"YOUR NAME IS MIA. Remember that." She was supposed to call him Malcolm. Pressing her forehead against the cool glass of the car window, she stared at the house. Yellow and narrow, it loomed over the lawn. She traced the outline of the house on the window: a peaked roof, two windows with shades drawn, a front door dead centre. "It's a face," she said
The man and woman in the front seats checked their phones and then their guns. "You can't give her kiwis," the woman said to the man. Malcolm. And she was Aunt Nicki. "She'll think they're mice."
"Kiwis are nutritious," Malcolm said. Twisting in his seat, he levelled a finger at Mia. "I walk first, you second, Nicki last. Understood?" He didn't wait for her response, and she didn't give him one. He stepped out of the car and stretched.
"Start her on apples," Aunt Nicki said, opening her door and stepping out into the street. "Or bananas. Oranges."
"You could have shopped," Malcolm said. "Besides, it is impossible to eat an orange without it spitting at you. It's a horrible fruit."
"Oranges are classic. For centuries soccer mums have been carting orange wedges to refuel their charming kids on the field of battle."
Outside, they shut their doors. Mia let the blissful silence wrap around her for three seconds until Malcolm Yanked open her car door. "You push the red button to release the strap." His voice was kind and soft, as if he expected her to cower or bolt. He pointed next to her, and she located the red button. It clicked, and the seat belt snapped out of her hands and flattened onto the seat behind her. "It's going to be okay," he said, and she was certain he wasn't talking about the seat belt. Not wanting to see pity in his eyes, she stared at the seat belt contraption for a second before she climbed out of the car and followed Malcolm toward the house.
