Free The Anatomy of Wings by Karen Foxlee Page A

farthest side. She leaned her head forward. Her chin was in the cup and she let the water enter her mouth from the wrong side.
    “It is like drinking backward,” she said, and wiped her chin and neck, where a lot of the water had dripped.
    She gave the cup to me and I had to do the same.
    She made me drink the whole cup that way. She said drink it faster and it may dislodge something. I coughed and burped.
    “Ah,” she said. “You see.”
    But my songs didn't seem any closer to the surface.
    “Some days I cannot breathe,” she said, “for all this sorrow.”
    I didn't know what to say so I just let her hold my hands the way she liked and I kicked my leg backward and forward softly against the chair and I wondered if she could read my thoughts.
    “Well I better go,” I said after a while.
    “Yes,” she said.
    “Do you want me to bring you some food?” I asked.
    “No, do not worry for me.”
    “I don't want you to starve,” I said.
    “I have starved before,” she said. “After the War of Brothers everyone starved. Paavo, he was as thin as a skeleton. Men and women, they would do anything, anything, Jennifer, even for some flour. Things you cannot imagine.”
    She had told this story one million times before. Especially at the dining room table if we didn't eat every last centimeter of our meal.
    “This is not starving,” she said, pointing to herself.
    “OK,” I said.
    At the front door she held my hands. I was in the sunlight again and she was in the shade.
    “Let us be honest with each other,” she said before I went.

I T WAS HARD TO BE HONEST WHEN THERE WERE SO MANY LIES. Everyone had their own explanation for why things turned out the way they did. Everyone grabbed for a scrap of the story and held it. Now, when I am older, I hold on to pieces so shiny that they must surely be untrue.
    And other parts much darker.
    If I am to be honest.
    The party was at a house on Amiens Road. Before they went they made sure their center parts were dead straight. They put eye shadow on. Beth wore Miranda's red pedal pushers and black corduroy vest. Miranda applied rouge to Beth's cheeks and then wet her fingertips in her mouth and rubbed it in. Danielle and I sat on the living room floor. Danielle had to kneel because of her brand-new Milwaukee back brace for her curvature of the spine,which Dad was paying her by the hour to wear. She put the money in a jar marked with pen PERM.
    She had come back from Brisbane with it, as well as a sketchbook and new watercolors and two new dresses. She wanted to have radical back surgery rather than wear the brace. She was going to research one hundred science books to find a cure. She fought with Mum every night, she said she did not want to be a cripple.
    The brace was a hard plastic shell that encased her torso and three steel rods, one at the front and two at the back, that joined a metal ring that circled her neck. She wore it under her clothes. It was fastened by various metal screws and leather belts.
    We were marrying Malibu Barbie to a Luke Skywalker action figure when Miranda and Beth walked past. The radio was on. Mum was ironing.
    “You're both very dressed up,” Mum said. “Where are you two off to?”
    “We're just riding to show Tiffany,” said Beth. “We'll be back soon.”
    “Can I come?” I asked.
    “No,” said Beth, but she said it too fast and too loud and Mum heard her.
    “I'll just ride with you for a little way,” I pleaded.
    “Oh, let her ride with you,” said Mum. “Just to Tiffany's and then she can ride back. Hasn't Tiffany got a little sister she could play with?”
    When we got outside Miranda and Beth rode very fast down Dardanelles Court and I had to pedal standing to keep up with them.
    “Why aren't you going to Tiffany's house?” I shouted.
    “Be quiet,” said Beth.
    Amiens Road, where Marco lived, was only three streets away. There were cars parked on the footpath and a tangle of bikes near the gate. There was music coming