Читать книгу Of Things Gone Astray - Janina Matthewson - Страница 11

Jake stands on the footpath facing his house. His schoolbag is heavy because of all the library books his mother has finally remembered he has to take back.

No, that wasn’t right. He hadn’t been going to school that day. If he’d been going to school he would have been there already, for hours.

Jake stands on the footpath facing his house. The street is quiet for a Saturday. Because it isn’t Saturday. It’s Tuesday. It feels like Saturday to Jake because he’s not wearing his school uniform. He’s not going to school.

Why was he not going to school? It wasn’t the holidays.

He’s not going to school because he has a doctor’s appointment about his foot and then his mum is going to take him to McDonald’s for a sundae. He wonders if she’ll let him have one with a flake.

He is sweating. He is sweating because it is very hot. The sun is big and bright above him and seems to be soaking him right through to his bones. Deeper than his bones. He wishes he was wearing jandals instead of lace-up shoes. His mum doesn’t like him to wear jandals anymore because she likes him to always wear his orthotics. Jake looks down at his feet and frowns. He hadn’t thought his feet would betray him like this. He’d thought they were allies.

He wishes his mum would hurry up. She’s gone back in to the house because she forgot to bring –

What? What had she forgotten?

She forgot to bring something for the smiling lady that had visited last week. She promised to drop something off to her and she’s annoyed about it.

Jake’s mum is also annoyed that they have to go to the doctor’s at midday. When they’ve gone before it’s always been after school but she couldn’t get an appointment with the doctor because the doctor’s about to get married and go away, Jake thinks perhaps forever. He thinks that maybe if the doctor gets married and goes away forever he’ll be able to stop wearing his orthotics and his mum won’t be able to tell him off.

Jake has been waiting for a long time. He thinks perhaps seven hours. He wonders if his mum would notice if he snuck past her upstairs and put on his jandals.

When the ground moves, he isn’t scared. It does that a lot and all that happens is his cat will run all over the house really fast. Jake thinks that is pretty funny.

He doesn’t expect the house to fall down like it does.

Jake lay still on his bed for a while. He didn’t think he was right about it being that hot. He thought he was right about most things, but he didn’t think it had been hot that day.

He didn’t feel much like going downstairs. On this day two years ago his mum had made waffles with bacon and banana and syrup for breakfast, with a candle sticking out of one of the waffles.

Jake didn’t think there would be waffles this morning.

He didn’t think there would be waffles any morning.