Free Stolen Girl by Katie Taylor Page A

me, Diane became anxious. Her eyes darted nervously between me and Mum, who still had her back to me. Something was up. I noticed Diane wringing her hands in her lap, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to say. The atmosphere in the kitchen was the same as it had been at home.
    ‘Mum,’ I said again, my voice a little weaker. ‘There’s a strange man in our house, talking to Dad.’
    Mum didn’t respond or turn around but remained seated. She was slim and I could see the outline of her spine – her shoulders hunched over down towards the table as though she’d given up. Even though I couldn’t see her face, I knew she was upset about something.
    ‘Is everything alright?’ I asked, even though I really didn’t want to know the answer.
    Diane subconsciously twisted her wedding ring nervously around her finger as Mum turned to face me. Her eyes looked red, as if she’d been crying all afternoon. As she moved, I spotted something behind her – a bunch of screwed-up tissues. They were scattered all over the table. A sob caught in the back of my throat. Something was wrong and whatever it was, it was serious because Mum never cried. Never. Yet here she was,crying in Diane’s kitchen. I tried not to let my fear show; whatever it was, I wanted her to think I was grown up enough to handle it. But I needed to know what was going on and who the strange man was.
    Mum’s voice cracked with emotion as she spoke.
    ‘Everything’s fine, Katie – just go back home, will you? I’ll be there soon.’
    But I didn’t want to go back home – I wanted to be with Mum. I wanted to know why she was crying in Diane’s house and who the strange man was making Dad look so sad back home. But Mum refused to tell me any more.
    ‘Katie, go home. Please,’ she said, her eyes as tired as my father’s.
    I felt stuck. I didn’t want to go back to the house with the strange man in it; I didn’t want to leave Mum crying and upset. I didn’t know what to do for the best. Diane came over. She wrapped her arm around my shoulders and tried her best to reassure me.
    ‘Don’t worry, Katie – your mum’s just a little bit upset. Be a good girl now and go home. Don’t worry, I’ll look after her here – she’ll be fine here with me.’
    With that she opened up the back door and guided me out through it. I felt a slight push in the small of my back as the door closed abruptly behind me. It was a rude thing to do but as I stood alone on Diane’s driveway, I knew something bad had happened and guessed it was to do with the strange man.
    Tugging at my school socks, I hoisted them back up and ran out through the gate to our house. I’d confront them both, I decided. I’d make Dad tell me who the strange man was. But by the time I arrived, the man had gone.
    ‘Who was he?’ I asked.
    Dad shifted uneasily in his seat. He was still sitting at the kitchen table. Like Mum, he was hunched over as if he was hugging the table – as though he’d had the stuffing knocked clean out of him.
    ‘No one, Katie. He was no one,’ Dad insisted. He pulled himself up and dragged his feet over to the kitchen door, walking like an old man. As he did so, he turned to face me.
    ‘Fix yourself a snack for tea, Katie. Mum will be back soon.’
    But I knew he was lying. I could tell Mum wasn’t coming home soon; her tears had given her away. I wasn’t hungry either – I felt sick. I wanted to be there in Diane’s kitchen, where the grown-ups were talking. I wanted to know why my mum was red-eyed from crying and why the strange man had come to our house and left Dad looking so devastated. But they wouldn’t tell me.
    Life carried on as before but strangely without the constant arguments. Instead, Mum and Dad moved around the house as though they were robots. They said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, but I noticed something else: Dad didn’t put his arms around Mum’s waist the way he used to. There were no more smiles or jollities. He’d stopped