There Will Be Lies Read Online Free PDF Page A

creatures. Like he’s magic. I could really believe that. Then I believe it even more, because the coyote speaks directly into my head, or that’s what it feels like.
    There will be two lies, it says. Then there will be the truth. And that will be the hardest of all.
    There’s something weird about the way the coyote says this, likethe words are somehow inside my head, echoing, but I can’t put my finger on it. It’s like grasping a slick frog – it squirts out of my hands.
    Then something startles him and he backs away, turns skittishly, almost falling over, and runs back into the shadow where he disappears.
    And it’s like he was never there, and I feel bummed about that. This is all wrong, anyway, I think, remembering the book in the library, the open one. You’re meant to see the coyote BEFORE the horrible thing happens to you. Not after.
    I roll a bit and look up and see the moon, pale in the still-light sky, looking down on me like a parent looking down at a sick child.
    This is – I think.
    And then blackness.

Chapter
6
    When I open my eyes again I’m lying in a bed next to a flashing machine with a wave on it that I realise is my heartbeat. I think how it’s weird to suddenly see something that before I’ve only felt or heard.
    Then I think that the fact I’m thinking means I’m not dead.
    I look around and see that, as far as I can tell, I’m not in the ER, or on ventilation or anything. There’s a drip in my hand connected to a tube on a stand, and that thing monitoring my heart, but that’s it for machines. I check my arms – fine. I’m in a blank white-walled room, old-fashioned flowery curtains on the windows. A granular light seeps in, the kind that has been filtered through a thin white blind or netting.
    Then a memory tweaks at me. My leg.
    I sit up a bit and see this ENORMOUS BOX THING covering the lower half of my right leg, with the bed covers sort of drawn over it so I can’t see what’s under there. I mean, I hope it’s my fricking FOOT under there but who knows? They might have had to amputate it.
    Oh my God, they amputated my foot.
    I jerk forward, to try to move the box, and there must besomething stuck to my chest because instantly the heart machine starts flashing in a way more full-on way, the wave flatlines, and the door opens.
    A doctor comes in, followed by Mom. The doctor’s eyes do this quick flicker from the line on the screen to me, then back to the screen, and I can practically hear his thoughts as he realises that it’s just me accidentally pulling off the sticky things. He has a moustache and his name tag says Dr Maklowitz.
    Shelby, honey!
says Mom.
I’m so glad to see you!
    She comes close and holds me and when Dr Maklowitz is leaning forward to adjust the monitor, she says just to me,
What the hell were you doing out on the street?
    I don’t answer any of this.
    What’s the deal with my foot?
I ask.
    Shelby
, says Dr Maklowitz, speaking slowly like I’m special or something.
We’ll come to your foot. But you sustained a pretty bad head injury – we need to make sure that
…
    He walks over to my bedside and takes a small flashlight from his shirt pocket. Then he flicks it on and shines it in my eyes.
Look left
, he says.
Right. Up
.
    I do.
    OK
, he says.
Who is the current president of the United States?
    Barack Obama
, I say out loud. The sounds feel strange in my mouth – my tongue is dry and feels too large for the cavity it is in; I don’t seem to have full control over my lips. Painkillers, I guess.
    Good
, says Dr Maklowitz.
Good. We need to do more tests, run the whole inventory of the Belfast [    ], but I think with the scans too we can probably rule out major brain damage or [    ]
.
    He’s speaking fast and my brain is slow, affected by the drugs, so I don’t catch everything he says.
    You also had some wounds that we have stitched up
, he says.
To your leg, mostly – we think you fell on some glass. And your ankle is
–
    You could