Free Finding Home by Lauren K. McKellar

the carpet. They required a bit of twisting to retrieve, but the others I could pick up with ease and place in my hand.
    ‘What do you want me to do? I don’t have any skills. And there’s clearly only one thing you think I’m good at these days,’ Mum said, leering. She pulled at her top, exposing her décolletage.
    I focused on the glass again. I counted each piece in my hand. Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight. On the fortieth piece, a shard broke through my skin, spilling bright red blood. Funny. I hadn’t thought my skin would be so thin.
    ‘Amy, you’re hurt!’ Mum pushed past Dad and came to kneel next to me. ‘What are you doing?’ She knocked my hand with her own, and the pieces of glass flew up into the air and landed back on the floor.
    All my efforts — ruined.
    ‘Let me see,’ Dad said.
    ‘Get the fuck away from her!’ Mum yelled, raising her voice again.
    ‘Do we have to do this in front of Amy?’ Dad asked. I felt them turn to look at me. Did they think I hadn’t heard? That the fights they’d been having all day in the adjacent hotel room hadn’t resonated with a hatred that travelled through walls?
    ‘Please don’t,’ was all I could say. But it was enough. Dad left the room, and Mum tended to my hand, spilling some vodka to cleanse it before wrapping it in a spare t-shirt.
    ‘I’m sorry, baby,’ Mum whispered to me. ‘I promise, things are going to get better.’
    Only they didn’t. They got much, much worse.
    * * *
    I walked into the classroom after school with a sense of dread. I wasn’t really into the idea of teaching other students, and I especially didn’t want to risk being labelled a nerd.
    It’s better than being at Lou’s , I reminded myself. And I simply couldn’t afford another deep fried meal from the takeaway, not even if I scraped together all the shrapnel in the bottom of my schoolbag.
    ‘Oh, Amy, so kind of you to join us,’ Mrs Smith said as I walked into the room. I was approximately five minutes late, and the class was now almost full. I could count the empty seats on one hand. English mustn’t have been the forte of the students of Cherrybrook High. I looked at Mrs Smith and wondered if it had anything to do with her.
    ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled. Who knew that school extracurricular activities would require such punctuality?
    ‘That’s fine. Your partner’s late, anyway.’
    I nodded and sat down in a chair near the back, busying myself with some notes. I had no idea what to expect from this, but I was sure it wouldn’t be too bad. How painful could reading and chatting about books be?
    That is, if I actually had to do any work. I’d been sitting there for 15 minutes and was beginning to give up on my partner even showing when Mrs Smith spoke up.
    ‘Oh, Coral. Glad you could make it.’ She smiled and gestured at the empty seat next to me.
    Please, no.
    ‘I think you’ve made a mistake.’ Coral glanced at the seat, at me, and then back at Mrs Smith.
    ‘No. You’ve been partnered with Amy.’
    ‘Um, no, I’m sure I’m not.’ Coral bit her lip. ‘Last term I was with Dwayne. Can’t I be with Dwayne again?’
    Dwayne, a fellow student wearing a particularly large pair of glasses, spun around in his seat. His eyes lit up, and he looked like he’d just won the lottery. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Coral’s choosing him over me was hardly worth the excitement.
    ‘No, Dwayne has been assigned to another partner this term.’ Mrs Smith was insistent. ‘From this point forward, you will be working with Amy.
    If looks could kill, I would have been dead right then and there. Coral shot me a glare of pure evil before striding through the classroom to her desk. She elegantly lowered herself onto the edge of her seat, as far away from me as possible, and then proceeded to retrieve her notebook, pen, textbooks and lip gloss from her satchel with the utmost of care.
    ‘So, where do you want to start?’ I asked.
    Coral didn’t