The Pause Read Free Page B

Mocking bird ? Atticus Finch ?’
    She turns the book over and examines the back to see how I could possibly know this.
    â€˜You’ve read it?’
    â€˜It not only made me ashamed to be white, it made me ashamed to be human. Do you know there are some people who believe it was actually written by Truman Capote?’
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜Well, he and Harper Lee grew up next door to each other. Can you imagine that? Two of the greatest figures in American literature playing together in the sandpit?’
    We’re pulling into Lisa’s station and this is a good bailout point as we’re sort of mid-conversation and this positively demands continuing tomorrow. But then Maaaate has to go and stick his big, fat, bulbous nose into it.
    â€˜Tell her you won a prize for your essay!’ he yells from the back.
    Lisa looks at me. ‘You won a prize?’
    â€˜A book voucher,’ I say. ‘No big deal.’
    â€˜I have to do an essay on it next week,’ says Lisa. ‘Maybe you could …’ And if it wasn’t for the fact that Maaaate’s aftershave smells like essence of dead cat, I could kiss him.
    â€˜Sure,’ I say. ‘We could meet up at Ciao Latte after school.’
    â€˜I have to go straight home,’ she says, deflating my balloon slightly. ‘My mother …’ But she doesn’t have to say any more.
    â€˜Okay,’ I say. ‘Give me your number, and I’ll –’
    â€˜I can’t,’ she says, and this time she looks deflated, which gives me hope. ‘It’s kind of difficult. My mobile’s only for emergencies.’ She thinks for a moment as the train comes to a stop. ‘Give me yours,’ she says. ‘Your home, not your mobile. My mother –’ sounds like a pain in the arse ‘– goes over the bill.’
    The doors are opening so Lisa quickly pulls a pen out of her bag while I rattle off my home number. She writes it on her hand. She writes my phone number on her hand .
    I try playing it cool by not waving at her through the window but I can’t help myself. At least, I try to wave to her but by the time we pass her on theplatform, Maaaate has me in a headlock and Chris is ruffling my hair. The Grosvenor year eighter calls us losers and plugs herself into her iPod.
    And with that I’m officially in love.

I follow Lisa’s directions to her leafy address in the burbs. The house is imposing, with huge skeletal gum trees looming up behind it like something out of a Maurice Sendak book. Actually, the house itself is quite ordinary; it’s what I’ve heard goes on beyond the front door that is imposing. And I’m not about to be disappointed.
    I take a deep breath and ring the doorbell. When I hear no ding ing or dong ing coming from inside, I knock on the glass panel. Nothing. I try again, harder this time. It would be just my luck to temporarily turn into my dad at this point and put my fist through the glass and sever an artery. Fortunately both glass and arteries hold.
    I hear clomping down the hallway and if it’s Lisa, she’s not exactly light of foot. But I know it’s not. Seeing how tense and nervous Lisa becomes when she talks about her mother, she probably doesn’t have door-answering privileges. I think my being here might be the biggest risk she’s taken in a long time. Our daily phone calls over the last week were big enough, our Ciao Latte get-togethers huge, but this … this is taking things to a whole other level.
    The front door swings open and I have no option other than to immediately nickname Lisa’s mother The Kraken. It’s the look she’s directing at me. It’s not exactly hatred, more a glare of total contempt, the sort of look she might reserve for her husband if she found him in a compromising situation with a chicken. It reminds me of the way my mother once glared at a cockroach that was doing the