Read Online The Shadow Cabinet by Maureen Johnson - Free Book Online Page B

hook.”
    Boo was shaking as she said these words. Callum drew into himself, his muscles straining against the fabric of his coat. He walked to the wall and back. The air between us felt like it was twitching.
    â€œ
If
this happened, yeah?” Callum’s London accent had never seemed so gruff, so foreign to my ears. “
If
this happened—if you did this to him—then we have to find him. But if he was really here, wouldn’t he have come to us?”
    â€œIt happened,” I said.
    â€œYou didn’t stay for what happened next,” Boo added. “The lights in the hospital went out. The window in his room shattered and broke.”
    This didn’t seem to do much to endear me to Callum.
    â€œBut he wasn’t there,” Callum said.
    â€œThat’s not always how it works,” Boo said.
    â€œWe usually find them where they die.”
    â€œ
Usually,
” Boo said. “But this isn’t usual. We were thinking about places he lived. We checked the flat.”
    â€œSo did I,” Callum said. “Both of them.”
    Callum had checked some places. He was sort of on our side.
    â€œThen we’ll check other places he lived. Eton. Do you know where his parents live?”
    â€œSomewhere in Kent.”
    â€œIt’s probably in here somewhere,” Boo said, looking around at the bags on the floor. “Some record or something from school.”
    â€œHe wouldn’t go to his parents. He hated them. Eton too.”
    â€œMight not be a choice,” Boo said. “We have to look. He got the sight at Eton, yeah?”
    â€œWhen he—” Callum cut himself off.
    â€œHe told me,” I said, “he almost killed himself. Because of what happened to his sister. It was in a boathouse or something?”
    â€œIt’s somewhere to look.” Boo pulled out her phone and checked something.
    â€œEton is near Windsor. If we take Thorpe’s car, we can be there in an hour. Let’s find the other address.”
    She dove into the bags of paperwork alone and dug around for a few minutes before giving up.
    â€œWe’ll get it from Thorpe,” she said. “We’ll start at Eton. Rory, are you okay, being here?”
    So she had changed her mind on that one. I didn’t want to hold them back, and I didn’t want to be alone. Alone was the end of the world.
    â€œGo,” I said.
    Callum turned to the door and left. Boo came over to me and took me by the shoulders and looked me in the eye.
    â€œWe’ll sort it,” she said. “It’ll be okay, yeah?”
    â€œCallum hates me.”
    â€œHe doesn’t. He’s upset, that’s all. I’ll talk to him. I’ll sort it.”
    I didn’t know if Boo believed these things could all be fixed or was talking herself into it.
    Then it was just me and the box again, and I wasn’t going back in there. I curled up on the sofa and turned on the television for some company. I needed noise, light, something to fill the vacuum. I would use this time. I would think about this problem. Where would Stephen be? Not Eton, not his parents’. Those didn’t feel right to me. There had to be an answer.
    Or there was no answer at all. That was the other possibility.
    I closed my eyes like I had at the hospital and tried to return to Imaginary Uncle Bick and the bird store. I could see the store in my mind, hear the birds tweeting and bickering overhead, feel the little feathers fluttering down and landing on my face. I could see my uncle’s beardy face, hear his broad Southern accent saying my name, see the A Bird in Hand logo on his baseball cap—but he had no wisdom to impart to me. He was sweetly silent, and the birds flew around. As I found myself drifting, I felt like there might be someone lingering in the aisles of the store, over by the birdseed bells and tiny mirrors, and I wanted to say something about this to Uncle Bick, but he shook his