Care Factor Zero by Margaret Clark Read Free Book Online Page A

listening. The orphanage in Fiji. Anyway, I read this magazine that said all these people couldn’t have kids of their own and were desperate to adopt one. They mainly wanted babies, but there weren’t enough to go round. Not Australian and American ones. They were madly adopting kids with missing arms and legs, all that. So I figured I was good-looking and cute. I’d got all my arms and legs. There must be someone out there who’d want me . So I put myself up for adoption.’
    Larceny focused on him, the dark thoughts pushed away. Adoption? He’d decided to be adopted?
    ‘How old were you?’
    ‘I told you. Six.’ She hadn’t heard that bit. She felt annoyed because she’d probably missed lots of interesting info.
    The tram bumped and lurched round the corner and stopped so the woman with the bags could get off. Larceny followed her with hooded eyes.
    ‘That’s you ,’ said a voice in her head.
    No. Please. Don’t let me end up like that! She determinedly snuffed out the voice and dragged her thoughts back to Lynx.
    ‘Did it work? Did you get adopted?’
    ‘Yeah. A teacher at a private school and her dentist husband adopted me. They already had two kids, girls, but they couldn’t have any more kids and they wanted a boy. Cost them nearly thirty thousand, with documents, papers, passports, tickets. I know because they told me thirty thousand times.’
    ‘Least you know how much you’re worth,’ said Larceny with a sudden grin that transformed her face from mundane to beautiful. ‘I’m worth nothing.’
    ‘It’s more if you add up all the private school fees, the violin lessons, horse-riding, snow skiing, sailing camps. Oh, rowing. And I nearly forgot a brief stint on the sax.’
    He grinned wickedly. ‘You see, dear Larceny, I’m an ungrateful rich little shit. I’ve had all this money spent on me. I’ve been adopted, given the family’s name. On the surface I’m this Aussie called Marcus J Manchester. But you see, deep down I’m still an Indian/Fijian called Imran Parjuda.’
    ‘But you’ve been here since you were six. Surely you can’t remember much about Fiji?’ said Larceny.
    ‘I can’t explain. There’s this sort of tugging feeling, like you’re in one place and you want to be somewhere else. Kids can be uprooted butthey still can’t belong — well, I don’t know about everyone else, but I can’t.’
    ‘But you got what you wanted. You chose to be adopted.’
    ‘Yeah, well when you’re six, you’re not great at making life choices sometimes. I realise I’m ungrateful. I’ve been told enough times. All the money spent on me, love and attention showered on me, and I still turned out bad. Isn’t that a shame? Must be in my genes.’
    He shrugged but his eyes burned black with anger.
    ‘Why?’ asked Larceny.
    ‘Why what?’
    ‘I still can’t understand why you don’t forget about being born Fijian. Just lap it all up and live happily ever after.’
    ‘You ever tried being the only Indian/Fijian kid in an all white household with two golden-haired white sisters, in an all white school, in an all white society?’
    ‘But you couldn’t have been the only dark-skinned kid,’ said Larceny. ‘Private schools are full of non-white kids. There’s Asians galore.’
    ‘Asians are not black.’
    ‘Neither are you,’ Larceny pointed out.
    ‘I didn’t belong. I should never have left theorphanage. It was crappy there, but at least if I’d stayed in Fiji I would’ve been with my own people. Well … sort of, because I wasn’t Fijian and I wasn’t Indian, but at least I was in my own country. You can’t know what it feels like, so forget it. We’re here. Everybody out .’
    He leaned forward and poked Comma and Bex, who’d fallen asleep with their arms round each other, heads together. Frantik got up and swung himself down the steps like an uncoiling cobra, his rucksack bouncing on his back.
    ‘His spray cans,’ explained Lynx as they got off the tram. Comma and