Picture Me Gone Read Online Free

so they don’t touch his. Even the baby doesn’t seem to cross over, his toys and clothes and equipment all tidy and stacked up on her plane.
    And she hates his dog.
    I don’t say it, but I’ve felt other things. Owen, for instance. I can feel him all through the house. They pretend he’s gone, but he’s everywhere, like a restless soul.
    There’s someone else. A smoker. Suzanne has a friend who smokes. There are traces of smoke in her clothes, in her hair. And more. I can smell it in certain parts of the house, which suggests it’s not just someone she knows, but someone who spends time here. And it’s definitely a man. Women smell of things other than themselves—hair stuff, shampoo, soap—even if they don’t wear perfume.
    Does Matthew smoke? I ask.
    Never, Gil says, looking puzzled. Couldn’t stand the idea. Why?
    I shrug.
    Gil sips his coffee. Suzanne says Matthew has a camp near the Canadian border.
    When I look puzzled, he says, A little house. Like a shack.
    Matthew has a camp.
Not
we
have a camp.
    She wonders if he’s gone there. Gil looks at me over the rim of his cup. It’s quite isolated. In the woods. The sort of place used by hunters.
    Hunters?
    Gil smiles. Matthew doesn’t hunt. But maybe we should go and have a look. It’s the obvious place for him to hide. Suzanne says she’ll stay here with Gabriel in case he comes back.
    I think for a minute. Is it normal for people just to disappear? I ask.
    Normal? Gil raises an eyebrow. Not really. No such thing as normal, Perguntador.
    No such thing as normal.
Gil’s favorite line. I finish my toast and look out at the trees, just coming into leaf. I have learned
normal
as a word with no real meaning in our language, but sometimes I wonder what it would feel like.
    What time is it in Holland? I ask him. Can we phone Marieka?
    Yes, Gil says, and we do, but she’s out, so we leave a message. I flop down on the big sofa and when I open my eyes Honey is standing a few inches away just looking at me. I sigh, get up and find her lead, and we go out together for a walk in the woods behind the house. I don’t go far because I don’t want to get lost.
    Matthew’s dog is a watcher, like me. Her eyes have a sadness that is almost human. She wants to know who I am. She follows me and pricks her ears to listen when I speak. Perhaps she is hoping I will explain things to her, where Matthew went and when he will be back, but I do not know the answers to these questions, and besides, I do not speak dog.
    Honey is intelligent and loyal.
    I wonder how Suzanne can hate such a dog.

eight
    Y ou’d never think of matching Catlin and me up as friends. She’s loud, skinny as a twig and pretty much insane. I’m quiet, solid and think things through. Cat always jumps first, before she has time to be swayed by facts. While I’m cautious. But I love how bright and daring she is, like a shooting star. She’s not like anyone I’ve ever met, and sometimes I wonder why she’s friends with me.
    Once she dragged me upstairs to our clubhouse to look at a cardboard box. Inside were two rats.
    I stared at her.
    Two rats had gone missing from the school science lab the week before and everyone was hysterical because they were at large. Some people wouldn’t even use the school toilets in case they bobbed up in the water underneath them, which apparently happens.
    You’re a
rat-napper
? I was appalled. How’d you get them out of the building?
    Cat pointed at her feet, grinning.
    What? I said. You stuffed them in your
shoes
?
    Almost. And then she reached down and picked up one of the rats and slipped her hand and the rat into a sock, removed her hand, tied the sock loosely at the end, and voilà, it was the perfect rat carrier. Being schoolroom rats, they were overfed and a bit dopey from being passed around, so inside the dark sock they just curled up and dozed.
    Where’d you learn that trick?
    Made it up, she said, which figured. Most of what Cat tells me she makes up, but