“Kaity, get out here!” Mum yells outside my bedroom the next morning.
“What?” I ask groggily.
“Don’t play innocent with me, young lady! I know you didn’t want Seth’s tree, but was that really necessary?”
“What?” I ask again. “I haven’t done anything.”
“Do you know what a mess you’ve made? We’re going to be hoovering up pine needles for weeks!”
“I haven’t done anything,” I say again.
“Get dressed and come downstairs and help us tidy up. NOW, please!”
“I haven’t done anything!” I shout after her as she walks away.
When I get downstairs, Seth is in the living room trying to hoist the tree off the carpet and Mum is on her knees with a dustpan and brush.
“What happened?” I ask.
“I think you know perfectly well what happened,” Mum says.
“No, I don’t.”
“Someone knocked the tree over in the middle of the night,” Seth says.
“Well, it wasn’t me. Maybe it was Harry.”
“Kaity, you’re not as clever as you think you are,” Mum says. “Someone didn’t knock the tree over. Someone took the tree out of the bucket and laid it down.”
“Maybe it just fell over,” I say. “It’s far too big for that bucket anyway.”
“If it had just fallen over, or if Harry had knocked into it, we would have heard it.”
“Oh yes,” Seth agrees. “This is definitely deliberate. Someone laid the tree down quietly so it wouldn’t wake us up.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“If it had been knocked over, the bucket would have gone too and the water would be all over the floor. Someone took the tree out and laid it down,” Seth says again.
“You’re the only person in the house who didn’t want the tree,” Mum adds accusingly.
“Pippa didn’t want it either.”
“Pippa’s too small. She couldn’t have done this.”
“Neither could I. Even Seth is having trouble lifting it. What makes you think I could?”
“You didn’t want it in the house, Kait.”
“No, I didn’t, but what on earth would I get out of knocking it over?”
“Clearly you were trying to damage it,” Seth says. “But luckily it’s only lost a few needles. No lasting damage. This tree wasn’t cheap, Kaity. I’d appreciate it if you left it alone. Your mum and sister like it, even if you don’t.”
“I didn’t do it,” I say. “I promise I didn’t.”
“Funnily enough, I don’t believe you,” Mum says. “Go and get some breakfast and get out of my sight for a little while. And keep your sister out of the living room, I don’t want her getting pine needles in her feet.”
I roll my eyes and stomp back upstairs.
Mum has become a nightmare since Seth got here. She agrees with everything he says and doesn’t even listen to me. I can’t believe they don’t believe me. I didn’t touch that horrible tree. I swear I didn’t.
My face feels powdery and tight where the tears from last night have dried on it, the memory of what I overheard in the bedroom comes back to me in a rush, and if I had been standing up my legs would have given out.
I can’t believe this is happening. That’s the only thing I can think, above all else. I cannot believe this is happening. I can’t believe my life has come to this.
I know that I have to do something about it. And fast.
But the more pressing problem is that I have to go downstairs and face Mum and Seth. How am I supposed to sit and eat breakfast and pretend nothing is wrong when I know she’s thinking about moving away? When I know he’s trying to make her move away and they both think I knocked their stupid tree down? How can she even consider something like moving away? And how can I sit there and pretend that I don’t know?
I do though. I get dressed, get my school stuff together, run downstairs pretending to be running late, grab Harry’s lead and take him for a quick walk around the block.