The Brilliant Light of Amber Sunrise Read Online Free

along for a while, but in truth I was in there for personal reasons. Mum was not one of life’s “knockers,” and consequently all self-exploration had to be done behind the bathroom’s bolted door.
    Then she figured it might be an allergy of some sort, so she threw out all the toiletries and replaced them with white bars of soap that said soap-free on the packet (!?).
    We were on nothing but meat and vegetables for twoweeks until she got sick of it and bought two loaves of sliced white and a frozen lasagna from the corner shop.
    Then she thought it was depression, so she took the lock off the bathroom door and left a leaflet about “talking therapy” on my pillow one night while I was asleep. Eventually she took Grandma’s advice and started doling out iron supplements before school every morning, which had a negative effect on my stomach and caused an almost-disaster during double Chemistry. Fortunately I am quite swift. I have been a consistent silver medal winner in the one-­hundred-meter sprint since kindergarten.
    To be honest, before we knew what was really wrong with me I secretly blamed Mum anyway. She’d always had a cleaner coming around to polish the house top to bottom, and kept Air Wick antitobacco plug-ins set all the way to eleven, even with the windows closed. Because of her my immune system simply wasn’t up to coping with the threat of alien bodies. I was practically the Boy in the Bubble; all my autoimmune responses stripped bare by chemical representations of pine forests and summer meadows.

    I had to get the Metro bus to school that morning because Mum was running late.
    â€œRemember I’m at Jacob’s tonight, so if you need me you’ll have to ring my cell,” I called through the living room doorway.
    â€œBye, love,” she said, and kissed my cheek, handing me a five-pound note. “Get yourself a sandwich at breakfast club. Chris cleared me out last night. He even took the leftover veg.”
    School hadn’t done breakfast club for over two years by this stage, but it seemed pointless telling Mum as she was always in a hurry in the morning. The extra stress might have tipped her over the edge. Anyway, from the fivers she had been doling out instead of nutrition for the previous two years, I’d saved enough to afford a new laptop and probably still had change for an easyJet flight to Kraków or similar, so I wasn’t about to buck that trend.

    Jacob wore a thin tie to school and carried around foreign books that he pretended to read on the bus. He thought he had Gallic charm because of his French lineage, but Mum said his family weren’t actually French at all—his aunty just ran a caravan site in the Ardèche once but now she bred dogs in Salford with her new husband. I didn’t mind so much as Jacob had served as my best friend for over ten years. On his part our friendship stemmed from the fact that I was loyal and amusing and had at least three stories that were guaranteed to entertain, one of which involved a minor local celebrity and was told to me by Chris ages ago. On mine it really was down to the lack of any other option. Jacob was someone I could sit with and look like I was being social and entertaining. High school was definitely not My Moment . I was wasted in Tyne and Wear, having read at least one book a week since I was in first year.
    Until the end of sophomore year, though, Jacob would have to do.

    â€œI just want a quick look, to make sure my answers are right,” he said as we walked from the Metro station toward school.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œPlease?”
    â€œYou should have done it yourself.”
    Jacob kicked a can onto the road and an old lady swore at him from across the street.
    â€œI did,” he whined.
    â€œThen show me yours and I’ll tell you if it’s right.”
    Jacob always wanted to copy my homework. This was largely because I was quite the intellectual,