Head Spinners Read Online Free PDF

wasn’t even there.
    I knew her better than that, though.
    Once when I poked my head into the study, her shoulders jerked and she rushed to close the file she was working on.
    â€˜What are you doing?’ I asked.
    â€˜Oh . . . just writing my diary,’ she said, her voice pitched slightly higher than normal.
    The next time she was out shopping I snuck into the study and booted up her computer. It was password protected but that didn’t stop me for long. The password was her birthday then mine. I mean, honestly – she was so predictable.
    Most of Mum’s diary was a log of all the specialists we’d seen and all the stuff they’d said. But underneath all that was paragraph after paragraph of typing, an outpouring of Mum’s thoughts.
    How could this happen? it began. Did I do something wrong when I was pregnant?
    What if someone discovers what’s happened? A kid at school? A parent? What if they went to the media? They’d have a field day with something like this. I can’t stand to think how they’d treat her. The awful things they’d say. I’m scared we’re on the edge of disaster. Something like this could affect the rest of her life.
    If this gets out, I’m scared I won’t be able to protect her anymore.
    I shut down the computer after that. Reading Mum’s diary made me feel like a freak all over again. No wonder she couldn’t stand to look at my new arm. All she saw were the ways it might make my life worse.
    My new arm was something amazing for me, but something entirely different for Mum.
    Later that week, Mum was over the moon because we were referred to see a doctor whose name had been mentioned a couple of times already. He was a specialist at the children’s hospital – Dr Alexander Drew.
    Dr Drew was different right from the start – efficient and confident, jolly even. He acted as if he dealt with this kind of thing all the time.
    â€˜Don’t worry, Ms Miskin,’ he said, smiling at us from across a huge desk. ‘We’ll have your daughter fixed up in a jiffy.’ He smiled reassuringly. ‘It’s quite fascinating, really. Just the human body throwing up a random mutation. Nothing to worry about at all.’
    Mum seemed to grow in her chair like a flower. She smiled as she listened, nodding here and there rather than asking questions as she usually did.
    Soon the discussion moved to things like admittance forms and operation procedures.
    â€˜I’m expecting a fast recovery time,’ said Dr Drew. ‘This is a straightforward procedure.’
    That’s when it hit me. This man was going to cut off my new arm. Of course he was. What else had I been expecting?
    As Dr Drew’s voice faded into the background, a cold space settled in me. My new arm was a mutation . . . but it was also part of me. I tried to imagine how I’d feel once it was gone. Not the same as before, I knew that already. It would be as if something was missing.
    But I had to get used to the idea of not having it around. Without my new arm, everything would go back to normal.
    Mum would look at me again.
    The next day, Mum and I were back at the hospital. But this time I was clutching a bag of clothes and my favourite electronic game. I had three days of tests booked in and no date yet for
the operation.
    When we stepped out of the lift on the top floor there didn’t seem to be any signs for
Ward 5G. Eventually a nurse noticed us looking lost. She stared at me curiously when Mum told her which ward we were looking for, but she didn’t say anything. She led the way to a door with no sign on it, punched a code into a small keypad and ushered us through.
    Inside, it was still and quiet. The walls were sky blue.
    As we walked up to the nurses’ station, movement on a computer monitor behind the desk caught my eye. A strange feeling came over me as I recognised myself standing next to Mum. The