Calling the Shots Read Online Free PDF Page B

already shivering like a puppy. He knew something terrible had happened.
    They’d sent a young cop and an old cop, just like in the movies. The young guy was looking everywhere but at the Bloomfields. The old cop cleared his throat. “Mrs Grace Bloomfield, I’m sorry to have to—”
    Rose burst into tears. Honesty went white and ran out of the room.
    In those days, they didn’t make you take a test before they let you loose on the road. Drivers just picked up the necessary know-how as they tootled along in the traffic. Sadly, Honesty’s father never got the chance. He hit a truck ten minutes after he left the Ford garage. The cops said he died instantly.
    All that night, Honesty’s mother roamed around the house, sick with grief. Once she came into the girls’ room in her nightdress and watched them as they lay sleeping and I saw tears shining in her eyes.
    That was the only time I ever saw Grace Bloomfield lose control.
    When she came down to breakfast next morning, she was deathly pale but totally composed. “I can get through this so long as I don’t let myself think,” I heard her tell Cissie.
    “That’s right, Mizz Grace,” agreed Cissie. “You got your whole life for thinking. Right now, you got to survive.”
    I’d spent the night radiating angelic vibes to everyone in the household. I believed the entire family needed heavenly support.
    Later I worried that I’d got it wrong. If I’d concentrated on Honesty like I was supposed to, I might have been quicker to spot the signs. That first day when she came down to breakfast and said in a toneless voice, “Oh, great, waffles!” That wasn’t normal, but I refused to see it.
    Rose had been crying so hard that her face looked as if it had been stung by swarms of bees. Clem clung on to his mama’s skirts as if he was terrified that she’d be next to disappear. But Honesty heaped her plate with ham, eggs, and hash browns, drenched her waffles with maple syrup, shovelled it all down like a zombie, and said, “See you later,” and pushed back her chair.
    Rose peered at her incredulously from between her swollen eyelids. “What are you doing?”
    “Going to school,” said Honesty in her new zombie voice. “Same as usual.”
    Her mother put her arms around her. “That’s very brave, sugar, but you don’t have to go to school today…”
    Honesty wriggled free. “I do. I’ve got a test in Geography.”
    Grace stood firm. But by the end of the day, I bet she wished she’d let Honesty take her stupid test after all, because she was a complete nightmare.
    When Honesty heard that her brother Lenny was coming back from medical school for the funeral, she just said loudly, “Oh, great. Now we’ve got to share the house with Lenny’s stinky socks.”
    Rose said they’d have to go into town to buy clothes for the funeral and Honesty snapped, “You can dress like a Sicilian widow if you want to. It’s not like Papa’s going to care. When you’re dead you’re dead.”
    It was like she’d had a total personality change. She was hardly recognisable as the sweet goofy girl who hugged her mum, yelled at her baby brother and flaunted her big knickers dancing the Charleston.
    And there was another thing. When I first met Honesty, her thoughts were so easy to read that she could have been yelling through a megaphone. But suddenly she was putting out no thought waves whatsoever.
    Lenny came home for the funeral and everyone else rushed to the door to meet him. They cried and hugged each other and generally behaved like human beings.
    Honesty didn’t even bother to come downstairs.
    When the family met up for the evening meal, Lenny tried to put his arms around her, but she pulled away. “People die every day, you know,” she said coldly. “You don’t have to make a big production out of it.”
    That night I took my mobile out of my flight bag. I got as far as punching in the GA code. Then I thought, I’ll give it until after the funeral. Then