Creepy and Maud by Dianne Touchell

not. I feel the same way I did when I had to do the readings in chapel. Everyone is looking at me,everyone expects something from me, but my voice is no longer my own. It is being suctioned out of me and dissipates immediately, so the only thing that is real is the returning echo. But it is a Chinese whisper, this echo. It spins around the Nanna-void and is forced back inside me, carrying the weight of everyone else’s breath. It is not me anymore. I have become a kidney bean myself. Creepy laughed at the Nanna-void. Perhaps that is the only right thing to do.
     
    I saw him at the cemetery. I wondered if I looked nice. Mum picked out the dress for me to wear. It was too big. It did not really match the hat. I stood there feeling clammy and all poured out and something else I did not recognise at first. I felt aware. Aware that my dress was too big and my hat did not match. Aware of my shoes sinking into the grass. Aware that to Creepy, in that moment, I must look just like the big hole in the ground they were going to put Nanna in forever. I tried to imagine being in that hole. I tried to imagine I was a be-ing-in-the-hole. With dirt in my hair and my mouth, my arms pinned to my sides by earth as heavy and cold as Mum’s funeral face. But all I wanted to do was get back to my safe space, the space between the windows, where Creepy would suck me into his big binoculars and I could leave my bloodied fingerprints inside his head. A lot of people turned up at Nanna’s funeral. I thoughtthey were Mum and Dad’s friends, but it turns out they were Nanna’s. Mum couldn’t wait to get them out of the house. I heard her telling Dad that all their mourning was making the place look untidy. She said it with a tight smile and Dad rubbed her back, but I think she really meant it. It is as if emotions, anyone’s emotions, make her feel vulnerable. She put food out for Nanna’s friends. That was the day Creepy gave me the little gold apple. I wear it on my bellybutton ring. And that was the day we touched for the first time. Just our fingers over the fence, and just a little bit, but it sent a funny feeling down my spine. It was not excitement. It was keener than that. It was hope. A small helix of trust twanged my spine and made it shiver with expectancy. I recognised the sensation immediately. It was the same feeling I get when I pull. Comfort, anticipation, and even more than that: optimism. I thought: he could be my friend.
     
    It is not often that my dad and Creepy’s dad actually hit each other. I like it when they do. It removes the focus from me for hours, sometimes days. I also like that these fights are not like fights in the movies or on telly. There is never that satisfying cracking sound of reciprocal punches hitting bone. And no one ever stays on their feet. The two of them just roll about on the lawn together, making noises as if they were in love. That is what it looks like, anyway.
     
    I watch them. They don’t actually connect with one another much. Fists flail about, but it all descends pretty quickly into a mixture of salsa dancing and wrestling. They do girl things to each other, too, like hair pulling and slapping. I am pretty sure someone has been bitten. Creepy’s mum shadows the action, throwing her arms around and screaming. That dog of theirs with the strange name is almost rabid with excitement. It is all going perfectly until I notice my mum. She is crying.
     
    She just sits on the front step and cries. I have never seen her cry before. It scares me. And it is not just a cry, it is a bawl. Her face is as fractured and raw as a freshly peeled walnut. It puts a damper on things pretty quickly. One by one, everyone notices the crying lady. Creepy’s dad tells that dog to shut up. Creepy’s mum goes back inside. My dad sits on the lawn for a bit before getting up and going in. He walks straight past my mum.
     
    I feel scared and I hate her for it. I sit on the front step next to her and it is as if