Cures for Hunger by Deni Béchard Read Free Book Online

But when the librarian saw me, he made himself look busy, ducking into his office and fussing about, pausing to rub at his mustache. I’d been hounding him to find me books on ESP and psychic powers.
    I pulled out a chair and sat and slumped. The elbows of my red checkered shirt had holes that my mother would patch as soon as she noticed. The tabletop felt cold through them.

    In a few days, school would let out for Christmas, and I needed enough to read. My parents rarely spoke, and the mystery of his simmering rage and her muted fear dug at me. Whenever my father left, my mother went through papers or made phone calls in the hushed voice of a TV villain. I’d definitely need a lot of books to get through the break. I couldn’t sit still without one. Even sleep was impossible without a story first.
    I went to the shelves and stood the way I did before the open refrigerator. I’d planned on giving up reading about fish, so maybe I could take the novel about mutant telepathic children living after a great war? I’d drawn on it for my recess sermons, telling grim stories about the future.
    But there was also a volume I loved on prehistoric fish, so I walked to the section of fish books. It was empty, and I realized that I’d checked them all out, and they were at home.
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    Just before dark, my father’s truck crunched into the driveway, and my brother went out to say hi. I sat in the kitchen, reading about coelacanth, a prehistoric fish rediscovered off the coast of South Africa when it was caught by a fisherman. This made me wonder what ancient fish might accidentally be in my father’s stores. Outside, the pulse of my brother’s words sounded light and quick next to the slow, somewhat gravelly voice of my father.
    My mother was helping my sister in her room, so I got up and looked out the door. The gray sky sagged into the valley, promising cold rain and not the snow I was hoping for.
    â€œSh,” my brother whispered. He was peeking from behind the shed, the bangs of his brown bowl cut in his eyes. “Hurry up!”
    I hustled behind the wall. My father was there, grinning through his beard, and seeing him, I knew that we’d do something bad and very fun.
    â€œDon’t tell your mother,” he said. “You promise?”
    I nodded as he took a long, curvy bottle of Pepsi from his jacket. He popped the cap and it hissed. My brother lifted his shoulders and dropped them and sighed nervously.

    â€œJust a little drink,” my father was saying. “It’s going to burn.”
    My brother held the bottle in both hands and tipped it back. He shook his head and swallowed, looking as worried as I felt, though we both tried to smile. This wasn’t a joke at all. My mother had always warned us never to drink pop, and I never had.
    â€œGood, huh?” My father passed the bottle to me. I hid my fear and took a swig. The cold liquid fizzed on my tongue, burning gas rising into my sinuses. Permeating sweetness followed, chemical in its intensity, and I gave the Pepsi back. Though I stood as if nothing were unusual, I could feel my bones corroding just beneath my skin.
    â€œYou’ll learn to like it,” he told us and raised the bottle, draining most of it in a few gulps. It was a miracle he was still alive. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and told us to promise again. Even as he smiled, his eyes became still and menacing. We promised. Then he sent us back inside.
    My mother was standing at the stove and looked at us suspiciously.
    â€œHave you done your homework?”
    â€œI’m almost finished,” my brother told her, but I just took my backpack to the living room and dumped it, then crouched as if I’d come upon strange droppings. Sometimes only by misbehaving could I hide previous misbehavior. The composition manual with three ducks on the cover lay before me, and I kicked it about as if playing soccer. The cover fell off, and my