Slated

Chapter Three

Dad pulls my bag out of the boot and walks towards the house, whistling, keys in hand. Mum and Amy get out of the car, then turn back when I don't follow.

'Come along, Kyla.' Mum's voice is impatient.

I push at the door, hard and then harder, but nothing happens. I look up at Mum, my stomach beginning to twist as the look on her face matches her tone.

Then Amy opens the door from the outside. 'You pull this handle down, on the inside of the door, and then push it open. All right?'

She shuts the door again, and I grasp the handle and do as she says. The door swings open and I step out, glad to straighten my legs and stretch after so long in the car. One hour had turned to three due to traffic delays and diversions, and had Mum getting more annoyed as each one passed.

Mum grabs my wrist. 'Look. 4.4 just because she can't work out a door. God, this is going to be hard work.'

And I want to object, say that is unfair and it isn't the door but how you are being about it. But I don't know what I should or shouldn't say. Instead I say nothing and bite the inside of my cheek, hard.

Amy slips an arm across my shoulders as Mum follows Dad inside. 'She doesn't mean it; she's just cranky that your first dinner is going to be late. Anyhow, you haven't been in a car before, have you? How should you know?'

She pauses and I don't know what to say, again, but this time it is because she is being nice. So I try a smile, a small one, but it is for real this time.

Amy smiles back and hers is wider. 'Have a look around before we go in?' she says.

Where the car is parked to the right of the house is all small stones that crunch and move underfoot as we walk. A square of green grass covers the front garden, a massive tree – oak? – to the left. Its leaves are a mix of yellow, orange and red, some spilling messily underneath. Leaves fall in autumn I remind myself, and what is it now? The 13th of September. There are a few red and pink straggly flowers either side of the front door, petals dropping on the ground. And, all around me, so much space. So quiet after the hospital, and London. I stand on the grass and breathe the cool air in deep. It tastes damp and full of life and the ending of life, like those fallen leaves.

'Come in?' Amy says, and I follow her through the front door into the hall. Leading off it is a room with sofas and lamps, tables. A huge flat black screen dominates one wall. A TV? It is much bigger than the one they had in recreation at the hospital, not that they let me near it after the first time. Watching made my nightmares worse.

This room leads to another: there are long work surfaces, with cupboards above and below. And a massive oven that Mum is bending over just now, putting a pan inside.

'Go to your room and unpack before dinner, Kyla,' Mum says, and I jump.

Amy takes my hand. 'This way,' she says, and pulls me back to the hall. I follow her up the stairs, to another hall with three doors and more stairs going up.

'We're on this floor, Mum and Dad upstairs. See, this is my door.' She points to the right. 'That one at the end is the bathroom, we'll share. They have their own one upstairs. And this is your room.' She points left.

I look at Amy.

'Go on.'

The door is part open; I push it and go in.

Much bigger than my hospital room. My bag is already on the floor where Dad must have put it. There is a dressing table with drawers and a mirror above it, a wardrobe next. No sink. A big wide window that looks out over the front of the house.