Chapter 3: The Little Boy Next Door

"The boy next door always looks at me," Lily said.

I froze, confused. "Who... me?"

"No, not you, silly. The other boy."

"What other boy?"

She grabbed my hand and pulled me downstairs. "I'll show you."

In the living room downstairs, I stood near a large window looking outside to the house next door.

"Look at the window at the top," Lily said.

I poked my head out and had a look. Unlike my house, Lily's other next-door neighbours had a brick house. It was two-stories high like every other house in the neighbourhood. All the top story windows had curtains. I didn't see anyone.

"Do you see him?" she asked.

"Don't see anyone." I looked harder but still couldn't see anything. "Does he always look at you?"

"Yes."

"Do you want me to go next door and tell him to stop?"

"No, he might hurt you."

"Okay, I'll stay here." I looked at Lily, who was still in her pyjamas. "You're still in your pyjamas. Have you had a shower yet?"

She grabbed a portion of her pyjamas, pulled the material to her nose, and sniffed curiously. "I'll having a shower now," she said, walking to the stairway.

"If you're scared, I'll guard you while you're having a shower." I followed her upstairs.

Lily went inside the bathroom and closed the door. The bathroom had no lock, so if I really wanted to I could walk in while she showered.

I sat against the wall and waited.

Five minutes later, I heard the front door open.

Footsteps echoed throughout the empty house.

I got up and thought about entering the bathroom. I wanted to tell Lily but wondered whether telling her would solve anything. Instead I went to a cupboard and took out a cricket bat. The footsteps grew louder and louder. The intruder was walking upstairs now. I tiptoed towards the stairway and waited.

It was just Ella. She saw me with the cricket bat and laughed.

"Where's Lily?" she asked. "What are you doing here?" She was all dressed up, wearing a little too much make-up. Her clothes were bright and cosmopolitan.

"Your mum told me to babysit Lily because you were out."

"Oh, okay," she said. "Sorry I had to go out. I wish I never did. My boyfriend just dumped me."

I at least tried to pretend that I cared. "Oh... uh... how do you feel?"

"Fine. He was like, 'Ella, you're hot and all, but I've got the hots for someone else.' Don't you hate that?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "What a loser."

"Yeah, I know. Are all guys like that?"

"Most of them are."

Ella looked at me strangely and then laughed. She told me to get up and follow her to her bedroom. While I followed her down the corridor, Lily walked by. Her hair was damp from the shower. She smiled at me and asked me where I was going. After I told her I was going to Ella's room, she turned around and, probably not wanting to be alone, followed me to her big sister's room. In her room, Ella grabbed a football and gave it to me as a gift.

"Here, have this," she said. "It's my ex-boyfriend's football. I don't want it anymore. I don't want any memories of him."

"Ha, ha!" sang Lily. "You got dumped!"

"Be quiet, Lily!" Ella seemed a little angry, but she smiled nevertheless. "Go play with your Barbie dolls. At least I had a boyfriend. You're too little to date."

"Hmph!" Lily stuck her nose up. "Well, I didn't get dumped."

"That's because you never had a boyfriend! You're still a little baby." She walked up to her little sister and pinched her on the cheeks. "Poor little baby poo." She imitated the baby talk parents used on their children. "Little baby needs to go potty?"

Lily smiled and laughed. Ella wasn't being too antagonistic. I smiled as well. I started to wish I had a brother or sister when I grew up.

Lily ran away from her older sister and told me she was hungry. Ella decided to have a shower. I took Lily downstairs and found a tub of vanilla ice cream in the freezer. I served her three scoops. She wanted to eat hers in a cone but there were none left. She'd have to eat from a bowl. I served five scoops for myself. She and I sat at the kitchen table and ate silently. Lily got ice cream all over her mouth as she ate. When I pointed to her mouth she wiped the ice cream off with the palm of her hands.

"You're supposed to use a napkin," I said.

"Look at this," she said, holding out her hands to me, showing me the cloudy white mixture of ice cream and saliva on her palm. She connected her right palm to her left palm as if she were praying. Then she rubbed her hands together quickly, heating up her palm with friction. After doing this for a while, she showed me her palm again. Understandably, her palm was dry. "It's all gone," she said. "Magic."

Since the kitchen table was quite small, I could see that although Lily's palms were dry, they were not technically clean.

"They're not really clean," I said.

She held her hands up in the air and inspected them. I gently touched her right hand and pressed a finger into her palm.

"All the ice cream is stuck in the skin pores," I said, "and your hand is still a bit sticky."

She started licking her fingers, coating them with a sweet glaze of spit. "Mmmm, my fingers taste good." She held out her hand in front of my face. "Have some," she said.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Mummy always licks my fingers when we cook food."

I looked at the small hand in front of me. Her fingers were lightly glossed with a layer of sugary saliva. I gently held her by the wrist and brought her hand to my mouth. My tongue licked her fingers. My mouth clamped on tightly to her index finger. I sucked out all the sweet girly nectar from the skin pores on her fingers and swallowed. She tasted good.

Lily looked at me, probably wondering why it looked like I was worshipping her fingers instead of just tasting them. When I finished, Lily held her fingers under her nostrils and sniffed my saliva before rubbing her fingers against her clothes. I noted that Lily often enjoyed smelling things.

Ella came downstairs and asked if there was any ice cream left. She served herself four scoops and sat down next to her little sister.

Ella was eager to talk. "I met someone at the mall..."

"Taste my fingers." Lily had her fingers held up to her sister's face.

"No! Yuck! Get that out of my face!"

"Keith had some," said Lily. "He liked it."

Ella looked at me.

"Uh... her fingers..." I rubbed my forehead, thinking up an explanation. "Her fingers had splinters in them. I had to bite her fingers to get those splinters out."

To my relief, Ella changed the subject. "My love life has taken an unexpected turn," she said.

"Is that right?" I asked. "How?"

"This new guy I met... oh, I am so in love with him..."

"How'd you meet him?"

"Met him at the mall. While I was shopping for denim jeans, he just walked up to me. I told him I was new to this city and he asked me which school I planned to go to. He's actually going to the same school as me. He's got a really weird name... I think it's Italian or something... I wrote it down..." She took out the piece of paper. "Mark Iller... Mark Illeragnim."

"Mark Illeragnim? I know him. He's in the same year level as I am."

When I was young, Mark was the guy who always bullied me. When I was only eight years old, I coloured in a picture of a rabbit with a black crayon. Everyone else in the class coloured in their rabbit using many different colours. I argued with my classmates that my rabbit looked more realistic, but Mark Illeragnim the bully teased me so much that I took a crayon and threw it at him. The crayon hit Mark in the eye and made him cry like a baby. The next day, however, the bully got his revenge. While I was outside playing on the monkey bars during a cold day, Mark snuck up from behind and pushed me into a giant puddle of water. The teacher at the time told me to get myself inside the classroom to dry off. My school uniform was completely soaked. The teacher went to another room and came back with a fresh change of clothes. Unfortunately, the change of clothes looked nothing like the school uniform and for the rest of the day I stuck out and everyone looked at me. I hated Mark then and I hate Mark now.