Mirror Man by Jacques Kat (ereader for textbooks txt) 📗

the fish fingers and chips around my plate, making sure they didn’t go anywhere near the peas.

‘Aren’t you hungry?’ asked Mum. There was a kindness in her voice I wasn’t used to.

‘Not really,’ I told her.

‘Why don’t you go lie down, and I’ll fetch you some sweet tea and a slice of apple pie. I think there’s a bit left,’ she said. ‘I think that’ll cheer you up a bit.’

I shared a surprised glance with Grandad. She hadn’t been this way with me in a long time, if ever.

‘That would be great,’ I said before she had a chance to change her mind. Who knew when such a gesture would be offered again.

I went straight to my room, not even stopping to check if the mirrors were clean as I passed by and lay down on my bed to stare up at the ceiling. The pounding in my head remained. I hadn’t been able to shake it away all day.

I looked at Bruce Lee on the poster and wondered what he would have done in my shoes. I couldn’t shake the day’s events from my mind. Something was wrong in Claude’s Antiques, and I was determined to find out what it was. I needed my job. It gave me purpose. It wasn’t just a means to buy and replace the mirrors Mum smashed.

A knock on the door brought me back to now.

‘Yes?’ I called out.

‘Can I come in?’ It was Mum’s muffled voice.

‘Sure,’ I said, though I carried on staring at Bruce Lee.

‘Here you go,’ she said, putting a plate and mug on my bedside table. ‘I’ve made it sweet for the shock,’ she added. ‘It can’t have been nice to see that accident. It was mighty kind of you to go over to that man. I never thought you’d do something like that.’

‘Thank you, Mum. I’m trying to be different. More helpful,’ I said.

‘Hmm, ’tis nice in here,’ she said, not acknowledging my words. ‘You’ve always been one for tidying up after yourself. Even when you were small, you put your toys away, and you do keep the house clean,’ she said.

I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t be certain if she was trying to thank me or give me a compliment.

‘Umm… I do try,’ I said.

‘I know I can be hard on you sometimes… It’s only because I just don’t understand your ways, and I’m mad at myself. I feel like I’m responsible—like I did something wrong.’ She sniffed. ‘Well, I don’t feel I did. I know I did…’ She trailed off.

Wow, this is different, I thought.

‘I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong,’ I told her. I swung my legs around and sat up. She was looking into one of my mirrors, and I blinked back at her. Her eyes had filled with tears. I knew she had said those things about my eyes all those years ago, but could she really be responsible for how I’d turned out?

I didn’t think it mattered anymore, anyway. It seemed we were both turning a corner.

‘I’m proud of you for trying to help that man today,’ she said, then hurried out and closed the door before I had the chance to reply.

I gawked at the door. This was why I had to fight everything I’d come to know and love, stop with the following, and stop using the mirrors. If I went back to my old ways, then she probably would too.

I lay back down. ‘What would you do, Bruce?’ I asked the poster.

I knew his answer: Bruce would get to the bottom of the trouble Mr Phillips was having, while I watched on helpless. What could I do? Me, the weird kid who didn’t look at people in the eye, who had to use mirrors to have a proper conversation. All because of a few choice words my mum had said to me years ago. Was that really the reason? Or was this just me?

I’d been through so much in two days; getting beaten up, helping Mr Phillips with his shock, then going through my own after witnessing the accident.

Then I sat bolt upright.

‘The Suit,’ I said out loud.

In the chaos, I’d forgotten about him—yet again. I grabbed my journal and wrote about the latest sightings of him. The only thing I was certain of was that he didn’t belong in this town, or anywhere in Yorkshire, for that matter. No one really dressed like that here, plus the suit looked awfully expensive and tailormade. People that I knew of normally only wore suits for weddings and funerals—except Pete. He wore a suit, but the bank he worked at was in Leeds, and his attire wasn’t as nice as The Suit’s. I wished I’d had the opportunity to follow him. Perhaps then I could figure out who he was and what he wanted with Claude’s antique shop.

I drank the tea and ate the pie mum had left me. I didn’t taste it and only ate out of necessity. I didn’t feel like doing anything else after writing in my journal, not even cleaning my mirrors. I wanted to sleep to try to take the thud in my head away. However, every time I shut my eyes and drifted off, I saw the scooter with its wheel still spinning and Daniel hurt beside it.

I would walk over to look at him. His scarf and mirrored sunglasses had disappeared, and his eyes were open, staring up at me, making me want to turn and run. But my feet wouldn’t budge. It was like they had sunk into the tarmac.

I shut my eyes and shouted for it all to go away, and when I opened them, that scene had vanished, replaced by The Suit. He was standing behind me in a mirror in Claude’s Antiques as I looked in the big safe. He flashed a bright white smile, then winked.

I jumped into wakefulness at a light tapping on my bedroom door.

‘Yeah,’ I croaked. I checked my watch. It was eleven p.m., though