I mumbled thanks and she headed out the door.

I sat on the outside top step and waited for Dad. I let my legs swing back and forward and crash into the cement, and even though it hurt a bit I couldn’t stop. I had scratched my head in the night and had to hide my pillow slip in the laundry so Mum wouldn’t notice, and my head hurt a bit in one place, but somehow the leg hurting and the head hurting felt right.

Dad walked past me and he was in a fury.

‘Dad. What did he say, Dad?’ I asked.

‘Go to school, Dorcas. Just go to school.’

‘But, Dad, what did he say? Did he admit he smothered her in a box? Dad?’

‘Dorcas. Don’t make me cross. Go to school. We’ll talk about it when you get home tonight. Not now.’ He slammed the back door after him.

I put my ear to the door and I heard him call out for Mum. She came out of Caleb’s room, shooshing him because Caleb was still asleep. They went into the lounge room. I decided to crouch down and go around the front to listen. As well as listening at the crack in the bedroom door, sometimes you learned things by crouching down by the lounge room windows in the spring when Mum opened them a bit for fresh air.

‘He says he left her in the cage on our back doorstep, Agnes,’ said Dad.

‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he?’ she said.

‘Why would he hide the cage in the garage if he had put the thing in a box on the step? It doesn’t make sense. He says what happened was nothing to do with him. He says if I just think about it, two and two will make four, Agnes.’

‘What on earth are you taking about?’ said Mum. ‘That dreadful man clearly killed the rat to upset Dorcas and you’re believing his story?’

‘Stop calling her pet a rat!’ yelled Dad. He didn’t yell at Mum that often. His voice was usually the one trying to make her voice less loud and screechy. I was glad he stood up for Sixpence and didn’t want her to be called a rat.

‘If I ever find out what happened, Agnes …’ said Dad.

‘What? What! You’ll what exactly?’ cried my mum. ‘You’ll pray about it? You’ll tell your dreadful sister-in-law? You’ll work a few more hours for Henry? What exactly will you do, Harry?’

Then I didn’t hear any more talking, and a few minutes later Dad got in the car and drove off. I sat quietly until I was sure Mum wouldn’t see me and then snuck off to school.

I didn’t understand what was happening, but I decided I would tell Maynard at lunchtime to see what he thought.

CHAPTER 9

On a Saturday night a fortnight later, Mum and Dad were going to have dinner at their friends Brother and Sister Hodges. Caleb had bounced back pretty well, and although Mum was a bit worried about taking him out in the night air, Dad said he was right as rain and that it would do them both good to have a night away from the kids. The Hodges had no children, and what Dad meant by a night away from us was that we would have to stay in the car in the Hodges’ driveway for the whole night.