See If I Care Read Online Free PDF Page A

laughed as he did a little wriggle of victory. But then, as he reached for the first glass, disaster struck. He lost his balance and tumbled towards the floor.
    Elma watched as if it were happening in slow motion. Zac’s small, grubby hand grabbed for the counter, but missed, and knocked the glass to the floor, where it smashed into tiny pieces. A second later Zac fell on top of it with a dull thud. There was a moment’s silence before the screaming started. Elma hauled Zac to his feet, and felt a sudden cold chill when she saw that there was a deep cut on his cheek. She grabbed the damp and rather smelly tea towel and held it to his face. Dylan came in to see what the screaming was about.
    ‘Quick,’ Elma said. ‘Run up and wake Daddy, and tell him Zac has hurt his face.’
    Seconds later Dylan was back. ‘Daddy said to put a plaster on it, and to make him stop crying because Daddy has a sore head and needs his sleep.’
    By now the bleeding had almost stopped, and Zac’s crying had turned to small, quiet sobs. Elma felt like crying now.
    How could her dad be so mean?
    Didn’t he even care that Zac was hurt? Didn’t he care enough to drag himself out of bed to see how bad the cut was? Didn’t he care about anything or anyone beside himself?
    Elma sat Zac on the couch and dialled her mother’s mobile. She’d been warned to do that only in an emergency, and surely this was an emergency?
    A few hours later, Zac was home from hospital, with three painful-looking stitches in his cheek and a huge lollipop in his mouth. Elma’s mother went upstairs, and minutes later the shouting started.
    Elma could only hear bits of it, all in her mother’s voice.
    ‘… the poor child could have been scarred for life …’
    ‘… threatening us with social services …’
    ‘… he kept saying his big sister was minding him …’
    ‘… she’s only eleven …’
    ‘… stupid layabout father …’
    ‘… no good to any of us …’
    Zac and Dylan were huddled on the couch, looking frightened. Elma closed the door and turned the television up loud. Poor Zac and Dylan couldn’treally remember the time before the accident, when they were a normal happy family. Sometimes Elma had to struggle to remember it herself.
    Back in those happy times, Dad went out to work as a plumber every day and Mum stayed home and minded the children. They were like a happy-ever-after family in a storybook. And then one day the happy-ever-after came to a sudden end.
    A lorry arrived on the building site where her dad was working, and the back of the lorry opened unexpectedly, and three toilets fell out. Two of the toilets smashed to pieces on a patch of dried concrete. The third toilet knocked Dad to the ground, injuring his back. He spent three weeks in hospital, and hadn’t been able to work ever since.
    So, as well as having a sick dad, Elma also had to put up with the teasing at school. Why couldn’t Dad have had a less embarrassing accident? She was now the girl whose dad couldn’t work because a toilet fell on him. Harry’s dad lost a leg in Iraq, and he was treated like a hero, and all Elma got was mockery. It just wasn’t fair.
    Dad’s back got a bit better after a while, but it was like something had switched off in him. The doctor had told him his days as a plumber were over. He would never again be able to do a job that involvedbending down to get at awkward pipes. But he could still work – if he wanted to. There were still lots of jobs he could do.
    A man from the job centre dropped in a huge bundle of leaflets about retraining courses. They were still in a corner of the living room – unopened. (Sometimes Dylan And Zac used them for making paper planes.)
    And now Dad didn’t want to do anything except lie around in bed, or on the couch, watching TV. So that’s what he did. All day. Every day. The National Geographic Channel had become the centre of his universe.
    Life had been pretty bad ever since the accident. Elma