The Sleepover

by Samantha King

  “Sure. Oh, actually, would you mind keeping an eye on Molly? I’ll be quick.” She pauses, turning to look at me. “Honestly, there wasn’t any trouble. But I do feel dreadful.”

  “You had no way of knowing. And like you say, I’m sure it was fine.” I hold my smile, even as I remember Nick’s stilted manner on the phone last night, wondering if Jason’s arrival explains it.

  As Beth hurries off, I sink down onto the sofa next to Molly, taking care not to disturb her. She seems completely out of it, though, and I’m about to head into the kitchen to stick the kettle on when I hear Beth yelling. Thinking she might need moral support, I cross the living room and step into the hall.

  “Nick? Nick?” Beth’s voice is shrill as she dashes across the landing.

  “Everything OK? Can I help?” I call up, trying to decide whether it would look rude if I go up the stairs uninvited. Before I can make up my mind, Beth comes flying down them.

  “Did Nick come down?” Her face is chalk-white, her mouth a pinched line.

  “Sorry?”

  “He’s not in any of the bedrooms. Or the bathroom.”

  “What?” My pulse roars in my ears; my voice sounds like it’s coming from far away.

  “The boys haven’t a clue where he is, either. I don’t understand. It’s like he’s vanished into thin air.”

  “He can’t have. He must be hiding somewhere. Maybe the boys had a fight.” I scrabble in the back pocket of my jeans for my phone, my fingers trembling as I search for Nick’s number. The dial tone repeats endlessly, and I can feel my palms sweating as I wait for the call to click in, for the electronic drone to be replaced by the sound of Nick’s voice. Any second now . . . now . . . now. Please, please answer, Nick.

  Holding the phone away from my ear, I strain to hear his ringtone, but the house is silent. I push past Beth to hurry up the stairs, my mind sprinting ahead to visualize Nick sitting on his bed, shrugging as if to say, What’s all the fuss about? I keep focusing on that image as I crash into the bedroom, panic blinding me so that I’ve whirled around the room touching each bed once, twice, three times before acceptance filters through disbelief.

  Nick really isn’t there, only Adrian, huddled at the top of his bed, and Samir, a mirror image on a twin bed opposite. Backs hunched, eyes wide; the two boys are both twelve, but their round, shocked faces make them look much younger.

  “He’s not here, Mrs. Brookes.” Adrian points to the end of the bed, where Nick’s pajamas are bundled on a pillow, then toward a Batman backpack I’d recognize anywhere propped against the wall. “Is he, Sammy?”

  “No.” Samir shakes his head, long black bangs flying.

  “Maybe he got homesick.”

  Jason. Turning in the direction of the low drawl, I’m surprised to see how much my former best friend’s son has grown since I last saw him. He has his dad’s height and broad shoulders, while his red hair and lightly freckled face are instant reminders of Katie.

  “Did something happen? Did you have a fight?” I stare at him, his heavy-jawed face blurring as my mind tries to assimilate the jarring images of Nick’s pajamas on the bed and his backpack on the floor. He got dressed and left, but didn’t take his stuff?

  Jason folds his arms, and I turn back to Adrian and Samir, but their frozen expressions confirm that they’re either too shocked or too scared to tell me anything. Ignoring any regard for their privacy, I drop to my knees and look under each bed, sweeping with both hands. But all I find are sneakers, a stack of magazines, and the unidentifiable shapes of abandoned toys.

  Nick isn’t there. Nor is he hiding in the built-in wardrobe, the closet on the landing, or in the other two bedrooms. There’s nowhere left to look up here, and I’m certain I would have heard his footsteps on the wooden stairs if he’d crept down while I was chatting to Beth. He hasn’t just sneaked out: wherever he is, he was already there before I arrived.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Stepping out of Adrian’s room onto the landing, I force myself to breathe through the panic—to try to get inside the mind of a twelve-year-old boy who changed his mind about wanting a sleepover. Or was made to feel unwelcome. The thought pulls my attention back to Jason, and I turn to find him watching me from the bedroom doorway. His eyes flick upward for a second; I look up, too, gasping as I see that the entrance to the loft is open a crack.

  “I’ve just checked around the garden.” Beth is breathing heavily as she appears at the top of the stairs. “And the shed. Nothing. No sign of him.”

  “What’s up there?” I nod at the small, square hatch in the ceiling.

  “Junk. Mike’s old stuff. Rubbish, I don’t know.” She fiddles with her dressing-gown belt. “Nothing really. There’s no ladder, anyway. Nick couldn’t have got up there.”

  My eyes assess the ceiling height, then Jason’s. If Nick stood on his shoulders, he could reach the hatch. “Did he go up there? Were you messing about? Did you help him climb up to have a look?”

  “Negative.” Jason folds his arms again. “We played Xbox, downloaded some new apps. But Nick wasn’t really up for games. He said he was tired.”

  “He was reading in bed,” Adrian chips in from the bedroom. “I was at the top. Nick went at the bottom.”

  I brush past Jason to step back into the room, picking up Nick’s pajamas from the bed and yanking back the duvet. “He’s left his inhaler.” The room seems to spin as I reach for it. I always remind Nick to carry it with him at all times; in truth, he never forgets. “Where’s his book? You said he was reading.”

  Adrian shrugs. “Search me.”

  “And he was definitely there when you went to sleep?” I glance between him and Samir, who immediately nods. “You weren’t playing a game. Not . . . I guess you’re too old for hide-and-seek.” I rack my brains to think of what they could have been doing that Nick would feel the need to hide; nothing good springs to mind. “There weren’t any arguments?” I press again, unable to stop myself glaring at Jason. “Nothing to upset him?”

  “Nope.” Jason holds my gaze.

  “We just chatted,” Adrian says. “Well, Nick didn’t say much. He was into his book. Then we went to sleep.” He stares around the room, as if he too is expecting Nick to burst out of a closet door at any moment, yelling, Surprise! “Then Mum came up and—”

  “I looked in on them when I came to bed,” Beth interjects breathily, bundling her hair into a high ponytail as she reappears in the doorway.

  I didn’t see her leave the bedroom, I didn’t hear her return, and I notice that she’s changed out of her dressing gown into the same black jeans and plum-colored sweater she was wearing yesterday. I know it’s reasonable for her to get dressed, but I feel irritated that she can think of something so ordinary at a time like this. “When was that?” I snap.

  “Midnight. No, a bit before. They were sound asleep, though.” Beth comes to sit next to Adrian. “You didn’t go down for a drink in the night, any of you? Nick didn’t . . . ?” She looks up at me. “You said he sleepwalks sometimes. Maybe . . . Oh God, the front-door latch.”

  She blushes, and as I watch her squeeze Adrian’s hand I know what she’s really thinking: Thank God it isn’t my son. But I left her in charge of my boy. Her responsibility was to take care of him; at the very least to make sure he was physically safe.

  “So someone could have got in?” I glare at her, anger firing up beneath the panic as I remember Beth joking about her list of jobs for Mike. I wonder again if she was arguing with him on the phone. It would certainly explain her twitchy mood—and perhaps her lack of attention to the boys last night.

  “I was thinking more that Nick might have gone out,” she offers meekly. “Perhaps Jason’s right. Maybe he felt homesick. Or needed some fresh air, or maybe he wanted to play in the snow and went—”

  “Went where? Where on earth would he have gone in the middle of the night?”

  “Home?” Her voice is barely a squeak.

  “He would have called me to come and
get him.” Wouldn’t he? Unless he didn’t want to drag me out in the cold, and thought he’d make his own way home instead . . .

  It seems so unlikely that Nick would have gone anywhere in the dark, but if he didn’t, what other possibility is there? He isn’t a toddler like Molly who could be silently snatched. If there was no disturbance in the house that woke the other boys, there has to be a simple explanation for why he isn’t here.

  I close my eyes, picturing him disappearing into the house the day before; I imagine him chasing up the stairs after Adrian, dumping his backpack before flopping onto the bed with his book. Pizza, Xbox, movies . . . Jason arriving. A fight? Nick waiting until everyone’s asleep to creep out of the house . . .

  My mind rattles between places he could have gone. He wasn’t hanging around our home; I’ve just come from there. His dance school? The park? Local shops? My heart leaps at the thought that he might have sought refuge with his stepdad. But even though there is clearly unfinished business between me and my ex-husband, I have no doubt Craig would have called me if Nick had turned up at his apartment in the middle of the night.

  “I’m so sorry, Izzy.” Beth’s voice is plaintive. “He was right there in bed. I checked they’d all brushed their teeth and phoned home. I turned off the lights myself.”

  I hurry down the stairs, with Beth following close behind, desperately hoping she’s right: that even now Nick is outside her house, waiting to be let back in having innocently wandered off to gather bits and bobs to decorate a snowman. As we reach the hall, Molly wakes from her nap, wailing loudly. Tutting, Beth marches past me into the living room, her exasperation reminding me of her complaints about exhaustion.

  “But like you said, Molly was screaming last night,” I call after her. “And you were tired. You crashed out. Maybe the boys had a spat later on that you didn’t hear.”

  “They seemed fine when they were watching TV,” Beth says, reappearing with Molly nuzzling into her neck. “And you heard them just now. Not a word about any fights. Adrian doesn’t lie,” she insists, sounding a little defensive now.

  I give her a straight look. “All children lie when they think they’re in trouble.”

  “You’re angry with me. I deserve it. I would be, too.” Another blush creeps in patchy blotches up her neck. “I’m so, so sorry, Izzy. I can’t think what—”

  “You checked the backyard, right? I’ll check out the front. Maybe you’re right. Maybe Nick got up early to mess about in the snow. He does love it. He was gutted we didn’t have a white Christmas.” I fight back images of him pressing his face against his bedroom window, staring eagerly at the stubbornly gray sky.

  “Exactly! He could be secretly stockpiling snowballs as we speak.”

  I grab my cream parka from the stand, turning back to Beth in a daze as I see Nick’s matching khaki one still hooked underneath. “Oh. His jacket’s still here.” I scan the hall floor. “I can’t see his sneakers, though. It’s freezing out there. Why would he put on his shoes but not his coat?” I search the sprawling pile again as I pull on my boots. “They’re definitely gone. So are Mike’s Timberlands.” I glance curiously at Beth. “Is he back, then?”

  She shakes her head. “I put them out in the shed just now. They were leaving mud everywhere. And, well, look at this mess. Nick’s sneakers wouldn’t be the first to go missing in this house. Adrian’s already lost two pairs.” She frowns. “And I can’t see his new Nikes, either. Typical. Brand new they are, too.”

  “You put Mike’s boots in the shed.” My eyes linger for a moment on her pretty, flushed face, then I look away, feeling awkward at the direction of my thoughts. “He definitely didn’t come home, then. You don’t think there’s a chance he could have come back sooner than you expected. Maybe decided to show up unannounced?”

  “Of course not.” Beth cocks her head, giving me a quizzical look. “Why would he?”

  “Sorry. I guess I’m just wondering if he might have taken Nick out. To look at the moon, or go stargazing, or something,” I finish awkwardly.

  “Well, he’s not here. He didn’t take his house keys, for one thing. Never does on work trips. Always loses them.” She sighs. “It obviously runs in the family. Keys. Shoes.”

  “Right. Sure. OK, I’ll just . . .” I open the front door, tutting as the loose latch waggles up and down. It would have been easy for someone to get out—or in—without anyone noticing, I realize. But if Mike Atkins didn’t come home, that at least eliminates one fear: that Beth’s husband secretly returned and, for some inexplicable reason, stole my son. The idea is ridiculous, I tell myself. And even if someone, anyone, managed to sneak into the house without anyone hearing, one of the boys would surely have cried out.

  “Any sign?” Beth hovers behind me in the doorway, jiggling Molly on her hip.

  “None.” I stare at the trail of my own footprints in disappointment, before stepping outside, looking all around as I stumble toward the gate. There isn’t a snowman in sight. I gaze slowly along the rows of houses, most of which still have their curtains closed. Nothing catches my eye, and after one last scan, I turn and make my way back into the hallway.

  Beth holds out her phone. “Do you think you should call—”

  “Craig,” I say, even while I know she means the police. The thought is pulsing in my mind, but I still can’t bring myself to accept that this is an emergency—that Nick isn’t safe somewhere, having bolted after an argument. I call him again, biting my lip when voice mail kicks in. I leave a message, then pull up Craig’s number.

  The possibility of another lecture on parental responsibility fills me with dread, but I can’t shake the thought that Nick might have gone to his stepdad’s apartment rather than come home. Perhaps because it’s a couple of streets closer to Beth’s house; perhaps because he had some kind of exchange with him last night. Craig did mention that he’s been texting Nick . . .

  I’m about to press dial when I notice a low door farther along the hall. “Is this a cupboard?” I crouch down and tug at the handle, and as it opens with the graze of wood-on-wood, a damp chill hits my face, followed by a pungent, earthy smell that makes me cough.

  “No. That leads down to the cellar,” Beth says. “But we don’t use it. It’s full of—”

  “Junk,” I finish for her, exasperated to find yet another hiding place: first the loft hatch, now this. I could hardly have insisted on her giving me a thorough tour of the house before I let Nick stay here; now I wish I’d been less polite, more inquisitive.

  “We’re bursting at the seams.” Beth’s hand flutters anxiously around her neck. “What with all Mike’s sales catalogs and my books. The kids. old toys. There’s nowhere to—”

  “Nick? Are you down there?” I ignore her nervous, guilty rambling, kneeling down to peer into the darkness. “Nick, it’s Mum—can you hear me?”

  My voice is sucked into the void; goose bumps chase across my skin. Nick is terrified of confined spaces: if he’s down there, he might be too scared to answer. I feel around for a light switch; I’m going to have to go and look for him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The air is too cold to breathe; I lean against the garden wall, bent double, coughing until my throat hurts. My lungs feel bruised as they reject the icy gulps of wind I swallowed in desperation to clear the rancid-chemical fumes of a cellar used not for junk, as Beth intimated, but for what appeared to be someone’s stuffed wildlife collection: a squirrel, some kind of bird, a rabbit, and an enormous rat, all posed in a decaying imitation of life.

  Roadkill, I thought, gagging on the smell. There were bottles and jars, tins and boxes, all crammed onto the makeshift shelves lining the walls of the small cellar. The chalky stone floor was swept clean, with nothing to suggest Nick had been down there. I made a swift retreat, clambering my way back to daylight and staggering out of the house.

  “He’s not there.” I press a hand to my mouth, almost retching on a combination of fear and the acrid stench I can’t swallow, can�
�t breathe out. “What is all that stuff?” I ask Beth as she appears at my side. “Is it Mike’s hobby? Does he—”

  “I’ve called the police, Izzy.” She pulls at my arm. “Come back inside.”

  “I can’t. I’ve got to go home. He might be there.” I don’t waste time explaining that I don’t mean my current house. Thinking about Craig has reminded me of the very first thing Nick said when his stepdad left: Are we going home now? He meant to the place we lived before I got married, when it was just Nick and me in the tiny apartment I’ve always told him I shared with the first and, in truth, perhaps the biggest love of my life . . . His dad. Alex.

  “But the police . . .” Beth’s girlish tone begs me not to hate her—to let her make up for what has happened.

  “I’ll be really quick. I can’t just sit here, Beth.” I take hold of her hands, giving them a quick squeeze. “I have to look for him. And if he’s there, we won’t even need the police.”

  Please be there, I think as I turn and hurry off, trying not to picture the state I found Nick in the last time I had to go looking for him. Exactly twelve months ago . . .

  The coincidence of the timing nags at me as I jog out of the cul-de-sac and along the main road, my eyes darting all around until I reach the college sports field. My boots sink into the frosty grass as I sprint across it, and then at last I’m standing in front of the familiar Victorian town house. Four down from the railway track; the one with an apple tree halfheartedly waving its spindly arms.

  Once, that tree was the centerpiece of a beautiful garden Alex created especially for us: two teenage desperadoes the town council finally took pity on, after I found out I was pregnant at seventeen and both sets of parents threw us out. Now the pretty borders are strangled by weeds, and the tree seems to hang its head in despair. The treehouse is still there, though: the secret den Alex built for the son he swore he couldn’t wait to play with.

  It still hurts unbearably that he didn’t stick around to see how it became our little boy’s favorite refuge when the playground taunts got too much to bear. Nick always used to barricade himself in there with toys and teddies, and he’s wistfully begged to revisit his old hideout dozens of times since we left this apartment. If he’s hiding anywhere, I’m certain it would be here. I hop over the low wall and approach the tree.