Cures for Hunger by Deni Béchard Read Free Book Online Page B

at last.
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    The entire class was laughing at me. It was the day before Christmas break, but they still made fun of the lunches my mother packed. Usually, to hide my sandwiches, I ate them from inside my brown lunch bag, like a wino swigging from a wrapped bottle.
    â€œShow it,” they were saying. They had chips, PB&J, and cookies. I took out two dark, crumbly slabs of bread with six inches of lettuce and tomatoes piled between.
    â€œOh,” I said as the tomato slices slid free and the bread broke and the lettuce spilled onto my desk. The children howled. To make my accident appear intentional, I lowered my head and snuffled about like a cow, gobbling from my desk. Kids were falling out of their seats. I sat up, making bovine eyes and working my jaw with a ruminating motion.
    Mrs. Hand swatted the back of my head.
    â€œ Cochon, ” she scolded, and the students fell silent.
    During recess, when I spoke about levitation, the kids looked doubtful, having seen me imitate a cow. Only Guillaume was enthusiastic. He was getting better at moving sheets of paper propped against the wall. He talked until his face turned red and spit gathered at the corners of his lips, and even I wanted to knock him down.
    I explained that my mother had said I should build mental powers
slowly, by meditating with a candle. She’d set one up for me, and when I’d concentrated, the flame had wavered considerably. Guillaume sputtered that he’d try it, though his parents didn’t let him play with fire.
    No one else cared. They were looking at my unzipped fly, my lopsided shirt, my shoelaces trailing in the dirt. They trickled away as I rambled—great wars, mutations, superpowers. I felt that if I talked enough, something amazing would happen.
    â€œYou have to focus,” I said. “It takes time.” I said all sorts of things.
    â€œMaybe you aren’t the right type,” I told Matthieu as he turned away.
    â€œThe right type of what?”
    I had no answer, and he snorted and wandered off.
    Normally, I’d be excited for Christmas break, but home wasn’t fun these days. For the rest of recess, I followed the path around the playground, walking backward, closing my eyes when I could, just breathing, not letting myself be angry, not thinking anything at all. Each time the wind gusted, I leaned back into it, trying to see if it would hold me up.
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    On Christmas Day, my father returned, smelling of pine sap. He’d shut down his lots and stripped his rain gear at the door without speaking to my mother. He turned up the heat that she kept low since, as I’d heard her complain, he didn’t give her much money for gas and we’d once run out and had to warm ourselves around the stove. He sat in his chair wearing boxers, and stared at the TV as the anchorman mentioned the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Briefly, there was a clip showing men outside a church, all wearing sandwich boards printed with The End Is Near.
    At least when the end came I wouldn’t have to go to school, and my life would be like The Chronicles of Narnia. Maybe I’d do things my father had, catch huge salmon that took hours to reel in or drive a truck without brakes, crashing into things that people no longer needed.
    â€œDid you like school?” I asked him.
    â€œI didn’t go for very long,” he said, eyes on the TV. “I had to work, but my brother and me, we’d walk my sisters to school and beat up kids who bothered them on the road.”

    â€œWhere are your sisters now?”
    He looked at me, then stared off and sighed. He seemed uncomfortable, the way I did when my mother made me put on too many winter clothes, but he had only his underwear on. He sat tensely, as if he might jump out of his chair and run forever.
    â€œCan I stop going to school and work with you?” I asked.
    He smiled faintly, almost sadly, and said,