Читать книгу Fractured Lives - Toni Strasburg - Страница 6

CHAPTER 2

I OPEN my mouth to moan some more, and then close it again. Mom was obviously saving that one for last. I can tell by the smug look on her face.

Okay, I admit ... this does change things a bit.

Lael Lieberman is my best friend in the whole entire world. We’ve been friends since Grade 1. That’s when her mom and dad got divorced. I remember finding her crying in the girls’ bathroom one break-time, and making her tell me all about it. The grown-ups in her life had all told her how cool it would be to have two bedrooms and double presents for birthdays and all that stupid stuff. I just let her cry and listened while she talked. We’ve been best friends ever since.

The divorce didn’t exactly go well for her. Basically, her folks can’t stand the sight of each other. Lael’s dad got remarried almost immediately, moved to Pietermaritzburg, and started a brand new family. She sees him maybe once a year at Rosh Hashanah. Her mom is this scary socialite who travels the world and only comes home now and then to buy a new set of Louis Vuitton luggage and shout at Lael about putting on weight.

So, ja, Lael has seen the inside of the boardinghouse more than once. When her mom is in town, they live together in this super-swish serviced apartment at the Raphael in Mandela Square. But when she’s off travelling, Lael becomes a boarder.

I didn’t know she’d be boarding this term, but if Mom says she is, then she probably is. Mom would have checked first.

I’m about to admit that I’m feeling a bit better about this whole parental abandonment thing when I’m struck by a sudden thought.

“What am I going to do about food?”

“They’ll feed you, obviously,” Dad says, a bit tetchily. “They don’t exactly starve their boarders, you know.”

“That’s not the point. Has not one single person in this room even remembered that I’m on a diet?”

My brothers snigger. Dad looks at Mom, and Mom looks at me.

“I’m on the blood-group diet,” I say crossly. “I’m only supposed to eat protein and steamed veggies. They’ll stuff me full of carbs that are all wrong for my blood type.”

“Sweetie,” Mom says patiently. “That might not be a bad thing. There’s nothing wrong with your figure. You shouldn’t be messing with your eating patterns at your age.”

“Oh, what’s the point?” I snap. “You’ll never understand. Just because you were born thin, you don’t care what I have to go through.”

I flounce out of the room and salm the door.

Okay, that might not have been my most mature moment, but my mother seriously tries my patience. Just because she can eat whatever she likes and stay skinny, she has no idea what it’s like to be cursed with fatness. The other day I was trying on clothes in Foxy and the size 10 was too tight.

“Why don’t you try the size 12, sisi?” the salesgirl said with a sadistic smile. I refused to give her the satisfaction. I just marched out of the shop and off to Foschini where the size 10s still fit me.

Anyway. Moving along. The point is that I’m a whale and need to diet. And this boarding-school business is going to wreck my whole eating plan.

I fling myself down on my bed and phone Lael.

The squeal she gives when I tell her my news is enough to split my eardrum.

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! That is sooooo completely cool! We’ll be roomies. We can call each other roomie. Let’s start now. Can I call you roomie?”

“Please don’t.”

“Roomie, roomie, roomie. Oh, I am so happy. I really wasn’t looking forward to this term at all. Mom’s going to Israel again. The way she carries on, you’d swear the whole of Tel Aviv would grind to a halt without her. I was totally dreading it. But now that you’ll be there, we’re going to have so much fun.”

“What fun can you possibly have in a place where you’re watched every second of the day?” I ask grumpily.

“Ha! You’re a boarding-school virgin. Honey, you don’t have a clue. But don’t worry, I’ll show you the ropes. Trust me, there are as many ways to break the rules as there are rules themselves. And I know them all.”

“What? Are we going to be climbing down the drainpipes at night while slipping pillows under our duvets to fool Matron? That is so Malory Towers.”

“Not exactly, but there are ways and means. And don’t you remember begging to go to boarding-school after you read Malory Towers? So this is basically a dream come true for you.”

“Hmmph.”

It’s true that I went through a slight boarding-school phase back in my Enid Blyton days. And then again in my Spud days. But I’ve outgrown all that now. Trust my parents to get the timing all screwed up. They completely ignored my begging all those years ago, and now they’re ignoring my begging to stay home. It’s totally and utterly unfair.

Still, at least Lael is happy. If I have to spend the rest of my life in an institution, at least I’ll know that my suffering is helping others.

“Stop sighing like that, Trinity. You’d swear you were being sent to prison.”

“That’s what it feels like.”

“Rubbish, man. It’s going to be awesome. You’ll see.”