Louis Beside Himself Read Online Free PDF

probably because he lived with Agnes who didn’t ever listen the first time. Or the second, actually. Miles pulled out a chair and put an extra cushion on it. ‘Here! Sit here, Monty!’
    â€˜I’m okay, don’t worry, not a scratch!’ Dad said merrily. But I noticed he sat down heavily, gratefully.
    â€˜I’m so, so sorry!’ said Miles. ‘I just got carried away. Don’t know what was going on in my head.’
    â€˜Nothing, as usual,’ snapped Rosie.
    â€˜Don’t worry, it’s just because everything was so hectic ,’ Dad said kindly. ‘But you forgot something essential, Miles. Never surprise your opponent in wrestling practice – that’s where you can get hurt. Another thing, The Walls of Jericho is a move you make when someone is already on the floor. It’s not a pounce attack, like the Shooting Star Press or the Backbreaker Submission. Look, see, I’ll just demonstrate— ’
    â€˜Before you do that, Dad,’ said Rosie wearily, ‘can we just check out this mirror?’
    We all looked at the smooth wooden back of the mirror. It seemed fine. It looked completely I NTACT .
    â€˜Let me help!’ said Miles, leaping forward. ‘ I’ll lift it!
    â€˜No!’ shouted Rosie.
    Before she could stop him, Miles picked up the mirror by both ends, his guns rippling. As it rose into the air, long heart-breaking pieces of glass separated from the frame and shattered on the ground, shooting out across the floor in a spray of tiny, deadly daggers.
    In the A PPALLED silence, we all gazed at the one small triangle of glass clinging to the wooden frame. It was like a whisper of hope. Rosie picked at it, trying to slide it out from the frame.
    â€˜Uh oh,’ said Miles, in F UNEREAL tones. ‘We’re cursed. Breaking a mirror means seven years of bad luck.’
    â€˜Ouch!’ cried Rosie, nursing a reddening finger.
    â€˜See?’ said Miles. ‘Oh god, what have I done?’
    â€˜Don’t anyone touch it,’ said Dad. ‘We’ll need gloves. Just wait a minute till I get my breath.’
    Hassan made a choking noise. I glanced at him. His jaw was clenched hard against the sob in his mouth. I guess he was thinking he really didn’t need any more bad luck. When he was stuck in the detention centre, he thought he’d landed in hell. No one told him when he’d be released. If he’d be released. A curse has that in it – a foreverness. Like a dead end. No way out.
    I didn’t need bad luck, either. None of us did. Singo’s face was pale yellow, like the hand towel Rosie was wearing around her bottom.
    What we needed now was words. Comforting words. Words with no bad luck or magic mirrors or curses in them. Just words that would do a good job, like a sturdy broom that sweeps up and clears away.
    â€˜Luck – who believes in it?’ I said boldly, spreading my hands. ‘Mirrors and bad luck, that’s just superstition, which is, as we all know, not true. People only believed in curses back in the Dark Ages. Now we have reasonable and rational explanations for practically everything.’
    Dad looked at me and smiled. So did Rosie. ‘That’s right, Lou,’ she said.
    â€˜Yeah,’ said Singo, putting a hand on Hassan’s shoulder. ‘Absolutely no scientific evidence for curses. Think of disease. Only awful funguses or bacteria or viruses cause illness. There is always an explanation we can see, festering away under a microscope. Little horrible wiggly germs multiplying to— ’
    â€˜So,’ I said quickly, ‘it’s A BSURD , as in ridiculous , to even entertain the idea of a curse. It’s just someone’s pessimistic, paranoid imagination. Agreed?’
    We all nodded furiously. Hassan and Singo smiled at each other in a watery way. Rosie hopped up to make tea for everyone. As I beetled off to the laundry to look for gloves