Give Me Four Reasons Read Free Page B

fingers up into the air in an arc above our heads then slam them down into our famous hand sandwich on top of the Passports.
    ‘ Track three! ’ we yell.
    The Passports slip out of my hand and fall to the ground.
    ‘Oh no!’ I say. I bend down and pick them up again. Mine is a bit scuffed. Everyone else’s is fine, but that’s not the point. My friends trusted me, and I let them down. Just like I let Rochelle down by not joining in the water fight. I sigh and fumble the Passports into my bag.
    Rochelle, Elfi and Jed are too busy laughing to notice my red face and the tears of shame in my eyes.
    ‘Don’t worry, Paige,’ Jed says. ‘We know you’ll guard these Passports with your life.’
    Yes, my very clumsy life.

3
    ‘Mum!’I call, placing my school bag gently on my bed. I don’t want to do any more damage to the Passports.
    ‘Mum!’ I call again, walking down the hallway. There is no answer. There are no strange cars parked out the front of our house, so she doesn’t have a client with her. Unless it is someone from the neighbourhood. I tiptoe along to the spare room. No candles or incense are burning and the CD player is not playing its usual mystical music.
    I know! Mum is hiding from me in the kitchen, ready to spring out and shout, ‘Surprise!’ She said that she was going to throw a special afternoon tea party for me to celebrate the end of school. Just the two of us.
    I have been looking forward to it all day. Finally, a chance to sit down and talk to someone about how I’m feeling now that I’ve finished school.
    I tiptoe into the kitchen and peek around the corner, ready to catch Mum out and give her a huge hug. But it is empty, too. So is the fridge—not that I expected to find Mum in there. I was looking for the cake and slices she said she would make. But there is nothing. Not even a note.
    ‘Fliss?’ I yell, wondering if my sister is home.
    Silence.
    I stare out the kitchen window at the backyard. Nobody’s out there, either. I try to see my reflection in the glass. I am pale and ghostly. I suddenly have a weird thought. Am I dead? Did I get hit by a bus on the way to school this morning and now I am a ghost going about my usual business? Perhaps that’s why nobody noticed me all day.
    I wonder if I should run down to Dad’s funeral parlour and check his books. If I was dead, he would have recorded it.
    But the funeral parlour is downtown and it’s too hot to walk there now. So I just go back into my bedroom, open my school bag and look at the top edges of the four Passports. They are still there. Jed wouldn’t have asked a ghost to look after them, so I guess I’m alive after all.
    I take my uniform out of my bag and stare at it. I had wanted to keep it as a reminder of today. But now I think, do I really want to remember today? No one else will remember my part in it.
    I turn the uniform over and read what Rochelle wrote on the back in thick, black marker:‘ track three ’.
    It is the number of a song on one of Dad’s old CDs. The CD is an autographed copy of INXS: The Greatest Hits . Dad showed it to me for the first time a couple of years ago.
    ‘Why would you want to listen to the music of a dead guy?’ I’d said.
    Dad had put the CD in the player and skipped to track three, a song called ‘Don’t Change’.
    Then my usually quiet father had taken me by the hand and sung the words of the song right into my face. ‘ Don’t change ,’ he kept singing. ‘ Don’t change .’
    When the song ended he collapsed on the sofa and pulled me down next to him.
    ‘That song’s a classic,’ Dad said. ‘It’s all about sticking to your beliefs and staying true to yourself. Don’t change who you are for anybody, Paige.’
    I had quickly grown to love the song and I’d borrowed Dad’s CD so often, he eventually gave it to me. I played track three for my friends whenever they came over. Even though it’s old, there’s something catchy about it. Rochelle, Elfi and Jed think