Shining On by Lois Lowry Read Free Book Online Page B

“I don't recall you ever saying that you put off marrying Dad in case you found out later that you were lesbian.” But this is my mum, don't forget. If I'd said that, she would have slapped me so hard I'd have gone reeling into Mr. Skelley's hedge. So I said nothing.
    She peered in my face. “Oh, Gregory. This is going to take a whole lot of getting used to, and I can tell you one thing. The worst isn't over.”
    “It is for me,” I told her quite truthfully.
    And what if I did mean the lying, the secrets, the wor-rying, the pretending? Give me a break! She thought I meant that telling her had been the hardest thing. And that was important to her, you could tell. Shocked and upset as she was, you could still see she took it as a compliment that she mattered most. She took it seriously, the same way she took my blotchy finger painting from nursery, and my cracked jewelry pot from primary school, and my split, wobbly stock cube dispenser from secondary school woodwork class. Her mouth even twitched a little, as if, if she didn't have to go in there and help me through Round Two with Dad, she might even have given me the tiniest of encouraging smiles.
    I pushed the gate open. “Ready?” I said, the same way she always used to say it to me when I was starting at a new school or a new club.
    “I suppose so,” she muttered, exactly the same way I must have said it to her so many times before.
    On our way up the path, she suddenly stopped and hurled herself into one of my shopping bags. Scattering socks and lightbulbs, she dragged out
Telling Your Parents: A Teenager's Guide,
and hurried off round the side of the house.
    I set off in pursuit. “What are you doing?”
    “Stuffing this in the dustbin.”
    “What, my book?”
    But it was already gone, deep under tea leaves and old carrot peelings.
    “It's not your book,” she said, slamming the lid down over the horrid mess. “It's my book. I'm the one who paid for it.” She brushed tea leaves off her hands and added bitterly, “Though I can't think why. You seem to be managing perfectly well without it.”
    “But why shove it in the dustbin?”
    “Listen, young man,” she warned me dangerously. “Don't push your luck. If you're planning on making me
live
the bloody book, I'll be damned if I'll dust it.”
    I know when a job's done. I just picked up the shopping and followed her in to face more of the music.

Sue Limb

    “I 'm sorry, Jess—I've got a migraine. You'll have to go on your own.”
    “NO! No way, Mum!” Jess glared at her mum's rumpled bed. “I am NOT going on my own! I've been totally dreading it anyway. We can go next weekend instead.”
    “No, we can't,” croaked Mum in her headache voice, rasping like something from a horror film. “I've got a librarians' conference next weekend.”
    “Well, the weekend after, then.”
    “Daddy's coming to visit then. And we can't keep putting it off. Granny's desperate to get it all sorted. It has to be now. Get me a glass of water, would you please, darling?”
    Jess fetched the glass of water. She knew the migraine routine by heart. Her mum would be out of action fortwenty-four hours minimum—possibly the whole weekend. She sat down on the bed.
    “Thanks,” said Mum, sipping the water gratefully. Then she seized Jess's hand in tragic deathbed style. “All you have to do is get the number seventy-three bus to the station, then the Bristol train,” she said. “It's the second stop, I think—or, wait, no …”
    “I know how to get there!” snapped Jess. “I've been there before on my own. Loads of times.”
    “Right. Of course you have. Sorry,” said Mum. “I'm really sorry, Jess. I know it isn't going to be easy, but I'll make it up to you. I promise.”
    Jess got up off the bed grumpily and slouched off down-stairs. How could her mum possibly make it up to her? She was a poverty-stricken librarian. She simply didn't have ac-cess to the Hollywood lifestyle Jess craved.
    The phone rang. Jess