Head Spinners Read Online Free PDF Page A

enough to move the arrow where I wanted. Double-click here. Right-click there. Sometimes I just held an apple in my new hand, munching while I typed. After a while, working on the computer with my new arm became so natural that I found it hard to remember what it had been like working with just two hands.
    I was chatting online when I received an event invitation. Cool. I clicked straight through.
    Zoe Whelan has invited you to her Birthday Party.
    Event: Zoe’s birthday party
    Where: Harrington Leisure Centre
    Start time: 2.30pm, Saturday 26 October
    Bring: your swimmers!
    A pool party? I sighed and looked at my baby hand, resting on the mouse. Could I go? Maybe I could tell everyone that I had a sore arm . . . I can come, but I can’t swim.
    But that would be a disaster. People would ask questions. What if they wanted to look at my sore arm . . .
    I sighed again, and clicked decline.
    Seconds later a message from Zoe appeared: ‘What the ???’
    â€˜Soz,’ I replied. ‘I’m busy.’
    â€˜BUSY???’ sent back Zoe. ‘How can you be busy?’
    I turned away from the screen, wondering what I could say. Then I turned back just long enough to log off.
    The next day I stayed home from school, even though Mum raised her eyebrows and said, ‘Really…’ when I said I was sick.
    To be honest, I did feel sick. Sick with fear. The weather was getting warmer; it was only a matter of time before someone asked why I never wore short sleeves.
    When Mum came home from work, I was sitting on the couch.
    She pulled off her coat and hung it up. ‘Hey Brooke. How’re you feeling?’
    â€˜There’s something’s you need to see.’ Slowly, I slipped my jacket off my shoulders and let it fall behind me on the couch. Time seemed to slow down as Mum’s lips parted. The only sound was an intake of breath. Everything else about her was frozen in shock.
    â€˜Oh, Brooke . . .’ Mum whispered. She lifted my jacket from the couch and draped it over my new arm, covering it up again. She hugged me, hand at the top of my back, chest close, not touching me below the shoulders.
    After a while she pulled back, holding my face in her hands. ‘Brooke . . . you poor thing . . . How long have you been hiding this?’
    I shook my head, tears welling now that I could see myself through her eyes. I’ll never forget the way she was looking at me – so tender, so ready to fix everything. But there was something else in there too.
    It made me wonder what it must be like to find out your daughter is a freak.

    The next few days were a blur. So many waiting rooms. So many X-rays and tests. Mum spent half her time filling out forms and the other half on the phone. At one point we drove an hour and a half across the city, only to be told by a doctor that his specialty was conjoined twins, not my ‘situation’. And there was no mention of me going back to school.
    Some things weren’t so bad, though. Now that I’d shown Mum my new arm, I didn’t have to hide it anymore. It felt so good leaving it free to move naturally – to grow strong and, I don’t know, integrate . . . become a part of who I was.
    I was deliberately avoiding the internet and the phone. So there wasn’t much to do when we were at home.
    One afternoon, for something to do, I made a cake. Mum watched with her ear to the phone, on hold with another doctor, as I poured the thick batter into a cake pan. I held the bowl in two hands and used my third to scrape with a spoon. As I worked I glanced up, anxious to see if she had realised how useful my new arm could be. But she had turned away.
    For a few nights I shook salt onto my dinner while still holding my knife and fork. Not because the food needed it really, but just because I could. Each time, Mum kept talking or eating as if she hadn’t noticed – as if my third arm