The Boy Who Steals Houses

by C. G. Drews

  Jack looks helplessly at Jeremy. ‘He started—’

  His father snaps his fingers.

  Jack mutters something darkly unintelligible and slaps his phone in his father’s hand.

  ‘And bed for you, miss,’ Mr De Lainey adds to Dash.

  ‘But I’m winning!’

  ‘And it’s past ten.’

  ‘It’s holidays.’

  ‘Dash.’

  She slides off her chair and stomps towards the stairs. ‘Don’t forget, I whopped your pathetic butts.’

  Jeremy rubs his remaining two-dollar bills together. ‘Good game, Dashie.’

  She beams and bounces up the stairs with Mr De Lainey in her wake.

  ‘Don’t make it late, kids.’ He pauses halfway up the stairs. ‘Is someone picking you up, Sam?’

  Sam opens his mouth dumbly, and Moxie chooses that moment to stab him with a pin. He yelps.

  ‘Soon,’ Moxie says fiercely. ‘’Night, Dad.’

  They wait till he’s gone before Moxie and Sam exchange glances. Sam can’t quite read Moxie’s expression, but he thinks it’s a mixture of relief – and guilt. His chest tugs. Two weeks is a lot of lying.

  ‘OK, take it off,’ Moxie says.

  Sam shrugs out of the half-pinned material, jabbing himself several times in the process. She spreads it over the table and then goes to her sewing corner for extra supplies.

  Jeremy sets up the Monopoly board again and Jack is on Jeremy’s phone, texting rapidly.

  ‘You don’t need to warn everyone you’ve lost your phone,’ Jeremy says. ‘Half the time they just text me anyway. It’s like, expected.’

  ‘Dad picks on me,’ Jack says.

  Moxie reappears with an armful of garments. ‘Your voice carries the furthest because you’re a foghorn.’ She tosses the clothes in Sam’s lap and then hands him a small, lethal-looking weapon.

  ‘Who do I kill with this?’ Sam says.

  ‘That’s an unpicker, you goat. And these are second-hand clothes. This is where the “upcycle” comes into my stunning design work. We rip these old clothes to pieces and I remake them into something new.’

  ‘Dead people’s clothes.’ Jeremy pops houses on the board.

  Jack makes an exasperated sound.

  Sam swivels the small torture instrument. It feels like a lock pick. His body coils with a strange feeling – has he ever gone this long without stealing something?

  ‘Someone needs to be helpful around here.’ Moxie stares pointedly at her brothers. ‘Since they’re all completely useless.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Jeremy says. ‘I did reconstructive surgery on Sammy’s hair and Jack cleaned the bathroom once. Last year, I think.’

  ‘I rest my case,’ Moxie mutters.

  Grady appears, rubbing his eyes until his glasses are askew. ‘What’d I miss?’

  ‘Everything,’ Moxie says. ‘Here comes another useless De Lainey.’

  Grady peers over Moxie and Sam’s shoulders, where they’re attacking seams in efficient unison. ‘Why don’t you just buy clothes? Save time.’

  Moxie slams her scissors down, nostrils flaring. She stalks over to the huge whiteboard hanging by the fridge and wipes a corner free from the hubbub of family notes. She snaps the pen lid off with vicious intent and writes, in hard and tall letters: RANKINGS OF USEFULNESS.

  ‘Oh, here we go,’ Jeremy says.

  She starts with Grady and gives him a four out of ten.

  Grady slides on to the bench across from Sam. ‘Ouch.’

  Moxie writes her own name and a big fat ten next to it.

  ‘This seems unfair,’ Jeremy comments. ‘You can’t even cook.’

  Moxie’s frown is lemon. ‘Excuse you? I can heat up lasagne. I look after the kids all the time now. And yesterday I reminded Dad that we’re nearly out of chocolate. I’m keeping this family together.’ She writes Jeremy’s name as she says this and gives him a seven.

  Then she writes Jack and gives him a one.

  Jack throws his Monopoly money. ‘Give me that pen, you little freak.’

  Moxie blows hair out of her face and writes Sam’s name next.

  He rips seams nervously, the unpicker stuck between his teeth and his hair filled with cotton fluff.

  The pen hesitates. Then Moxie gives him an eight.

  ‘All right, this is rigged.’ Jeremy frowns. ‘I should be worth more than Sam. I cook! I specifically made you a salted caramel latte last night.’

  ‘But I don’t have one right now,’ Moxie says. ‘So it doesn’t register on this scale.’

  Jeremy shoves back his chair and heads for the kitchen. ‘Blackmail.’

  Moxie doodles a butterfly on the whiteboard, humming softly to herself. Monopoly forgotten, Jack looms behind her, all folded arms speckled with house paint.

  His glare levels mountains. ‘Why are you rating Sam so high? Do you have a crush?’

  Sam’s unpicker slips and he nearly stabs his own hand.

  Moxie’s lemon frown is back. ‘The real question to ask, Jack, is why are you so annoying?’

  ‘I still love you despite your faults, dearest,’ Jeremy calls from the kitchen, popping the lid off the cocoa powder.

  ‘Shut up, Jeremy.’ Jack’s mouth tips down at the corners and he looks surprisingly like Moxie. ‘This scale is complete bull—’

  Their father’s voice thunders from upstairs. ‘Jack.’

  Jack slams his hand against the wall. ‘THIS HOUSE IS BUGGED.’

  Upstairs, the baby wakes up with a howl followed by flying footsteps. Mr De Lainey, wearing pyjama pants and huge reading glasses, materialises at the top of the stairs like a force of power. He’s all muscles and sinew and Sam decides he’s still terrified of him.

  ‘Jack,’ the De Lainey father snaps. ‘My room. Now.’

  ‘I get in trouble for everything.’ Jack storms towards the stairs. ‘You lot could murder someone and stuff their guts in the freezer and get away with it.’

  ‘There go my weekend plans,’ Jeremy says.

  Jack angles his body so his father can’t see and shoots his siblings a rude gesture. Then he stomps upstairs.

  Jeremy reappears with a tray full of mugs, steam curling over the rims and marshmallows bobbing. He grins like a delighted Cheshire Cat. ‘Soooo … who has a crush?’

  ‘Shut up.’ Moxie takes a mug and sits next to Sam.

  Jeremy and Grady exchange smirks.

  ‘Sam is a lovely shade of red,’ Grady says.

  ‘Is your brain the size of a pea?’ Moxie stabs material. ‘He’s sunburnt.’

  She cuts a sideways glance at Sam. He wants to whisper, do you have a crush? But his tongue is stuck, his breathing shallow. It’d be so much worse if she did.

  Boys like him don’t get the girl. They go to jail.

  Sam sits on the floor, tangled in patterns and pins, with a measuring tape around his neck like a scarf and a bowl of cereal perched precariously atop several bolts of fabric. It’s seven thirty in the morning. He wears Moxie’s jeans and one of Jeremy’s shirts and Moxie specifically wrote honeyed oat granola on the shopping list because it’s his favourite.

  He’s so caught up in wrestling a pattern piece on to the right fold that he doesn’t notice someone’s stumbled down the stairs until a bone-rattling sneeze startles Sam into looking up.

  Mr De Lainey has sunk to the bottom step, one hand on the banister and another clutching a tissue to streaming eyes. He’s a mountain of a man, but flus don’t discriminate. Sam’s usual response to seeing Mr De Lainey is to quietly vanish, but this time he has a twinge of sympathy.

  Mr De Lainey catches his eye and croaks, ‘You’re here early.’

  I never left.

  Sam is saved from fumbling an excuse as Moxie stomps downstairs with the baby on her hip and a bri
ttle frown.

  ‘Dad,’ she says, ‘we’re totally out of food. We’re on the verge of starvation and – wow, you look awful.’

  Mr De Lainey proves her point by sneezing. ‘Sorry, sweetie. I meant to go … go …’ He’s lost to the rapidly disintegrating tissue and another sneezing fit.

  ‘That,’ Moxie says, hand on hip while the baby chews her necklace, ‘is because you don’t take care of yourself. Lemon tea and bed.’

  ‘Moxie, I’ll be fine—’

  ‘Seriously, am I the only voice of reason around here?’

  Sam collects his empty cereal bowl and makes for the kitchen. He hesitates, caution towards adults battering against wanting to do something nice for a man who’s only ever been kind, and then he stuffs his nervousness in his back pocket and puts the kettle on. He fetches teabags, lemon and ginger, and Mr De Lainey’s favourite mug. Moxie smiles at him, surprised and entirely pleased.

  She should’ve realised, by now, that he’ll do anything for a De Lainey.

  ‘I’ll go shopping.’ Moxie tries to put the baby down but it squawks at her, so she sighs and shouts up the stairs, ‘JEREMY! Drive me to the shops!’

  Silence.

  Moxie mutters something about lowering his usefulness rating until Jack appears, hair like a cyclone and wearing a black shirt with a skull on it.

  ‘Jeremy cannot return your calls right now,’ he says.

  Moxie narrows her eyes. ‘Did he come home last night? Tell me he’s not trying to get back with his ex-boyfriend again.’

  Jack makes a wild cutting motion at his throat, but Mr De Lainey – flu or not – has an all-seeing eye.

  ‘Right, he’s grounded.’ He sneezes. Moxie hands him the whole tissue box. ‘Where’s Grady?’

  Jack bounces downstairs. ‘He left super early to, and I quote, “prevent inevitable murder if I have to stay in this house one minute longer”. I guess he’s with his girlfriend.’

  ‘If Grady wants to murder you,’ Moxie says, ‘he should totally live that dream.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  Sam brings over the tea and Mr De Lainey accepts gratefully. ‘You’re brilliant, son, thank you.’

  Sam looks away quickly to hide the flush of pleasure.

  ‘Then Jack can go shopping,’ Moxie says.

  Panic lights Jack’s eyes. ‘What? No way.’

  ‘There’s literally no food.’

  ‘There’s not actually a lot of money for groceries,’ Mr De Lainey says, sipping tea. ‘I just … as soon as the house we’re building sells, we’ll be fine. But I’ve sunk a lot into it. Too much.’ He rubs his reddened eyes. ‘Jack, can you grab the emergency cash in the office? Top drawer.’

  Sam’s heart skips a beat and then

  s t o p s.

  ‘I’ll sell a few pieces of furniture,’ Mr De Lainey adds. ‘Just to tide us over.’

  Jack folds his arms. ‘Great. We’re going to end up on the streets, starving and destitute.’

  Sam’s looking anywhere but at Moxie. His pulse flutters, fireflies and knives, and Moxie frowns curiously at him.

  Mr De Lainey sighs. ‘It’s not that d … dram … a – TIC.’ It ends in a sneeze and he sloshes tea on the stairs.

  Moxie snaps her fingers at Jack. ‘Get the money. And keys. Also your brain, if you can find it.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere with you—’

  ‘We need food!’ She practically stamps her foot. ‘Dad needs a twelve-year nap. Stop being so selfish, Jack.’

  Mr De Lainey tries to say something like ‘I’m not that bad’ but he looks exactly that bad.

  Jack storms off to search the office, muttering darkly, while Moxie pulls on boots and stuffs her frizz into a ponytail. The baby clings to her leg and sniffles.

  Jack returns, car keys jingling. A pang slides down Sam’s arms and he stuffs his fingers in his pocket, because he wants—

  No, he doesn’t. He’s fine. He’s over keys.

  ‘I couldn’t find any money in the office,’ Jack says. ‘And whoever put those blankets in there needs to clean it up. But I got your wallet and we can totally live off a hundred bucks.’

  Mr De Lainey frowns. ‘Did I use that emergency money already?’

  Sam quickly takes Mr De Lainey’s half-empty mug. ‘Want me to refill this?’

  Mr De Lainey blinks for a bleary second. ‘Oh? That’d be great, Sam. I think I’m about to keep you.’ He smiles.

  Sam is a war of guilt and pleasure at Mr De Lainey’s words. It wouldn’t be like this if he knew what Sam was.

  ‘We have to take the baby,’ Moxie says, ‘because I give up trying to put it down and suffering the screaming.’

  ‘And take Sam,’ Mr De Lainey says, voice thick, ‘so you don’t murder your brother.’

  ‘Of course I’m taking Sam.’ Moxie sniffs disdainfully. ‘I wouldn’t just leave him.’

  It turns out that Moxie grocery shopping is a terrifying thing. She is a burst of violent fire and speed as she storms aisles with a list and clicking pen.

  Jack shoves the trolley in her wake and looks bored and offended by everything. ‘We’re going to live off gruel.’

  Moxie’s voice turns dangerous. ‘Listen here, Jack. We’re in a tight spot and Dad’s doing the best he can and if you can’t possibly be a decent person, at least pretend, or I will wipe you off the usefulness rating board completely.’

  ‘You are simply the worst creature,’ Jack says.

  Moxie’s smile is sweet poison. ‘At least I was planned while you were an unhappy accident.’

  ‘That is so not true—’

  ‘Mum only planned for Jeremy,’ Moxie says. ‘And she’d have so many regrets if she knew how—’

  Sam taps her shoulder. ‘Aren’t we shopping?’

  ‘The puppy has an excellent point,’ Jack growls. ‘And Moxie, you’re not the only one who has a shitty time without Mum, OK?’

  They eyeball each other, angry and raw, and Sam flinches. It’s not like he expects the De Laineys to be perfect – he’s not an idiot. But he hates when their wounds show, because he wants to fix it like he would try for Avery, and he can’t. He wishes they’d realise, though, that you can’t fill the hole of a missing mother by carving each other to pieces.

  Surprisingly it’s Moxie who caves and strides off, muttering about potatoes and stupid boys.

  Jack follows, shoving the trolley with the fussing baby strapped in, and Sam trails behind like a sorry impostor. Usually he fits with Moxie. But the weight of stealing their money burns hollows in his chest.

  The baby whines pitifully for Moxie, so Jack plucks it out of the trolley and shoves it at Sam.

  ‘Whoa,’ Sam says, ‘this is your brother.’

  ‘It likes you.’

  Probably because Sam spends his days pushing it on the swing and lying on his stomach in the grass while the baby uses him as a jumping castle.

  He bobs up and down awkwardly.

  Jack eyes him and then snorts. ‘You look ridiculous. Get in.’

  ‘The trolley?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jack shoves peanut butter and bread out of the way. ‘Quick. I keep trying to get Jeremy to do this but he won’t.’

  That seems like a good indication that it’s a bad idea, but Sam has a terrible weakness called: Do Whatever a De Lainey Wants.

  He climbs in, knees at his chin, and squishes the baby to his chest. It stops crying and looks interested.

  Jack has a devilish spark in his eyes. While Moxie is all sharp edges and paper cuts and Jeremy is buttery sweet and warm – Jack is spiky daring and recklessness.

  ‘Have you ever been thrown out of a grocery store?’ Sam says.

  ‘Bring it.’ Jack drags the trolley to his chest and then shoves forward, running like lightning down the aisle before jumping up and hooking his leg
s around the edges so it shoots forward.

  It turns out their combined weight makes the trolley go spectacularly fast. They soar the full length of the store, narrowly missing taking out a Vegemite display. People jump clear with gasps.

  They flash past Moxie holding packets of spaghetti and she gives them a sour look.

  Jack whoops.

  The baby shrieks in delight.

  Then Jack attempts to slow them down—

  and fails.

  They hit the ice cream freezers with a clatter and Sam covers the baby with his arms as peanut butter smacks him in the face.

  ‘That – was – awesome.’ Jack is still on the floor, his smile delirious.

  ‘Ow,’ Sam says with a broken face.

  The baby pats his cheek. ‘Ow-ow, Sammy.’

  Moxie storms over. ‘You are both so embarrassing.’ She snatches the baby off Sam and throws a packet of spaghetti at his head.

  He raises his arms in self-defence. ‘Jack’s idea.’

  Moxie whirls on Jack. ‘You’re a terrible influence on him. I’m trying to raise him nice and sensibly and you’re turning him into a De Lainey.’

  Jack picks himself up, holds out a fist to Sam, and they hit knuckles right as the store manager strides down the aisle.

  ‘You are both so stupid.’ Moxie snaps her fingers in Sam’s face. ‘Why are you still smiling? Stop smiling. You are never going to be allowed back in this store.’

  Sam tumbles out of the trolley. Usually the sight of angry managers is a clear indicator he should run – before they call security and nab him for shoplifting. But his pockets are empty. And Moxie said he was turning into a De Lainey.

  It’s the first time Sam’s thrown out of a grocery store smiling.

  Sammy is fourteen and there are knives in his belly.

  He’s so hungry.

  He should be mad right now, since Avery unscrewed most of the door hinges, took apart every lock, and started dismantling the ceiling fans before Aunt Karen came home from work and screamed at him. Sammy should’ve stopped him, should’ve been there – but he was out practising with his lock picks on an empty house. He’s fast now.