Page 29 of Only a Monster

Bao Bao said something then in Hakka, or maybe Mandarin. Joan couldn’t always tell the difference.

‘English, ah!’ Aunty Wei Ling said. ‘Joan speak English.’

The screen tipped over again. Joan saw the ceiling with its big slow-moving fan, and then a blur of the rest of the table—coffee, a bowl of half-boiled eggs, and then Dad again, smiling.

‘Having a good time in London?’ he asked.

Joan made herself nod. She’d never wanted to be somewhere as badly as she wanted to be there at Aunty Wei Ling’s house with Dad—eating toast with eggs and kaya jam and drinking coffee that tasted like flavoured sugar.

‘We’re going to that crab place you like for dinner,’ Dad said.

‘Next time, you have a holiday here!’ Aunty Wei Ling shouted off-screen, and Dad laughed.

‘What else have you been doing?’ Joan asked.

She listened greedily as Dad talked about a trip to the bird park yesterday. Bao Bao had seen a cassowary. He came to stand beside Dad and held up his hand above his head to show Joan how tall it had been. It was from Australia. They were going to an island tomorrow. Joan smiled in what she hoped were the right places and wished that they would talk forever.

‘You’re quiet today,’ Dad said to her.

There was movement behind the phone as Aaron shifted again. Joan glanced at him. He made a wrap-it-up gesture.

‘Yeah, just woke up. Still sleepy.’ Joan made herself smile. Then she made herself say the next bit. ‘I have to go, Dad. Just wanted to say hi.’

‘Okay,’ Dad said. ‘Call you later?’

Joan nodded. She wanted to say, No, don’t hang up. Stay talking to me forever. She wanted to say, Don’t ever let anyone touch you on the back of the neck. But that would sound crazy.

If she told her Dad about the monsters, maybe Dad would believe her and maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, he’d be worried enough to call Gran, and when he didn’t get an answer, he might even fly back here. He’d put himself in danger, and that couldn’t happen.

‘See you soon, okay?’ he said.

Joan nodded. ‘Bye, Dad,’ she managed. She ended the call. The black screen reflected her face. She turned the phone over, not wanting to look at herself.

Aaron stepped away from the wall. ‘What about your mum? Or was she in the house last night?’

‘She died when I was a baby.’ Joan wiped her face against her arm. ‘You want to call anyone?’

Aaron shook his head. Joan blinked. He had no family left at all? No friends, even? ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

They arrived just after ten.

‘The Pit,’ Aaron said.

‘This is Buckingham Palace,’ Joan said.

‘This is a festering hole of misery and petty theft,’ Aaron corrected her. He caught an elbow in the stomach from a tourist. His lips tightened. ‘A pit.’

There were people everywhere: crowded onto the Victoria Memorial under the great stone statue of Victoria and pressed against the palace gates. From the festive atmosphere and the faint sound of drums, the Changing of the Guard was about to begin.

‘Why are we here if you don’t like it?’ Joan said, confused.

‘To take time,’ Aaron said. He led her into the crowd. At Joan’s blank look, he said: ‘You know how this works, right? We take time from humans, and we use it to travel.’

‘I know,’ Joan snapped, even though she only knew what Gran had told her two nights ago. Aaron had a way of talking to people as though they were beneath him. It made Joan want to push back at him about everything.

‘The time comes off the end of their lives,’ Aaron said. ‘If we take a year, they’ll die a year earlier than they should have.’

Joan swallowed. The feeling of wrongness was back in the pit of her stomach.

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