A Straight Line to My Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

– I just might get a cadetship.
    Kayla has a long, long list of things she doesn’t want to do with her life. The only thing she’s really set her heart on is being an artist. She loves painting – portraits, landscapes, abstracts – anything that involves a brush and colour. At school she was the best at art by far, and she thought that was how it was always going to be. But about two years ago she realised the truth. She’s still talented but she’s like a six or a seven out of ten, and the world only gives a gold medal to the nines and the tens.
    â€˜I’m not worried.’ That’s what she keeps on telling me.
    For now both of us step carefully around the subject of the future. It’s one of those too-hard things you leave until you can’t put it off any longer. It’s much easier to be little kids again, playing show-and-tell.
    â€˜Back in a minute.’ Kayla jumps up. ‘I have to find where Inky put them.’
    â€˜Put what?’
    â€˜You’ll see.’
    Kayla’s mum has a pretty first name: Bess. But Kayla calls her Inky and her mum doesn’t mind, so that’s what I call her, too. It’s short for ‘incubator’. She has a tribe of kids. The one on the way will make six – or is it seven? Let’s see . . . there’s Rowie and Harrison. Cody and Hales have been fostered and, of course, there’s Kayla. Yep, six. There are two or three fathers involved. The latest one is Colin.
    He’s a lot younger than Inky: good-looking, great body, cheeky smile. She thinks he might be the knight in shining armour that she’s always been searching for.
    Kayla has her doubts. She keeps on asking me, ‘What’s a guy like that doing with my mother?’
    I understand where she’s coming from. Inky’s been known to drink too much, she’s hooked on pokies, she has a heap of kids, and she’s too old for him – other than that they’re a perfect match.
    I throw out a wild and crazy idea. ‘Maybe he really likes her. Maybe he even loves her.’
    Kayla groans, but then thinks better of it.
    â€˜I shouldn’t be such a bitch. You could be right. Mum is a really nice person. He should love her – he better.’
    Rowie was only tiny when Inky and Colin met. Rowie’s dad had buzzed off and Inky was doing it tough. After not very long at all, Colin was the new man and Inky was pregnant again.
    So far he hasn’t put a foot wrong. He calls her Bess and says it with affection – I’ve heard him – and he’s got a steady job at the meatworks, he comes home every night, has never once been violent, and doesn’t get drunk. What’s not to like?
    But still Kayla isn’t completely persuaded. There’s one more major hurdle for him to jump. A new baby’s coming. That changes things; lots more pressure. It’s the make or break time when guys have to decide if they really want to be a daddy. Rowie’s dad fell at that hurdle.
    â€˜We’ll soon find out how real Colin is,’ she says. ‘I so hope he doesn’t bail.’
    â€˜Here you are, just like I promised.’
    Kayla drops a large and bulky white envelope onto the table in front of me: her mum’s ultrasound pictures.
    â€˜You sure she won’t mind, Kayla?’
    â€˜As if. You’re about the only one in Gungee who hasn’t seen them. Inky shows them around like they’re happy snaps from a family picnic.’
    At first I don’t know what to make of what I see. The scans are grey and grainy, shaped like pyramids with a bite taken out of the top of them, or they could be shots of a ufo , or, I know, a dark night sea with just a glint of silver from the moon. But there’s not a baby in sight.
    â€˜Look there.’ Kayla’s finger marks the spot.
    I make out a vague circle.
    â€˜That’s Montana,’ she says.
    â€˜Really? The