The Book of Rapture by Nikki Gemmell Page B

days.
    Mouse steps back. ‘But you seem … afraid.’ Because he’s nervy, trembly, like a horse before a race.
    Soli leaps in. ‘What’s happening? Where are you going?’
    B holds up his hands, shielding his face.
    ‘What if there’s a fire?’ Tidge. Sitting calmly under the window, holding the doll. And he has a point, a good one.
    ‘Yes, a fire, we need a key!’ Mouse.
    ‘Imagine if we’re stuck,’ Soli insists, ‘we’ll burn to death.’
    B looks from one to the other as if they’re the most morbidly strange children he’s ever met. He takes the key from his pocket with a deep, doubting breath. Wipes the back of his hand across his lips. ‘This can only be used in an emergency. You can’t go outside. For anything else.’
    The kids nod, saucer-eyed.
    B walks to the book and places the key carefully on it. ‘You’ll never see your mum and dad again if something goes wrong.’ He shuts the door behind him and instantly opens it again. ‘Whoops, I need the key to lock you in, don’t I?’ He laughs nervously — he never laughs nervously — and his lopsided grinis not quite right, it’s too stiffly in place with a wobble in his lip, a new tic. He snatches the key and backs out. Locks them in. It shoots under the door as if alive with a force of its own.
    The kids stare. Hesitate. Lunge.
    Soli wins. Of course. She holds the key to her chest and rises on her toes like a pint-sized Mary Poppins about to swoop off a clear foot from the ground — Tidge shuts his eyes and chants, ‘Please don’t sing, please don’t sing’ — then she drops to her heels with a defeated thud. ‘Mum and Dad,’ she whispers fearfully. ‘We can’t .’
    ‘I’ll mind it if you want,’ Tidge volunteers, all sweetness and light.
    His sister looks at him like yeah, right.
Do not seek refuse in anyone but yourselves.

64
    Tidge’s nose is pressed to the door. ‘It smells pretty good out there, guys.’ A cheeky grin.
    Mouse knows what it means.
    Soli too. ‘No, no, no.’ She wags her finger.
    ‘I was only commentating,’ Tidge huffs. ‘I’m going to be a private investigator when I grow up. I’m in training.’
    ‘Uh-huh.’ She takes the key from her pocket. Rises. ‘No,’ she whispers to herself, slipping it back.
    ‘I’m still starving.’ Tidge rolls onto his back, laughing, rubbing his stomach.
    He’s now circling the trolley. Dividing everything into three. ‘B’s left an awful lot of peanuts. And the bananas are going spotty. And the apples have bruises. There’s not much that’s useful here, actually. He wasn’t thinking or was in an awful rush or—’
    ‘He’s done it deliberately,’ Mouse concludes.
    ‘Stop it, boys, stop it.’
    ‘I’m hun-greeeeee.’ Tidge, later.
    ‘What’s that, lovie?’ Mouse, holding a hugely theatrical hand to his ear.
    ‘I’m HUN-GREEEEEEE; Tidge giggles back.
    Soli buries her head in her hands and groans. Despite yourself you laugh, remembering those golden days at Salt Cottagewhen it was like the four of them existed on this earth to bring laughter into your life; your beautiful, buoyant coterie; all those days burnished with them. The varnish of them all, glowing you alive, and you are so thankful for that no matter what your existence is now because you lived, truly lived, once.
And the day star arise in your hearts.

65
    ‘Why couldn’t I have been the perfect one? The one who’s … cherished.’ Mouse watches Soli pacing the room like a dog in the back of a stationary pick-up.
    ‘The squeaky wheel on the bike always gets the attention, mate,’ she responds, fierce, like he should get it. ‘They never worry about me. I never get any hovering. And I don’t look like any of you guys, either.’ You lean; there’s a pale, soft underbelly in her voice that she rarely allows out. ‘Maybe I was adopted.’ Tremulous, younger than she’s sounded for years. Oh, love. She’s blue-eyed and black-haired and none of the rest of you are but it means