The Other Side of Summer Read Online Free Page A

yellowish scruffy one, lying on its tummy, its head resting on one tiny paw, its dark eyes full of longing.
    ‘What’s that?’ Wren scowled.
    ‘It’s our dog.’ Dad’s eyes were shining, desperate.
    This was too much. I’d always wished for a dog. So had Floyd. We used to spend hours coming up with dog names, even though Dad had said there was absolutely no way we were getting one. Floyd’s favourite name was Soda, after a character in a book he loved. I wanted something tough from mythology, like Hector or Juno. Getting one now was a betrayal.
    ‘He’s a golden retriever. A present for both of you. In Melbourne, waiting for us.’
    ‘We’ve got a cat, moron,’ said Wren. ‘Why the hell would we want a dog? Dogs are idiots.’
    Dad sighed. ‘But the cat … And don’t call me a moron by the way.’
    ‘The cat what ?’
    ‘Nothing. The dog can be for Summer, then. Summer’s always wanted one, haven’t you?’ He waved the paper in my direction. I had to take it.
    It was no use. Hot tears started running down my cheeks and there was nothing I could do to stop them.
    ‘Typical!’ Wren said with a growl. ‘Of course you’d side with Dad.’ She tried to screw up the picture she was holding and then rip it apart furiously, as if she couldn’t decide the best way to destroy it, then she threw it at my head and hissed at me savagely on her way out of the room. Message received, Wren. Australia was as much my fault as Dad’s. The injustice of it hurt but it was pointless to take her on. The hate in Wren wanted revenge and I was an easy target. A little blind larva wriggling between the tips of her beak.
    I smoothed out the photo of the house on my right leg, put the hopeful puppy on my left and silently told it to stop looking at me like that. Over my shoulder I sensed Mum looking. She hardly made a sound anymore. In the beginning that had been like the shock of someone switching off loud music at a party.
    The picture-book house said ‘welcome’. It was small. We wouldn’t be able to hide from each other as much. It was also neat and new. I could almost smell the sour white paint and the soft musky flowers of thefat lavender bushes. I’d always wished for a porch with a bench, where I could sit and read books and watch people go by. The doors of this house would close properly, the floors wouldn’t slope, and we’d never need to leave saucepans on the staircase when it rained.
    But I’d never minded any of those faults. They were Jackman quirks, and they were special.
    ‘Mum?’ I said. ‘Do you want us to go?’
    Mum pressed four fingers hard into her lips the way she always did when she was about to cry. It looked like the first part of a blown kiss.
    Dad held out his hand over the arm of the sofa, but she didn’t take it.
    She said, softly, ‘Dad thinks …’ and then swallowed the rest of the words before her face screwed up in pain. ‘Yes. Yes. Sorry.’ She squeezed my shoulder for an instant but when I looked, her hand was back on her mouth, making me think I’d only imagined it.
    After the bomb, the prime minister had gone on TV and said that we’d been lucky because only twelve people had died. Two of them were teenagers – Floyd and a girl we didn’t know. The prime minister got into a lot of trouble in the papers for saying ‘lucky’ and ‘only’. But that was months ago. He’d have a whole bunch of new problems now. But we couldn’t move on.
    Mum slept and breathed and cried and that was all she could manage. She didn’t look or sound or even smell the same. The doctors told Dad, who passed it on to me, that Mum had no choice. She wasn’t behaving that way to hurt us.
    But it did hurt.
    Mum’s name was Cecelia, which I thought was beautiful, but everyone called her Cece because it sounded more friendly. Once upon a time, Mum had been both of those things. She had been big and colourful and loud, a rainbow one day and a hurricane the next. You could hide behind her if