Forgetting Foster Read Online Free

mirror. ‘I didn’t cry on the phone, love.’
    ‘You did, Dad.’
    ‘No I didn’t, Fossie. Let me tell you something about mirrors. They have been used to tell the future for a long, long time. Anything that reflects has been used by magic people to predict the future. And sometimes to change the future. There’s a long storytelling tradition about prophets and seers looking into glass and seeing the future. So does your dark glass reflect? What’s your word, Fossie?’
    Foster watched all the words in the world whirl past him. The car seemed to be going too fast now for him to settle on a word. Foster felt a pain in his guts he didn’t recognise. As Dad pulled the car into the car park Foster felt his story word crawl from his clutched throat into his mouth.
    ‘Dad? My word is liar.’
    Foster’s dad did a half turn in his seat. ‘Did you see that on a sign?’ he asked.
    Foster was sorry he’d said it straight away. Dad didn’t look confused or embarrassed at all. Fostercouldn’t bear the thought of Dad using the word in the next part of the story so he unclipped his seatbelt and said, ‘Come on, Dad!’
    Even though they were stuffed with pancakes the first stop was always hot chocolate and shortbread. There were lots of choices of biscuits and cakes but Foster loved the way the sweet buttery lozenge of shortbread dissolved away when he held it against the roof of his mouth. They would have races too. Who could dip their shortbread in their hot chocolate the longest and get it into their mouth before the piece broke off and had to be rescued with a spoon.
    The coffee shop they went to was right next door to a small second-hand bookshop. The lady who worked there knew them by name. Sometimes when they went in she would have put books aside for Dad to look at. Dad always bought something. The shop smelled good too. ‘Smell of old stories,’ Dad said. The books Foster liked were on a bottom shelf at the back. His dad would sit on the floor with Foster and they would flick through the books, sometimes stopping to read parts. Week to week the books would be the same but Foster didn’t care. He liked sitting on the floor with his dad, surrounded by the Sunday smells of brittle paper.
    When they took their book haul home, Mum said, ‘Why do you go there? You don’t know where any of those books have been.’
    ‘Tell her, Fossie.’
    ‘Because we don’t know where they’ve been.’
    ‘Good man. Every one of these books has multiple stories to tell. Look at this one,’ Dad said, rummaging about in the bag. ‘The last reader put notes in the margin. Fascinating!’
    ‘It’s fascinating, Mum!’ Foster said.
    ‘Urrghh. Go wash your hands, both of you,’ Mum said. But she was smiling, and she kissed Dad as he walked past.

funny forgetting
    The story about his grandma’s fire was the last story Foster remembered his dad telling him before his dad started to change. It stuck in Foster’s mind as the last one, anyway. It was the last story Dad told without looking confused and getting mixed up in the telling. Sometimes he would start telling one story and then trail off on some unrelated happening from before Foster was born. It didn’t happen all the time. Every now and then Foster would ask Dad to tell the Grandma story again, almost like a test, and feel comforted if Dad could get through it.
    ‘Dad, tell me about Grandma’s dragon fire again,’ Foster said.
    ‘Dragon fire,’ Dad said. ‘Did we read that one?’ Foster would feel strangely embarrassed every timehis dad lost a story. He didn’t want to draw attention to the lost stories.
    His dad began doing funny things when he first started to forget, so no one was worried. Foster thought the funny things were funny too. Dad went out for dog food and came back with cat food, when the cat had been dead for five years. Once he forgot to take the plastic wrapper off the cheese slices before putting them into sandwiches and then couldn’t work