Shadows in the Twilight Read Online Free Page B

spoke he realised what a silly question that
was. All the pieces were scattered over the cork floor
tiles. If they were going to finish the puzzle, they'd have
to start all over again.
    Gertrud put a red clown's nose over the hole beneath
her eyes. She usually had a handkerchief stuffed into the
hole where her nose had been, but when she was going
to think, or when she was in a good mood, she would put
on the red nose.
    She used to call it her Thinking Nose.
    'Never mind the puzzle,' Gertrud exclaimed. 'We're
going to do something else.'
    'What?' wondered Joel.
    Gertrud didn't answer, but looked mysterious.
    Then she opened a wardrobe and pulled out lots of
clothes in a heap on the floor.
    'We're going to change,' she said.
    Joel didn't know what she was talking about.
    'Change?' he asked. 'Change what?'
    'Everything that's normal or usual,' shouted Gertrud.
'Everything that's usual and boring.'
    Joel still didn't understand what she was talking about.
And so he didn't know if what was going to happen
would be exciting, or if he would be embarrassed.
    'Let's get dressed up,' said Gertrud, and started sorting
through the pile of clothes. 'Let's start by changing
ourselves.'
    Joel was all for that.
    He liked dressing up. When he came home from school
and was waiting for the potatoes to boil, he would often
try on some of his father's clothes. A few years ago it had
just been a game, but this last year Joel had been dressing
up in Samuel's clothes to find out what it was like to be
grown up. And he had discovered that although,
obviously, clothes for adults were bigger than clothes for
children, that was not the only difference. Lots of other
things were different. For instance, clothes for adults had
special pockets that children didn't need. Pockets to keep
a watch in. Or a little pocket inside an ordinary pocket
where you could keep small change.
    Joel had noticed that he started thinking in a different
way when he was wearing Samuel's clothes. He sometimes
looked into the mirror and spoke to his reflection as
if he had been his own father. He would ask the reflection
how he'd got on at school, and if he'd remembered to call
in at the baker's and buy some bread. The reflection never
answered. But Joel used to take an invisible watch from
the appropriate pocket, sigh deeply and urge the
reflection not to forget the next day.
    He had once discovered a dress right at the back of
Samuel's wardrobe. It was hanging in a special bag that
smelled of mothballs. Joel assumed it was one that
Mummy Jenny had forgotten when she walked out on
them. Who else could it belong to? Sara, the waitress in
the local bar, was much too fat to get into it. Besides, she
never stayed the night when she came to visit.
    Joel had forbidden it.
    He hadn't actually said anything. But he had
forbidden it even so.
    He had thought it so intensively that Sara had no
doubt been able to read his thoughts.
    So it must be his mum's dress.
    But was it absolutely certain that she'd forgotten it
when she packed her suitcase and left?
    Had she left it behind on purpose?
    So that it would be there if ever she came back?
    Joel had taken it carefully out of the bag. It was blue
and had a belt attached to the waist.
    He had spent ages staring at the dress as it lay on the
kitchen table. He'd looked at it for so long that the
potatoes had boiled dry in the saucepan. He only
stopped staring at the dress when the kitchen started
filling with smelly smoke from the burnt potatoes.
    He put it back into the wardrobe.
    But a few days later he took it out again. This time, he
tried it on.
    He had the feeling that he'd never been as close to
Mummy Jenny as at that moment.
    He stood on a chair in front of the cracked shaving
mirror, so that he could see the belt round his waist.
    Then he returned the dress to the wardrobe.
    He'd never been able to make up his mind whether
his mum had forgotten it, or left it behind on purpose.
    But he couldn't think about that now. Gertrud was
wading