Here or There by Rebecca Strong

Author:Rebecca Strong
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Legand Press
Published: 2010-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Luke knew that there was no justice. Even before he had learned the word justice, which appeared one week on their spelling test like the stinger on a bee, he knew that life just wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he had to argue and sulk and whine every time he really wanted something in order for there to be the slightest chance he might get it, while Lydia could shed a couple of tears and scream and would almost certainly get what she wanted immediately, because they both knew their mother would do anything to quieten her down.

It wasn’t fair that he had started to get homework every day even though he spent most of the day working at school. And when he did have spare time, it wasn’t fair that he didn’t have a new Nintendo and, even if he did, he knew Lydia would sulk and press the buttons at the wrong time to annoy him. He wouldn’t have anyone to play it with anyway, aside from his father who would have a go, lose and then give up and say he was tired. Most of his friends had brothers, or at least friends that lived nearby.

It wasn’t fair that he was made to eat Brussels sprouts every Sunday, with their soggy, musty smell, just because his mother said they were good for him and he had to eat lots of different coloured vegetables, even though he knew that there were lots of other green vegetables he could eat that tasted infinitely better.

It wasn’t fair that sometimes, at night, he had a recurring dream that his parents dropped him at a shop and told him to run inside and buy some sweets, but when he came back out of the shop they were gone, and he didn’t know where they were or how to get home. Each time it would be dark and he would wander a little to see if he recognised the area and, just as he saw a street that led home, a massive monster would appear that shouted and tried to chase him so he had to run in the other direction, at which point he would wake-up, sweating and shivering. He would clutch the duvet around him and lie there breathing heavily, not wanting to call to his parents because, despite the knowledge that it was a dream, something in his subconscious told him he couldn’t always trust them.

Despite the unsettling injustice that plagued Luke night and day, he didn’t think it was just him, because he recognised that life was not fair for any of them. It wasn’t fair that his father, perhaps his favourite member of the family, had to work a lot and was never home very much, or that he had to sigh and curse when his mother spent a lot of money at the shops. It wasn’t fair that Lydia worried all of the time because their mother scolded and fretted and fussed over her, and didn’t seem to understand that it made Lydia anxious.

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