Free Squishy Taylor and a Question of Trust by Ailsa Wild

I’m lying on my tummy with my eye jammed against the telescope so I can see into the building opposite. The office straight across from our bedroom belongs to Boring Lady. She’s typing away as usual. Her face has no feelings on it.
    But something is very wrong – she doesn’t usually work in the middle of the night.
    ‘What are you doing?’ Vee grumbles in the bunk above me. It squeaks as she rolls over and my eye shifts against the telescope. We have a triple bunk-bed and I’m in the middle. It’s awesome for bunk-bed tricks and the worst when you want to do night-time spying.
    ‘Our bonus sister is being crazy as usual,’ Jessie says from beneath me.
    When I first moved in here, Dad said I should think of Jessie and Vee as a bonus. I thought he was just trying to make me feel better about moving in. But it turns out it’s true: the twins mostly are a bonus. So we never say ‘stepsister’ anymore. Bonus sisters forever.
    ‘I’m not being crazy,’ I say. ‘I’m watching Boring Lady.’
    ‘But Squishy ,’ Jessie says. Everyone calls me Squishy, even my teachers. I’m Squishy Taylor – like the gangster Squizzy Taylor, only better. ‘Squishy, it’s the middle of the night. Boring Lady isn’t working.’
    ‘But that’s the thing,’ I say. ‘She is working.’
    ‘No way!’
    Vee does her Rolling-Spin-Drop manoeuvre from the top bunk so she’s lying beside me.
    The telescope is ginormous and sits on a tripod. It’s an old one from Alice, my bonus mum. Her university didn’t want it anymore, so she gave it to Jessie. Jessie checks the stars and her astronomy app every night.

    Vee has nudged me aside to look through the telescope. ‘No way !’ she says again, but this time she’s not saying it because she doesn’t believe me.
    ‘Guys!’ Jessie says. ‘Go back to sleep. It’s …’ I can hear her rolling over to check. ‘It’s two fifty-seven in the morning.’
    Vee doesn’t move and her voice sounds kind of mushed from her cheek being pressed against the telescope. ‘Boring Lady’s just typing. Like she always is. Except it’s two fifty-seven in the morning.’
    ‘This is so weird,’ I say. I love weird stuff . I wish there was more weird stuff in my life.
    ‘This is so cool,’ Vee says.
    ‘Go back to bed,’ Jessie says.
    For twins, Jessie and Vee are pretty much opposites.
    ‘I’ll tell Mum,’ Jessie threatens.
    As if.
    There’s no way Jessie’s going to wake up Alice. Not with Baby teething like he has been this week.
    But Vee pushes away from the telescope. She drops down into Jessie’s bed, gives her a growling tickly squeeze and then does the Return-Leap-Roll . It’s a special jump we invented to get from the bottom bunk, up on the desk, across the top of the wardrobe and back onto the top bunk. It’s pretty much a ninja move.
    ‘Goodnight,’ Vee says.
    I push my curls out of the way to check the telescope again, but Boring Lady has finally packed up and left. Her office light is off.
    I wonder if we should stop calling her Boring Lady now that she’s done something kind of interesting.
    I’m nearly asleep when I hear a knocking, bumping kind of sound on the other side of the wall. This is also weird . Mr Hinkenbushel, who lives in the apartment next door, is supposed to be away for work for the next month.

In the morning, I wake up to the smell of smoke and the sound of screams. I do a Drop-to-Running descent (always the quickest way out of my bunk) and am in the kitchen pretty much before I’m awake.
    The smoke is from Dad burning crepes and the screams are from Baby, who is unusually angry this morning.
    ‘Here,’ Dad says and thrusts the flipper towards me. Then he picks up Baby from his rug. Baby stops crying.
    I loosen the edge of the crepe and then flip it. I’m an expert crepe-flipper .
    ‘Thanks, Squish,’ Dad says.
    It’s not until later, when we’re sitting around the table having breakfast, that I remember the noises next door. I get the