The Taming of Lilah May by Vanessa Curtis

of a row, which ends with Dad being hauled out of Morley Zoo and summoned home with a face like an angry lion. And there’s a ‘family conference’, which is dreadful, because Jay won’t speak and just sits sunk in his chair with his hair falling over his face, and I feel like a spare part and can’t speak either. And Mum and Dad just go on and on firing endless questions at Jay, with their voices getting higher and more hysterical, and he won’t answer any of them.
    That evening he stays up in his room.
    Mum fiddles around with her uneaten spaghetti, winding strings of meaty pasta around her fork and then letting them unravel again in an anti-clockwise direction, until Dad reaches out, takes her fork and puts it on her plate, like she’s a little child.
    â€˜Lilah,’ he says.
    Uh-oh. I know what’s coming, and I don’t like it.
    â€˜We need to know what Jay’s going through,’ he says. ‘Obviously something is wrong. But he won’t talk to us. Maybe he’ll talk to you?’
    I’m peeling the lid off a raspberry yoghurt, but I look up at that.
    â€˜He doesn’t really talk to me either, any more,’ I say. ‘Not about anything important, anyway.’
    â€˜But you used to be so close,’ says Mum. Her eyes are wet with tears. ‘Won’t you at least try?’
    I put my yoghurt down uneaten and scrape back my chair.
    â€˜I’ll try,’ I say. ‘But he’s probably just going to yell at me.’
    Jay doesn’t yell at me.
    He doesn’t get the chance.
    I go up to his room and this time, for some reason, I decide not to knock.
    There’s a part of me that’s already starting to feel angry.
    I’m not an angry child yet, so it’s like a baby alien has just set up home in my stomach and started waving his arms and legs about. It feels strange.
    I’m thinking about Mum’s sad face and Dad having to leave a pregnant lioness about to give birth to lots of helpless little baby lion cubs, and about how every weekend is now dominated by us all worrying about what Jay’s going to do or not do, and a little part of me is stirring up and feeling vivid and alivewith anger. And it’s wiping out all the good memories of the holiday on the boat and our childhood and all the games we used to play. So I don’t even think of knocking politely on my brother’s door, I just grip the handle and barge in.
    It takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom.
    There’s music blaring out and the window is shut, so the room stinks.
    Jay’s on the floor with his back up against the bed and his head drooping down towards his chest, and when I come in he kind of looks up, but as if in slow motion, and his eyes are frowning at me like he doesn’t recognise me. And then he speaks in a voice that sounds as if he’s drunk about twenty cans of lager, and he says, ‘Get the hell out of my bedroom, little girl.’ His voice is low and menacing, like the rumble of a train in the distance that’s about to speed up and mow me down, so I start to back towards the door, but by then it’s too late, and I’ve already seen it.
    There’s a tin on his lap, and some sort of needle lying next to him, and Jay’s got a thin, black band pulled tight around his soft, white arm.
    I’ve seen people doing it on television.
    I know what it is.
    â€˜You tell Mum and Dad, you’re dead,’ says my brother in this new voice I don’t recognise. ‘Got it?’
    I stumble out of the room backwards.
    And I spend the night alone in my room.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    When we go and report the strange call from Jay’s phone, the police aren’t very helpful or sympathetic.
    â€˜Don’t get your hopes up,’ they say. ‘We’ll trace the call, but to be honest, anybody could have that mobile and be making calls on it.’
    â€˜But why would they call somebody from