Some nights in the school holidays I used to try and stay up as long as I could but I always seemed to fall asleep. Now I wanted to get to sleep and I couldn't. I wanted to go to sleep and wake up when it was morning. I didn't like being on my own in the dark. I wanted to go back outside and sit with Mum for a bit but I was too scared. I didn't want to go downstairs on my own. The moon came out a few times and when it did I could just about see her. She was still lying on the pavement where I'd left her. I wished she'd get up and come indoors.
When Dean woke up next morning it was late. It was almost midday by the time he climbed out of bed. He remained blissfully unaware of the fact that he had stayed awake virtually all night and had slept through almost the entire morning. He lay still for a while and ran over the events of the previous day in his head. He remembered his mum and how he'd left her lying in the street. He jumped up and his heart sank when he saw that she was still there on the pavement. Then he remembered his dad. He must have been home by now, he thought. He checked his parents' bedroom but the bed hadn't been slept in and, he realised sadly, the car wasn't outside either. Why hadn't Dad come back yet?
The sunlight had been streaming in through Dean's window, warming the area on the top of his bed where he'd curled up and fallen asleep. The temperature dropped noticeably as he moved around the rest of the cold house. He took off his school uniform (which he'd slept in) and, without thinking, threw it downstairs for Mum to wash. Then he grabbed the warmest set of clothes he could find from the wardrobe and got dressed. He'd never known the house to be this cold. It was quiet too. There usually always seemed to be noise all around him and this silence was frightening.
Before going down Dean returned to his bedroom and stared at his mother's body outside again. Why hadn't she moved? What was wrong with her? He decided that he'd go out and see her in a few minutes, once he'd had some breakfast. He didn't much feel like eating but his stomach was rumbling and he knew he'd have to eat something soon. He hadn't eaten much yesterday and he hadn't had anything hot to eat since dinner the night before. He couldn't ever remember feeling so hungry.
Down in the kitchen he fetched himself some cereal with warm milk (the fridge wasn't as cold as it usually was), some bread and a few biscuits. He couldn't find anything else. He didn't know how to use the oven and he couldn't get the kettle, the microwave or the toaster to work. Mum had shown him how to make a pizza in the microwave before now. He decided he wouldn't use any of the food from the freezer. Everything in there was warm and wet and the ice had melted leaving a puddle of water in the middle of the kitchen floor.
Dean put on his school coat and, clutching his food and a half-full bottle of lemonade, walked out of the front door and made his way over to where his mum still lay. All day he sat on the pavement next to her. He didn't know what else to do. He didn't feel safe anywhere else. During the course of the day he tried again to drag her back closer to home. He managed to move her a couple more meters, almost to the edge of their drive, but that was all. As the darkness drew closer again he stumbled dejectedly back indoors.
I couldn't help it. I didn't mean to do it, it just happened. Mum's going to be mad at me.
I'd been sitting outside with her for ages and it started to get dark again so I came back in. I'd been thinking about using my torch under the covers to read or trying to get the telly to work but when I got inside the house was all dark and quiet and empty again and I got really scared. I could hear loads of noises and I knew what they all were but they still scared me. There was dripping water coming from the freezer in the kitchen and I could hear the blind at the window in Mum and Dad's room being blown by the wind. It kept hitting the window and making a tapping noise. And every so often the wind made the letter box in the front door flap. Mum's been nagging at Dad for ages to get it fixed. It sounded like someone coming to the house and, the first few times, I ran to the door because I thought it was going to be Mum or Dad. I got upset when there was no-one there.
I didn't want to go upstairs. I wanted to hide away out of sight so I crawled under the dining room table. I only came out a couple of times, first to get some more food from the kitchen and then to try and find my torch. I got myself another packet of crisps and the last bar of chocolate from the cupboard. I wanted some bread and butter but I must have left the bread open because it had gone all hard and it tasted horrible. All of the lemonade and cans of Coke had gone. I had to drink orange juice straight from the bottle because there wasn't any water to make it properly with. It made me feel a bit sick but I was really thirsty so I kept drinking it.
It didn't feel like home anymore. Everything felt different and strange without Mum and Dad and it seemed to be getting colder and colder. I didn't want to go upstairs so I put my coat back on and my dirty school jumper that I'd thrown downstairs that morning for Mum to wash. Thinking about Mum and Dad made me upset again. I was starting to think I was never going to see Dad again and that he wasn't coming home. I was glad I'd missed two days of school but I would have rather gone there and have everything back how it used to be.
I've made a real mess in here. They're going to be mad at me. The dark frightens me so I tried to light the big yellow candle that Mum keeps on the sideboard. I took it under the table with me and used a match from the box out of the kitchen. Anyway I lit the candle and I must have had it too close to the tablecloth because it started to burn. It burned really, really quickly. I crawled out from under the table and used the bottle of orange juice to put out the fire. I tried to pull the tablecloth off. I didn't know that there were plates and things on the table. I pulled it and they fell on the carpet and most of them smashed. That made me upset again because the noise made me jump and because I knew that Mum would be cross that I'd broken her plates. She always got cross if I broke a plate or a dish or a cup. I didn't want to move because was scared I might cut myself on some of the broken pieces.
I think I fell asleep soon after that. When I woke up I was wet. I thought it was just orange juice at first but then I realised it was all over my trousers and all over the floor and I knew that I'd wet myself. I haven't wet myself since I was four. It was all over the carpet and I tried to clean it up with the burnt tablecloth but all that did was make things worse. My trousers were soaked so I took them off. I didn't want to go upstairs so I put my coat over the top of me and tried to keep warm but I couldn't stop shivering.
Exhausted and suffering from shock and mild exposure, Dean slept intermittently for a further few hours. The morning finally arrived, bringing with it some welcome light and warmth. Tired and aching, he crawled back upstairs and got himself dressed in some clean clothes. He smelled from the accident he'd had in the night but he couldn't wash because he couldn't get any water to come out of the taps. He used some of Dad's deodorant spray to try and cover up the smell.
Dean was finding it harder and harder to come upstairs on his own. Dad had recently decorated the spare room ready as a nursery ready for the birth of Dean's baby brother. He'd painted teddy bears and cartoon characters on the walls. When Dean walked past the open door of the room he felt like their eyes were moving, watching him as he crept around the house.
While Dean was up in his bedroom getting changed he noticed that his mum had gone. For a second he was excited and relieved and he ran back downstairs to find her, expecting that she'd be back inside, cleaning up the mess in the kitchen or sitting on the sofa waiting for him. When he discovered that she wasn't there he slumped down at the bottom of the stairs and began to sob. Where had she gone? Why had she gone? Why had she left him and why hadn't she come back to the house? The pain of this sudden, unexpected rejection was in many ways worse than the unexplained loss and confusion he'd been trying to deal with for the last two days.