Freia Lockhart's Summer of Awful Read Online Free PDF

says Dad. “I think it’s just a few scraped knuckles.”
    Before Mum can say anything, Ziggy collapses onto his knees and buries his face in her lap. She leans over him, enveloping his body with her own, and rocks him back and forth, murmuring soothing words in his ear and kissing his head. Dad stands in front of them with his hands clasped tightly together on his chest, as if he’s praying. He looks like he wishes he could trade places with Ziggy.

    When Mum suggests we order pizza for dinner I know she’s really sick. The last time we had takeaway pizza was after Ziggy’s junior footy team won the district cup two years ago. Mum took two bites of her super-supreme before declaring that it was full of trans fats and nitrates. After that, she banned salami from the house and started making her own wholemeal pizza dough. It’s not bad compared to, say, her beetloaf, but it’s not the same as the real thing.
    Despite the pizza being her idea, Mum only has one slice. While the rest of us eat she makes chatty small talk about having to go all the way to the organic butcher in Kingston to pick up the Christmas turkey, and whether Mr-Sumner-down-the-street will put his life-size nativity scene out on the nature strip again this year. I don’t know what Dad said to Ziggy, but my sullen, grunting brother has been replaced by a boy who politely asks me to pass him another slice of pizza instead of reaching across to grab it, and helps me clear the table even though it’s my week on the roster. It’s unnerving.
    After dinner, we play Scrabble. All I really want to do is go to my room and listen to some seriously LOUD music to cancel out all the noise buzzing in my head, but Scrabble is Mum’s favourite game (because she always wins) and Dad obviously wants a night of family bonding.
    The game isn’t too painful, aside from Ziggy cracking it when he isn’t allowed to put down “gangsta” and Mum’s allowed “forsooth” on a triple word score, but I can’t fake-smile my way through a second one. When Mum uses her last tile I yawn with exaggerated tiredness and declare that I need an early night.

    I’d planned to go upstairs, take the phone into my room and call Dan, but when I reach for the handset on the little table on the landing I hesitate. What would I say? “Hi, my mum has cancer” isn’t exactly a conversation starter. Anyway, I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about Mum yet, and I don’t think Dan would know what to say, either. I leave the phone where it is and go through the motions of getting ready for bed.
    I brush my teeth, wash my face and pull on the T-shirt Dan lent me when we got caught in a sudden downpour on the way to his house. It hardly smells of him any more, but it’s super soft against my skin. I peel back the quilt and nudge Boris to one side of the pillow to make room for my head.
    The branches of the tree outside my window make shadows across my face in the moonlight. When I was little I thought they were the long, bony fingers of a witch, coming to snatch me from my bed. I couldn’t go to sleep without the curtains tightly drawn or with the window open even a crack, and Mum had to double-check the window latch every night when she tucked me in, just to be sure. I can’t remember when I stopped being scared, but I hardly even register the shadows these days.
    Tonight though, I lie in the dark, staring at the spidery lines.
Mum has cancer
, I think, trying on the words to see how they fit.
    Our mum has cancer
.
    My
mum has cancer
.
    I say it over and over in my head, as if that might make it feel more real. But it doesn’t. I’ve seen enough quit smoking ads and children’s hospital telethons and marches for the cure to know that the thing about cancer is that people die from it. Not everyone, but lots and lots of people, including Dad’s father.
    Pop was the first person