Read One Boy Missing for Free Online Page A

all that way for a bit of milk.’
    ‘You put this in your tea?’
    ‘Boiling water will kill anything.’
    Moy looked at the four casserole dishes lined up in the fridge. Each had its own square of masking tape with a date, name and contents carefully recorded. Butter chicken, lasagna, sweet and sour pork. A shepherd’s pie with the mince scraped out and eaten leaving a collapsed crust of burnt potato.
    ‘Have you finished with these?’ he asked. ‘I think she wants her dishes back.’
    ‘Get rid of ’em,’ George said, waving his hand.
    Moy spent the next ten minutes cleaning out the fridge, scraping the casserole dishes and washing the cups and crockery. Most of the food was so old he had to fetch a paint scraper from the tool box to get it off.
    George was a tall man and he’d grown lanky in his old age. He had freckled skin and sunken cheeks with high bones. There were a few wrinkles on his forehead, only noticeable when he frowned or lifted his eyes to let the Meals on Wheels lady know he wasn’t happy with the menu. His arms were all bone, joint, long fingers and careful hands.
    Moy sat down opposite his dad. He dried his hands on a tea-towel and looked at a pill box on the table, a plastic container with holes for each of George’s pills: before and after breakfast, lunch and tea, Sunday to Saturday. He restocked it every Sunday morning when he visited; following his Saturday morning trip to the chemist with his father’s scripts; following his semi-regular Friday afternoon visit to the doctor with George.
    The pills for the previous evening were still in their little plastic slot. ‘What’s this?’
    George looked at the pills. ‘I thought I’d had ’em all.’
    ‘Dad, you can’t afford to miss any.’
    ‘I didn’t mean to.’
    Moy knew it was time for his usual speech: how he had to be more careful about his pills; how it wouldn’t be an issue if only he’d agree to move to a nursing home; how he, DS Moy, couldn’t be here all the time (although George always countered with the fact that Bart had told him he’d only returned from town to help look after him); how the house was run down and needed tens of thousands of dollars spent on it; how George couldn’t look after himself anymore; how he needed specialised help, especially considering what was just over the horizon.
    ‘Should I take them now?’ George asked.
    Moy paused to think. ‘No, I don’t think you should.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘It’d be too much, I think. I should ask Dr Smith.’
    George crossed his arms. ‘What would he know?’
    ‘He’s a doctor.’
    ‘Didn’t stop me from getting sick.’
    Moy raised his hands in desperation. ‘So you are sick?’
    ‘You tell me.’
    ‘Dr Smith told you.’
    ‘Doctor? Ha! He’s been doin’ it fifty years. Lot of things change in fifty years.’
    ‘People still get sick…people die.’
    George tried to change the subject. ‘Haven’t seen Megan for a while.’
    Moy tried to work out what he meant. Eventually he said, ‘Neither have I.’
    George looked confused. ‘Why’s that, she busy?’
    Moy stood up and went into the laundry. He filled a bucket with hot water and found the mop. ‘Don’t you remember?’ he called to his dad.
    ‘What?’
    ‘We separated—eighteen months ago.’
    George struggled to remember. ‘Right…you were together… then you moved here. She didn’t come, did she?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Cos you separated?’
    ‘Yes.’ Moy returned to the kitchen and started mopping the floor. His father glanced down at his unfinished crossword. He picked up the newspaper and a pen and read the clue. ‘Pulsing star? Seven letters, third letter u.’

8
    THE PRINCIPAL’S NAME was Rebecca Downey and Moy thought she looked far too young to be in charge of three hundred little people. She’d gathered her hair in a bun, he thought, to counter that impression. ‘Nice bunch of kids?’ he asked as they walked down the hallway towards the assembly.
    ‘Mostly,’