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of hours, and the pot was burnt all the way through.’
    Lark looks concerned.
    Desiree jumps in. ‘Let’s not gossip about people. I’ve accidentally left the iron on all day once or twice myself. We’re all only human, you know.’ She forces out a light and breezy laugh that is anything but light and breezy.
    â€˜Your mother’s always liked a tipple, Yellow. She can handle herself.’ That’s Lark.
    â€˜But it’s worse now.’
    Mum’s drunk most nights of my life, but not in the daytimes. Not like this. These days, when I see her sprawled and still on the living-room floor, she reminds me of one of the creatures pickled in formaldehyde and lined up in glass jars at the science museum I visited once for school – seemingly alive, but not. Not really. She doesn’t seem to be my mother.
    â€˜Can I stay with you?’
    Before Lark can answer, Desiree cuts in. ‘We’d love to have you, sweetheart, but there’s no room, and you have such a lovely big room at your mother’s house. You know you can come and visit whenever.’
    I turn to face Lark, but his pupils are like two blowflies buzzing about in his skull. His gaze darts around the room, settling on the windowsill, the kitchen bench, everywhere but me. His silence is louder than any sound I’ve ever heard. It clangs.
    â€˜What about the spare room?’ I ask Lark. Again, his blowfly eyes won’t let me catch them, they’re too quick and they don’t want to be caught. Again, he keeps up that screaming silence, which almost drowns out Desiree’s strained chatter as she talks for him.
    â€˜That’s the baby’s room.’ She smiles at me with the kind of smile that looks like a grimace. ‘We need to paint it and decorate it. I’m sorry, Kirra, you know we really would if we could.’
    I hate her painted, lying mouth.
    Lark reaches over and takes my hair from my face and places it behind my ear. Finally, he speaks. ‘A teenage girl needs her mum around, for all that girl stuff. I’m no use.’
    â€˜Mum doesn’t live there anymore! She’s been possessed by a raging alcoholic!’
    â€˜Let’s not exaggerate, Kirra.’
    That’s Desiree, of course. Lark’s pupils do that blowfly thing again. I’m so full of emotion that I’ve lost my words. It’s like when I get upset all of my feelings cause a blockage in my vocal cords, so that when I try to speak they can’t get out. Desiree keeps chattering on.
    â€˜It’s not like I’m calling you a liar, nothing like that. Of course not, Kirra. It’s just that everything can feel very dramatic when you’re a teenager, and things can seem much more exaggerated than they actually are.’
    I take a long gulp of water to try to clear my throat, and it takes everything I’ve got to keep my voice steady. Getting hysterical isn’t a great way to prove you’re not a dramatic teenager.
    â€˜I’m not exaggerating. She can’t look after me.’
    Lark cracks out his crooked smile again and gets up to open the window, to shoo the tension from the air. ‘It’s bloody hot, ay? You were born sensible, Yellow, you don’t need looking after. You’re a teenager, enjoy the freedom.’ He musses the top of my hair where it turns up into a cowlick. ‘Anyway, we didn’t raise you to need your hand held all the time, did we? You’re a free-range child.’
    Desiree unconsciously pats her stomach when Lark says that and she purses her mouth like a cat’s bum. You can tell this next one won’t be a free-range child. Things will be planned and prepared and measured in doses. Things will be done correctly. I’m the practice child, like the first pancake in every batch, the one that never comes out right. The one you throw away. Desiree will get her way, I know. Lark’s too much of a coaster to go against