Page 35 of 12 Ways to Kill Your Family at Christmas

Miles’s neck was turning red.

‘We can’t afford it, darling,’ I jumped in, ‘not with the move as well. There must be something else? Please…’

Whatever was happening in his game must have come to an end because the sounds of gunfire suddenly ceased. He tossed the console aside and huffed.

‘Fine. How about, when we fly to Oz, I fly business class.’

‘No way, that’s not fair!’ exclaimed Martha.

‘Hey, I’m not the one in the firing line here. I wasn’t even in their stupid video.’

‘I’ve told you, we can’t afford it with the move,’ Miles reiterated.

‘I know you’ve got the air miles.’ Callum chuckled to himself. ‘Ha, get it? Air Miles.’

I thought the vein in Miles’s head might explode.

‘Deal!’ I said. ‘But if your father’s going to use all of his points, we want the full works. A thorough takedown.’

‘Yeah-yeah.’ He waved his hand dismissively.

‘Today,’ I said. It was an order, not a question.

‘I need at least twenty-four hours, with the time differences and everything…’ He didn’t elaborate what he meant by that and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

* * *

It was gone midnight by the time we got into bed, and as usual, Miles was asleep within sixty seconds. I picked up my book and reading light, trying to forget about the twins. I had almost started to get stuck into a chapter when I heard giggles out in the hallway.

I huffed and turned over, rereading the sentence I was on, but my concentration failed me as my ears homed in on the noise coming from out in the hallway. Each high-pitched shriek set every cell in my body on fire as I imagined them making another video about me. How long would it be until people started spamming the reviews for my book with one-star ratings believing I was a murderer and I needed to be brought down by the armchair sleuths?

I crept out of bed, pulling on my dressing gown and heading for the door. Heart in my mouth, I cracked it open and headed towards the direction of the chatter. Stopping at the corner, I peeked round, watching them illuminated in the darkness by mini ring-lights attached to the top of their phones.

I watched as they filmed a dance, which thankfully didn’t appear to be about me at all. At least I hoped not. I was about to turn around and head back to bed when I heard a door click shut and a deep voice talking to the girls. I dared to take another peek, and to my surprise I saw Callum emerge into the halo of their white-blue light.

‘Hey,’ he said, lowering his huge headphones away from his ears to sit around his neck.

‘If you’re here to complain about the noise, don’t bother,’ said Beebee.

‘We probably disturbed his little hand-job session,’ Ceecee mocked.

‘Nope,’ Callum sighed. ‘But I thought you might like some of this…’ He held up a bag of weed and a pouch of tobacco. ‘It’s good stuff.’

They paused, eyeing the contents of the bag.

‘Why?’ Ceecee asked suspiciously. ‘What do you want for it?’

‘I will personally roll you four big fat blunts for the bargain price of twenty quid. But I want you to take those videos you made about my mum down.’

The pair looked at Callum, then turned to each other and laughed.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. We could end up making a lot of money from those videos. They’re doing way too well for us to take them down.’

‘Okay.’ He shrugged and turned to leave.

‘Come on, Cal, give us a joint. We’ll give you the twenty.’

‘Nah. I’m good,’ he said, walking back towards his bedroom door.