Excerpt from A Million Things by Emily Spurr, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I cried, when I was little. But you'd come back. My nose would squish into your shoulder, your arms around me and the warm smell of you in my whole head. The knot in my tummy would loosen and melt with the tingle that ran up my neck into my skull as you stroked my hair and made my eyes close. It almost made the before worth it.

You just got angry. It just was--like the weekends you'd get sad and stay in bed--and I stopped hiding under the duvet, stopped crying about it. The shock of the door would go through my spine but I'd stay where I was. I'd be still and Splints would sit on my feet and we'd wait. My heart racing. Sometimes you'd be back before we moved, my toes warm under his bum even as my legs went numb from the standing. Other times you wouldn't, and Splinter would move. Or I would. I'd do my homework, or clean up, or fix whatever it was that made you snatch up the keys this time.

Sometimes I'd flip through the fat blue dictionary, looking for the right word for it, the feeling inside. Agitated was almost right, but it didn't quite fit. It matched the chill of the tiny bubbles popping in my chest but not the stillness. Aimless felt close: floaty. I floated, but I always had something to do. When it was summer we'd go outside and I'd cut the grass. Or weed the veggie patch you liked in theory. And sometimes we'd just lie in the sun, Splinter's big head on my lap, and I'd watch the swirling red behind my eyelids. I guess I was ambivalent. But that wasn't right either because it hurt, you being gone. I never did find the right word.

Then you'd come back. You'd pull me into your chest and squash my nose into your shoulder and everything would be okay. I was used to that. Used to the nipping worry of not having you here. Used to the little voice that said maybe this time was different but knowing it wasn't. Knowing you'd always come back.

Now I don't know what to do.

But I suppose you're not really gone, not properly. Not if I know where you are.

That morning I closed the door to the shed and opened the back door and went inside. I walked through rooms that were all surface, my knees bending at the wrong time, each step ending in my hips as the floor happened too soon.

I climbed under my duvet.

My breath was warm under there and slow, like the ocean.

After a while the room was close to dark and Splints's big head rested on my leg, the weight of him making my toes tingle. Sometimes he'd lick his nose and sigh. I stayed where I was. When it was very dark a paw thumped through the duvet onto my arm. He whined.

I got up, shut the back door and fed him.

The next day I went to school.

So, here I am. Here. Not here.

Everything's here and not here.

You.

The house.

Me.

I don't know what anything is anymore.

Day 15
Sunday

When the fridge is clean there's nothing to distract from outside.

I've left the washing on the line and it's gone stiff and crusty and no longer flutters in the wind. I think it'd snap if I folded it. I use the clotheshorse in the kitchen instead. There's not much washing anyway.

I take your debit card and buy things. Bread, milk, cheese, eucalyptus spray, incense sticks, lavender spray, mosquito coils, three sonic oil vaporizers, ten bottles of essential oils, a large bottle of bleach, gaffer tape, some fruit, dog food, pot noodles and toilet paper.


The old lady next door sits on her porch and watches me lugging stuff home. Watching, pretending she's not, looking over her teacup. I walk past like she's not there. Like everything's normal.

I hold my breath and stuff rolled towels under the shed door. You're a smart kid, use your brain. I tip the bleach on the towels.

The incense sticks I place around the back door, on the outside. The smokiness works its way inside anyway, making Splinter sneeze and leaving me with a stuffy feeling and a dull ache to either side of my nose.

Excerpted from A Million Things by Emily Spurr. Copyright © 2021 by Emily Spurr. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.