Free Me Myself Milly by Penelope Bush Page A

guess what I just did! It was the funniest thing ever,’ she finally managed to say.
    I didn’t look up from my book but that didn’t deter Lily.
    ‘It was so funny! I went to the woods with Mark, pretending to be you!’ I turned over so I had my back to her. I tried to concentrate on my book but it was impossible. I was
furious. Lily could see thatI wasn’t enjoying her joke.
    ‘It was easy,’ she said. ‘I heard you arranging it in the barn. I was in there all the time – bet you didn’t know that. I heard him telling you not to tell me
about it. I can’t believe you listened to him. So anyhow,I just turned up at the gate at half seven and simpered a bit and didn’t say much. He took me to this place in the woods where
we were meant to sit quietly or something and wait for some badgers. It was dead boring so after a while I told him that I didn’t care about the badgers but I’d fancied him for ages
– and then I kissed him! And all the time he thought it was you!’

Chapter Ten
    In the end we didn’t get to meet our new neighbours until the end of the week. Mum was having a bad week, I could tell. I was pretty concerned when I took her a cup of
tea one morning and saw a bottle of whisky next to the bottle of pills on her bedside cabinet. I put the tea down and she just about managed a ‘thanks’ before rolling over and pulling
the cover over her head. I took the bottle of whisky into the kitchen. I thought about pouring it down the sink but didn’t dare, so I put it in the cupboard under the sink with all the
cleaning products. At least Mum would know what I thought when she saw it was gone. But then I imagined her looking for it and getting cross with me, so I took it out and put it on the draining
board.
    When I got home on Friday Mum was in the kitchen putting some biscuits she’d made into a tin. She insisted we go straight upstairs and give them to the Americans, but I said there was no
way I was going in my school uniform so she told me to hurry up and change.
    Lily was in the bedroom lounging on her bed. She was wearing her school uniform.
    ‘We’re going upstairs,’ I told her.
    ‘You might be, I’m not. I think I’ll listen at the door, though.’ She means the door at the top of the stairs in our hallway that leads to the house.
    I didn’t want to argue with her and
I
wasn’t going to let Mum down by refusing to go. I thought Lily would have been dying to see the boy; she’s way more into boys than
I am.
    We had to go outside, up the basement steps, onto the pavement and then knock on the front door. It was weird, like knocking on our own front door. I didn’t like it.
    A woman opened the door. She looked puzzled, then Mum introduced us and she was all smiles. She invited us in and we stood around in the hall while they made small talk and Mum handed over the
biscuits. I was standing next to the new downstairs shower room and I noticed that they’d put a new shower curtain up, over the glass door. Weird. Then I remembered Lily, listening behind the
basement door. Good luck to her because Mum and the woman, who had introduced herself as Mrs Wade, had moved into the kitchen.
    It all sounded a bit formal. Mum didn’t say she was Ms Pond, she said, ‘I’m Summer and this is Milly, I wanted to say, ‘It’s Emily, actually,’ but I
didn’t.
    Mum and Mrs Wade had got through talking about the flight and the move and the fact that Mr Wade had gone to the university to get settled in because he started work next week, before Mrs Wade
had looked at me and said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, how rude, you must want to meet Devlin.’
    I could hardly say no, so I just smiled. Mrs Wade got her phone out and sent a quick text so I assumed Devlin had gone out and she was telling him to come home. But then I heard someone coming
down the stairs. The boy walked into the kitchen, still holding his phone.
    ‘This is my son, Devlin,’ said Mrs Wade.
    He didn’t smile, just sort of