The Boy Who Sneaks in My Bedroom Window

The Boy Who Sneaks In My Bedroom Window

By Kirsty Moseley

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Kirsty Moseley

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the hard work of this author.

The cover for this e-book was made by Mollie Wilson.
I would like to say a massive thanks to her for making the book
look beautiful - Mollie, without you the book would be doomed to be
ugly forever.

Chapter 1

I sat on the kitchen counter, watching my mom make
pasta bake; she was panicking slightly and kept glancing at the
clock every couple of minutes. I knew why she did this, my dad was
due home in exactly sixteen minutes and he liked dinner to be on
the table as soon as he got in.

Jake
wandered in, playing with his Spider-Man
figures. “Mom, can I go play at Liam’s?” he asked, giving her the
puppy dog look.

She glanced at the clock again
and shook her head quickly. “Not right now, Jakey. Dinner won’t be
long and we need to eat as a family.” She flinched slightly as she
spoke.

Jake’s face
fell
, but he nodded and came to sit next
to me. I immediately snatched the little man out of his hands and
laughed as he gasped and snatched it back, smiling and rolling his
eyes at me. He was a cute kid, with blond hair and grey eyes with
brown flecks in them. He was my big brother, and as big brothers
went, he was the best. He always looked after me at home and at
school, made sure no one picked on me. The only one allowed to pick
on me, as far as he was concerned, was him, and to a lesser extent
his best friend Liam, who happened to live next door.

“
So, Ambs,
you need help with your homework?” he asked, nudging his shoulder
into mine. Jake was ten, and was two years older than me, so he
always helped with my school work

“
Nope. I
didn’t get any.” I smiled, swinging my legs as they dangled off of
the counter.

“
OK,
kids, go set the table for me. You know how.
Exactly right, OK?” Mom asked, sprinkling cheese on the pasta and
putting it into the oven. Jake and I jumped down from the counter
and grabbed the stuff, heading to the dining room.

My
d
ad was very particular about everything,
if everything wasn’t exactly right, he got angry and no one ever
wanted that. My mom always said that my dad had a stressful job. He
always got easily annoyed if we did anything wrong. If you had
heard of that saying
‘Children
should be seen and not heard’,
well, my
dad took that to another extreme. Instead, he liked
‘Children shouldn’t be seen or
heard’
. At five thirty everyday he would
come home, we would eat dinner straight away, and then Jake and I
would be sent to our bedrooms, where we played quietly until seven
thirty when we would have to go to bed.

I hated this time every day. Everything was
fine until he came home, and then we all changed. Jake always went
quiet and didn’t smile. My mom got this look on her face, like fear
or worry, and she would start rushing around plumping up the
cushions on the sofa. I always just stood there and silently wished
I could hide in my room and never come out.

Jake and
I
set the table quietly, and then sat
down in silence, waiting for the click of the door to signal that
he was home. I could feel my stomach fluttering, my hands starting
to sweat as I prayed in my head that he’d had a good day and he
would be normal tonight.

Sometimes, he
would be in a
really
good mood and would hug and kiss me. Telling me
what a special little girl I was, and how much he loved me. That
was usually on a Sunday. My mom and Jake would go to hockey
practice and I would be left home with my father. Those Sundays
were the worst, but I didn’t ever tell anyone about those times, or
how he touched me and told me how pretty I was. I hated those days,
and wished the weekends would never come. I would much rather it be
a school day when we would only see him for dinnertime. I
definitely preferred it when he looked at me with the angry eyes,
than when he looks at me with the soft eyes. I don’t like that at
all, it made me feel uncomfortable, it always made my hands shake.
Thankfully though, today was only Monday so I had almost a week
before I would have to worry about that again.

A
coupl
e of minutes later he walked in.
Jake shot me a look that told me to behave and he held my hand
under the table. My father had blond hair, the same colour as
Jake’s. He had brown eyes, and was always frowning.

“
Hello,
kids,” he said in his loud deep voice. A shudder tickled down my
spine as he spoke. He set his briefcase on the side and took his
seat at the head of the table. I tried not to show any reaction to
him; actually, I tried not to move at all. It always seemed to be
me that got everyone in trouble or that did something wrong. It
always seemed to be me that made things worse for everyone. It
never used to be like this, I used to be daddy’s little girl, but
since he started his job, three years ago, he changed. Our
relationship with him changed completely. He still favoured me over
Jake, but when he came home from work, it was like he wanted to
pretend like Jake and I weren’t there. The way he looked at Jake
sometimes was like he was wishing he didn’t exist, it made my
stomach hurt to see him look at my brother like that.

“
Hello, Dad,”
we both replied at the same time. Just then my mom came in carrying
the pasta and a plate of garlic bread.

“
This looks
nice, Margaret,” he said, giving her a smile. We all started eating
in silence and I tried not to shift on my seat uncomfortably. “So,
how was school, Jake?” he asked my brother.

Jake looked
up nervously. “It was good, thank you. I tried out for the ice
hockey team and Liam and I were,” he started, but my father nodded,
not listening.

“
That’s
great, son,” he interjected. “
What about
you, Amber?” he asked, turning his gaze on me.

Oh God!
OK,
be polite, don’t ramble. “Good, thank
you,” I replied quietly.

“Speak up child!” he shouted.

I flinched at
his tone, wondering if he was going to hit me, or maybe send me to
bed with no dinner.
“It was good, thank
you,” I repeated a little louder.

He frowned at
me and then turned to my mom who was nervously wringing her hands
together. “So, Margaret, what have you been doing today?” he asked,
eating his food.

“
Well, I went
to the supermarket and I got that shampoo that you like, and then I
did some ironing,” my mom answered quickly. It sounded like a
prepared answer, she always did that, had her answers ready so that
she wouldn’t say anything inappropriate to make him mad.

I reached out
my hand for my drink
, but I wasn’t
watching properly and knocked it over, spilling the contents over
the table. Everyone’s eyes snapped to my father, who jumped up from
his chair. “Shit! Amber, you stupid little bitch!” he growled,
grabbing the top of my arm and pulling me roughly from the table.
Suddenly my back hit the wall, pain shot down my back and I bit my
lip to stop from crying. Crying made it worse, he hated crying, he
said only weak people cried. I saw him draw back his hand; he was
going to hit me. I held my breath waiting for the blow, knowing
that there was nothing I could do but take it, the same as
always.

My brother
jumped from his chair and threw himself at me, wrapping his arms
around me tightly
, covering me. His was
back to our father as he protected me. “Get the hell off of her,
Jake! She needs to learn to be more careful!” my father shouted,
grabbing hold of Jake by his clothes and throwing him to the floor.
He slapped me across the face, sending me to the floor, then he
turned to Jake and kicked him in the leg, making him moan. “You
don’t ever get in my way again, you little shit!” he shouted at
Jake, while he was curled into a ball on the floor.

Silent tears
were flowing down my face
. I couldn’t
stand to see him hurt my brother; he was only trying to protect me.
Jake always did that. Whenever I got into trouble, he would provoke
my father so that he would take it out on him instead.

My father
picked up his plate and drink and stormed into the lounge to finish
his food
, muttering something about us
being ‘the worst kids in the world’ and ‘how the hell did he get
stuck with this life’.

I crawled
over to my brother and wrapped my arms around him tightly, clinging
to him as if my life depended on it. He groaned and pushed himself
up to sitting
, hugging me back, rubbing
his hand across my stinging cheek, hissing through his
teeth.

“
I’m so
sorry, Jake. I’m so sorry,
” I mumbled
quietly, crying onto his shoulder.

He shook his
head. “It’s alright, Ambs. It’s not your fault,” he croaked, giving
me a small smile and trying to get to his feet, groaning. I jumped
to my feet and helped him up. I could hear movement so I glanced up
to see that my mother was frantically clearing the
table.

“
Take your
dinner to your rooms and eat, OK?” she instructed, kissing us both
on the cheek. She needed to go to my father and do damage control,
he would be in a temper in there from my mistake and she needed to
calm him down before anything else happened. “I’ll see you tomorrow
morning. I love you both. Please be quiet, and whatever happens,
stay in your rooms,” she ordered, quickly kissing us again and
handing us our half eaten dinners, before pushing us towards the
back hallway.

We had a nice
house, four bedrooms and it was all on one level. My father earned
good money so we lived in a nice area, but I would rather the house
was smaller so he wouldn’t have to work in his job. Maybe then he
would be like the old dad, taking us to the park and buying me toys
and candy. Jake came to my room and we ate in silence, sitting on
the floor near my bed. He held my hand tightly when we heard my
father shouting at my mother from the lounge, something smashed,
and I winced. This was entirely my fault.

I started to
sob so Jake
wrapped his arm around my
shoulder, squeezing gently. He always seemed so much older than me;
he was so much more mature than I was. “It’s OK. Everything’s OK,
Ambs. Don’t worry,” he cooed, stroking my hair. Once I had calmed
down, and the shouting had stopped, we played snap cards for a
little while.

When we were
in the middle of the game, we heard stomping coming up the hallway,
Jake stiffened as the footsteps went past my door. They didn’t stop
though, thank God. I let out the breath I didn’t realise I was
holding and looked at Jake, who smiled a small smile. “I’d better
go to my room, it’s after seven,” he said looking at my alarm
clock. “Lock your door. I’ll see you in the morning,” he said with
a wink. He left the room and I watched him creep across the hall to
his room, he turned back to me. “Lock your door, Ambs,” he
whispered, waiting there, watching me.

I
shu
t my door and locked it quickly as he
told me to. Putting my ear to the wood, I listened to make sure
that Jake did the same to his. I ran back over to my bed and threw
myself on it, crying silently. I couldn’t stop, I was sobbing and
sobbing. I had been stupid tonight and I got my brother hurt again!
And probably my mother too, by the sound of the noises from the
lounge.

Suddenly
, there was a scratching,
tapping noise on my window. I snapped my eyes up to see Liam
outside, looking at me sadly. I got up and ran to the window
unlocked it and slid it up quietly wondering what on earth he was
doing here. Shouldn’t he be at home?

“
Liam
, what are you doing here?
You need to go, now!” I whisper yelled at him, shaking my head
fiercely. But the stupid boy just climbed into my room through the
window, closing it silently behind him.