The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

on the couch. His eyes were half-closed. ‘She didn’t come,’ he said. ‘I waited for an hour. Everyone looking at me. Just this loser waiting in a bar. In a bar,’ he said again as though this were the worst part. ‘You’re the only one who cares about me.’ He swatted my head with a moist palm. ‘Love you, kitten. You and me against the world. Standing me up. What goddamn kind of move is that?’ He sighed. The question seemed to exhaust him. His eyes closed. His hand dropped to his side, palm up and fingers loosely curled as if in entreaty. His breath slowed to a heavy drag, in and out of his lungs. He looks younger when he sleeps.

Behind, in the hall, the front door swayed gently in the evening breeze. He didn’t close it properly.

I leapt down. The cord was thin today, a stylish purple. I walked to the door, feeling it tighten about my neck. As I reached the threshold, I could still breathe, but only just. The open doorway burned, white light. A heavy hand fell on my head. Ted fondled my ears clumsily. He wasn’t sound asleep.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Wanna go outside, kitten? You know that’s dangerous. It’s bad out there and you should stay safe. But if you want to …’

I wasn’t going to go outside, I said. The lord told me not to, and I won’t.

He laughed. ‘First we got to make you pretty. Give you a makeover.’

I began to back away from him, I know this mood, but he seized me in strong hands, gripped me to his side like a vice. He locked the door, thunk, thunk, thunk, then took me to the kitchen, the world swooping tipsily as he staggered. He reached up to a high cupboard and took something from it. The knife was broad and shining. I could hear the slight snick as the blade cut air. I fought hard, now, trying to reach him with my claws and teeth.

He pinched the fur on the scruff of my neck, pulled it up. The knife made a soft pretty sound as it sawed through. The air was full of dark scatters of my silky coat. He sneezed but went on, cutting chunks of fur from my neck, my back, the tip of my tail. Somehow he was holding me and the knife and grabbing handfuls of fur all at once. He gets focused when he’s drunk.

Then everything stopped. The arm holding me went rigid. Ted’s face froze and his eyes were gone. I slipped from his grip, carefully avoiding the blade where it hovered, an inch from my spine. I left him standing in the kitchen like a statue, knife in his clenched fist. Soft tufts of fur floated on the air.

I crept away from him. The cord followed me, dirty yellow now and thin like an old shoelace.

The air is cold on the shorn patches in my coat. I can forgive his attacks on my dignity, on my feelings. The LORD would want me to. But there are limits. He should not have messed with my looks. I am stinking, stinking mad. Forgive me, LORD, but he is just a selfish piece of ess aitch eye tee. Ted must learn that his actions have consequences.

I go to the living room and jump up on the bookshelf. I push the bottle of bourbon off. It smashes on the floor in thousands of beautiful shards. The stink is strong as gas. My eyes water. For a moment it reminds me uncomfortably of something, some dream I had, maybe, about being locked up in a dark place, and a murderer was pouring acid onto me … My tail switches – whether it was a dream or a TV show, the memory makes me feel bad.

I jump up onto the mantel and knock the horrible fat monster doll to the floor. She falls with a crack, spilling her babies in the air as she goes. They shatter into splinters on the floor. It is a massacre. I try to knock the picture of the Parents down, too. I know it won’t work, but I can’t help myself. I am an optimist. I don’t know what he has done to fix it so firmly – superglued it in place? The squirrels in the silver frame look more skull-like than ever. That thing is silver; I am surprised Ted hasn’t sold it. Maybe he can’t move it either!

Never mind, I have other ideas. I go quietly up to his bedroom and into his cupboard, where I pee in one of each pair of shoes.

I know the LORD won’t like it but I must have justice.

Ted is calling for me now but I won’t go to him, even though his voice is filled with black spikes.

Ted

I’m back, with the force of a blow – breathless, as if I have been punched in the guts. In one clenched fist I hold a knife. It’s the big one that I keep hidden at the back of the high cupboard in the kitchen. No one knows about it except me. The blade is broad, polished to a high sheen. Grey daylight dances along its length and the edge gleams wickedly. It has been recently sharpened.

‘Steady, Little Teddy,’ I whisper. The rhyme makes me laugh.

Start with the basics. Where and when am I? Where is easy. I check the living room. Orange rug, bright and cheerful. Ballerina standing proud and upright on her music-box stage. The holes in the plywood are grey circles, filled with rain. OK, fine. I’m home, downstairs.

When is a little more difficult. In the refrigerator there is half a gallon of milk, yellowing and sour. A jar of pickles. Otherwise it’s a bare white space. In the trash are sixteen empty cans. So, I ate and drank everything while I was away. I was surprisingly tidy, however. The kitchen’s clean. I even smell bleach.

‘Kitten,’ I call. Olivia doesn’t come.