My alarm call Monday morning is Vinnie slamming every door in the apartment, vacuuming, rearranging the lounge room, turning up AC/DC way too loud and renovating the bathroom. At least that’s how it sounds to me; I’m operating on a couple of hours sleep.

I groan and unwrap the sheets twisted round my body. I want desperately to get back to dreamland but I can’t switch my brain to Zen-setting. I try counting sheep but the sheep are giving me filthy looks as I force them to jump the fence again and again.

About five past nine, Vinnie slams the front door and heads downstairs to the Emporium, and peace and quiet finally descends. I wrap the doona over my head and close my eyes.

Sleep. Please? Sleeeeeeep.

I toss and turn and wrestle with the doona. No sleep for Frankie.

So I get up and make breakfast. I chomp on each mouthful like it’s cat food and glare at the kitchen. Everything is offensive to me today: the chrome toaster is too perky. The fridge is humming: arsehole. Even though it’s winter there’s actual sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window. Great, who knew weather could be sarcastic?

Buttons is staring at me from his perch on top of the kitchen table, his mushed-in Persian face judging my every move.

‘What?’ I say.

He flicks his tail.

‘Same to you, Smoosh-face.’

I pull out my phone and check the news. Nothing. I mean, plenty on Harrison Finnik-Hyde but less than zero on Xavier. I pull up my gallery and look at the picture I took of us. Awkward poses, neither of us grinning, too dark, blurry. Wouldn’t look great on the front page of a newspaper, I guess.

For some reason I decide calling Marzoli is a good idea. I grab his business card from beside the microwave where Vinnie shoved it with the stuff to go out for recycling.

He answers on the fourth ring with a bark. ‘Yeah?’ he says.

‘It’s Frankie Vega.’

‘You going to retract your statement from last night?’ His voice goes high-pitched with hope.

I’m about two seconds away from saying, ‘Why, have you found Xavier already?’ when I realise he’s talking about Nate.

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘I mean, if you want me to lie.’

Sigh. ‘Then why call?’ Less hope, more suspicion.

‘Missing brother, worried sister. What’s happening?’

‘I’m looking into it.’

I wait for him to elaborate on account of that being a crappy answer. He doesn’t. ‘What does “looking into it” mean?’

‘It means I do my job, you do yours. Whatever that is. I’ll call when I know something.’

Soon as I hang up I dump his business card in the rubbish. I scoop my unfinished soggy cereal on top of it and I only just stop short of cleaning out Buttons’ kitty litter tray to scoop that on top, because . . . well, that’s rank.

I tidy, shower, dress, grab a block of chocolate (yay, Vinnie went shopping) and head downstairs to the Emporium. I have a plan. It has nothing to do with stressing about Xavier or school or anything else. And it doesn’t involve blue-eyed burglars who can’t decide if they want to hit on me or piss me off. I’m going to comfort eat, suck up to Vinnie and watch mind-numbing TV.

I tell myself Xavier is okay because what else can I do? I’ve told the cops, and I’ve called all the hospitals and his school and left a billion messages on his phone. I’ve faced up to Bill Green. I’ve been brushed off outside a crack den.

I’ve done all I can.

But I can’t forget that stupid angel on the fence. In my head she’s no longer grinning, she’s glaring at me, wings folded, accusation in her brown eyes.

When I get downstairs to the shop there’s an old guy shoving a kebab down his throat. He looks like an off-duty Santa with a permanent red sheen lacquering his nose and cheeks. He waves at me like he knows me and I guess maybe he does look a little familiar, but all these old men look the same to me.

At least there’s a witness so Vinnie can’t kill me.

She emerges from behind the counter, slinging her dishcloth over her shoulder. ‘Looky looky what the cat dragged in.’

It’s not so much what she says but how she says it that makes me certain I’m in way bigger trouble than I first thought. It’s not even The Nonna Sofia she’s giving me. It’s her original creation: The Vinnie.

‘Before you say anything . . .’ I whip out the chocolate from under my jumper and plonk myself on a stool. I slide the block along the counter until it’s directly under Vinnie’s nose.

‘No good,’ she says. ‘Not going to work.’

She hoists herself onto the stool beside me. I breathe in stale smoke, White Diamonds and Cedel hairspray.

‘I’m going to eat it, of course.’ She breaks off a square of chocolate and hands it to me. ‘But it’s your last meal.’

I grab the TV remote and turn it up. It’s some kind of game show. I try answering ‘pineapple’ to every question the slick-haired host poses.

‘What’s the capital of Romania?’

‘Pineapple.’

‘What was the name of Henry VIII’s second wife?’

‘Pineapple.’

‘Finish this famous line from Martin Luther King’s speech: I have a . . .?’

‘Pineapple.’

I laugh. Vinnie frowns. ‘I think it’s high time we had that talk,’ she says. The Vinnie is getting worked overtime.

‘Cara’s mum gave her this picture book,’ I say. ‘Where Did I Come From? So I already know that babies sort of magically come along nine months after a man and woman get married but that doesn’t explain Eden Kyles-Tewolde.’

‘Eden Kyles-Tewolde?’

‘Smartest girl in school. She has two mums. It also doesn’t explain Cara, who has no dad. Or me, who had too many dads. Ouch.’

I get an elbow to my stomach.

‘You know full well that’s not the talk we need to have.’

I say ‘pineapple’ (‘The chemical composition of water is one part oxygen to two parts what?’) before turning to face Vinnie. ‘If it’s about me coming home so late last night I already explained that.’ I break off a line of chocolate and shove the whole thing in my mouth. ‘Pineapple.’ (‘How many players make up a netball side?’)

‘No, you went on some tirade about people who can raise one eyebrow and then something about your brother not calling back. I know you think I’m nagging you for no reason but I don’t think you’re taking this seriously. You could be expelled.’

‘A famous landmark in Woombye, Queensland,’ says the TV host, ‘is called the Big what . . .?

We look at each other before bursting into pant-peeing laughter.

‘Better get a lottery ticket,’ says Vinnie, wiping her eyes. ‘Apparently you’re a lucky lady. It’ll help pay for that kid’s nose.’ I can’t help rolling my eyes so she grabs my chin between her thumb and forefinger. ‘I say this with the utmost love for you, Frankie. Pull your finger out. Who do you think is going to give a job – a good job – to a high-school drop out? What are you going to do while Cara’s flitting about uni and you’re still here stinking of garlic? Sleeping in, disappearing half the night, talking back when you should be grovelling – it’s got to stop. Or I stop it for you.’

Man. Happiness is like sugar, isn’t it? The ride up is totally awesome but then you have to watch for the crash on the other side. And we were having so much pineapple.

Vinnie doesn’t do subtle. Not in the sheer blouses and tight skirts she wears, not in the burning of her ex-husbands’ things, not in her screaming matches with Nonna Sofia. So I know full well that when she says she’ll ‘stop it for me’ she means she’ll bury me six feet under in the back garden. With the worm I killed and my stupid time capsule.

‘Okay?’ she says, squeezing my chin.

I nod and it wins me a smile. Not a big one, an I’m-thinking-about-forgiving-you-give-me-a-minute smile. It’s a massive win.

I get to lollop in my happiness bubble for all of three seconds – the exact time it takes the game show to make way for the news and a stern-faced newsreader to introduce the lead story: the missing kid from Malvern.

Am I to assume that the report on Xavier will be up next? Can I expect to see Bill weeping and Marzoli pleading for information?

I reach for the remote but Vinnie wrenches it from my hand. ‘I’m watching this.’

The old guy shuffles up behind us, dumping his dirty wrapper on the counter. ‘Isn’t that just horrible,’ he wheezes. He’s a loud breather and he stinks of pee, mustiness and wet knitwear.

The newsreader throws to a reporter standing in some leafy street, reminding us where Harrison was last seen. They’ve got some kind of police caravan on the street corner, with officers handing out posters plastered with Harrison’s face and information. There’s even a dummy dressed in identical clothes to what the kid was wearing last time he was seen. They’re offering a $100,000 reward for information. And here’s me with ten dollars and seventy cents in my pocket. Maybe I could talk Vinnie into stumping up a year’s worth of free kebabs as a reward for information on Xavier.

Actually . . .

I stand, mind buzzing. ‘I got to go.’

‘Hold up,’ says Vinnie. ‘We haven’t finished our talk.’

I don’t stop. I can’t. I’ve just had the brainwave of the century. ‘I’m late. I’ve got to meet Cara.’

‘What did I just tell you? Pull. Your. Finger. Out. Not go hang out with Cara.’

‘Exactly! She’s going to tutor me. In Maths. You know I suck at number things. Ask me what five plus five equals.’

‘Frankie –’

‘Eleven.’

‘It’s the middle of the day, Frankie. Cara’s in school.’

‘She’s got a free.’ I stumble as my foot catches the leg of a chair. Can’t believe I didn’t already think of this. Who says you never learn anything from TV?

‘Really?’ says Vinnie. ‘So if I call the school –?’

‘I wouldn’t trust Square-Tits; she’s high on white-out.’

Vinnie jabs her cigarette at me. ‘Keep away from that school, Frankie. You’re on suspension.’

‘I’m not meeting Cara there. I’m not stupid.’

I blow her a kiss. She catches it.

‘I’m not so sure about that,’ she mutters, stuffing my kiss into her fake Chanel handbag. ‘You’re a Vega, after all.’