Louis Beside Himself Read Online Free PDF Page B

and a broom, I was trying to A NALYSE what it was I was feeling. I mean, I agreed with Singo and all the rational world that curses were absurd. I agreed deep down in the truest, inside part of me. It was just the top layer, where there was a thin shiver under my hair, that prickled with doubt.
    C URSE . Only whisper the word, I told myself. Curse was powerful, purple like a bruise. There are some words you shouldn’t even write down, at least not in your own personal notebook with your name on it.

5
THE CURSE
    It was all Dad’s fault, really. As I swept and found a bandage for Rosie and tried to stop Miles from worrying, I was thinking that none of this would have happened if Dad wasn’t so obsessed with wrestling.
    Of course it was Miles who technically caused the problem – he’s pretty obsessed himself, what with building up his guns and his Low Impulse Control, which means he doesn’t think things through, as Rosie is always telling him.
    But really, things would have worked out differently if my father wasn’t always imagining dangers that might befall us. I mean, if, instead of wrestling, he’d taken the big Macquarie Dictionary that Miles was lifting to build up his biceps and actually used the book to look up the definition of Mallee bull, we might have got onto bullfighting, a really interesting topic, and the mirror wouldn’t have shattered. Do you see what I’m saying? I don’t really believe that stuff about broken mirrors and curses, but at least we wouldn’t have had such a horrible fright and Rosie wouldn’t have L ACERATED her finger or Dad end up with a huge bruise the colour of a curse on his hip (which he didn’t show anyone, I only glimpsed it when he was getting into his pyjamas the next night).
    However, the next week began well, so for a little while we forgot about the phenomenon and its curse. Rosie was ecstatic because Dad fixed a new long mirror in her bedroom. This meant she didn’t nag me about putting the bins out that night, but left the chore to Miles, who was busy trying to do anything to make up for Dad’s bruise.
    And I had an English test and came first, and a maths test and came last, so everything seemed in balance in the universe. (Plus I found out what a Mallee bull was.)
    I did my homework, fiddled with the faulty latch on the gate, and put up the three-man tent in the back yard in under nine minutes. Dad congratulated me on my timing and pointed out what an essential skill tent-putting-up would prove to be in the case of war, house fire, or general natural disaster.
    Luckily it was summer, and pretty nice out there in the garden. Singo and Hassan and I decided to camp in the tent over the weekend. Oh, and another good thing was that Hassan’s Uncle Mady got a job as chef in a new Afghan restaurant! So the curse obviously hadn’t started yet, or maybe it was just getting ready . . .

    ON Friday afternoon, seven days after the broken mirror phenomenon, Mady brought Hassan over to our place together with the most delicious dinner he’d cooked for his lucky customers at the restaurant. Meatballs and chickpeas, lamb and yellow rice, vegie turnovers.
    â€˜This looks yummy and also E XQUISITE !’ I told Mady, taking a deep sniff at each separate package. ‘Can you stay and eat it with us?’
    Mady smiled and laid his hand on the top of Hassan’s head. I liked the way he did that. He just rested it there, as if there was no better place for a hand to be. Hassan always went still and peaceful under his hand.
    â€˜Thank you, Louis, but tonight is big night. Food critic is coming, my friend tells me.’
    â€˜Well, I wish I could write about your restaurant – I could use the word exquisite and maybe even tantalising .’
    Mady laughed. People often laugh at me when I don’t even mean to be funny, but with Mady, I never get annoyed. His whole presence is like that hand of his –