The Way Back from Broken Read Online Free PDF

whispered to his desktop. “I hate long answer.”
    Rakmen skipped to the second page. He could feel Mrs. Tatlas up there at her desk sucking the air out of the room, and wanted to scream. Thanks to her, he hadn’t slept. He was flunking for sure. And that girl—
    Even now, Jacey clung to him. He could practically feel her sweaty hand squeezing his own hand numb. He could see her in the dim light of the nursery, box of ashes crushed against her chest.
    Rabbits. They’d been rabbits on the fabric of her nightgown. Not dogs.
    And now he couldn’t forget that either.
    Around him pencils scratched, and the second hand on the clock above the door lurched through each minute. At the front of the room, Jacey’s mom sat woodenly, scanning for cheaters. Rakmen scattered Fs and Ts beside a series of statements without bothering to read them and scrawled in the short answers. The multiple choice section was pretty much as bad as he’d expected. With ten minutes left in the period, Rakmen flipped back to the essay. He kneaded his temples, trying to dredge up some crap answer for her.
    Mutation is random changes to genes , he wrote. Lots of times it happens in junk parts of DNA. Those mutations don’t really matter. But when an important gene gets zapped, there’s an opportunity.
    Uneasiness swept over Rakmen. When he looked over the bent backs of his classmates, Mrs. Tatlas was staring at him, dark smudges ringing her eyes, her skin pale and papery. She nodded sharply before dropping her eyes, and he was reminded of a emaciated bird.
    It’s not like the X-Men or anything where a mutation gives you super powers. That doesn’t happen. Even those rare good mutations are kind of dumb—a better enzyme or curly fur or something like that.
    Sometimes the animal dies. Other times it gets cancer or comes out deformed.
    The textbook had shown color pictures of fruit flies with legs poking out where eyes should’ve been. Blind horses. Frogs with five legs.
    It’s usually bad. The weak die. That’s natural selection.
    During the autopsy, the doctors had measured Dora’s malformed heart. It was twice the normal size from trying so hard to do its job.
    Mutation made Darwin not believe in God.

CHAPTER 4
    When Rakmen stepped into the basement at Promise House, Jacey super-glued herself to his side.
    â€œI saved you a seat by me,” she said, tugging on his arm.
    In the month since she’d first showed up in the foyer, their moms had become friends. Mrs. Tatlas was everywhere. They drank coffee. They went for walks. They always left Jacey with him. Never asking. Always expecting. Thanks for watching her, Rakmen. She loves you, Rakmen. You’re the best, Rakmen.
    Jacey told every single person they met from checkout clerks to bus drivers that he was practically her adopted brother. She was like a puppy, always underfoot, but not nearly as cute.
    Rakmen pulled free of Jacey’s grasp and fist-bumped D’Mareay and D’Vareay, who were busy elaborating their tabletop graffiti. “What’s up?”
    â€œNot much,” D’Mareay said. “Crazy white chick wants us to draw our support network.” He pointed at Keri. Her butt was all they could see sticking out of the art supply cupboard.
    â€œYours is mainly skulls, huh?” said Rakmen, nodding at the table. “I can’t believe she lets you do that, man.”
    â€œWe’re expressing ourselves,” simpered D’Vareay in a terrible impression of the art therapist.
    â€œWe’re like black Van Gogh over here,” said his brother.
    Rakmen noticed the traces of neon paint on D’Vareay’s jeans and wondered where their real project was. “Don’t cut off your ears.”
    D’Mareay replied with another Keri quote. “Art is long, man. Very long.”
    Rakmen pretended not to see Jacey’s puppy eyes as he made his way to his spot on the puke-colored couch