Dropping In Read Online Free PDF

hurts himself.’
    She purses her lips like I’ve said something important and nods. ‘Hurts himself how?’
    I don’t get it. So what if Ranga falls off his skateboard, or jumps off the roof? What’s it got to do with her? I stare back but she doesn’t even blink. ‘He does things, you know, like skateboard tricks, and he falls off.’
    â€˜Is that how he got his black eye?’
    It’s like she’s a lawyer and a judge all rolled into one but I still don’t get what she’s asking me about Ranga for. I nod. ‘Yes, we made a ramp on my driveway and he was doing a jump when it broke. His skateboard hit him in the eye.’
    She keeps staring at me and I feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. I shift on my chair. It feels like she doesn’t believe me. ‘When was this?’ she asks.
    â€˜Last Saturday,’ I say.
    She writes in a big black notebook for a moment and then she looks up, suddenly. ‘Has he ever hurt himself when you weren’t there?’
    I stare at her. What is she trying to find out? Then Iremember the bruises in the change rooms.
    She knows I’ve thought of something. I don’t know how, but she knows. I look across to Mr Sutton. He’s definitely on her side. At least I think there are sides and they’re on one side and I’m on the other, with Ranga.
    I can’t think of a way to tell her that explains about his bruised back in the change rooms so I just nod. I get the feeling somebody is going to get into trouble but I don’t know who or even why. How can you get into trouble for having accidents?
    Ms Broadacre is still sitting in her chair a metre away but it feels like she’s in my face. I want to leave but I have to sit there and, bit by bit, they lever it out of me: how hurt he was, how he didn’t want to talk about it, how he said it was his fault and how he said he was sick of being himself.
    Then the questions aren’t about Ranga. They’re about his mum. What’s she like? Do I see her often? Is she nice? Does she hit him? And then I get it. They think his mum is bashing him!
    That’s stupid! Or is it? Images flash through my mind: his mum shouting at him, the look on her face when she opened the door that day, the way Ranga wouldn’t talk about it and how we never go to his house. Suddenly Idon’t know anymore. A sick feeling rises up in me when I think about all the things I’ve said. I can almost feel Ranga out in the hall willing me not to say anything, but it’s too late. There’s nothing I can do about it.
    Ms Broadacre scribbles away in her notebook for a while and then she looks up. She leans forward and takes my hand. I recoil. I can’t help it and I think about Ranga recoiling from her in the hall as I came in. What have I done? It feels like I’ve betrayed him somehow. She tells me that everything I’ve said is confidential and that Ranga will never know what was discussed in here. She says I’ve been a good friend to Ranga and they only want to help him.
    That’s all very well for her to say. Ranga might not know what I said in here, but I will. I don’t feel like a good friend. I feel dirty. Even if his mum does hit him, I feel dirty.

8
    It’s like poison. James, Ranga and I are sitting under a tree. We’re all concentrating on our ice-creams, not talking at all. I’ve heard a saying about this — ‘there’s an elephant in the room.’ Well, it’s like that but it’s not an elephant, it’s poison, and it’s eating away at us. I can feel it choking me. It’s there in the back of my throat and I can’t swallow it or spit it out.
    Ranga is staring at his ice-cream but I know he’s not seeing it. I’m staring at mine but I’m watching him out of the corner of my eye. I know he wants to ask me what the lady said to me and what I said to her but, at the same time, if