Blue Dome (The Blue Dome Series) (3 page)

I stood at the end of the
bed, staring dumbly at the word scrawled on the mirror. It was as if my brain
had completely forgotten how to think. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I
became vaguely conscious that my breathing had turned into short, sharp gasps
and that my lungs were fighting for air. I tried to move my legs but it was
impossible – they were like two streams of water. Suddenly, I heard the door creak
behind me. Before I could turn around someone had grabbed my shoulder. I
managed to scream before a hand clapped down hard over my mouth.

“Shh!”

Biting furiously, I tried
to snag the skin on the hand but it was too far for my teeth to reach. A thick,
hairy forearm coiled itself around my waist and I felt my feet leave the floor.
I was now being dragged backwards down the hall. I tried to kick myself free
but it was hopeless – the guy was way too strong. Finally, just as I was about
to give up, I felt the satisfying thud of my boot-heel connecting with his
shin. The guy yelped and loosened his grip, allowing me precious seconds to
wriggle free. Scanning the room for an escape route, all I could see was an
ocean of debris separating me from the front door, my attacker looming like an
ominous island in between. There was no other way; I’d have to beat him to the
back door instead. I turned and started to run when something suddenly stopped
me.

“Clare!”

The voice sounded
surprisingly familiar. I spun around, in spite of my fear. There, hopping
around sheepishly in the chaos of the lounge, clutching his leg, was my dopey
brother. In all my panic I hadn’t even looked at him properly.

“It’s you?” I said. A
wave of relief washed over me, followed immediately by a tidal wave of anger.
“You scared the hell out of me, what were you doing?”

“Who’d you think it would
be, you numpty?” said Bede, in a voice that wasn’t much more than a whisper.

“You could have been
anyone! What’s with all the sneaking up behind me and sticking your hand over
my mouth?” I said, not so quietly. “Do you think it’s the movies or something?”

“In case you hadn’t
noticed,” said Bede, “someone has trashed our house and written a nice little
message on one of the mirrors. Do you
really
think it’s a smart move to
be crashing about and screaming when whoever has done this might still be
around?”

Now I was really mad. One
thing I really hate is when Bede does the patronising ‘I’m your older brother,
I know best’ routine.

“Of course I’ve noticed!”
I said. “What do you think I was doing in Dad’s room, whistling the national
anthem and admiring the wallpaper? If you’d just acted like a
normal
person and not grabbed me I wouldn’t have needed to scream, would I?”

“Clare, I know you. If I
hadn’t done what I did we’d still be in that room having a big, heavy
conversation about it. We really don’t have the time.”

I glared at him. There
was that patronising tone of his again. Well I could rise above it and show him
just how mature I really was.

“You’re a total
dickhead,” I blurted. Okay, so maybe I couldn’t.

“Yeah, well you’re not
exactly genius of the week either,” said Bede.

I could see this was fast
turning into one of our usual slanging matches, and as much as I still had a
whole stockpile of well-deserved insults that were itching to be dumped on
Bede’s head, I figured they’d just have to wait.

“Have you tried calling
Dad or Arlene?” I asked.

“Yeah, a few times.
They’re not picking up.”

I glanced across at the
phone that was dashed on the floor, its receiver lying belly up. Bede read my
mind.

 “It’s been cut,” he
said. He pulled his mobile from his back pocket and tossed it to me. “Try again
if you want. I’m going to raid whatever money we’ve got lying around the
house.” I caught the phone with both hands.

“They’ll have already
nicked it won’t they?” I said. Bede shook his head.

“That’s the weird thing.
Everything’s been wrecked but nothing’s actually been taken.”

Arlene was the first name
in Bede’s address book. I punched the ‘call’ button and listened impatiently to
the ring tone. “Come on, come on,” I felt like screaming, as the monotonous
‘doot, doot’ rang in my ear. After a few seconds her silky voice message
started playing. I waited for the tone and garbled a message into the
mouthpiece.

“Arlene, it’s me, Clare.
Umm, something’s happened at home and I’m just wondering if you can call me
back. I mean, if you can call Bede back, this is his phone. I mean, you can
call me back as well, it’s just my phone’s in my bag.”

Bede stopped ferreting around
the kitchen for a moment to roll his eyes at me. I ignored him and called Dad’s
number. Again, the dial tone began to ring in my ear, but this time I heard the
phone ring, too.

“What the..?” Bede ran
down the hall, trying to track down where the sound was coming from. He
returned a few seconds later, his fingers clamped gingerly around Dad’s phone
like the pincers on a crab. The phone was covered in bloody fingerprints. I hit
the ‘call end’ button on Bede’s phone and looked at him in shock. I could feel
my mouth open and start to shudder, but my screaming voice had suddenly
deserted me. Instead, I stood staring at the phone.

“We’ve got to call the
police,” I said.

I dialled the number and
was about to hit ‘send’, when I suddenly heard a noise coming from somewhere
behind me. It sounded distinctly like the back door creaking open against its
hinges. Now there were footsteps, big, solid, clumpy ones, coming down the
hall. Bede and I locked eyes, the whites of his shining like a panicked horse.
Without speaking, he lunged for my shirt and hauled me down the corridor to the
nearest bedroom. It happened to be mine. Before I could say a word, Bede flung
me towards the bed.

“Get under it,” he
hissed.

I dropped to the ground,
too frightened to speak and scrambled under the valance. It’d been a long time
since I’d dusted under there and for a second I thought I was going to have a
sneezing fit. Luckily, I managed to stifle it just in time, as Bede slid under
the other side next to me.

From the dull sound of heels
thudding against the wooden floorboards, I could tell that the intruder was now
in the lounge. I could also now hear a man’s voice, deep, and gruff, speaking
in random chunks of sentences. He was clearly talking to someone on a mobile.

“Nah, there’s no sign of
him. Looks like the kid’s legged it.”

I frowned at Bede
questioningly. He shrugged and scrunched his mouth as if he was as confused as
I was.

“I know, I know, it makes
sense,” the man continued. “If that tip-off’s right and the kid’s murdered his
own father, he’ll be long gone.”

“
Murder
?” I
mouthed the words.

Bede shook his head in
disbelief, while the man on the phone paused, presumably listening to the
person on the other end of the line.

“Yeah sergeant, that’s
right, Bede de Milo. I ran his stats in the car. He’s been in trouble before,
but nothing this serious.”

“What the..?” Bede looked
as if he’d just been punched in the stomach.

“From the information
we’ve had, the kid’s likely to be armed and extremely dangerous. I know, ‘fair
trial’ and all that, but this doesn’t look good.” There was a patch of silence,
before the voice sucked its breath back behind its teeth. “Yeah, but young or
not, murder is murder. It’s bad enough when it’s a complete stranger, but your
own father? The kid’ll be locked away for years.”

I glanced at Bede, trying
not to let the panic show on my face. He was paler than I’ve ever seen him. The
man sighed into the phone.

“I agree, there’s not
much point hanging around. I’ll cordon off the property now and head back to
base. Might take another drive by later tonight. There’s a chance he’ll come
back for his stuff.”

Bede and I listened
silently from beneath the bed, as heavy footsteps receded down the hall towards
the back door. Neither of us dared to breathe. Even after we’d heard the engine
of the police car start, then drive away, we stayed perfectly still for at
least another five minutes. It was Bede who broke the silence first.

“We’ve got to get going.
Grab whatever you can – money, warm clothes, whatever else you think you might
need – and I’ll meet you back here in five.” He’d already lifted the valance
and was about to wriggle out from underneath the bed.

“Hang on, don’t we need
to talk about this first?” I said, grabbing his arm. “It’s crazy what that
policeman was saying, why don’t we just go down to the station and explain
what’s happened? There’s obviously been some weird kind of mix up. Once we
straighten it out they’ll be able to help us find Dad.”

Bede shot me a glance as
if I’d just sprouted another head.

“Yeah, and what
exactly
are we going to ‘explain’?” he said sarcastically. “We don’t actually
know
what’s
happened. The cops aren’t going to simply believe that someone’s playing a sick
joke on us. They’ll lock me up on sight. Didn’t you hear that cop? Murder means
getting put away for a long time, most likely in a psychiatric unit.”

“Only if you’ve
done
it, Bede, which you haven’t,” I said, returning his ‘don’t be such a moron’
stare. “What do you think running away’s going to do, other than convince the
police they’re right?”

“They already seemed
pretty convinced to me,” said Bede dryly. “Whoever the psycho is who’s gone and
spread all that crap about me, they’ve obviously done a pretty good job.”

“Do you have any idea who
might have wanted to get you in trouble?” I said, thinking instantly of half a
dozen of Bede’s idiot friends who had no concept of when ‘a joke’ wasn’t
actually a joke.

“Nah,” said Bede, shaking
his head dismissively. “We’ve got to find Dad and Arlene. It’s the only way
we’re going to be able to sort this mess out.”

“Bede…” I paused,
thinking how best to phrase what I wanted to say. “I know it’s a real long
shot, but maybe Aunt Pixie could help us?”

Bede shook his head. “She
hasn’t seen us for years, I don’t even know if she’d recognise us. Besides,
this is about Dad, and you know how much she hates him.”

“I don’t know if she
exactly
hates
him,” I said.

Still, I could see Bede’s
point. Aunt Pixie and Dad had made no secret of the fact that they weren’t
friends, and it was highly unlikely she’d want to get involved if it meant
helping him. I stared at my brother for a couple of seconds, debating whether I
should continue arguing or just do what he said. Normally I hated doing stuff
just because Bede told me to. This time, though, I could tell he wasn’t just
saying it for the thrill of bossing me around. He was as scared as I was.

“Okay,” I said
reluctantly, “but if we don’t find them in the next few hours then we
definitely need to go to the police.”

“Fine,” said Bede. From
the tone of his voice I could tell he was just humouring me but I decided to
let it go.

Shuffling sideways on my
stomach, I scrambled ungracefully out from under the valance and onto my feet.
I ran to the lounge. My backpack was still waiting for me at the front door
where I’d left it. I grabbed it, pelted back to my room and dumped its innards
on the floor, reloading it with jeans, socks, knickers, some tops and a couple
of thick, warm jumpers. It was way more than I’d need for one night but I’d
always been indecisive when it came to packing. Next, I threw in my phone,
wallet and a hairbrush. I ran to the bathroom and grabbed my toothbrush from
the rack and was about to signal to Bede that I was ready when I suddenly
remembered we needed money. Running back to my room, my piggy bank was sitting
conveniently on my bedside table. I snatched it, ripped the seal off the
bottom, and stuffed its contents into my jeans pockets. Lastly, I slipped on
the gold and silver bangle Mum had given me for my ninth birthday, the year
before she died, and slung on my winter coat.

Bede popped his head
around my door.

“Ready?” he said.

“Yeah,” I nodded.

Bede was wearing his
large camping backpack, which made him look even bigger than he was. If I’m
tall, my brother has a good head or so on me, and is broad with it. He gave me
one of his lopsided grins.

“Got your lipstick?”

I gave him the one finger
salute and smiled sarcastically as I made my way to the door. He grabbed my arm
before I could pass into the hallway.

“Nah, we should leave by
the window.”

I turned and glanced
sceptically at the far end of the room where the dark triffid-like bushes were
reaching out towards the glass.

“Seriously?” I said.

“Yeah, anyone could be
watching the house,” said Bede. “The trees should give us some cover until we
can get to the road.”

He opened the sash,
dropped his bag onto the ground outside, and manoeuvred his long limbs through
the window as if he’d done it a hundred times before. It suddenly occurred to
me that, knowing my brother, it probably wasn’t too far away from the truth. I
figured it was better not to ask.