body, and heavy brown boots with metal heels that clicked as they hit the ground. He had a
droopy, untidy moustache and gingery-blond hair that looked as if he’d hacked at it with a blunt scissors in the dark – short and spiky on top and long and straggly, like a dirty
dog’s tail, down his back. He was always hauling boxes of stuff into the house from his van, whistling tunes I didn’t recognize.
    ‘You must be able to see loads from your window,’ I said, trying to peer past him. ‘The mountains, maybe? Can I have a look?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Please? I have to go home soon. I’ll only be a second.’
    He looked at David, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged.
    ‘Hurry up,’ Shayne said with a loud sigh.
    The first thing that struck me was how secret it felt. How I imagined a nest might feel to a baby