100 Days of April-May Read Online Free PDF Page A

book. She can read the title for herself, can’t she?
    â€˜
The Interpretation of Dreams
by Sigmund Feud.’ She reads it slowly.
    â€˜Freud, not Feud,’ I snap. Talk about a Freudian slip.
    â€˜Is it interesting?’
    â€˜No, Mum, I’m reading it because it’s boring.’
    â€˜May, would you put that book down. I want to talk to you.’ Mom speaks to me in a timid sort of a voice. It makes me want to make her cry.
    I give a large Melly-like sigh, as though I’m giving my under-used nasal cavities some physiotherapy. ‘What?’ I glance up. My eyes cross over as I try and look at Mom without seeing her. I can’t look at her face in case she catches my eye. I can’t look at her body because … I just can’t. My eyes start to feel funny, so I focus on her mouth. Her mouth makes words that say, ‘Sarel and I were just in the neighbourhood …’
    My mom works for a public relations company, which means that she lies for a living. And she just can’t seem to leave her work at the office on the weekends. Sarel and Mom are never just in the neighbourhood, unless they’re intent on bugging me.
    Sarel is my mother’s new husband. He is a blood-sucking lawyer from Pretoria and he is ninety-two per cent bald. To compensate for his premature hair loss, Sarel wears a wig.
    â€˜â€¦ so we thought we would just pop by to see whether you’ve changed your mind?’
    I don’t say anything. For a spin doctor who spends her working days twisting and tweaking the facts for fat-cat corporates, she should be more precise. Changed my mind about what? I give her my cross-eyed blank look.
    Mom sighs. ‘If you have decided to come and see the scan of your new sibling with Sarel and me?’
    â€˜No,’ I say. And I start texting randomly on The Brick.
    Mom sighs again. ‘No, you haven’t decided, or no, you don’t want to?’
    Nameless Dog lifts his head from Sam Ho’s mangled piece of Lego and growls. And then his fur rises like a fan of quills on his back.
    Before I can say hey, Nameless Dog, this guy’s a big-shot leech from Pretoria, he’ll sue the hide off you if you so much as touch a hair on his head, Nameless Dog leaps into the air. He flies in the direction of Sarel, who has just appeared at the back door of the house.
    The next fifteen seconds are a blur. When Sarel emerges from the vortex of activity he is wigless and there is no sign of Nameless Dog. ‘What was that?’ Sarel asks, rubbing his hand tenderly across the top of his head. His head which looks like a pincushion.
    â€˜Sarel, what is that?’ Mom asks, looking at Sarel’s head, and at his face which has collapsed into a mottled red blob.
    It transpires that Pincushion-head has been having secret hair transplants in preparation for the best day of their lives – for when Baby is born. Sarel wants to be the kind of dad his child can be proud of. A dad with a full head of hairy pincushion hair.
    Mom and Sarel forget about me and have an emotional moment. And then they remember me and ask if I’ve decided if I’m coming with them to the hospital to see a 3D movie of the person who will mark the best day of their lives.
    I say, ‘Yes, and it’s no.’ They can keep their baby scan and their hair implants and I’ll keep home with Sigmund Freud and Nameless Dog, who is busy burying Sarel’s wig in a sunny spot by the washing line.
    â€˜What’s his name?’ asks Sarel.
    Nameless Dog looks at me expectantly, ears pricked. I could tell Sarel that he doesn’t have a name because Miss Frankel is going to christen him when she claims him and takes him to his new home without a killer swimming pool. But I decide otherwise. I have a genetic disposition towards untruths. ‘His name is Killer.’
    Nameless Dog howls in appreciation of my choice and then snarls at Sarel and Mom – to prove his