One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries Read Free Page B

land.”
    The silence stretched further for a few moments. Then my mother said, “Have you been discussing our finances with your friends?” There was an edge to her voice that told me I should have kept my mouth shut.
    “ No, not really, it’s just that…” How could I tell her that everyone knew we were in trouble, that I hadn’t even needed to mention it.
    “ I don’t want you seeing Mark Trenton anymore,” said my mother, her gaze still on the space beside my head. “He’s not a good influence on you. Besides, there’s more than enough work to be done around here.”
    And with that, she got up and began to do the dishes, leaving her dinner half eaten on the table. In a fit of anger I grabbed it and ran with it to my room, where I drank it down straight from the bowl, before she could come and look for it.
    I was sick of being hungry all the time. Sick of the pitying looks people gave me in town. Sick of my mother’s misery. And I certainly wasn’t going to do what she said. Pure rage washed through me, the emotion so strong it left me shaking. How dare she just give in? How dare she opt out and leave me with all of it? She had even stopped going out and looking for work. Was that my job now? What were we going to do when our coveralls and gloves wore out and there was no money to buy more? Or if one of us got sick?
    I buried my face in the pillow on my bed and waited for my breathing to slow. My thoughts hung there, suddenly clear in my mind. This was my world and it wasn’t going to defeat me, and neither my mother, nor anyone else was going to get in the way of that.
     
    ∞ ¥ ∞ Ω ∞ ¥ ∞  
     
    When I looked out my window the next morning the world had turned red. It was the red of the flower at my bedside, which now had every bud open. As far as I could see, the velvet green of the grass appeared as flashes in a sea of flowers. Every bud on every flower must have opened overnight, as though set on some internal timer.
    “ You were early,” I said to the flower at my bedside and ran out into our yard.
    My mother was already out there, standing completely still with her back to me, looking out over the blanket of colour. I went to join her, my bare feet silent in the dirt. When I was standing beside her I saw the shiny tracks of tears on her cheeks.
    Without thinking I reached out and took her hand.
    For a long time she didn’t even look at me. Then she said. “Roses are red like that.”
    I didn’t reply. I’d never seen a rose. No one had been able to make one grow here.
    “ He used to give me roses,” my mother said. “Even though they were so expensive. He said I was worth it. We worked so hard to come here. We planned it together. It was what we wanted. We were going to do it together. How can things change so much?”
    Her hand suddenly squeezed my own so tightly it hurt. I felt her start to shake.
    “ It’s going to be okay.” My voice sounded weak and uncertain in my ears. “We’ll be okay.”
    “ No.” The word was a moan. “It’s not okay. I can’t. I just can’t do this.” My mother sank slowly to her knees, still holding my hand. Her breathing was coming in jerking sobs now, with horrible inhalations between, as though she couldn’t draw the air down into her lungs. I stood fixed, my hand in hers, my toes digging down into the dirt beneath me, immobile but desperate to run, to cram myself under my bed and put my hands over my ears.
    “ I hate this place.” She gasped the words out between breaths. “I’ve always hated it. From the moment my feet touched it I knew it was wrong. What are we going to do?”
    I stood there, trapped, holding her hand as she cried, the red of our world around us.
     
    ∞ ¥ ∞ Ω ∞ ¥ ∞  
     
    “ They really liked that wire,” said Mark. “I wonder if there’s a cook pot at home that Mum wouldn’t miss.”
    “ The chair was just as good.”
    Mark had managed to turn up with a coil of rusting wire and the other bits of