Free The Uninvited by Liz Jensen

exceptionally good with his hands, for a boy of his age. Kaitlin came up with the idea of getting him a big work-table for his bedroom, and a special chest of drawers which he filled with feathers, conkers, cardboard toilet rolls, scraps of fabric in different textures, sequins, busted jewellery, screws, nails – anything that could be fashioned into something else. He kept his tools in there too. I used to bring home odd bits of packaging and polystyrene chips, defunct cartridges, and broken computer parts for him to add to his collection. He likes to invent, and get messy. He is a fan of wood glue. He always has some on his hands. He peels it off at mealtimes. He calls it ‘dead pirate skin’.
     
    When I call Kaitlin’s home number, nobody answers. This is usually what happens. She keeps her answerphone switched off. I hang on anyway, counting the rings.
    I’ve made seven mental ozuru and I’m beginning an eighth. I’m just about to hang up when, on the fifty-ninth ring, someone picks up.
    ‘Hello Freddie Kalifakidis speaking who is it?’ His voice is breathless and loud: he must have been running.
    ‘Hello Freddy K! It’s me.’ I am so surprised to hear him that I stall completely. But he doesn’t.
    ‘When are you coming back?’
    I hesitate. ‘What did your mother say?’
    ‘She said you went abroad and we won’t see you again for ages and ages.’
    I start to rock gently. I gather that one of the rules with children, in the world I am not completely part of, is: ‘spare them the truth’.
    ‘Well I am in another country. But I don’t live here. I have a cottage on the island of Arran in Scotland. So she got that wrong.’
    ‘What do you do there?’
    ‘I work. And I’ve got a goldfish. In an old bathtub.’
    ‘Cool!’ Freddy has always hankered after a fish.
    ‘Maybe you can visit, and help me choose it a name.’ He is very keen on christening things. ‘Where’s your mother?’
    ‘In the garden. We were pulling up dandelions, but she got mad furious because I ate a woodlouse and she said I had to brush my teeth and it was disgusting, that’s why I’m here to wash it off cos I’ve still got mud and stuff in my mouth, woodlouse blood.’
    ‘You ate a woodlouse?’
    ‘Actually lots of woodlouses. Maybe a hundred. You touch them and they roll into a ball. And then you eat them like peanuts. I found them in the ground, there was a whole nest under a stick. Some of them were smaller than a . . . a grain of pepper or an ant’s bottom.’
    ‘Freddy K. Irregular plural. So it’s wood lice. Did they taste good?’
    ‘ Nyet . Crunchy. A bit sour. And they smell weird.’
    ‘So what else have you been doing, apart from eating woodlice?’
    ‘Making papier-mâché stuff. Mum said I could use your origami paper.’
    ‘Of course you can. I was thinking of getting you a new Lego model. A big one that we can work on together.’
    ‘Cool. A ship.’
    ‘OK. I’ll find one. How’s school?’
    There’s a noise in the background and he breaks off for a moment. When he comes back his voice is different. ‘Mum’s here . . . She says she can’t talk she’s got muddy hands.’ I hear her hissing who is it at him. He tells her. ‘She says she’ll call you back . . . I have to wash my face and brush my teeth because of the woodlouses.’ His voice has changed. I’m losing him.
    ‘Freddy K—’ I rock harder. ‘Remember the irregular plural. Louse becomes lice.’
    I hear his mother say his name sharply, and he says, ‘Got to go. Bye Hesketh,’ and he’s hung up.
     
    I check the Svensson file again and draw up a mental list of questions to ask him and his doctors. Kaitlin doesn’t call back. Freddy will be interrogating her about me, I am sure. He’ll want to know why we can’t see each other and she’ll come up with a new lie which she will justify by saying it’s a ‘white’ one.
    Dulux has many whites in its range. Lily, Ivory, Orchid, Ice, Barely Grey, Pacific Mist.
    We