Free The Ninth Life of Louis Drax by Liz Jensen

him, he’s just a huge blur. But when I twiddle some more I get his face. He’s smiling, his hand’s reached out wanting the binoculars back. But I haven’t finished with them, have I.
         —You’re a pervert, aren’t you? I go. —You look at ladies getting undressed and doing aerobics. You look at their bottoms and their bosoms. Don’t you?
         —Louis, I think we should get started.
         —You look at bare ladies and you play with your dick. You’re a rapist.
         —A what, Louis?
         —A rapist.
         He sits down and looks at me like I’m Wacko Boy, like they call me at school. It’s the same look. His face is just a blur again when I look at him, a big fat blur. But I can see he’s giving me a creepy smile.
         —Tell me more about rapists. It’s not the first time you’ve mentioned them. What do you know about rapists, Louis?
         He should look it up in the dictionary, shouldn’t he. I’m just a boy. Outside the snowflakes are still falling down and down and down and sometimes a bit up, when there is a current of air called a thermal. You could get dizzy watching these snowflakes, that look like torn-up paper. When you get dizzy you fall over. They talked about rapists on TV once, I didn’t know what they were then but Maman’s face went strange and she and Papa looked at each other and then they both reached for the remote control. Papa got there first and he turned it off and then they both looked at me in a funny way.
         —What’s a rapist? I said.
         —A bad man, said Papa, and he went bright red. And Maman didn’t say anything, she just went into the kitchen and started chopping onions to make herself cry.
         —I’ll never turn into a rapist, I tell Fat Perez. —Because either I’ll have bosoms or I’ll be dead.
         But I’m wrong about the bosoms, because those lady-pills you keep in your pocket and you eat at breakfast and lunch and dinner and a picnic, which don’t taste of anything even if you crunch them, they don’t work. Because after a few weeks you’re still a boy and you don’t have bosoms, even tiny ones. So Fat Perez was lying again. He was playing Always Lie, which is one of the secret games grown-ups play. They have lots of games, with Secret Rules just like kids have. There’s Vow of Silence which is like the grown-up Don’t Say Anything, and there’s Extreme Punishment, and there’s Pretend You Don’t Hate Him. That’s very hard to play. You have to be good at Emotional Work.
         —Papa isn’t my real dad. I’m adopted. I’m an Adopted Child, like someone Chinese.
         —Ah, says Fat Perez. —Interesting thought. It’s not an unusual thought for a child to have. And your mother?
         —She’s my real mum.
         —How do you know that?
         —Because she nearly died when I was being born. They had to open her up and pull me out and we both nearly ended up in a two-corpse coffin , you can order them from the Internet.
         —So Maman is your real mother, but Papa adopted you. Did someone tell you that, or is it just an idea that came into your head?
         —No one told me.
         —So how do you know?
         —I just know. He adopted me like someone Chinese. Like Chinese babies whose parents can’t look after them so they come to France and live with another family and laugh at other kids’ stupid gloves.
         —I see. So who do you think is your real father?
         —I don’t have one.
         —Everyone has a real father, Louis.
         —Well not me.
         He has a long think with squinty piggy eyes. —If you could choose a father, instead of Papa, is there anyone who you might choose, Louis?
         I pretend think for a minute too by making my eyes go piggy like his. Think, think, think. And then I say, —Yes, there is, Monsieur Perez. It’s you.
         He looks like he might puke.
         —Really? he says, his voice all