Free Thrice Uncharmed (Wynne d’Arzon) by Cara Lee

they harassing you about Josh again?”
    Mum nodded in reply to my question. “And I’ve told them what I always tell them, Josh stays with us.”
    Just then Josh toddled in, clutching a bucket of bricks, Bobo, his favourite little teddy, perched on the top. “Play Maw,” he said, coming over to me. Maw was his pet name for me. He was only three and couldn’t pronounce Morgan yet. He squatted on the floor by my feet, took the blue teddy out, tucked it under his arm and then tipped his puzzle blocks out of his bucket.
    I picked up a block with my right hand, hid it behind my back, then swapped it to my left hand. “Which hand is it in, Joshie?”
    Josh giggled as he clenched his chubby little hand into a fist and pointed to my left hand. It was his broad, flat hands and short fingers that had told the doctors something was wrong with him. That and his slanted eyes. Typical signs of Down’s syndrome.
    We’d all been so thrilled when Mum discovered she was having Josh. She and Dad had wanted another baby ever since they’d had me, and I’d longed for a baby sister or brother for years. But it never happened. Then Mum discovered she was pregnant. She’d thought she had gone through the menopause. By the time she found out she was too far gone to have the usual tests to make sure the baby was normal. But none of us worried about that. We wanted a total surprise so Mum wouldn’t even let the doctors tell her the baby’s sex. Then Josh was born and our bubble of happiness burst.
    I’m ashamed to admit that all I thought of at the time was what the other kids would say about me having a RAD brother. I hated the name myself but that’s what children like Josh were called, it was derived from the Recorded Abnormality Details form that doctors and midwives had to fill in every time a baby was born with disabilities. The Ministry kept track of the children and tried to talk their parents into having them shut away into one of their Residential Learning Centres, out of sight from the general public.
    Mum and Dad refused point blank to put Josh in a RLC. He belonged with his family, they said, and that was that. And Josh was so adorable, so placid and good-humoured, that I soon grew to love him.
    But the Ministry wouldn’t leave us alone. Every couple of months they paid Mum and Dad a visit, grilled them about Josh’s progress and tried to persuade them that he would be better off in a RLC.
    “Maw,” Josh said, pointing to my left arm again.
    “Good boy!” I took my left hand from behind my back and gave him the block back, then bent down and kissed him on the cheek. “Maw and Summer going upstairs now, Joshie.”
    Josh crumbled his bottom lip and was about to protest when his favourite jingle came on the E-screen. He gave an excited squeal and looked up to watch the big screen on the wall.
    “Be perfectly lovely,” a white dove sang as it fluttered across the screen. “Be perfectly happy.” It was joined by another white dove and they sang in chorus. “Have the body and life you deserve. Contact Perfectly Lovely on 011-6483 for advice on how to get a Physical Perfection grant.” The two doves then flew off together singing, “Be perfectly lovely, be perfectly happy…” until they disappeared from sight.
    “Wuvlee. Appee!” Josh rocked his head from side to side as he tried to sing along with the birds.
    “That advert!” Mum shook her head.
    It was one of the trillions of adverts for body enhancement that flashed across the E-screen every day since the Ministry had decided everyone over sixteen qualified for a grant towards physical perfection surgery. I couldn’t wait for my sixteenth birthday in a couple of months so I could have my nose straightened and my face sculptured. Summer had already had hers done, privately of course--no PP grant for her--and she looked amazing. Mum hated the ad because she said everyone was too obsessed with having perfect looks. But Josh loved the catchy tune and the two