Finding Audrey - Sophie Kinsella Page 0,16
find an old power cable to do it. I thought you wouldn’t mind.”
He points at the monitor, and I see armoire floating round the screen in a big red font, followed by wardrobe in blue.
Wow. He must have moved quickly to get that up on-screen.
Actually, playing LOC does improve your reaction times. I mean, that’s a real thing.
“You’ve been doing language lab all this time?” Mum glances at me with narrowed eyes, and I look away. I am not getting into this.
“I’ve been reading Scott Pilgrim,” I say truthfully.
Mum’s focus returns to Frank. “Frank, are you lying to me?”
“Lying?” Frank looks hurt.
“Don’t give me that! Are you telling me, hand on heart, that you’ve been doing your homework and nothing else?”
Frank just stares at her for a moment. Then he shakes his head, his face sad.
“You adults. You think teenagers lie. You assume teenagers lie. That’s the starting point. It’s infinitely depressing.”
“I don’t assume anything—” begins Mum, but he cuts her off.
“You do! All of you make these easy, obvious, lazy assumptions that anyone under the age of eighteen is a pathological, dishonest, sub-human with no integrity. But we’re people, just like you, and you don’t seem to get that!” His face is suddenly passionate. “Mum, can’t you just for once believe that your son might be doing the right thing? Can’t you just for once give me an ounce of credit? But, look, if you want me to disconnect the computer and not do my French homework, that’s fine. I’ll tell the teacher tomorrow.”
Mum looks thrown by Frank’s little speech. In fact, she looks quite chastened.
“I didn’t say you were lying! I just…Look, if you’re doing French homework, that’s fine. Carry on. I’ll see you later.”
She tip-taps down the hall, and a few moments later we hear the front door close.
“You’re sick,” I say, without looking up from my book. Frank doesn’t reply. He’s already engrossed in his game again. I turn a page and listen to Frank’s mutterings, and wonder whether to go and make a hot chocolate, when suddenly there’s the most almighty banging on the window, from outside.
“FRAAAAAAANK!!!”
I jump a mile, and feel myself start to hyperventilate. Mum is at the window, staring in, her face like some monstrous demon. I mean, I’ve never seen her look so furious. “Chris!” she’s yelling now. “COME HERE! I’VE CAUGHT HIM RED-HANDED!”
How is she even up there? The windows of the playroom are like, eight feet off the ground outside.
I glance at Frank, and he looks genuinely a bit freaked out. He’s closed down LOC, but she saw it. I mean, there’s no way she didn’t see it.
“You’re for it,” I say.
“Shit.” Frank scowls. “I can’t believe she would spy on me.”
“Chris!” Mum is yelling. “Help! I…Arrrgh!”
Her face disappears from the window and there’s a loud crunch.
Oh my God. What just happened? I leap to my feet and run to the back door. The window of the playroom backs onto the garden, and as I head out, I can’t see Mum anywhere. All I can see is Felix’s playhouse, pulled up to the playroom window. But the roof seems to have broken, and—
No.
No way.
Mum’s feet are poking out of it, still in her high heels.
Frank arrives on the back step, and sees what I’m looking at. He claps a hand over his mouth and I nudge him.
“Shut up! She might be hurt! Mum, are you OK?” I call, hurrying over to the playhouse.
“Anne!” Dad has arrived on the scene. “What happened? What were you doing?”
“I was looking in the window,” comes Mum’s stifled voice. “Get me out of here. I’m totally wedged in.”
“I thought standing on the playhouse was a bad example to Felix, Mum,” says Frank blandly, and I hear a furious gasp.
“You little…” It’s probably a good thing Mum’s voice is muffled at that point.
It takes me, Dad, and Frank together to haul Mum out of the playhouse, and I can’t say it improves her mood. As she brushes her hair down, she’s shaking with fury.
“Right, young man,” she says to Frank, who is staring sullenly at the floor. “Well, you have cooked your goose. You are hereby banned from playing any computer games for…what do you think, Chris?”
“One day,” says Dad firmly, just as Mum says, “Two months.”
“Chris!” says Mum. “One day?”
“Well, I don’t know!” says Dad defensively. “Don’t put me on the spot.”
Mum and Dad go off in a huddle and start whispering, while Frank and I wait awkwardly. I could go inside, I suppose,