Finding Audrey

What were they looking at? What?

I’m totally flummoxed. Mum and Dad have never been like that before. They were so anxious that I shouldn’t know what they were talking about, they were kind of aggressive. I mean, Mum was almost snarly.

So whatever it is, they don’t want me to have even the slightest inkling of it.

I’m nonplussed. I can’t even go through all the possible theories in my head and eliminate them, because I don’t have any theories. Maybe something to do with Dr Sarah? That’s all I can think of. Maybe she wants to do some weirdo experimental treatment on me, and Mum and Dad are mad at her for asking?

But Dr Sarah wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t just land something like that on me. Would she? And Mum and Dad wouldn’t call her they.

That evening at supper I bring it up again, and both Mum and Dad practically bite my head off.

‘It was nothing,’ says Mum, eating her pasta very fast and crossly. ‘Nothing.’

‘Mum, it was something.’

‘You don’t need to know every something in the world, Audrey.’

As she says that, I feel a sudden shaft of fear – is Mum ill or something? Is there some massive family tragedy coming along to hit us like a juggernaut and that’s why she won’t say anything?

But no, she said damage Audrey. And they. It’s all about they, whoever they are.