The Sky So Heavy Read Online Free PDF Page A

you doing, man? What are you doing?’ I started to pick the things up off the floor: cutlery, bowls, salt and pepper shakers. It was a mess. ‘Can you give me a hand instead of standing there like an idiot?’
    Dad came back inside, slamming the door shut behind him. He picked his keys up off the bench.
    ‘I’m following Kara,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back soon and I’ll speak to you then, Max.’
    And then he was gone.
    The message on my mobile was from Lokey. I tried to go online to chat with him about what was going on but the internet was all jammed up and the connection kept failing. I left it for an hour then tried again. It still wasn’t working. I called the internet company but their line seemed to be down. Then it occurred to me that maybe they operated their call centres from places that didn’t exist any more.
    Dad didn’t come home. I tried to call him but his phone must have been off or out of range. Eventually I told Max to go to bed and I did the same.
    It happened quickly. Quicker than they were expecting. Quicker than they told us it would happen. Or maybe Lucy was right and the government knew how bad it would be and they just didn’t tell us. Or maybe we knew all along and we were like kids covering our eyes for the scary bit of the movie.
    It was the cold that woke me the next morning, biting up my legs and over my arms. My room was almost completely dark except for a hint of light seeping through my curtains. There were no bird sounds. Still in the drudge of sleep I figured it must have been really early. I hunkered down under the covers and was sliding back toward sleep when I felt a prodding on my arm. I opened my eyes expecting to see Dad, but it was Max, standing there with a blanket around his shoulders.
    ‘Are we going to school today?’ he asked.
    ‘Jeez man, I don’t know. It’s early, go back to bed.’
    ‘It’s not early. It’s nearly eight-thirty.’
    ‘Yeah, funny, Max. Go back to bed.’
    ‘Fin, I’m telling you. It’s nearly eight-thirty.’
    I sat up. ‘Is it raining?’
    ‘No. It’s snowing. Radioactive snow. Loads of it. It’s glowing.’
    ‘Ha, ha. Is Dad home?’
    ‘No. It’s not glowing, but it is snowing. Serious.’
    I still half thought he was taking the piss, but it was freakin’ freezing and he was standing there wrapped in a blanket. Max went over to the window and pulled the curtain back. The sky was a flat brownish grey. I got up and went to the window.
    Mum and Dad took me on a trip to the snow when I was three, a couple of years before Max was born. I remember heaps about that trip because it was the only time I’d seen snow. I remember driving to the snowfields in the milky early-morning light and Mum pointing to the white-capped mountains in the distance. I had a blue plastic toboggan with a piece of rope to hold on to and steer with. It was that waxy, plasticky rope, threaded through two holes, tied in a knot and the ends melted in a white glob. I took my gloves off to rub my thumb over the smooth glob of plastic. It looked like used chewing gum. Mum made me put my gloves back on again. I remember hurtling down a slope and flying over a mound of snow and sliding across the icy bitumen of the car park. I remember the white, the searing, aching white.
    The snow outside my window wasn’t white. It was dirty grey slurry and it lay in patches over our front lawn and formed a little peak on the top of our letterbox.
    ‘Told you. I’m going out.’ Max raced out of my room and down the hall. I stood at the window mesmerised by the scene. Then I remembered something.
    ‘Max!’ I shouted after him. I bolted down the hall. ‘Max, wait!’
    I got to the door just before he opened it. ‘Don’t,’ I said.
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘It might be radioactive.’
    ‘No way.’
    ‘I’m serious. You might get sick. We should stay inside.’
    He actually looked thrilled at the fact the snow could be poisonous. I went into the living room and turned on the