Read Online The Story of Before by Susan Stairs - Free Book Online

it, but we don’t want to fall out with the neighbours and we only after moving in.’
    ‘Well, I suppose so,’ she said. ‘But don’t be making a habit of it.’
    ‘Would you look at the two of them,’ Dad said. ‘Dead to the world.’
    Mam tucked Kev’s blanket around his little legs.
    ‘Do you think they’re happy?’ she asked. ‘I mean, do you think we did the right thing, moving?’
    I breathed in and out more deeply and squirmed a bit to make my ‘sleep’ more authentic.
    ‘No doubt about it,’ Dad said, stroking my hair. ‘Best decision we ever made.’
    Mam said nothing. I wondered why she’d asked if moving had been the right thing. Maybe she wasn’t sure any more. It was obvious she didn’t like the idea of Dad painting the
Lawlesses’ kitchen for free. I felt a bit guilty; it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t lied about the snake. But then again, I’d seen the way Dad had acted with Liz at the
door, and how he was all red when he came back to the table. Maybe he’d have offered to paint her kitchen even if there’d been no mention of the snake at all.

SEVEN

    August came around, and with it the horrible realization that summer wasn’t going to last forever. We’d almost forgotten that we’d have to go back to school.
And not the one we’d been used to; a new one – Kilgessin National. Mam had enrolled us as soon as the offer on our house had been accepted but, at the time, September seemed so far away
we were quite sure it would never arrive.
    I was in fifth class, and found myself sharing it with the twins, Tina and Linda, and Aidan Farrell. Like most of his brothers and sisters, Aidan had started school much too early; he was nearly
a whole year younger than me. Geraldine Farrell’s insistence on rushing her offspring out from under her feet meant that in almost every room of Kilgessin National, a Farrell was responsible
for slowing progress. Along with Tracey and Shayne, Mel and Sandra were in sixth class. They’d started school together when they were little – Mam thought it’d be easier that
way.
    One Saturday, a few weeks after school started, Dad asked Mel to help him carry the paint around to the Lawlesses’ house after breakfast so he could get started on the job. Sandra had
already left to go to her first Irish dancing lesson in the church hall. She’d spent ages deciding what to wear until Mam went to the bedroom and made her mind up for her. She sat sulking on
the stairs, picking at the raised seam of the stretchy, maroon slacks she hated while she waited for Tracey and the twins to call for her as arranged. Just before half past nine the doorbell rang
and I watched the four of them link arms and skip down the driveway. Mam had half-heartedly tried to get me to join them. She knew right well she’d never persuade me to go, but I suppose she
thought it was her duty to at least attempt to encourage me.
    As soon as Sandra left, I went upstairs to the bedroom and took my jewellery box down from the top of the wardrobe. Before I opened it, I examined the almost invisible Sellotape seal I’d
stuck across the opening; as far as I could make out, it was still intact. I was sick of Sandra going through my stuff and then denying it. At least this way, there was proof if she’d been at
it. I lifted the loose bottom and, very carefully, took Shayne’s snake and placed it in the patch pocket of my skirt. I left the tongue sitting on its little bed of cotton wool, thinking it
looked like a teeny tiny version of the snake itself. I closed the box, applied a fresh piece of Sellotape, and put it back in the wardrobe.
    I touched the snake in my pocket. I liked the way it felt: sort of wet-but-dry. I’d decided to go outside, hoping maybe I’d see Shayne on the green. I imagined myself talking to him,
looking him right in the eye, all the while squishing the rubbery length of the snake in my fingers.
    Mam was kneeling on the stairs, hoovering. It was one of