Poking Seaweed with a Stick and Running Away from the Smell Read Online Free Page A

animals on wheels with bright red handles up and down the street. From that moment on, I was going to be careful and responsible and years later when my da was attacked by his business partner in an empty car park on the other side of town, it was me who’d be careful and responsible and drag his bleeding body to the car and race him to the hospital.
    And so when I was seven I put all my toys away in a banana box in the attic, including Molly’s wheel, and that was the last time I lost myself in play. Now I am older people ask me what it is I do for fun and I think back to the soft tar and Molly’s wheel and I can’t give them an answer because I don’t know. I’ve forgotten how to play and how to have fun and I long for careless moments with Molly again.
    And every so often I think about bringing my banana box out of the attic and once I’ve done the hoovering and the dusting, that’s precisely what I’ll do.

6
The day Fiona got a brain tumour
    Mrs Cameron was just about to start reading chapter two of The Three Golliwogs to us when Fiona burst in through the green painted doors and ran to Mrs Cameron, threw her arms around her neck and wouldn’t let go. There were tears like I’d never seen before, and then uncontrollable wailing, and Mrs Cameron took Fiona out into the playground and closed the green painted doors behind her. My best pal Maggie ran up to the door and looked through the keyhole and the whole class held their breaths trying to hear what was wrong with Fiona, but all we could hear were her sobs.
    Mrs Cameron came back inside and told us all to behave ourselves, that Fiona wasn’t well and that she was going to take her to Miss Fairly, the headmistress, and that she’d be back directly. She told Maggie to read The Three Golliwogs to the class until she got back, then she shut the green painted doors behind her again and all of us rushed to the window to watch Mrs Cameron take Fiona across the playground and into the main school building to Miss Fairly’s office. When Mrs Cameron came back, she told us Fiona’s mammy was coming to take her home and that we should all try to settle down now and concentrate on The Three Golliwogs . I tried to do as Mrs Cameron told us but I was scared, ’cause it didn’t seem right that somebody would burst in through the green painted doors like that if something terrible wasn’t going on.
    Then one morning before our milk break Mrs Cameron told us to behave ourselves, that she had something important to tell us and that important thing was that Fiona had a brain tumour. Timmy Strachan put his hand up and asked Mrs Cameron what a brain tumour was and so she told us. That’s when all of us wished Timmy Strachan would just sit on his arse and mind his own business. And Mrs Cameron told us the doctor would have to operate on Fiona’s head and that meant they would have to shave her hair off ’cause ‘you can’t have hair in the way when you’re operating inside someone’s head, now can you?’
    Fiona didn’t come to school for a long time after that. Then one day she did come and it was true, her head had been shaved and not only that but she walked slower than before. And when she looked at you her eyes seemed far away, and when she spoke her words came out slow.
    When playtime came around that day all of us let Fiona stand by herself in the playground by the steps at the green painted doors and she watched us all as we ran around and laughed together. As I ran with my best pal Maggie, I saw Fiona pull up the hood of her black duffle coat to keep her shaved head warm and I watched her as she pulled the coat tight around her body to keep the cold lonely air out.
    Life went along like that for Fiona for another two weeks until one morning Fiona didn’t come in through the green painted doors. That was the day Mrs Cameron told us to behave ourselves, that she had