Dear Mummy,

Zoe has been really ill for the last few weeks though at first I didn’t know quite what was wrong with her. She refused to go to school and just lay on her bed staring at the ceiling. She stopped listening to her music, stopped smoking; she wouldn’t even come down to dinner. I got really worried about her because she was getting so skinny and pale. Weasel Face said she needed to snap out of it but she didn’t do anything to help, she just left her there. After dinner I would come up to see if she was okay but when I tried to talk she’d just turn on her side and make this horrible noise, like a really long sigh. I smuggled food out of the dining room and left it by the bed but in the morning it would still be there.

Then last night she asked me if I would find a CD for her. I asked which one and she said it was in her top drawer. I was going to ask why it wasn’t on the shelf like her other CDs but when I opened the drawer and saw it I realized why. Most of the music she plays is by American rappers, especially Tupac, who I’d never heard of before I came here. Now I know every word of that album because Zoe has played it so much. Anyway, the CD in the drawer was Elton John’s Greatest Hits. I took it out and showed it to Zoe, asked if this was the one she wanted. She nodded her head then lay back on the bed and told me to play it. ‘Put track five on,’ she said.

I did as I was told then went and sat on my bunk. The song started. It was ‘Goodbye Yellowbrick Road’. I’d heard it on the radio back at home. I sat there and listened to the first few lines and then Zoe started singing, really quietly. It was nice. She had a really lovely voice. I closed my eyes for a bit and listened to her singing. Then the song ended and she asked me to turn it on again. When I sat back down I asked her why she liked the song so much and she said that her mum used to play it all the time when she was little. They used to dance around the kitchen singing into cardboard tubes and pretending they were on Top of the Pops. I asked her where her mum was now and she said that she’d died of an overdose when Zoe was five. I tried to ask her some more questions then, about how she ended up here, but she just started singing again. After a while I joined in too, though I can’t sing as well as Zoe. When it finished she said, ‘That was really nice. Thanks.’ And we went to sleep.

When I woke up this morning her bed was empty. She wasn’t in the dining room at breakfast and she wasn’t in the entrance waiting for me as I left the house. I guessed she must have gone to school early but then at hometime this afternoon she wasn’t waiting for me at the gate. I felt something weird in the pit of my stomach as I walked back; like freezing cold air was blowing right through me. And then I saw two police cars parked outside the house. When I got inside Weasel Face was standing with a policeman. She told me to go to my room but I sat on the landing and listened to what they were saying. I heard the policeman say that a body had been found on the railway track. And then he said her full name: Zoe Maria Mathers. I wanted to scream but I knew I’d get in trouble for snooping if I made a sound. So I went back to my room, lay on Zoe’s bed and played that song over and over until I fell asleep.

I’ve just woken up and the first thing I thought about was you and how much I need you.

Please answer this letter Mummy.

Please come and get me.

I love you.

Your lovely daughter xxx