Murasakino

Cathy's Music

   "Cathy's in a band?!" I said, a little too loudly.
   "Shhhh!" Harper hissed, glaring at me. Then her smile returned, and she said, "Yup! One of my favourites, too!"
   "Are you sure? On our first day you seemed a lot more excited to see us than her," I reminded her.
   "Well, I'd met her before that. And I've been to three concerts where her band performed!"
   "Why does she live in this city with everyone else? Surely she should have a big mansion or something?"
   "They're not massively famous. They're just a local band who play at local concerts."
   I was still smiling for some reason. I would have preferred it if Cathy had told us herself, but it would still have been weird to picture her dressed in black, singing up on stage.
   "Who are you talking to?" Harper's dad called from the stairs.
   "Get in the wardrobe!" Harper whispered, and I quickly tiptoed over to the wardrobe and hid inside again. Harper picked up her phone to make it look like she'd been talking to someone over it. "Just my friend, Dad!" she said, even beginning to have a fake conversation with them.
   He looked round the door, oblivious to the fact his daughter was hiding someone in her room, and left again to go to the bathroom.

   "You're lucky I'm that good at acting," Harper whispered to me. "I was best in my drama class at school!"
   "Yeah, you were great!" I whispered back, still crouched inside the wardrobe. "I almost believed you were talking to a friend!"
   "Also, no offence, but why do you ask so many questions?"
   "Well, I just like to know stuff. Especially since it's about Cathy."
   "Don't you think she'd be bothered that you were asking me and not her?"
   "I... well, I'm hiding, aren't I? And she'd probably have told us at some point."
   I slumped against the back of the wardrobe, letting out a sigh. I heard Harper get up off the bed and walk over to the door.
   "Just getting a drink," she whispered. The house seemed to become silent again, apart from the toilet flushing in the bathroom.
   "I'm going out, Harper," her dad said. "I may be back really early in the morning, but Mom will be back around ten, okay?"
   "Okay!" Harper shouted from downstairs. I heard her open the fridge and take out a bottle.
   "See ya later!" her dad said, running down the stairs and out of the front door.

   Harper came back upstairs, and opened the wardrobe. It was a bit like when I first opened my eyes a few days earlier, the light suddenly stunning me and the weird tingly feeling at the back of my eyes.
   "Awesome!" she said, but I wasn't sure if it was to me or herself. "We have at least three hours to do whatever!"
   "What is there to do?" I asked.
   "I like listening to music. I'll put on Cathy's band if you like!"
   "Yes! Please put them on!"
   Harper got out her phone and started tapping a few things on the screen. For a moment, all I could hear was the tapping, until she started turning up the volume and the noise of an electric guitar came out of it. It was the same upbeat tune Cathy was singing along to in the car.
   "Ooh! I've heard this!" I said excitedly.
   "Then how didn't you know Cathy was in a band?" Harper said, looking completely confused.
   "She played this in the car, but never told us it was her singing it."
   "Right." She tapped some more things, and suddenly said, "Hey, how about this one? I like it."

   She tapped the screen again, and the upbeat music stopped. A piano began to play a slower, sadder sounding song. After a few seconds, Cathy's voice came in, but instead of singing loudly and in a high pitch she was singing softly. It sounded more like her normal talking voice. I sat down on the bed to listen more closely.
   "This one's nice," I said. It was the only thing I could think of saying.
   A bass guitar started playing along. I realised that I was just staring at nothing in particular, and Harper had seen me too.
   "Do you want to just listen to this by yourself? You seem to like it," she said.
   "Oh, uh... okay," I replied. She paused it, picked up some earphones from a shelf and handed them to me to put them on.
   "You can stand in the wardrobe and listsen if you like."
   "No, I'll lie on the bed, I think." Once again, the piano started, but this time it sounded as if it was in the room with me. I lay down on my back, listening to Cathy's voice as if she was sat with me on the bed. I closed my eyes, and Harper left the room, smiling.

   I fell asleep listening to the music, even though it got louder and other, more upbeat songs came on. I guess Cathy's voice was familiar to me while I was in this unfamiliar house. I didn't dream while I was asleep, but I kept thinking about the songs. I missed Cathy, and Dr Takeda and the girls. Oh, and Dr Kerrett.
   Someone knocked on the front door, waking me up. Harper's mother, probably, I thought. Harper ran to the door from the front room and opened the letterbox.
   "Who is it?" she asked through it.
   "Pippa," came the reply.
   "Who?"
   "Pippa Kerrett. I'm from the lab."
   I froze. How did she know where I was? As silently as possible, I crept out of the room to look down the stairs. I could only peer slightly round the top, and the stairs were right in front of the door.
   Harper opened the door. The floor creaked under my foot, and I stepped backwards. Dr Kerrett looked up for a second, but didn't ask about the noise.
   "Have you seen Murasakino?" she asked Harper. "You'll already know, but she disappeared earlier."
   "No, sorry," Harper replied, yawning. "I was looking for her earlier too, but I didn't find her."
   "Okay. Sorry to bother..."
   I slipped on a magazine that had been left on the floor, and made a very loud bang when I landed.
   Very loud.