Headshrinker

Chapter 3

When I walked in from staying at Guigsy's house, Claire was getting ready to leave. She had to get to her placement at the hospital. I knew I wouldn't be able to sneak in and get off to bed that easily.

"Dirty stop out. Where've you been?" she asked as she

"A friend's house."

"A friend, huh?" she said trying to imply something else.

"Yeah. My friend Guis', we watched Doctor Who and fell asleep."

"Is he the one you've been hanging out with so much?"

"Yeah, him and his band."

"He's in a band and you're trying to tell me you watched some old scifi show?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "It's actually really good."

"Liar. I've got to, we'll talk about this later."

I went off to bed not really thinking about it. I was tired because it was early but I couldn't sleep because I'd already slept enough and had been awake too long to go back. I wished I'd just stayed with Guigsy a bit longer, it wasn't like we were watching for Bonehead or my parents finding out we were so close now I wasn't going back to our house.

Studying eventually called me so I sat at my desk and focused on the reading I had to do for various seminars. It was pretty hard to concentrate when I just didn't feel awake. I didn't want to study, I wanted to blow it all off but I didn't have time to not do it now.

One of the books used Old Bailey records pretty heavily in their arguments. Every time I saw one of those crime related pieces of evidence I thought of Guigsy. I started hoping something really interesting and unusual would come up so I could tell him I'd done that but they were all thefts and I wasn't a thief.

It didn't take long for me to take a break for dinner. Even though I already had toast with Guigsy I wanted it again, this time with baked beans. It became an extended one since I didn't really feel like reading after I'd ate.

When I started working again I got stuck into planning an essay. I put some music on to try to stop me from getting distracted. It was always a difficult choice because it had to be something I didn't want to sing and dance along with too much. I chose an album by James, Gold Mother.

The music didn't drown out the noises I could hear from the living room. It sounded like metal, like a cage being set up. It was too weird to ignore. I had to investigate.

Debbie was the one making the noise as she put together this big cage for some animal. It was huge, bigger than a dog crate. I hadn't seen pet housing other than rabbit hutches or small hamster cages so I couldn't guess what kind of animal she was intending to keep in there.

"What's going on?"

"Just help me put these hammocks in."

I asked why as I helped her attach these brightly coloured pieces of material inside the cage.

"They like places to hide and snuggle up."

"They?" I asked, almost worried.

I liked animals. I liked pets, I'd had a few pets growing up. But I had no idea what kind of animal she'd want to bring home.

She was studying Zoology or something. I wasn't sure because she was the type of student that you're not sure how they made it to second year. She was at uni to socialise over all else. She was hardly ever around because she was always jumping into doing things with the friends she'd made who saw uni as nothing more than an opportunity to party. I wasn't even sure how we knew her or why she lived with us when we weren't like that.