Read Before You Sleep for Free Online

come right back and we can play.’
    She didn’t answer me. Her head was bowed so that I couldn’t see her face.

    ‘Yuki, what would you say if I told you we might be moving? Going back to the city?’ Mama looked at me, smiling. She thought this news would make me happy, but I couldn’t stop my face feeling all long and heavy. Mama was sitting on the floor next to me in the cold room where she found me. Even though Maho had hidden I knew that she was still listening. ‘Wouldn’t you like that?’ Mama asked me, ‘You’ll see all of your friends again. And go to the same school.’ She looked surprised that I was not smiling. ‘What is wrong, Yuki?’
    ‘I don’t want to.’
    She frowned. ‘But you were so upset when we moved here.’
    ‘But I like it now.’
    ‘You’re all alone. You need your friends, my darling. Don’t you want to play with Sachi and Hiro again?’
    I shook my head. ‘I can play here. I like it.’
    ‘On your own in this big house? With all this rain? You are being silly, Yuki.’
    ‘No, I’m not.’
    ‘You will get tired of this. You can’t even go outside and use the swing.’
    ‘I don’t want to go outside.’
    She looked at the floor. Her fingers were very white and thin where they held my arms. Mama sniffed back her tears before they could come out. She put the back of one hand to her eyes and I heard her swallow. ‘Come out of here. It’s dirty.’
    I was going to say, I like it in here, but I knew that she would get angry if I said that. So I stayed quiet and followed her to the door. In the corner, in the shadow, I saw a bit of Maho’s white face as she watched us leave. And above us, in the attic, little feet suddenly went pattering. Mama looked up, then hurried me out of the room and closed the door.

    That night, after Papa finished my bedtime story, he kissed my forehead. He still hadn’t shaved and his lips felt spiky. He pulled the blankets up to my chin. ‘Try and keep these on the bed tonight, Yuki. Every morning they are on the floor and you feel as cold as ice.’
    ‘Yes, Papa.’
    ‘Maybe tomorrow the rain will stop. We can go and look at the river.’
    ‘I don’t mind the rain, Papa. I like to play inside the house.’
    Frowning and looking down at my blankets, Papa thought about what I had said. ‘Sometimes in old houses little girls have bad dreams. Do you have bad dreams, Yuki? Is that why you kick the sheets off?’
    ‘No.’
    He smiled at me. ‘That’s good.’
    ‘Do you have bad dreams, Papa?’
    ‘No, no,’ he said, but the look in his eyes said yes. ‘The medicine makes it hard for me to sleep. That’s all.’
    ‘I’m not scared. The house is very friendly.’
    ‘Why do you say that?’
    ‘Because it is. It just wants to make friends. It’s so happy we’re here.’
    Papa laughed. ‘But the rain. And all the mice here, Yuki. It’s not much of a welcome.’
    I smiled. ‘There are no mice here, Papa. The toys don’t like mice. They ate them all up.’
    Papa stopped laughing. In his throat I watched a lump move up and down.
    ‘You don’t have to worry about them, Papa. They’re my friends.’
    ‘Friends?’ His voice was very quiet. ‘Toys? You’ve seen them?’ His voice was so tiny that I could hardly hear him.
    I nodded, and smiled to make him stop worrying. ‘When all the children left, they stayed behind.’
    ‘Where . . . where do you see them?’
    ‘Oh, everywhere. But mostly at night. That’s when they come out to play. They usually come out of the fireplace.’ I pointed at the dark place in the corner of my room. Papa stood up quickly and turned around to stare at the fireplace. Outside my window the rain stopped falling on the world that it had made so soft and wet.

    The next morning, Papa found something inside the chimney in my room. He started the search in my bedroom with the broom handle and the torch, poking around up there and knocking all the soot down, which clouded across the floor. Mama wasn’t