Page 7 of The Dysfunctional Family's Guide to Murder

“Vinx, what—”

“It’s Gertie!”

Dylan appears, looking like he might technically still be asleep. The gap between his T-shirt and pajama pants is a reminder of the foot he’s grown this year. Not that I notice.

“Did you guys hear that?” he asks.

Dad puts down his coffee, ignoring Dylan. “Is the old duck okay?” He’s aiming for casual but failing.

“No.”

Dad follows Aunty Vinka out of the kitchen, and I hear their feet going up the stairs. Fast.

“What’s happening, Mum?”

“Something to do with your, uh, with Gertie.” Aunty Bec is struggling with what to call GG. Not to get ahead of myself, but that’s not going to be such a big problem in a minute.

“Should we go up?” Dylan asks, and I’m not sure if he’s asking me or his mum. He’s definitely not asking Shippy, who’s taken his breakfast of honey on toast into the living room so he can watch the cricket.

I’m on my feet. Maybe it’s my fault for readingThe Murder of Roger Ackroydtoo late last night, but something is happening and I want to know what. My first thought is the snake Nick failed to catch—could it have gotten into GG’s room?

Dylan’s behind me on the stairs. “What is it?” he asks, like he can’t see I’m two steps ahead of him.

I twist around, nearly missing a step. “Snake, maybe?”

“What?”

“The brown snake.”

“How’d it get in the house?”

“I don’t know!”

It’s not a snake.

We reach the landing outside GG’s room just as Dad comes out with a face that looks a lot like Aunty Vinka’s did when she ran into the kitchen to blow our morning apart.

“Is it a snake?” I look down for a tail licking at the bottom of my leggings. I’ve always been scared of snakes. (I refuse to use the wordphobia,because a phobia is an irrational fear, and it’sperfectly rational to be scared of a venomous animal that could kill me with a nibble.)

“Ruthie, go downstairs,” Dad says.

“What’s going on?”

“Downstairs!”

“Dad!” This is so like my dad, treating me like I’m still the ten-year-old who was scared ofStar Wars.Well, I’m fourteen and I’ve seen all theStar Warsmovies, even the bad ones; I’ve kissed a boy (Jeremy, at a school party—it was so grim); I got my period;andI’m nearly as tall as Mum. Shakespeare married off Juliet at my age, although I guess that didn’t work out so well for her. I don’t say any of this, obviously, because how weird would it be to start shouting about my period right now?

“Where’s GG?”

“Downstairs!”

Dad scoops me up and throws the top half of my body over his shoulder in a way I wouldn’t have imagined he had the upper-body strength for. Is it possible he really does still think I’m ten? I have time to let out a yelp, and Dylan has to dodge my feet as Dad starts down the stairs.

Over Dad’s shoulder, through the gap in the door, I can see GG’s quilt on the floor next to—bizarrely—her old typewriter. I get a glimpse of a broken bedroom window and only have a second to wonder why there’s a ladder propped against the frame.

“Put me down—you’re hurting me.” Technically I’m only at risk of death by embarrassment, but it works and Dad sets me down at the bottom of the stairs.

“I could do that all day once.”