Free The First True Lie: A Novel by Marina Mander Page B

do my homework and then I do his for him. It’s because it’s easier for me, I don’t know why.
    “You know, it’s handy having a friend who’s a nerd.”
    “If you don’t like it, we can go back to fighting.”
    “Asshole.”
    “Whoever says so is a hundred times more than me.”
    “You want me to give you a Chinese burn?” He twists the skin on my wrist with both hands until I’m the one who yells.
    Mama says it’s because I was born at seven months, and seven-month babies are more intelligent. I was in an incubator for two months. Maybe I’ve fallen back in, because once again I find myself in an evil machine that creates horrible nightmares and I’m still too small to get out and move away on my own. I don’t even know if it’s true that seven-month babies are more gifted. In any case I only want to be normal.
    Even if sometimes it’s useful to understand things first.
    At seven o’clock Davide’s mother buzzes the apartment.
    He thinks it’s my mother, but I know that it’s his. It has to be.
    “He’ll be right down,” I say into the intercom. “C’mon, get a move on, move, hurry,” I tell Davide, pushing him out the door.
    Friday night. It’s like taiga and tundra in the apartment.
    Titicaca more or less everywhere.
    I turn the key in the lock to Mama’s room and peek in. I think about the door in
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
and decide to leave it wide open.
    Maybe there really is a funny smell. Maybe it’s the toilet. Every so often it stinks because of the low pressure, Mama says.
    Low pressure over the entire Mediterranean basin, but people don’t seem to be any less stressed.
    I turn on every light. In the freezer I find two fish sticks. I look at the expiration date—it’s already passed. Doesn’t matter. It wasn’t that long ago. I put them in a pan with oil; I have to cook them for five minutes on each side.
    I’m not even sure I’m hungry.
    But I feel like I have to feed myself, so that I don’t waste away, don’t get sick, don’t get taken away.
    In orphanages the orphans always eat the same soup, it’s take it or leave it. I’d be happy to eat only fish sticks, chips, pizza, prosciutto, mashed potatoes, and meatballs. It’s not really the same thing, though.
    In orphanages you have to eat like all the other kids and with all the other kids, play with all the other kids, and sleep with all the other kids, even if you’re not tired. From what I can tell, in orphanages you can never do anything different from other people.
    I’m not used to that. I’m used to living with Mama, and our life is different.
    You can be equal, normal, or different.
    Equal is when you have to be like others. Normal is when you get to do great stuff everyone likes. Different is when you have a bit of a strange life that is definitely not equal, but neither is it normal; it’s a life that’s a bit lonely, a bit on its own, just like ours.
    Normal is the best of all, but different is better than dead equal.
    Equal is a bit like the sky when it’s gray all over, like the bottom of a frying pan.
    “Don’t scratch it or you’ll poison yourself.”
    Don’t climb over the gate or you’ll end up stuck like a chicken kebab. Don’t climb over the barbed-wire fence or you’ll get tetanus. Don’t jump on the mattress or the whole thing will collapse. Don’t stay out late or I’ll be worried. Don’t cross the street without looking. Don’t eat like a caveman. Don’t put your elbows on the table. Don’t talk to people you don’t know. Don’t trust people—hey, what are you doing?
    Nothing! Just frying some fish sticks!
    At the smell of fish, Blue launches himself like a surface-to-air missile onto the kitchen counter, knocking over the bottle of oil; he slips and slides like in cartoons, which makes me laugh out loud.
    “It’s not funny.” He looks at me like he’s really telling me off.
    “Yeah, but it still really makes me laugh.”
    When the sky is like that, all gray and