Almost True Read Online Free

sisters.
    â€˜Do you remember the horse?’ she says. ‘You loved it.’
    What
is
she going on about? I never had a toy horse, I have green eyes, and I certainly never looked as strange as this kid. She must be getting mixed up. Old people get a bit confused, don’t they?
    â€˜Um. No,’ I say as politely as possible.
    â€˜So how is your mum?’ asks Helen and it sounds like she’s also on her best behaviour. ‘This must be a terribly difficult situation for her. Thank goodness Julie’s able to be with her.’
    Julie is my gran. I suppose Louise must have told Helen her name.
    â€˜Err. I don’t know how she is,’ I say. ‘She was in hysterics in the police car. Gran had to slap her face.’
    â€˜I’m not surprised. Poor Nicki.’
    I’m scanning my memory trying to think if Gran or Nicki ever mentioned knowing rich people calledHelen and Patrick. But I’m certain they didn’t.
    â€˜Well, Julie’s wonderful in a crisis,’ says Helen. ‘At least you know your mum is being well looked after.’
    To my horror my eyes fill up. My lamination must be peeling off. I don’t want my gran to look after my mum. I want her to look after me. I quickly turn my head away from Helen, and catch sight of a photo which is definitely me. It’s the school photo taken in the last year at St Luke’s. It’s in a little frame, lined up with a row of pictures of other kids in school uniform. I suppose they must be Helen and Patrick’s grandchildren. So what’s my picture doing there?
    Jesus.
    Oh my
God.
    Jesus
Christ.
    They can’t be. Louise can’t have. But what other explanation can there be?
    â€˜Would you like a sandwich, darling?’ asks Helen, as I’m wildly searching for alternative theories. That one word ‘darling’ settles it. You don’t use that for a random teenager who’s just been dumped on your doorstep as a favour to a friend. Not unless you’re bonkers or American, you don’t.
Jesus.
How could my auntie do this to me?
    I nod, struck completely dumb, and she goes into the kitchen. Left alone, I search frantically for somethingthat will tell me if I’m right. I spot some letters on the mantelpiece and I pick one up and turn it over, looking for the name that’s going to tell me that I’m right. There’s nothing on the envelope so I pull out the letter and scan it for names.
    God.
Mr Patrick Tyler.
God.
    They’re not the parents of Sally the posh Geography teacher. They’re the parents of Danny Tyler, my waste-ofspace, completely absent father, who’s never bothered to contact us since he pissed off when I was two.
    Right on cue, Patrick enters the room. Mr Patrick Tyler, who must be my grandad. Patrick, who I very nearly punched in the teeth. What a brilliant start to our relationship.
    â€˜Tyler, I’d prefer it if you didn’t touch our personal papers,’ he says, and the devil dog snarls at me. I drop the letter right away, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to speak again.
    Helen’s made me a cheese sandwich, but I’m too choked to eat it. She looks worried, and says, ‘You must be exhausted. Shall I show you your room, and you can have a shower and a rest?’
    â€˜Yeah, thanks,’ I mumble. I need to escape. She leads me up two flights of stairs and says, ‘I’m going to put you in the attic because you’ll have more space and privacy up there.’
    I imagine a dusty, dark, bare, spidery room. ‘Yeah, fine, whatever.’
    But when we get up there, it’s not like that at all. It’s big, with a wooden floor and pale blue slanty walls and a window looking out over a huge garden. There’s a whole bathroom just for me. If you look up, you can see the beams criss-crossing up into the roof.
    There’s a set of bunk-beds at one end, and where the wall gets slopey there’s a