Free At My Door by Deb Fitzpatrick

The doorbell ding-dongs, waking me up. Pixie barks. I hear a rush of tyres, and then the front door bangs. Weird. It’s really late. But I can hear Mum and Dad talking softly so I relax and drop back to sleep.

    I hear crying. At least I think I do. Maybe I’m dreaming?
    I come back up through the layers of sleep like a massive bounce-up on the trampoline. Itfeels like I’m actually moving and I sit up as I wake.
    I turn on my bedside lamp – the orange one Dad bought me that clips to the headboard of my bed. I can still hear the crying and I’m definitely not dreaming now.
    I reverse-flip so my head is at the door-end of my bed, the door I have luckily left open a smidge. I can hear voices, and even catch a word here and there.
    But then Harry presses his intercom buzzer and I can’t hear anything else.
    The problem with the intercom is that Harry designed it and he has the master box – of course. In
his
room. And if he’s buzzing me, the buzzing will only stop if I hit my receive button, or if he stops pressing, which of course he
never
does. So I can’t ignore it. I can’t ignore him. And the sound’s so rude and …
buzzy
. Sometimes I press receive and don’t speak, just to stop the noise.
    To make it worse, Harry designed the intercom so I don’t have a buzzer function on
my
unit, just the poxy receive button. As usual,
he
has all the power. Older brothers deal in power.
    â€˜Floppy, what’s going on?’ Harry’s voice crackles through the intercom
.
    â€˜
Shhh. I don’t know. I’m trying to listen. And that’s not my name. Poppy starts with a P – or do you need help with your spelling?’
    Bzzzzzz,
he presses
.
    â€˜Stop doing that and I’ll be able to hear!’
    Bzzz bzzz bzzz
, he presses, and then shuts up for a bit.
    I hear more talking from the lounge room. Voices I don’t recognise.
    And all the while, and not in any dream, the really sad sound of a small child crying.

I do the special knock on the wall I share with Harry. It means I want him to buzz me. Because, of course, I can’t buzz him.
    Bzzzzz.
    â€˜I’m going out there to see what’s going on,’ I whisper into the box.
    â€˜Okay,’ he says. ‘Report back pronto!’
    â€˜Okay!’
    I swing open my door to just before The Squeak, and squeeze through the gap. I ghost across the corridor and stay low against the wall while I creep towards the lounge room.
    There’s Mum and Dad – and a policemanand policewoman! T HE P OLICE. IN OUR L OUNGE R OOM !! And a kid. A little kid, bawling its eyes out. Not a baby, but not a proper child, either. It has black wispy hair and looks like a chubby elf. Mum is sitting on the floor next to it, going
shh shh shhhh
, over and over. And I hear Dad say, ‘There was a knock on the screen door, about 9.45, then I heard a car drive off – really fast. It burnt rubber. I opened the door and there she was, just there on the doorstep, crying.’
    â€˜Poor little thing,’ Mum croons, then goes back to her
shh shh shhhh
s.
    Dad keeps talking. ‘I was expecting to see old Mrs Mackay from next door – she often has trouble closing the blinds, you know, or turning off her oil heater, and she comes over to ask for help.
    â€˜I certainly wasn’t expecting to find … well, she was … very distressed,’ he says, shaking his head.
    â€˜And she had this green blanket,’ Mum says,holding it up. ‘And this note was pinned to it.’
    â€˜And that was all that was with her?’ the policeman asks. ‘Nothing else? No bag of clothes or anything?’
    â€˜No,’ Dad says, ‘just what she’s wearing – the Wondersuit thing – with the blanket around her, and the note pinned to it.’
    The policeman looks at the note again and reads it out loud, ‘
Please look after
… Hmmm, how do you pronounce this:
M-E-I
? Is