The Boy Who Steals Houses

by C. G. Drews

  Mr De Lainey comes back to the veranda and whispers in Moxie’s ear. Then he sets a phone next to Sam. ‘If you decide to call your social worker, the number’s there and ready.’ He brushes a palm over the top of Sam’s head before he goes.

  The phone might as well be another knife. If he calls, he’s going back to court, back to face everything he’s run from. There will be angry eyes, sentencing, juvie … and he’ll have to bear it. Alone.

  Except maybe he won’t be alone for ever. Maybe, when it’s over, he’ll get out and a family will be waiting for him, a family who’ll keep his brother safe until Sam can come—

  home.

  The veranda’s quiet again, just him and Moxie and the stars. She kisses him, on the corner of his mouth, and then slips back into the house.

  He can’t be an invisible boy when she can see him. He can’t steal houses or the girl inside them, but he can build a bridge of moons and caramel cakes to get back to her.

  So Sammy Lou

  picks

  up

  the phone.

  This story is intensely special to me and I am caught in an eternally delirious smile as I hold the finished copy. It is constructed entirely out of wishes and hope and wouldn’t be here without these incredible people:

  Polly Nolan, my extraordinary agent! I can’t thank you enough for all the belief and encouragement as we wrangle my books into acceptable shapes.

  The whole team at Orchard Books! Special appreciation to my editors, Megan Larkin and Rosalind McIntosh, who turned The Boy Who Steals Houses into a book I am so proud of. And also many thanks to Sue Cook, Thy Bui, Alison Padley, Alice Duggan, Monika Exell, Georgina Russell, Naomi Berwin, Emily Finn and Sarah Jeffcoate.

  I owe so much (more than an entire cake by this point) to my magical friends. Maraia, you are incredible and keep me sane and have read this book so many times. Thank you for shouting encouragement while I run about like a headless chicken. To Maria Kuzniar, Miriam “Finn” Longman and Daley Downing: you are brilliant authors who I’m proud to know as we tackle the woes and wonders of writing. Thank you for your advice and flails!

  To the bloggers and readers who, after they finished yelling at me through tears, proclaimed their love for A Thousand Perfect Notes. You have been a mountain of encouragement. (Where would I be without you?!)

  I also owe a moment to my parents who raised me on ink and books. And to my odd pile of siblings: no, you didn’t inspire the De Lainey family. Except you, Jemima. Remember that time I cracked an egg on your head when we were kids? I may have stolen the occasional wisp of inspiration from you for the sibling shenanigans in this book.

  And to anyone reading this book who is searching for something like family or a home or friends who will wrap you up tight and keep you close: I hope you find what you’re looking for.

  Read on for a peek at

  A Thousand Perfect Notes

  by C.G. Drews

  What he wants most in the world is to cut off his own hands.

  At the wrist would be best. That hollow tiredness that stretches from fingertips to elbow would be gone for ever. How sick is that? There must be something seriously – dangerously – wrong if he can lie on his rock-solid mattress at night and think about lopping off limbs and using bloodied stumps to write ‘HA!’ on the walls. He’d be a scene out of a horror movie.

  And he’d be free. Because, without hands, he’s worthless to her.

  To the Maestro.

  His mother.

  But the entire handless daydream would require action instead of fantasising, and he’s not so good at that. Even stupid small stuff – like spontaneously detouring by an ice creamery on the way home from school and treating his little sister to a double whipped fudge cone instead of keeping the strict time schedule the Maestro demands – is impossible. He won’t even try something like that. Why? A taste of fudge and freedom isn’t worth it?

  No.

  He’s just not made for rebellion or risks.

  Fantasising is all he’s good for. Sick dreams of mutilation, apparently. Which hand would he even cut off? Right? Or left?

  It scares Beck Keverich – the way he thinks sometimes.

  His digital clock reads 5:12. Still dark. Still cold. It’s always easier to batter his way out of bed in summer, but now that autumn has wrapped bare, twiggy fingers around the universe, his alarm clock feels like it’s shrieking in the middle of the night. And he should’ve been up twelve minutes ago.

  It’s surprising the Maestro hasn’t rattled his door to roar at his laziness.

  Beck peels his head off the pillows. He wishes he could dissolve into them. Did he even sleep last night? His wrists ache like he’s been juggling blocks of cement. Did he quit at eleven? Midnight?

  His fingers moan, it was midnight, you fool. They also say get us warm and let us rest this morning and even we’re going to curl into a fist and punch the wall until we shatter. His fingers are cantankerous like that.

  Beck rubs his hands together, blows on his numb fingers and curses broadly to the universe – because it’s quicker than being specific about the depths of his loathing of the Maestro right now. Then he approaches the object of his doom, his life, his worth.

  He slams the piano lid open.

  The Steinway upright is the sole glory of his room. Not that there’s much else in the room. He has a bed that feels like snuggling rocks, broken blinds on the windows, a wardrobe of second-hand clothes and shoes held together with duct tape and hope – and a twenty-thousand-dollar piano.

  As the Maestro says, ‘A good piano is all the hope I have that mein Sohn will improve his schreckliche music.’

  Beck only spent his toddler years in Germany, but stayed bilingual by necessity – he needs to know when his mother is sprinkling burning insults over his head. Although her curled lips and glares also speak volumes.

  Schreckliche means terrible. Awful.

  It’s a summary of Beck.

  You are an awful pianist. Your music has no future. You have no talent. Why don’t you play faster, better, clearer? Why do you hit the wrong notes all the time? Are you doing it on purpose areyouplayingbadlyonpurposeyouworthlesslittle—

  ‘You suck, kid,’ Beck says calmly to himself. ‘So work.’

  It’s his routine pep talk to get motivated in the cold pre-dawn darkness. Now for staccato notes. Double fifth scales. Diminished seventh exercises. Fumbled notes. Trills for his iced fingers to fall across.

  He’ll wake the Maestro – although she’s probably already awake and seething that he started late – and his little sister. He’ll wake the neighbours, who hate him, and he’ll start the local dogs howling. He’ll shake the sleep from the weeds strangling the footpath, and the broken glass from some drunken brawl, and the homeless who lurk in the dank non-kid-friendly neighbourhood playground.

  By 8 a.m. Beck’s fingers will feel like flattened noodles and his eyelids will be coated in cement.

  And all the time, he dreams of sawing off his hands or even his ears.

  Of walking out and never coming back.

  He dreams of utter silence – so then the tiny kernel of music inside him could be coaxed to life. It’s unbelievably noisy in his head, noisy with songs of his own creation. But since the Maestro will have none of it, it stays locked away.

  Play the music on the paper. No one cares about the songs in your head.

  His bedroom door crashes open and his little sister appears with a howl like a wildcat.

  Joey is a tumbleweed of wire and jam stains, set on maximum speed and highest volume. She’s exhausting just to look at.

  ‘IT’S FIFTEEN MINUTES TILL WE GO,’ Joey bellows. She solemnly believes Beck can’t hear anything else when he’s on the piano. He can hear, he just can’t multitask and answer.

  His cyclone of music fades and silence pours over B
eck’s fingers. Relief. By this point, if Chopin walked into the room, Beck would throttle him with a shoelace. He hates these pieces the Maestro demands he learn.

  It’s past eight. He’s not even dressed or had breakfast.

  ‘I hate Mondays,’ he mutters and reaches for his school shirt. At least when one lives in a room the size of a broom closet everything is in easy reach.

  Joey’s face puckers. ‘It’s not Monday.’

  ‘Every day is Monday.’ A perpetual string of Mondays – he does belong in a horror film.

  It takes his aching fingers two tries to get the buttons.

  ‘I made you lunch,’ Joey says, spider-climbing up his doorframe. ‘A surprise lunch. A scrumptious surprise lunch.’

  ‘That sounds … terrifying.’ Beck balls his holey pyjama shirt and throws it at her face. She gives an indignant squeak and drops from the walls.

  To prove his point – OK, fine, because Joey loves a good show of theatrics – Beck drops to his knees, clasps his hands together, and wails like an impaled porpoise. She’s giggling before he even starts to beg.

  ‘Don’t punish me. Please. What have I done to deserve this torment?’

  ‘It’s not torment!’ Joey says, indignant. ‘I’m a scrumptious cook. Even if you’re a bad brother for being late yesterday.’

  That would be on account of his English teacher, Mr Boyne, having a flare up of I-care-about-your-horrible-grades-so-I’m-going-to-bawl-you-out-to-prove-it, which included a demanded display of Beck’s comprehension of the text. The ‘comprehension’ was, of course, non-existent. Hence Beck was late to pick up Joey.

  The preschool teacher, whose face reminded him of a king crab, snapped at him about ‘responsibilities’, too.

  ‘If I was a witch, I’d turn you into a toad,’ Joey says, confidentially, ‘’cause everyone gets mad when we gotta go to the city for you, and Mama says we’re going again soon.’

  Beck cringes. There’s a state championship coming up to obligingly stress everyone. Oh joy. And failure, with the Maestro hanging over his shoulder, is not an option.

  ‘But I’d turn you back into a boy someday,’ Joey says, warming up. ‘’Cause I like you, even if you always play the same notes over and over and over, because Mama says you’re a Schwachkopf—’

  Beck covers her mouth. ‘OK, calm down. My delicate self-worth can only take so much. Is the Maestro already foaming at the mouth?’

  Joey glares from behind his hand.

  He removes it. ‘I’m sorry I play the same song so much. I’m – practising. For that big concert.’ Practise, or the Maestro’s fury will know no bounds.

  ‘Lean close,’ Joey says, ‘and I’ll whisper I forgive you in your ear.’

  Beck does without thinking. But she jumps on him, yowling like a kitten made of cacti, and Beck goes down in a tangle of shirtsleeves and mismatched buttons.

  She’s only his half-sister – the Maestro has an affinity for short relationships that end in screaming fits and neither he nor Joey knew their fathers – but Joey’s a pocketful of light in his gloomy existence. He has to love her twice as hard to make up for the sin of hating his mother.

  Predictably, breakfast is cornflakes with a side dish of disapproval.

  Has there ever been a time when the Maestro didn’t greet him with a glare?

  She sits in a corner of their tiny kitchen with squash-coloured décor that probably looked trendy thirty years ago. Who is Beck kidding? That shade of yellow never looked good. A single piece of burnt buttered toast sits next to her mug of coffee. The table can seat three, if no one minds bumping elbows, but as usual it’s flooded with the Maestro’s sheets of music. She tutors musicianship and theory at the university. Beck wonders how often her students cry.

  Beck slinks past, telling himself he did everything right. She has nothing to erupt about. It’ll be OK – totally OK.

  He reaches for two bowls as Joey bangs around his legs, prattling about how she’s going to be a chef when she grows up.

  ‘And I’m gonna call my restaurant –’ she sucks in a deep breath to yell ‘– JOEY’S GOODEST GRUB.’ She jabs her spoon into Beck’s ribs to get his attention. ‘That’s a great name, right?’

  ‘Yow – yes.’ He snatches the spoon off her.

  He fills Joey’s bowl with cornflakes first, which leaves him with the mostly smashed flake dust. With milk, it’ll become sludge. Brilliant. He sets Joey’s bowl on her pink plastic kiddie table in the corner, and eats his while leaning on the fridge.

  Joey launches into a detailed description of what her chef apron will look like – something about it being shaped like a unicorn – which exactly no one listens to.

  Beck watches the Maestro’s red pen whip over the music. The students’ work looks like something has been murdered over it.

  Beck checks the plastic bag with his squashed sandwich. Joey has a thing about making his lunch. He sniffs it and detects peanut butter, tomato sauce and – are those raw pasta shells? Maybe he’d rather not know.

  ‘You’ll be late.’ The Maestro’s voice is deep and raspy. Even if she didn’t have the temperament of a bull, she’s an intimidating-looking woman. Broad-shouldered, six foot, with a crop of wiry black hair like a bristle brush – and she has long, spider-like fingers born for the piano.

  Beck shovels the last globs of cornflake sludge into his mouth and then runs for the school bags. He crams in his untouched homework and sandwich, but takes more time with Joey’s – checking that she has a clean change of clothes in there, that her gumboots are dry, and her rainbow jacket isn’t too filthy. A finger-comb through his curly hair and duct-taped shoes on his feet, and he’s ready.

  Joey pops out of her bedroom dressed in overalls with a pink beanie over her brush-resistant black curls. She snatches her jacket off Beck and dances towards the door. Preschool is blissfully free of dress regulations.

  Beck has worn the same uniform shirt for so long it looks more pink than red.

  They’re about to run for the front door when the Maestro shuffles papers and says, ‘A word, mein Sohn.’

  Really? They have to do this now? She couldn’t just let them skid out of the door, out of her hair, without raking him over the hot coals for once?

  Joey kicks the front door open with her glittered gumboots. ‘I’m gonna beat you there!’ she yells.

  Beck slinks back into the kitchen, slowly, his eyes on the ugly tiled floor. If he doesn’t make eye contact with the tiger, it won’t eat him, right? One of these days he’ll just bolt out the door, defy her, just once. Instead of acting the obedient puppy, resigned to its next kick.

  ‘Ja, Mutter?’ He uses German as a tentative appeasement.

  The Maestro lays down the red pen and kneads her knotted fingers. The tremors have already started for the day – the tremors that destroyed her career and turned her into a tornado over Beck’s.

  Painfully slow seconds tick by like swats against Beck’s face.

  He has to get out.

  Needs

  to

  leave.

  ‘You woke late,’ the Maestro says. ‘I don’t permit Faulheit in my house.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to be lazy.’ Yeah, he slept in all of twelve minutes. ‘I’m sorry.’ Suck up. It’s the only way to get out alive.

  The Maestro snorts. ‘Why are you inept at dedication and commitment? Do you want your progress to stagnate?’ She picks up her mug. It trembles violently and coffee sloshes over the side. ‘Or is this your streak of teenage rebellion?’ She sneers the word ‘teenage’, like she never was one. Which is highly likely. Beck always imagines she strode into the world as a bitter giant, ready to clobber everyone with a piano.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Beck resists a glance at the front door to see how far Joey’s gone. He doesn’t like her to cross the road alone.

  ‘Ja, of course
you are sorry. A little parrot with only one phrase to say. A lazy parrot who – look at me when I speak to you.’ Her crunchy voice rises, and she hauls herself upright, more coffee escaping her mug and dripping down her wrist.

  He doesn’t want to do this again. He’s going to be late.

  ‘Mutter, please, I’ve got school.’ Beck snatches a glance at the clock.

  Her hand flashes out of nowhere and slaps his face. The shock of it sends him a step backwards. He always forgets how fast she can move.

  ‘Do not disrespect me!’ she snaps. ‘School is not important. I am speaking to you. That is important.’

  Beck does nothing.

  ‘The only important thing in your life is the piano.’ Her voice shakes the ceiling plaster. ‘The piano is life. And every time you laze instead of practising, you shame me. You shame my name. You’ll amount to nothing, Sohn, nothing! Are you listening?’

  ‘Yes, Mutter.’ Beck speaks to his shoes.

  ‘Is my advice a joke to you? LOOK AT ME WHEN I SPEAK.’

  Also by C.G. Drews

  A Thousand Perfect Notes

  ORCHARD BOOKS

  First published in Great Britain in 2019 by The Watts Publishing Group

  This eBook edition published in 2019

  Text copyright © C.G. Drews, 2019

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.