Educating Simon Read Online Free PDF

be that Tink would rather go live with the little girl than check out altogether. It wouldn’t be fair of me to make that decision for her.
    I think of the Heath as my park. It’s so close to our house on Hermitage Lane that I’ve spent a lot of time there. It’s massive, with fields and ponds and horse trails and woodland paths. I’ve always been drawn to the woodland paths, the less frequented by others the better.
    I left Sandy Road, the horse/bicycle trail, as soon as possible and pointed myself towards my favourite tree, a weeping red beech. The branches cascade down from high above in a grand expanse like a great skirt, and I can lean on the trunk, standing or sitting on the ground, and no one going by can see me.
    I sat in my usual spot, a soft concave between two thick roots, and leaned back against that solid, constant, trustworthy tree. Knees up, I laid my forearms across them and dropped my head on the backs of my poor, battered wrists, as they appeared in my imagination.
    To keep the tears away, I allowed myself the painful pleasure of dwelling on the ultimate fate of Earth and everyone, everything on it. Because, you know, it won’t last. It’s doomed.
    I skimmed the possible topics. There have been enough cataclysms through the millennia to satisfy even my imagination. One of my favourites is the Great Dying, which killed about 90 percent of life on Earth at the time—250 million years ago. But life recovered. I was more in the mood for something we couldn’t recover from.
    Everyone knows that the stability of Earth’s magnetic field is decreasing, and that this field is our main defence against radiation from the sun. Satellites and even telescopes are already being affected. The ethereal beauty of the auroras borealis and australis increases as the magnetic field struggles to protect us. Once or twice in the distant past, the magnetic field has weakened in a way that caused the north and south poles to switch their locations. This is going on right now, and anything might happen—even to the unlikely but still possible point of radiation’s killing off all life on the planet. Mind you, even if this happened, it would take a while. There’s no need for anyone alive today to see this phenomenon as a cue to hurry up with their bucket list. But it’s doom, and it suited my mood.
    In the shady gloom, I had to focus deliberately to see the three black ants on the dirt under my legs. I watched them for several seconds, or maybe several minutes, fascinated and appalled at the apparent randomness of their meanderings. It struck me that most people seem to meander rather aimlessly through their own lives, and if someone were looking down from above they’d probably be about as unimpressed with us as I was with the ants. And yet these ants keep going, like it matters. Like life matters. Like their lives matter.
    Suddenly I heard a soft rustle that told me someone was invading my sacred space. A sharp glance up told me it was all right: It was Graeme. He sat beside me so that our shoulders touched.
    â€œHow did you find me here?”
    He leaned his head back against the tree. “It seemed likely. This is your spot, where you come when you’re upset. I rang and got voice mail.” He turned his face towards me. “And here you are.”
    â€œAnd here I won’t be much longer.” We let that hang in the air, and then I added, “You haven’t heard the latest.” I could practically hear his teeth grinding, bracing for more bad news and angry for me about it already. “Mum lied to me.” I waited, but still he was silent, so I told him there was no quarantine after all.
    He said, “I can’t wait to hear the rest. I’m sure there’s more.”
    â€œThat horrid girl, Persephone, is allergic.”
    In a quick, angry move, Graeme repositioned himself, facing me. “What?!?”
    â€œI