Man Made Boy Read Online Free PDF

lights.
    “Great.” I melted into her sparkling, colorless eyes. If I was watching myself, I probably would have been totally disgusted. But I couldn’t help it. She was just so beautiful.
    After a moment, I realized I was standing there staring at her like a complete freak. “Oh, uh, here’s the rest of the clothes for the den.” I handed her the bag. “Break a leg tonight. See you after The Show.”
    Then I practically sprinted up the stairs.

    “WELL?”
    Mom loomed in the entrance to our apartment, her misshapen hands resting on her hips, her column of black hair sticking straight up with a white streak on either side. A slight crease along her temples told me that she probably would have been frowning if the stitching on her forehead wasn’t so tight.
    “Hi, Mom.” I gave her an innocent smile and tried to slip past. But she pressed her hand against my chest and held me in place.
    “Where were you?”
    “You weren’t around, so I had to ask Dad.” If she didn’t know yet, she’d find out when she plugged Dad back in that night. Better to hear it now from me.
    “Ask him what?”
    “I went shopping with Ruthven.”
    “Shopping?” she said.
“Outside?”
    “Yeah.”
    She stared down at me. Her right eye had been giving her problems, and she hadn’t had time to replace it yet, so it looked off somewhere over my left shoulder. But her left eye was piercing.
    “Don’t worry. They thought I was human.”
    “A real human?”
    “Sure,” I said, trying to sound soothing. “They thought I was a human who had been in an accident.”
    “An accident?”
    “You know. Because of the stitches.”
    “And that was it? Just a human with stitches?”
    “Pretty much.”
    “Ah.”
    She stared at me for a moment longer, then turned and walked back into our apartment. It was so hard to read my mom. When Victor Frankenstein had made her, he’d wanted her to look beautiful, like a porcelain doll. But he hadn’t taken function into account at all, so her face was almost completely immobile, frozen in this vaguely surprised look. And she wasn’t really much for talking about her feelings, either. So I couldn’t tell if she was really pissed or relieved that nothing bad had happened. I followed cautiously behind her into the apartment.
    Our entire home was about the size of the Diva’s dressing room. The common living area was all one space. In the kitchen section, there were a mismatched refrigerator, stove, and sink, all rebuilt with parts reclaimed from late-night trips to a junkyard. My mom was amazing at fixing and rebuilding things. She didn’t get people. They made her uncomfortable, and she only ever talked to me, Dad, Charon, and when necessary, Ruthven. But she understood gadgets and machines almost like she spoke their language.
    In the center of the space was a table big enough to fit the three of us. In the corner was always a small, neat stack of metal and plastic odds and ends salvaged from junk. My mom spent a lot of time trying to assemble these parts into something useful. That was where our television came from, as well as the toaster oven, the stereo, and all my computers. But even though my mom had built all these things, she had zero interest in using them. When Dad and I watched television, she sat and watched us watching the television, as if her only real enjoyment was seeing us enjoy using it.
    After my adventures in the real world, I felt like I’d earned some serious computer time.
    But then my mom said, “Boy.”
    I stopped and looked back at her. She stood over the sink, staring into the drain. She did that a lot. Like she expected to see something in it. The only things I ever saw in the drain were roaches.
    “Yeah, Mom?”
    “Were you scared? Outside?”
    “At first. But after I got used to it, it wasn’t so bad.”
    “Wasn’t so bad…” she echoed. “I wonder if it’s changed. Since I was outside.”
    “Sure.” I tried to sound encouraging. “You haven’t been