To Be Someone Read Online Free PDF Page A

Cerys. Then he began to relax and enjoy it, too, and we were laughing, harder and harder. I saw a blur of grinning faces below me and I thought they were laughing with us.
    But then the laughter and the exertion and the drugs suddenly all took their toll on my body, and my knees gave a tiny little tremble as I hoisted Jus horizontal for the last time. The tremble ran down my right leg and into my ankle, which twisted slightly. It was enough to make me lose my balance, and I began to lurch heavily to the right, toward the edge of the stage. But at the same time, Jus was in full flight. The second before I stumbled, he gave a joyful whoop and kicked his legs as high as he could, his full weight pressed along my back.
    I fell. But I didn’t just fall, the way you do when you trip on an uneven paving slab or down a step. My arms, you recall, were tightly pinioned to my sides, and worse, at that particular moment, pulled even further away from the ground by Justin’s joyous ascent.
    I slipped off the stage and fell three feet, literally, flat on my face. Look, no hands, nose impacting first. All one hundred fifty pounds of Jus landed on top of me, mashing my head still further into the dance floor.
    But it got worse. In the six or so inches of sprung wooden floor with which my head collided, some other careless reveler had recently dropped his champagne glass. It had broken, of course, and yes, it was still lying there in wait for my tender face.
    Over the ringing in my ears, I was aware of a distant crunching sound. Immediately before passing out, I noticed several jagged pieces of ivory swimming sedately past me in a bubbling puddle of blood. Good-bye, expensive teenage dental correction work.
    The last thing I remember was little Tommy Space confirming, “I don’t come from Wales …,” and thinking, Sam, oh Sam, please help me.

INTRUSION
    “D ADDY! DADD-DEEE! MUMMY!”
    I’d been lost in writing about my first meeting with Sam, and the cry nearly made me jump out of my patchwork skin. All my misaligned facial bones rubbed painfully together, and I stopped scribbling, irritated. The voice came from my left, near the door. I couldn’t see anybody, although if I turned my head as far as possible, I could tell that the door was ajar.
    A storm of histrionic childish sobbing ensued. By rolling onto my left side, I could see a bundle of purple and pink fun-fur crumpled pitifully on the floor by my bed.
    “Er— hello ?” I said, trying to make my voice as laden with sarcasm as possible, despite being aware that this probably wasn’t the most effective method of dealing with a stray distraught toddler.
    The crying intensified, and my head started to throb. Honestly, couldn’t I even plan my suicide in peace? So much for my privacy and protection—if theatrical two-year-olds could wander in and out at will, then what was to stop a Sun photographer, or a deranged stalker? I began to feel very put out.
    Gingerly, I slid out of bed and got to my knees on the floor, where I stretched out my hand and poked the little girl’s furry shoulder.
    “Where’th your mummy?”
    She looked up at me then, and the sight of my stitched and bruised face caused her to leap to her feet in one move, like a vertical takeoff. Recoiling with horror, she ran and hid behind my visitor’s armchair. At least she was shocked into silence, though.
    “I like your coat,” I mumbled encouragingly. It was true, I did. I contemplated asking her where she’d gotten it from, on the off-chance they did it in grown-up sizes.
    “Pink flowerth,” came a hesitant reply. I saw a small finger stroke one of the said pink flowers.
    “Very nith,” I said. “Will you come and talk to me now?”
    “NO! You got panda bear face like my mummy! I want my mummy!”
    I tried hard not to be hurt or angry, deciding that a frosty “Do you know who I am?” might not do the trick here.
    “Where ith your mummy?” I asked again.
    “No more nap, Mummy! Wake up