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for that I had the patch of sun. “I saved you from being fried in the pan,” I added.
    My grandmother laughed.
    That was when my father shouted.
    He shouted my name.
    My grandma’s bedroom door burst open. So hard the handle hit the wall and dented it.
    I stood up with my hands behind my back, hiding the chick.
    I saw one of my sister’s arms come out from under the sheets. She grabbed hold of the mask and put it on with barely a movement.
    The baby began to cry.
    “Did you go into my room when the door was locked?” Dad asked.
    “It was an accident.”
    I looked at Grandma as if she could back up my story, but she said nothing.
    “Come here,” my father said.
    I hesitated.
    “Now!”
    I walked forward until I stood in front of him.
    “What have you got behind you?” he asked.
    “Nothing.”
    I could still feel the chick’s claws and feathers between my fingers.
    “What do you mean, ‘nothing’?” said Dad.
    Before I could react, he grabbed me by a shoulder. His hand went down my arm like an aphid toward the elbow. And then to my wrist, behind my back. When he got hold of my hand, he forced me to show it to him.
    I closed my eyes, as though it would make the chick disappear.
    But the hand was empty.
    “Show me the other one,” he ordered. “Come on.”
    Slowly I held out my other hand. There was nothing there, either.
    Not a trace of the chick.
    I was as surprised as my father.
    “Explain to me why you went into my room,” he said. He put his open hand on my forehead. “Your mother says you’re sick.”
    I didn’t know what to say.
    I observed Dad’s hair scar. His nostrils opened and closed in time with his noisy breathing.
    “Are you?” he asked. “Are you sick?”
    I remained silent. All I could think about was where the chick had gone.
    “It’s nothing,” my grandmother cut in. “He’s got a bit of fever, but not much. We won’t need anything.”
    My father touched my forehead again.
    “I’m going to explain to you now what a lock is,” he said.
    He grabbed my neck, his hand like pincers. If he had wanted, he could have closed them completely.
    “Hey,” said my grandmother.
    My father looked at her, and I was able to do the same when he released his grip on my neck a little.
    “There’s not long left on that lightbulb,” she said. “A few days ago I heard an electrical buzzing sound.”
    When Dad looked up at the ceiling where the glass body hung, my grandmother stroked her pillow so I could see it. Just where she had put the egg earlier. I understood right away.
    “Thanks, Grandma,” I said.
    She smiled and stopped stroking the material.
    “I don’t know when we’ll be able to change it,” my father said.
    “Maybe it will last a bit longer,” she replied.
    The pincers closed around my neck again, but I didn’t care. The chick was OK and it was going to sleep with my grandmother. Smelling her talcum powder.

5
    That night I was woken by a scream.
    “He’s choking!”
    I sat up in bed. For a few seconds, I wondered whether I’d really heard something or I was having a nightmare.
    “He’s choking!”
    The cry reached me again from the other side of the hall. The springs on my brother’s bed squeaked above my head. His weight fell to the floor. The bunk frame shook. When my brother opened the door, the light from outside painted a yellow trapezoid on the floor, the longest side of the shape lighting up the exact width of my bed.
    I could barely see and my eyes were sore, but two silhouettes, of my father and of my mother, joined my brother’s in an improvised procession that traveled left, to where my grandmother’s screaming came from.
    “He’s choking,” the voice repeated.
    It was my chick that was choking. Grandma had hidden it under her pillow and must’ve fallen asleep on it, squashing the newly born bird, which now couldn’t breathe.
    I ran over the trapezoid of light toward the door. It didn’t matter if my father knew my little secret anymore. I met