Authors: Anne Fine
Blood Family (27 page)
Not that the rest of it gets any easier. It’s just I get more used to dealing with it. I can believe now that I can walk past a supermarket or a corner shop, and not go in. They told us in the clinic that different habits train your brain to go down different paths. They promised us that saying no over and over will gradually shift from being one huge effort that can leave you shaking to being easy.
Almost automatic.
‘No thanks. I don’t.’
I cannot wait for that day. Except, of course, I might miss bullying the beast because I feel I’m sticking up for Mum in standing up to him the way she never could. I’m guessing Harriet was right. Mum’s luck was worse than mine. I’ve got a life ahead. She took one knock too many, and there’s nothing left. I go to visit her, and I amuse myself by telling her about my friends. Poor Lucy can’t keep any of their names straight in her head. She doesn’t even try. She smiles and nods. I smile and nod back, and we talk of cake and colours. And that works.
Natasha asked me if I wanted to invite my mother to the big dinner she arranged at Valentine House the night we celebrated my exam results. (I’d done so well, they made a thing of it.) But I said no. Everyone else came. Linda and Alan. Alice. They even raked up Rob. All people who had helped along the way.
Linda got squiffy and a little tearful towards the end. She said it was a shame that Mr Perkins couldn’t be there too – that he had done the most. She wanted me to sing one of his songs with her. ‘People sing “Happy Birthday” in restaurants,’ she kept on saying. ‘Why shouldn’t we sing “Happy Days”?’
She tried quite hard to wheedle me into it. But I was firm. I didn’t want to go along with the idea. (For all I knew, someone else celebrating in that restaurant might have been going off to study the same
course as me.) But I did squeeze her hand the way she used to squeeze mine. And we did hum it quietly together.
I looked across the table and saw Natasha smiling.
She raised her glass to me.
And I raised my glass back.
About the Author
Anne Fine is one of our most distinguished writers for children. She has written over fifty highly acclaimed books and has won numerous awards, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and both the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year and the Carnegie Medal twice over. Anne was appointed the Children’s Laureate from 2001-3, and her work has been translated into over forty languages. In 2003 she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded an OBE. Anne lives in County Durham.
Also by Anne Fine
Published by Corgi Books:
The Book Of The Banshee • The Granny Project
On The Summerhouse Steps • The Road Of Bones • Round Behind The Ice House
The Devil Walks • The Stone Menagerie • Up On Cloud Nine
Published by Corgi Yearling Books:
Bad Dreams • Charm School • Frozen Billy
The More The Merrier • Eating Things On Sticks • Trouble in Toadpool
A Shame to Miss
. . .
Three Collections Of Poetry
Perfect Poems For Young Readers • Ideal Poems For Middle Readers
Irresistible Poetry For Young Adults
Other books by Anne Fine
For junior readers:
The Angel Of Nitshill Road • Anneli The Art-Hater
Bill’s New Frock • The Chicken Gave It To Me • The Country Pancake
Crummy Mummy And Me • Genie, Genie, Genie
How To Write Really Badly • Ivan The Terrible
The Killer Cat’s Birthday Bash • The Killer Cat Runs Away
Loudmouth Louis • A Pack Of Liars • Stories Of Jamie And Angus
For young people:
Flour Babies • Goggle-Eyes • Madame Doubtfire
Step By Wicked Step • The Tulip Touch • Very Different
For adult readers:
All Bones And Lies • Fly In The Ointment • The Killjoy
Raking The Ashes • Taking The Devil’s Advice
Telling Liddy • Our Precious Lulu • In Cold Domain
BLOOD FAMILY
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 15785 3
Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2013
Text copyright © Anne Fine, 2013
First published in Great Britain by Doubleday, 2013
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