The Truth Commission Read Online Free PDF Page B

doing oils in painting. We’re doing embroidery in traditional arts class. One of my friends is exploring small animal taxidermy.”
    â€œTaxidermy? Really. How cutting-edge. It’s
the
hot thing in London right now, you know.”
    I did not, but I wasn’t surprised. Dusk has a way of finding the edge of everything. She has some sort of trend-spotting instinct that I completely lack.
    â€œEnglish? Math? Computers? Science?” Sylvia asked. “What about those classes?”
    â€œOh, yeah, we’re doing those, too. I’m just telling you about the ones where I’m getting over a B.”
    Of course, Keira never got a grade lower than an A and rarely lower than an A+, no matter what the subject.
    â€œWe’re also doing a creative nonfiction module in creative writing. I’m enjoying it,” I said, trying to keep Sylvia’s attention. She’d begun craning her head to catch a glimpse of Keira.
    My mother came into the living room carrying a tray. She still had on her blue postal uniform pants and limp waterproof jacket. She set down the tray with two mugs of coffee, a carton of half-and-half, and a dish of sugar.
    â€œI’m sorry, Sylvia. I can’t remember how you take your coffee.”
    My mother can’t remember anything since Keira came home. As noted, we’d slipped into a new, more open way of living while my sister was at CIAD, doing the kinds of things that would make us look pathetic if they were shown in the Chronicles. For instance, my parents started socializing again with their few friends, such as the nice gay couple from Dad’s Diorama Club, 35 and Mom’s only friend from work, a woman so glum, she makes my mom seem practically vivacious. And they’d started up with old hobbies that Keira had lampooned. My dad created reenactments of famous battle scenes using tiny, hand-painted models, and my mom handmade jigsaw puzzles. A few times I invited Dusk and Neil over, and even tried some minor alterations to my appearance, such as changing the direction of the part in my hair. No big deal to most people—daring in the extreme for someone who grew up under Keira’s magnifying glass. We made more noise and resumed doing some normal, everyday things.
    Let me give you a specific, concrete visual 36 example. As you know if you’ve read the Chronicles, the Earth mother’s 37 hair looks like old rags. My real mother’s hair
is
quite limp, and not just because she’s a postal carrier and out in the elements all day. 38 You see, Keira’s sensitive to noises, so no one in our house has ever used a hair dryer. But some people, like my mother, have fine hair and need a blowout for volume. About two months after Keira left for CIAD, my mom started blow-drying her hair. All of a sudden it looked cute. Lively. Full of body. Practically a L’Oréal commercial. The dryer disappeared the day Keira came home, and not just because the noise would bother her. I think my mom stopped blow-drying her hair because she remembered the spread in one Diana Chronicle that showed the Earth mother’s tragic attempts to curl her bangs, which, of course, was based on a real-life incident. My mom had been new to curling irons and her first attempts left her looking like she’d taped a sausage to her forehead.
    The experiment should have been a fond family anecdote. Instead, it became a cruel joke in the Earth realm of the Chronicle. It inspired a Vermeer plotline in which the mother gets into a battle of the Grand Dames over who has the highest hair. The competition to create the most impressive edifice ends with the Vermeer mother’s enormous coiffure catching fire and burning down half the castle. Only Diana’s quick thinking saves them all from dying. The father is caught in a compromising position with some oranges and a scullery maid. Getting Flounder off her divan and down a staircase nearly cripples three knights.
    All