Our neighbour, Mrs Murdoch, is always walking around our close at all times of the day and night, even when it’s belting it down. Dad calls her Skeletor, and Mum tells him not to be so mean, but it makes me wonder if she has skeletons in her closet, like the ones Auntie Sarah’s always talking about. Maybe one of the skeletons is Mr Murdoch, who died last year.
That’s why, whenever I see Mrs Murdoch doing her slow shuffle to the end of the street and back, I put my head down and hurry past, like Dad when he’s on a mission.
But that day she shoots out a bony arm and grabs my sleeve. I’m trembling as she leads me back to her house, thinking about those skeletons, but I daren’t make a run for it because Mum’s always telling me to be nice, and Mrs Murdoch’s so thin I’m worried I might hurt her if I try to brush her off, and while I’m thinking all this we get to her door, and she’s opening it, and I’m cringing wondering what scary stuff might be inside.
But then she’s giving me a football shirt, Crystal Palace, my team, saying it used to be her son’s years ago but he’s too big for it now, obviously, and would I like it? And it’s an old shirt but it looks kind of cool, retro, so I say yes, then I remember Mum and say please and thank you, and Mrs Murdoch hands it to me, her face lit up in a smile. And at that moment she doesn’t look like a skeleton, just a sweet old lady. So after that, whenever I see her shuffle-walking along the road, I always smile back at her.
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