Free October by Gabrielle Lord Page B

cupboards.
    We moved through the ground floor, room byroom, including the study where I’d first seen that phrase scribbled in my uncle’s handwriting: ‘The Ormond Riddle?’ There’d been a big clean-up in the study since last time. The drafting board and shelf tops were bare.
    In the small, windowless room down the back of the hall, which had mostly been used to store gardening stuff, I found three of Rafe’s red-lidded containers, all on top of each other.
    I closed the door, switched on the light, sat down and pulled the containers towards me. I lifted the lid off the first one and began going through it.
    I don’t know what I was hoping to find, exactly, but I was disappointed when nothing sparked my interest. The files inside mostly contained diagrams of complex protein and carbohydrate chains, botanical and chemistry notes—stuff I’d seen back in January. Other than that, there were a few wads of old receipts and tax returns. Nothing to do with the DMO.
    The door behind me opened and I looked up to see Boges’s expectant face.
    ‘Nothing,’ I said, closing the containers and pushing them back into their original positions. ‘You?’
    ‘Nope. Nothing. I think we’ve covered the ground floor,’ said Boges. ‘Upstairs?’
    At the top of the stairs Boges went one way, and I went the other. The first room I approached was Gabbi’s. I stood in the doorway and slowly took everything in.
    Boges had told me, a while ago, that Rafe had converted two rooms into one—an entire wall had been taken out—so that Gab’s medical equipment could easily fit when they brought her home for care. But now, without the hospital stuff taking up space, it looked like Gab had herself the bedroom of her dreams.
    She had a new big four-poster bed with one of those canopy things on top, with soft, white fabric falling down from it—the kind of bed you’d see in a story about a princess. In one corner stood a floor lamp that looked over a pink bean-bag and a mountain of cushions, next to a long bookshelf filled with her favourite stories, and a small desk. A plush rug sat in the middle of the room, and on the wall opposite her bed was a wide wardrobe and an ornate, white dressing table with a frameless mirror and matching chair tucked in front.
    A million memories seethed through my mind as I noticed more and more familiar things. The well-loved teddy bears and dolls on Gabbi’s bed reminded me of a hundred stories.
    Stuck on the mirror above her dressing table,I found the funny cat cartoon I’d drawn and flown through her window. Impulsively I grabbed a black texta from a pencil case on her desk and added a top hat and curly moustache to the cat’s face. That would make her laugh.

    ‘Cal,’ called out Boges. ‘Check this out.’
    I followed Boges’s voice down to the far end of the hallway. ‘What is it?’
    ‘Look around you,’ he said, shining his torch over the room we were in.
    I did as he said and my jaw dropped.
    It was my old room! It wasn’t exactly my old room, because we weren’t in Richmond anymore, but it was like my room had been picked up and carried here exactly as it had been. Suddenly I had this massive urge to just run and dive into my bed, wrap my old quilt around me, hug my pillow and shut my eyes.
    Boges grabbed my shoulder, stopping me. ‘No, dude. We don’t want them to know we were here. Don’t touch anything. Just remember what we’re here for. You can’t take anything from this room, OK?’
    I looked around at my things and frowned. A photo of me—my last school photo—sat on top of my pillow like a sad reminder. Every little thing I could see helped make up the pieces of me that were missing. The pieces of who I used to be.
    But Boges was right. I couldn’t even take some fresh clothes out of my drawers.
    ‘I’m going to head for Rafe’s room,’ I said to Boges, as I walked away. I had to stay focused.
    The place had changed a lot since I’d beensnooping through it way back