Squishy Taylor and the Vase That Wasn't
For Jimmie and Goldie – and your ridiculous, brave, loving mama.
–
Ailsa
For Tim, the best twin brother I have.
–
Ben
Contents
About the author and illustrator
I slip off my shoes at the door and swing them by the laces. The foyer of our apartment building is pretty much like an ice-skating rink if your shoes are off. I launch into a
massive skid
to the lift, finishing in a crouch like a surfer.
My bonus sister Vee slides her schoolbag after me and follows, stumbling over as she catches up. Her twin Jessie walks in normally behind us. I call them my bonus sisters because they were the bonus when I moved in with my dad and their mum.
Mostly they’re an awesome bonus. Like now. Vee is lying on the floor laughing and when I try to pull her up, she just
slides
along on her back. It makes me laugh until I’m gasping.
As she finally stands up, the lift slides open.
There’s a man inside, shouting into his phone. ‘It’s gone! It’s gone!’ he says as he steps out of the lift. ‘I’ve been burgled … Yeah, exactly, or
haunted!
’
His eyes are big and he’s got a crazy half-smile on his face. ‘It just … disappeared!’ he says.
‘What disappeared?’ Jessie asks, sounding like a grown-up. She steps up beside us with her schoolbag neatly on her back.
She’s the oldest, but only by forty-seven minutes. Vee is staring at the man and I’m trying not to laugh.
‘My vase,’ the man says into his phone. ‘My great-grandmother’s Ming Dynasty vase.’
‘
Stolen?
’ I ask out loud, thinking about when our next-door neighbour was burgled.
‘No,
disappeared
,’ the man says to me, waving his phone. ‘My doors were locked. Nothing else had moved. It was like a
ghost
had been there.’
He sounds weirdly excited. Then he notices his phone and puts it back to his ear. He seems to realise that he’s been talking about ghosts to three schoolkids.
‘Sorry, I got distracted,’ he says into his phone. ‘Yes. The police! I should go to the police.’ He stumbles through the foyer doors and out into the street.
Jessie swipes her card and presses the lift button, while we watch the man dithering on the footpath.
I
giggle
and want to keep watching, but Jessie pulls us into the lift.
‘I don’t know why he didn’t just phone the police,’ Jessie says.
This is so weird
. The cool kind of weird. I do the man’s crazy grin and flapping hands and say, ‘
Haunted!
’ It comes out half like the man and half like Scooby Doo.
We laugh, collapsing against the lift wall.
‘You’re hilarious, Squishy,’ Jessie says.
That’s right. My name is Squishy.
Squishy Taylor. It’s like the gangster, Squizzy Taylor, only better.
I love that Jessie said I was
hilarious
. Sometimes she just rolls her eyes when I think I’m funny. Not this time. It makes my laugh even bigger.
We’re still laughing when the lift opens at our floor.
Mr Hinkenbushel is standing there, waiting for the lift. He’s our next-door neighbour, the
crankiest
man in the universe
and
an undercover policeman. He winces at our noise and scowls at us. We freeze because one of the rules is that we have to be really quiet and not disturb him.
‘Well, hurry up and get out of the lift. What are you waiting for? Lousy kids.’
We stumble out past him. I bump him with my bag and he growls.
Seriously.
Growls
.
And this isn’t even that bad. When he shouts, he
spits
.
When the lift closes, we all breathe out and run down the corridor to our apartment.
Jessie pushes open the door and Alice says, ‘Hi, kids,’ from where she’s typing at the kitchen table. She is working at home because it’s Tuesday.
The twins say, ‘Hi, Mum.’
I say, ‘Hi, Alice.’
Alice and my dad had a Baby, so now we all live together. I used to live with my mum but she got a big job in Geneva and I decided to stay with Dad.
Baby is sitting in the middle of the rug. Jessie’s old collection of Barbies is spread out around him. He picks up one without a head and waves her around excitedly. Then she flies out of his hand, but it takes him a moment to realise she’s gone.
We all laugh at his surprised face and
swoop
down on him.
‘Baby-Baby-Baby,’ Vee says in a
gooey growl
, sprawling down onto her stomach beside him and mushing her nose into his big cheek.
I drop my bag and do a commando roll over the couch, stopping just short of his feet. ‘
You big, big fatty-boombah
,’ I say, jiggling his round legs. He’s so fat he’s got creases at his
ankles
.
Jessie has
nuzzled
in from the other side and Baby squeals and giggles and flaps his arms around.
‘Can we have toast on the balcony?’ Jessie asks.
It’s a treat, because the balcony door is in Alice and Dad’s room, and they keep it for special. We’re allowed free rein in the rest of our little apartment, but their bedroom is for them and Baby, and the balcony is grown-ups only.
‘Yep, OK. Fine,’ Alice says. ‘Just don’t talk to me for another fifteen minutes.’ Her nose is about ten centimetres from her computer screen and she hasn’t stopped typing.
‘Yay!’ Vee says, kicking my bag out of the way and going for the toaster.
‘Hey, Alice,’ I say, sliding Baby some more Barbies with my foot, ‘you should have seen the guy in the foyer –’ Jessie and I start giggling.
But Alice doesn’t want to know. ‘Squishy, I said, don’t talk to me.’
Even my
bonus mum
calls me Squishy. My real name is Sita, after my grandma, but people only call me that when I’m in serious trouble.
Vee hasn’t given up on our story. ‘But the guy in the foyer –’
‘Do you want to have your toast on the balcony or not?’ Alice asks, actually looking up from her screen.
‘Balcony!’ we say in unison, and I get out the butter and Vegemite, silent as a
ninja
.
When we work as a team, the three of us are
fast
.
As soon as we’re on the balcony, we see Haunted Guy hurrying back up the street with Mr Hinkenbushel beside him.
‘I guess Haunted Guy found the police station,’ I say, with my mouth full of Vegemite toast.
I lean my elbows on the balcony and look down. My curls get in my mouth with my next bite of toast. I try to
spit
my hair out and the chewed toast goes too. It
tumbles
down through the air, past all the other balconies. I laugh and a few more bits fall out. Luckily they don’t hit Mr Hinkenbushel.
Five minutes later, we hear Haunted Guy’s voice. He’s on the balcony just above us.
‘Yes,
all
the locks!’ Haunted Guy says. ‘
Everything
was locked!
’
He sounds almost upset, but mostly like I would feel – like he’s having an
adventure
.
We hear Mr Hinkenbushel’s familiar cranky voice.
‘Absurd … security cameras … ridiculous to say it just disappeared.’
The talking drops to mutters so we can’t hear words anymore.
Jessie whispers, ‘What are they saying?’
I don’t know. I really want to hear. I put my finger to my lips and climb, as quietly as I can, onto the balcony table. Jessie looks a bit nervous, but I don’t care. I stretch my neck, trying to hear.
Haunted Guy’s voice is quiet, but I catch a few words. ‘No, nothing else moved. Only the vase.’
Then more murmurings.
I feel the table
wobble
and realise Vee is climbing up beside me. She’s pointing, showing me the long beams holding the balcony over our heads. If I push up to my
tippiest tiptoes
, I can get my hands halfway around a beam. It’s not exactly like monkey bars, but near enough.
