Smashed Read Online Free PDF

throat. I’m not sure if it’s from the puking or the fact that I spenthalf the night in wet clothes but, even gross humiliation aside, I feel like shit.
    A can of tinned spaghetti later, and I wander out into the back yard to look for Dad. It’s no great guess where he’ll be on a Sunday — in his shed as always. It’s a bit like a bizarre undersea world in there. He’s obsessed with these things called radiolarians, weird little microscopic single-celled organisms that live in the sea and surround themselves with incredibly complex shell-like structures. Each one is different — all perfectly symmetrical and detailed as hell. Dad spends all of his free time creating giant-sized replicas out of wire and fibre and all sorts of other random crap. They’re really beautiful — some like stars at the point of explosion, others like the most intricate snowflakes or Christmas orbs, or the most delicate of royal crowns. Each one takes him weeks to make, but he never seems to tire of it, or to sell the products of his work. It’s like once he’s made them, he believes they’re part of him.
    ‘Hey Dad.’ I always warn him I’m coming in, cos he concentrates so intently on his work that he damn near has a heart attack if someone speaks unexpectedly.
    He’s working on a real doozy of a piece — so big he’s standing in the middle of it, with wire structures all around him forming a huge silver cage.
    ‘Tobe.’ He’s soldering a latticework of copper wire carefully onto this frame. ‘Your mum’s pretty hacked off with you.’
    I can feel myself flushing, and turn towards Dad’s work bench, picking up a hammer and knocking it rhythmically against my knee. The pain is strangely comforting — more punishment for being such a loser. ‘Yeah. Sorry. I kind’ve got a bit caught up.’
    I glance around at him, to check how he reacts. There’s the wisp of a smile playing around his mouth, and he straightens up and clears his throat in a self-conscious way. ‘Does this mean I should be giving you the safe-sex lecture again?’ If eyes could laugh, his would be in fits right now.
    ‘I wish!’ It’s out before I can stop it, in one whiny breath.
    If you think blushes aren’t that visible on Chinese skin, think again. From the hundred tiny mirrored panels on Dad’s weird creation my shame is flashing back at me. I spin around, pointing towards the framed photo Dad has of the old German dude who first discovered radiolarians. ‘You know he was accused of helping out the Nazis?’
    In normal circumstances this would set Dad right off. But he’s obviously intent on some kind of intense father-son bonding-type moment, cos he just laughs andreaches out between the wires to pat my arm. ‘You want to talk about it?’
    For one split second I’m tempted, but what the hell would Dad know? He met Mum in his second year of uni, and it was love at first sight. It’s so long since he’s even had to think about rejection, there’s just no point.
    ‘Nah,’ I shrug. I put the hammer down and head back towards the door before Dad can come over with any more touchy-feely crap. ‘I’m going to the library to study.’ It’s the only place that keeps me out of Mum’s way and free of Dad. Besides, I’ve got an exam tomorrow and I need to swot. ‘Don got Rita home okay?’
    ‘Two hours late.’
    ‘Damn!’
    ‘You can say that again.’ Dad adjusts his safety glasses and picks up his soldering iron. ‘Your mother tried to talk to her, but she fled to her room and took off to Sally’s before we’d even got up this morning.’ He draws a line across his throat with his finger, and I know exactly what he means: beware the wrath of hyped-up Mum.
    ‘Damn,’ I say again, knowing Rita’s lapse will come back home to roost on me. ‘Where’s Mum now?’
    ‘Out,’ says Dad, with the kind of distraction we teenagers are usually accused of. He’s already dipping his soldering iron into the flux, and is back in Radiolarian