Before the Fire Read Online Free Page A

rattled. The coconut rocked, but stayed whole.
    ‘Do you remember he bought you that stuffed rabbit and we torched it?’ Mac said, and chuckled.
    Stick bashed the coconut again and this time he felt it give a little. ‘I was twelve. Who buys a twelve-year-old a stuffed rabbit?’ The two of them standing by the canal,
Stick’s breath high and fast. The smell of burning plastic. The eyes refused to melt, so Mac found a stone and smashed them into tiny orange and black pieces. They’d thrown what was
left into the water, watched it float for a second, and then sink, until all they could see was a dark shape like a shadow, down in the green-grey water. Later, when Stick was in bed, he’d
remembered the plastic fur singeing and melting, and had to curl himself into a tight ball to stop himself feeling sick.
    ‘It stank,’ Stick said.
    ‘Yeah, and you started guilt-tripping halfway through and tried to put it out.’
    ‘Did not.’
    ‘Did too.’
    ‘Yeah, well, he’s a dick anyway.’ Stick brought the bowl down again and this time the coconut cracked properly. When he held it up, a thin line of water dribbled down his
arm.
    ‘Fucker’s bleeding,’ Mac said and laughed.
    Stick bashed at it again, until it split – the curved insides wet and white and perfect.
    ‘Do you reckon the doctor could do something?’ Stick said.
    Mac took the coconut halves and held them against his chest. ‘An enlargement?’ he asked, laughing.
    ‘About my mum and the plugs. Do you think it’s like a medical thing?’
    Mac lowered his hands and shrugged. ‘Maybe.’ They were silent for a moment and then Mac said, ‘Don’t think about it, man. Not tonight. Come on, I’ve got shirts,
flip-flops, sunglasses. I’ve got a fucking blow-up parrot.’
    He danced out of the kitchen and Stick followed him, down the dark, narrow corridor to his bedroom, with its long window looking out over the estate towards the jagged buildings of the city
centre.
    Stick took a turquoise shirt patterned with huge yellow-petalled, red-tongued flowers from the crowded bed. ‘Where did you get all this shit?’
    ‘Man’s got contacts.’ Mac tapped the side of his nose.
    Stick picked up a string of blue plastic flowers. ‘Is anyone else even dressing up?’
    ‘Course.’
    Stick walked to the window, still holding the flowers. Everything looked smaller from up here: the scrappy bit of grass at the back of the block; the flag hanging off the side of the
Queen’s; the moss-stained roofs of all the houses that looked the same as Stick’s – the McCauleys’, the Sweeneys’, the Stevens’s. But the sky looked bigger,
bright blue and dotted with white clouds. Sophie used to spend ages staring at clouds then prod him in the arm and shout – an elephant, look, an elephant! Or a cat, or a mouse, or a tiger.
They were always animals. He could never see them when she pointed – there, that’s the trunk, the tail, its ears, oh, but it’s gone. Stick rested his forehead against Mac’s
window and examined one cloud after another, but they just looked like blobs.
    ‘You want green or red?’ Mac was holding up a pair of shorts in each hand.
    ‘I don’t wear shorts.’
    ‘We’re going to Spain. It’ll be boiling.’
    Stick glared at him until Mac rolled his eyes and threw Stick a skirt made out of strips of creased beige plastic. ‘Put that on over your jeans then.’
    Stick threw it back. ‘You’re gay, you know that.’
    ‘And you’re a dickhead. Come on, girls love this stuff. They’ll all be in bikinis. We’ll drink shots. You might even get laid.’ He looked at Stick and then his
shoulders dropped. ‘Come on?’
    Stick looped the blue plastic flowers over his head and Mac grinned.
    ‘That’s better. Your mum’ll be fine, mate, I promise. And tonight’ll be a blast, and then tomorrow –’ he held up his arm in a Superman pose – ‘we
head for the sea.’
    ‘I ironed this fucking shirt,’ Stick said, but he unbuttoned