Free Infinite Sky by Cj Flood Page A

one of those raspberry laughs, where you keep your mouth shut and let it explode through your lips. He looked out the window, like maybe he’d had something else planned.
    ‘You’ve been saying you’ll finish it for ages.’
    ‘Yeah, I know but . . . I dunno. I’d like to draw
something
maybe. Don’t think I’m in the mood to finish . . .
that
.’
    ‘Oh.’ I made a pattern on the table with some lemon juice.
    ‘I don’t know if I even like it any more. It’s a bit . . .
shit
.’
    I watched the goldcrests and blue tits on the bird table. They were all so twitchy. They never stopped turning their heads for a second. Everyone thought birds were so free but they must be the
least relaxed creatures on the planet.
    I realised Sam was looking at me, and tried to smile, but I was disappointed. He was just going to go meet Punky and Leanne like he always did. As if buying two types of chocolate would mean
he’d stay in all day drawing with me.
    ‘Could draw something else though,’ he said. ‘Go and get your bird books.’
    I ran to get them, and we sat at the table, looking at birds of prey.
    ‘This is the best one,’ I said, turning to a photo of a buzzard. Sam looked at it for ages. He went upstairs to get his pencil case and his new pens.
    ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll draw it on your wall. But you can’t annoy me.’
    I didn’t even promise not to in case that was annoying.
    I sat on my bed, watching as he traced lines across the wall with his finger. He emptied his pencil case onto the floor. It was full of black pens with different-sized nibs. He told me to go and
put his music on, loud, and leave the door open. When I got back, he was still staring at my wall. I wondered what he could see. I wasn’t good at drawing. I could never get the pictures from
my head onto the page.
    I hugged my knees as he started sketching with a pencil. Every few minutes, he stepped back to see what he’d done. It was all circles and triangles and lines.
    ‘There’s no point putting in the detail until you know the shapes are right,’ he said. ‘That’s where you go wrong. You do it too soon.’
    It was true. I always started with the detail straight away. I couldn’t resist. By the time I realised it was wrong, it was too late. My people always had wonky eyes and a squashed
head.
    All day, he bossed me about but I didn’t mind. I changed the music when he got sick of it, and made us cups of tea and cheese toasties. He clasped and unclasped his hands sometimes to get
rid of the cramp. When he was happy with his sketch, he swapped his pencil for a pen. The drawing got bigger and more detailed. Hills and trees and a stormy-looking sky appeared.
    Sam pressed his lips together when he was concentrating, and it made his dimple pop. He was working on the foreground of the picture now. He had my book open, and looked at the buzzard
occasionally. In its talons he drew a dead baby rabbit that wasn’t from the book. The buzzard carried it through the sky.
    ‘I love it,’ I said.
    He stopped what he was doing, and stepped back. He put his pen in his mouth and smiled. The plastic knocked against his teeth.
    At some point I stopped worrying about being annoying and started talking. I told Sam all about Matty, and how she thought she was so incredible because she wore a bra with underwire, and he
told me about how nice Leanne was, when you got to know her. I tried to believe him. I didn’t say anything about Mum. I didn’t want to ruin it.
    When Dad and Austin got back from work, I made them come and look.
    ‘Wow,’ Austin said, brushing sawdust from his eyebrows. It was probably the most he’d said all day.
    Dad whistled. He was sawdusty too. The two of them smelled of petrol and sweat and leaves.
    Sam didn’t stop drawing. He was finishing off the baby rabbit. Its eyes had been pecked out, and there was blood around its slack mouth. The background was a more dramatic version of the
Dark Peaks. A small girl stood