Finding Audrey - Sophie Kinsella Page 0,12

all day with Felix, taking him to a series of birthday parties, and they told Frank to do his homework while they were out and Frank said yes and then he logged on and that was it.

Now it’s Sunday morning and Mum is at tennis and Dad is doing something in the garden and I’m watching telly in the den when Frank appears at the door.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” My dark glasses are already on and I don’t turn my head.

“Listen, Audrey, Linus is going to be spending a lot of time at our house. I think you should get to know him. He’s on my LOC team.”

I’ve already stiffened a little at the words Linus and get to know him.

“Why do I need to get to know him?” I counter.

“He feels weird coming to our house. Like, what happened the other day? When you ran away? It freaked him out a bit.”

I scowl at Frank. I don’t want to be reminded.

“He doesn’t need to feel weird,” I say, wrapping my arms round my knees.

“Well, he does. He thinks he upset you.”

“Well, tell him. You know. About…”

“I have.”

“Well then.”

There’s silence. Frank still doesn’t look happy.

“If Linus doesn’t want to come to our house, he might join another LOC team,” he says. “And he’s really good.”

“Who else is on the team?” I swivel round to face Frank.

“These two guys from school. Nick and Rameen. They play online. But Linus and I are like the strategists. We’re going to enter the LOC International Tournament, and the qualifiers are on July eighteenth, so we need a ton of practice. The prize pot is six million dollars.”

“What?” I stare up at him.

“Seriously.”

“You win six million dollars? Just for playing LOC?”

“Not ‘just’ for playing LOC,” says Frank impatiently. “It’s the new spectator sport.” He looks more animated than I’ve seen him for ages. “They’re holding it in Toronto and they’re building like this massive stadium, and everyone’s flying in. It’s big money. This is what Mum and Dad don’t get. These days, being a gamer is a career choice.”

“Right,” I say dubiously. I went to a careers fair at school.

I didn’t see anyone sitting at a stall under a sign, BECOME A GAMER!

“So you need to make Linus feel comfortable here,” Frank finishes. “I can’t lose him off my team.”

“Can’t you go to his house?”

Frank shakes his head. “We tried. His granny’s there. She’s got some dementia thing. She won’t leave us alone. She shouts and she cries and sometimes she doesn’t know who Linus is, and she keeps taking everything out of the freezer. They, like, have to watch her all the time. Linus has to do all his homework at school.”

“Right.” I digest this. “Poor Linus. Well…you know. Tell him it’s all fine.”

“He asked for your number, but…” Frank shrugs.

“Right.”

I don’t have a phone number at the moment. Just to add to the party, I’ve become phone-averse. Not phobic, just averse.

Which Frank will never understand in a million years.

He heads off and I switch over to You’ve Been Framed. Felix comes in to watch it with me and we snuggle up on the sofa together. Felix is like a walking, talking teddy bear. He’s soft and snuggly and if you press him in the tummy he laughs, every time. His head is a curly mass of blond like a dandelion clock and his face is constantly open and hopeful. You feel like nothing must ever go wrong for him, ever.

Which is, I guess, how Mum and Dad felt about me.

“So, how’s school, Felix?” I say. “Are you still friends with Aidan?”

“Aidan has chicken pops,” he tells me.

“Chicken pox?”

“Chicken pops,” he corrects me, as though I’m an idiot. “Chicken pops.”

“Oh, right.” I nod. “I hope you don’t get them.”

“I will fight the chicken pops with my sword,” he says importantly. “I’m a very strong fighter.”

I take off my dark glasses and look into his round, open little face. Felix is the only one I can cope with looking at, eye to eye. My parents’ eyes—forget it. They’re full of worry and fear and too much knowledge. And kind of too much love, if that makes sense? If I look at them, it’s like it all comes flooding back over me in a gush—mingled in with their anger, which is pretty righteous. I mean, it’s not directed at me, obviously, but still. It feels toxic.

Frank’s eyes are just a little freaked out every time he looks at me. It’s like, Help, my sister went nuts, what should I