Free Rocks in the Belly by Jon Bauer Page A

TV and he isn’t allowed in my bedroom under any circumstances, unless I let him which would be nice if I did. Dad said so.
    â€˜Your home is broken, Robert, which is why you’re here and why you don’t have a TV in your room. Once your home is fixed you might have a TV in your room too.’
    Sometimes I sit and watch it even when I’d rather be outside or downstairs or something, just because it’s nice to have one and nice that Robert doesn’t.
    I hear him when I’m in my room, my TV on but the sound down and me listening to the bubbling of their voices coming up. Robert is all little when I’m around but I hear a whole lot of him when I’m not. Plus Mum and Dad always sound happy when he’s chatty as if it means they’re special. Like it’s their fault he’s talking.
    I got the TV though.
    He gets good marks at his new school now since he’s been borrowing my parents. Mum says his grades are going up andI should let him help me out, that he won’t be here forever and I should take advantage of his brain while I can. She always says that to me. ‘He won’t be here forever.’ Sometimes that makes me feel better for a little bit. Except it already feels like forever.
    Plus Robert is always good, not like the usual foster boys. His only weakness is he eats too fast. Dad hates the food competition, he says. But he told me once that actually Robert eats like that because he never used to know where his next meal was coming from.
    They don’t tell him off about his manners either, they just let him pig out. Meanwhile I get told off all the time. ‘Elbows off the table. Don’t post it. Chew properly. Cut don’t tear.’
    They say Robert just has to get it out of his system but when I try that line it never works.
    The only thing Robert gets kind of in trouble for is that Mum and Dad keep finding things hidden in his room. Food normally but also yucky things like rubbish, banana skins, empty crisp packets, and lots of Mum’s cotton wool that she uses to take off her make-up with. Even her perfume and dirty clothes. Knickers!
    A lot of Mum’s things but mainly food. Mum checks his room every few days and if he hasn’t hidden anything he gets a prize. I don’t hide things and I don’t get a prize, except sometimes, sometimes she gives me a prize too. She does.
    Robert stayed late at school for something today so I’m on my own in the back of the car on the way to get him, turning my robot into a monster and wondering what’s coming because I had to wait in class today while Mum and Miss Marshall had a chat without me. Which means about me.
    Mum says my name in that sort of way which sounds like something’s coming. I look out the window then quickly start turning my monster back. Robots don’t feel anything. Like Roberts maybe.
    â€˜Yes,’ I say to her while I’m looking at a man who’s hitting hisdog beside the traffic lights and the dog can’t hit back. It’s just squishing itself closer to the pavement and sort of licking the front of its lips really slowly and crouching down.
    â€˜Miss Marshall had a word with me at school today, Sonny Jim.’
    A robot doesn’t feel anything and is superhuman but monsters have feelings, like King Kong who fell in love with a woman even though she was too small for him.
    â€˜When’s your birthday?’ she says.
    I stop changing the Transformer for a moment because my scarred for life hand is sore. I only just had the bandages off and the doctor said it all depends on how the scar responds to my hand growing. Plus I thought this chat was going to be about what I did to Simon during English.
    I answer her and keep holding the robot, flipping its legs round. From green and blue to blue and green. Nearly there, I go faster. I used to time myself changing from the robot to the monster and my record is 42 seconds but that was when I had