Simon Lelic by A Thousand Cuts (v5)

Author:A Thousand Cuts (v5)
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Women detectives, Murder, Murder - Investigation, Women detectives - England - London, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), General, Fiction - General, Mystery fiction, Teachers, School shootings, General & Literary Fiction, Fiction, Teachers - Suicidal behavior
ISBN: 9780330511636
Publisher: Viking
Published: 2010-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

What’s your earliest memory?

I’m not sure either. I’m on a boat, I think, and I’m wearing this jumper that I liked. It had a flower on it.

Do you wanna know my earliest memory of Sam?

He’s pinching me. I was four, I think, maybe five so he would of been seven, I guess, maybe eight. I’m on my back and he’s got his knees on me and I’ve got one arm free and I’m hitting him but he’s ignoring it or not feeling it cos he’s focused on my other arm and he’s pinching me here, here, here, all the way up and he’s pinching me and he’s smiling. I remember it clearly. It’s like it was on the TV just the other night.

He hated me. I hated him but he hated me first. He resented me. That’s what Annie says. She says he didn’t hate me he resented me but I looked up the word resent and it basically means that he hated me. I knew what resent meant already by the way. I’m not stupid, I just like to check. I have a dictionary, Annie got it for me, and I like to check what words mean cos sometimes they mean something different from what you think they mean, not a lot always but enough to change what you’re saying when you don’t want it to. Do you know what I mean?

I’m glad cos not everyone does. Some people use words without even caring what they really mean. They just say em and think about what they’re saying after they’ve finished saying it.

My dad was good at words. He’s dead now. He drowned. I was ten. But he used to have these books, they were full of puzzles: crosswords and wordsearches and what are those ones where the letters are all mixed up and you have to put em back in the right order? Like on Countdown, at the end, the ones I can never get.

Right. Anagrams. So my dad would sit there every night with one of them books and sometimes he’d let me sit with him, if I was quiet and I didn’t wriggle, and I’d help him or I’d try to. I could do the wordsearches, I was good at em, but I don’t like crosswords, I never liked crosswords. Sam could do crosswords. Sometimes if Dad got stuck he would ask Sam and Sam would say it’s this or it’s that or sometimes he would just shrug but most of the time he would know. Sam went to university in the end. Dad said he would and he did. He shouldn’t of though, that’s what Annie says. He should of stayed with me, that’s what Annie says. Annie says that if Sam had stayed it would of been better for everyone: me, she says, Sam, she says, her, she says, them kids. But I’d rather have Annie than him. I’d of run away if they’d of made me live with him.

Annie? Annie’s like my mum. She’s not my mum but she looks out for me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.