she should be able to control it.
She puts down her makeup bag and goes into the kitchen.
‘Hi,’ she says.
No one reacts. She really is invisible. Nicke is sitting there, half asleep with his head in his hands. He reeks of stale beer. Her mother, who looks just as tired, is listlessly chewing on a ham sandwich while flipping through a catalogue from a place called the Crystal Cave. Only Melvin turns his head as if he’s heard something, but it’s obvious he can’t see her.
Vanessa stands next to Nicke. ‘Hung over today?’ she whispers in his ear. No reaction. Vanessa giggles. She feels oddly exhilarated.
‘Do you know how much I hate you?’ she says to Nicke. ‘You’re such a fucking loser that you don’t even know what a fucking loser you are. That’s probably the worst thing about you, that you think you’re so incredibly perfect.’
Suddenly she feels something wet and rough against her hand. She looks down. Frasse is standing there, licking her hand.
‘Wha’ Fasse doing?’ Melvin asks, in his perky voice.
Her mother looks at the dog, who is licking thin air. ‘You never know what Frasse is doing,’ she answers. ‘He’s probably chasing flies or something.’
‘Don’t make me come in there and smash that fucking radio,’ Nicke shouts, at Vanessa’s room.
Vanessa giggles and lets her gaze wander across the kitchen. Nicke’s favourite mug is standing on the counter, a big blue one emblazoned with ‘NYPD’ in white lettering and the police logo. He probably thinks that being a policeman in Engelsfors is somehow similar to patrolling the streets of New York.
Vanessa knocks the mug on to the floor with a sweeping motion. It splits in two with a satisfying crack. Melvin jumps and starts crying. Immediately she feels a little guilty.
‘What the hell?’ shouts Nicke, and gets up so forcefully that his chair tips over.
‘Shame you can’t blame it on me,’ Vanessa says triumphantly.
Nicke stares straight at her. Their eyes meet. The shock sends little jolts of electricity down her spine. He can see her.
‘Who the hell else would I blame it on?’ he hisses.
Melvin is bawling and Nicke lifts him up, stroking his tousled chocolate-brown hair. ‘There there, buddy, it’s all right,’ he says comfortingly, while glaring at Vanessa.
‘Vanessa, what are you doing?’ her mother says, in her weariest voice.
Vanessa can’t answer her. Is she still dreaming? If not, what’s going on? ‘Could you see me the whole time?’ she asks.
All of a sudden her mother looks wide awake.
‘Have you taken something?’
‘You guys are such dicks!’ Vanessa shouts, and rushes out into the hall.
She’s scared now, scared to death, but she’s not going to show it. Instead she steps into her trainers and grabs her bag.
‘You’re not going anywhere!’ her mother shouts.
‘So I should miss school?’ Vanessa slams the front door behind her with a bang that echoes up the stairwell.
She hurtles down the stairs, out through the front door and across the street to the number-five stop where she just makes it on to the bus.
Thank God she doesn’t know anybody on board. She sits at the very back.
There are only two possible explanations for this insane morning. One is that she’s lost her mind. The second is that she’s been sleepwalking again. When she was younger it happened quite often. Her mother loves to embarrass Vanessa by telling people that she once squatted on the hall carpet and peed. Vanessa still remembers how it felt to be in that state between sleep and waking. But deep down she knows this was something completely different.
I must have been sleepwalking, she decides. The other explanation is terrifying.
Vanessa looks out of the window, and when the bus heads into a tunnel, she catches sight of her reflection in the glass. Two unmade-up eyes stare back at her.
‘Oh, God.’ She rummages in her bag.
All she finds is an old tube of lip-gloss. Her makeup bag is still lying on the floor at home. Vanessa hasn’t gone to school without makeup since she was ten and has no desire to start now. One trauma is enough for this morning.
The bus continues through deserted industrial areas. Her mother often goes on about how the old steel works was the pride of the town when she was a child, that then you could feel proud to come from Engelsfors. Vanessa doesn’t understand what there was to be so proud of. The town must have been just as ugly and boring then as it is now.
The bus drives across the railway lines and