I’m not thinking about her –

Mam –

because it’s different this time.

I’m not forcing colour into the

dregs of a hangover.

I’m not painting to

– cheer her up, or

– try to stop her drinking again, or

– make her stay this time.

I’m choosing colour because

with Alice

it’s there.

He paints over the grey of the pencil, flicking colour outside the lines and sweeping it across the page, turning snow to sea.

He flecks it across the body at the top and blends it to an oil-spill rainbow of colour in the body at the bottom. And as he adds reds and oranges and greens and purples, I realize what it is he’s painting.

It’s a mantis shrimp. Out of his seabed hideaway, his eyes looking up at the clouds as a great blue-spotted mudskipper leaps overhead, fins out wide like wings.

It’s him. And me. Bursting from the same page in full technicolour.

My throat feels dry. ‘You looked up mudskippers.’

I put down my paintbrush and look at

my paint-flecked hands.

‘Turns out there are

thirty-two different species of mudskipper.

But this one.

The blue one.

This felt the most like you.’

He says it out loud and Charlie uncurls himself from Fran. He looks at Rowan’s page and elbows her in the ribs.

‘Ow!’ she says, jumping up. ‘What you –’

But then she sees. They both do. And they look at the space where I know Rowan’s face is and I feel jealousy charge through my bones like electricity.

‘Nice fish, dude,’ Fran says quietly.

They’re looking at me like I’m mad.

Like I’m three-years-ago Rowan.

‘You wanna come hang at the bell tower later?’ Charlie says, still looking at Rowan’s painting. ‘Fran reckons we can bust open the fire door. It’ll be like old times.’

The bell goes and everyone

J U M P S U P

along with my insides.

I check my watch.

‘Jonah,’ I mutter.

Fran rolls her eyes and turns away. ‘You babysit way too much.’

I look at the painting one last time.

Then I screw it up

and throw it in the bin on my way out.

Rowan is no longer streaming.

47

Alice

Dad sticks his head round the door. ‘Oi, you. Spoon count?’

I frown. ‘But it’s not Wednesday?’

He exaggerates a sigh. ‘Can’t a guy do something fun any other day of the week? Spoon count.’

I smile. ‘Six?’

‘Good enough.’

He pushes open the door and I see he’s wearing an apron with a golden ‘M’ on it. Behind him, Mum’s holding a huge tray – so large that she can’t reach her arms completely round it to wedge it through the door.

‘Have you been to McDonald’s?!’ I say, my heart dropping a little bit.

‘No, no.’ Dad puts his finger in the air. ‘McDonald’s has come to you.’