The Family Law by Benjamin Law Read Free Book Online

flicking through each page, slowly and accusingly. Looking at them was sickening. The pop-out genitals hung out of the book defeated, all pock-marked and savaged; organs, tendons and nerves flopped out at wrong angles, like the wires of a telephone thrown against the wall. The kids who’d gone outside at lunch-time stared at the book open-mouthed. The rest of us looked to the floor.
    â€˜When I came back to return the book to the library,’ she hissed, ‘what did I find? Holes .’
    Each page she turned made me wince, and my bottom lip began to tremble. ‘No one is leaving this room until I have the names of those who damaged this incredibly expensive book,’ Mrs Reed said. ‘We could be here all day, unless one of you tells me what happened. I’m more than happy to wait.’
    At that moment I understood what a ‘heavy’ silence meant, how you could actually feel the oppressive weight of a room full of people holding dangerous knowledge that could indict you. Something had to give, and when it did, it would hurt like nothing else. Already, I could see what was going to happen, and when it did, none of it surprised me: the snitching in front of the other students; the public declaration of my involvement; my croaky admission; Mrs Reed’s shock; the other kids giggling; the tears of humiliation as I handed the book of mutilated genitals back to the library. What kind of a sick child are you? the librarian wanted to know. It was all too much for a seven-year-old to bear.
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    By the time Mum gave birth to Michelle, Mrs Reed seemed to have forgotten about the pop-up book incident. The world of education took a new turn, towards promoting self-esteem and ‘special-ness.’ See Michael in the corner, who can’t control his bladder? He’s ‘unique.’ Stacey, over there, who’s plagued with warts all over her hands? She’s ‘interesting.’ In this new spirit of promoting everyone’s unique qualities, we spent a lesson filling in the blanks on a sheet called ‘ALL ABOUT ME,’ which we would personalise and then hang on the classroom wall. We filled in our name, our age, our interests. Then we got to a section that said: ‘I am special because …’ While everyone else fretted, that section was easy for me.
    â€˜A year before you were born,’ my mother would tell me, ‘I lost my baby. Yes, Mummy miscarried. Oh, I know, it made Mummy so sad! I was bleeding like someone had stabbed me – there was so much blood. Afterwards, all I wanted was to get pregnant again, have another baby in me so I wouldn’t go crazy from all the sadness. So soon, Mummy got pregnant again and – like magic! – exactly a year after Mummy lost her baby, you were born! To the day, can you believe it? And that’s why you’re so special. You’re Mummy’s miracle baby.’ It was a strange story, and burdened me with a weird sense of guilt: the only reason I existed was because another potential sibling had died before I was born. Still, it reminded me why I was special.
    But when it came to filling out Mrs Reed’s activity sheet, I got confused. I knew ‘miscarriage’ meant a baby had died before being born, but one girl in my class had told me ‘abortion’ meant the same thing. Abortion : it had a nice modern ring to it, which I preferred. So I began writing: ‘I am special … because my Mum once had an abortion. And exactly a year later, she had me.’
    To this day, I can only assume Mrs Reed felt a misguided pity for my mother. What else could explain why my activity sheet was hung up with everyone else’s? She must have assumed my mother had undergone a horrific, government-sanctioned abortion in China and then – horror upon horror – had me a year later, a child born of hideously bad timing and fortune.
    Months after I’d realised my mistake, I would