The Puffin Book of Horror Stories

    But nobody used the bath that night. Jeremy had said he would be able to connect it up himself but in the end he had found it was beyond him. Nothing fitted. It would have to be soldered. Unfortunately he wouldn't be able to get a plumber until Monday and of course it would add another forty pounds to the bill and when he told Susan that led to another argument. They ate their dinner in front of the television that night, letting the shallow laughter of a sitcom cover the chill silence in the room.

    And then it was nine o'clock. 'You'd better go to bed early, darling. School tomorrow,' Susan said.

    'Yes, Mum.' Isabel was twelve but her mother - a short and rather severe woman - treated her sometimes as if she were much younger. Maybe it came from teaching in a primary school.

    Isabel undressed and washed quickly - hands, face, neck, teeth, in that order. The face that gazed out at her from the gilded mirror above the sink wasn't an unattractive one, she thought, except for the annoying pimple on her nose… a punishment for the Mars Bar ice-cream she'd eaten the day before. Long brown hair and blue eyes (her mother's), a thin face with narrow cheek-bones and chin (her father's). She had been fat until she was nine but now she was getting herself in shape. She'd never be a super-model. She was too fond of ice-cream for that. But no fatty either, not like Belinda Price, her best friend at school who was doomed to a life of hopeless diets and baggy clothes.

    The shape of the bath, over her shoulder, caught her eye and she realized suddenly that from the moment she had come into the bathroom she had been trying to avoid looking at it. Why? She put her toothbrush down, turned round and examined it. She didn't like it. Her first impression had been right. It was so big and ugly with its dull enamel and dribbling stain over the plug-hole. And it seemed - it was a stupid thought but now it was there she couldn't make it go away - it seemed to be waiting for her. She half-smiled at her own foolishness. And then she noticed something else.

    There was a small puddle of water in the bottom of the bath. As she moved her head, it caught the light and she saw it clearly. Isabel's first thought was to look up at the ceiling. There had to be a leak, somewhere upstairs, in the attic. How else could water have got into a bath whose taps were lying on their side next to the sink? But there was no leak. Isabel leant forward and ran her third finger along the bottom of the bath. The water was warm.

    'I must have splashed it in there myself,' she thought. 'As I was washing my face…'

    She flicked the light off and left the room, crossing the landing to her bedroom on the other side of her parents'. Somewhere in her mind she knew that it wasn't true, that she could never have splashed water from the sink into the bath. But it wasn't an important question. In fact it was ridiculous. She curled up in bed and closed her eyes.

    But an hour later her thumb was still rubbing circles against her third finger and it was a long time before she slept.

    'Bath night!' her father said when she got home from school the next day. He was in a good mood, smiling broadly as he shuffled together the ingredients for that night's dinner.

    'Where's Mum?' Isabel asked.

    'Shopping.' She had offended him. Isabel saw that in his one-word answer and the way he turned away from her, sliding some sliced onions into a pan of hot oil. He wanted her to share his enthusiasm, to talk about the bath. The onions sizzled angrily.

    'So you got it plumbed in then.'

    'Yes.' He turned back again. 'It cost fifty pounds -don't tell your mother. The plumber was here for two hours.' He smiled and blinked several times and Isabel was reminded of something she had once been told by the brother of a friend who went to Highgate. Her father was a very thin man with prematurely grey hair and a face that always seemed to be turned down. At school, his nickname was Grumpy. Why did boys have to be so cruel?

    She reached out and squeezed his arm. 'That's great, Dad,' she said. 'I'll have a bath after dinner. What are you making?'

    'Lasagne. Your mum's gone out to get some wine.'

    It was a more pleasant evening. Isabel had got a part in her school play - Lady Montague in Romeo and Juliet. Susan had found a ten-pound note in the pocket of a jacket she hadn't worn for years. Jeremy had been asked to take a party of boys to Paris at the end of term. Good news oiled the machinery of the family and for once everything turned smoothly. After dinner, Isabel did half an hour's homework, kissed her parents goodnight and went upstairs. To the bathroom.