The Brilliant Light of Amber Sunrise Read Free Page A

and pen and pretended to scribble down her instructions.
    â€œ Plug in . . . push . . . think I’ve just about got the gist.”
    â€œI don’t know why I bother,” Mum said, kissing his forehead and slipping him twenty pounds before we left.
    Just as we were about to go Callum came out of the toilet, looking hunched and sad, like he was too delicate to handle anything bad life might throw at him. He squinted up at us and his whole body spasmed once more as he noticed something on my face.
    â€œOh, God!” he said, with his fingers pressed to his mouth, and ran back toward the toilet.
    â€œAre you all right?” Chris asked me, standing up from his place on the floor. He took me by the arm and sat me down as Mum rummaged through her bag for something. She came at me with a packet of Kleenex and a worryingly determined look in her eyes.
    I still didn’t entirely know what was going on until I felt something warm trace the length of my lip and spread down my chin, and then gulped down on a glob of ­metallic-tasting blood.
    â€œAAAAAAAAAAH!” I screamed from the couch.
    â€œYou have to apply pressure,” Mum said, with her ironfingers crushing the bridge of my nose like a torturer. “Or it won’t clot.”
    â€œJust let it bleed!” I begged.
    â€œShut up, Francis, she knows what she’s doing,” Chris told me.
    â€œSee?” Mum said, pressing harder on my nose.
    â€œOh, my God, it hurts !”
    â€œDon’t be so soft.”
    â€œYou’re fracturing my skull!”
    â€œMan up, Francis,” said Fiona from the couch.
    I steeled myself and tried to be more macho about the ordeal. But Mum was tough. No matter how fancily she dressed, she couldn’t hide her true nature. Everyone at school was scared of her. Especially the other mums. She once knocked out a man with a single punch when he barged into her shopping cart in the grocery store. She also went around to Scott Earnshaw’s house when Chris told her about his campaign of terror against me. When Scott’s mum tried to deny it was happening, Mum gave her a final warning. After Scott didn’t heed her advice and locked me in the art supplies closet one lunchtime, Mum went back to their house and lunged at Mrs. Earnshaw. Chris and I watched from the car but they landed inside the vestibule and Mum kicked the door shut with her leg. When Chris asked her what the hell she was playing at, she just smiled and said, “ Reverting to type. ”Then we drove to McDonald’s and had a drive-thru. I marked it in my diary at the time as “The Best Day Ever.”

    After five solid minutes of the sort of pain they make documentaries about, Mum eased her grip a bit.
    â€œThere, I think that got it,” she said, standing up and observing her handiwork.
    My nose felt like it was about to drop off. I was scared to touch it, and doubly scared to look in case of irreversible damage. I’d already had it broken once and feared the worst. My eyes were watering and I could feel myself weaken with the trauma of it all.
    â€œDo you want a T-shirt to change into?” Chris said.
    I nodded feebly and he told me to help myself. Only as I got up I saw him and Mum give each other a secret glance, which I knew meant they had been talking about me in private.
    I took ages choosing a T-shirt that I wanted because Chris spent all his money shopping on eBay, so borrowing clothes from him was much better than buying new ones from a shop. I saw two I liked. I put on the smallest underneath a Kiss T-shirt I’d had my eye on for some time, and dropped two pounds into Chris’s money jar, so it wasn’t really stealing. While I was getting changed I could hear Mum and him talking about me in serious voices, only they stopped once I came out of his bedroom and Chris told mehe would force-feed me the Kiss T-shirt if anything bad happened to it. I promised to take care of it. We left