The Taming of Lilah May Read Online Free Page B

you’re imagining,’ she says. ‘My parents are really strict. I’m going to have an arranged marriage, and that will have to come ahead of any career when I leave school.’
    â€˜Really?’ I say. ‘Wow. That sucks.’
    â€˜My parents are going to choose a boy in India and get me to marry him,’ says Bindi. She sounds very matter-of-fact when she says this, like she’s discussing choosing a coat in the shopping arcade or something.
    â€˜Yeah, I know what an arranged marriage is, Bindi. Just never thought you’d have to have one.’
    â€˜It’s no big deal,’ she says. But her mouth has drooped a bit at the corners. ‘It’s what a lot of Asian families do. Well, those whoare still religious. Like mine.’
    I shake my head. For a moment I can’t speak. I try to imagine how I would feel if Mum and Dad stopped being obsessed with clowns and lions and instead focused all their energies into marrying me off to some boy I’d never met.
    Groo.
    â€˜I so would hate that,’ I say.
    Bindi is staring down at her lap now and fiddling with the end of her dark plait.
    â€˜Well, I don’t get much say in the matter,’ she says. ‘Sometimes it’s difficult to be heard around here. Too many kids in the house.’
    â€˜Yeah,’ I agree, but I’m not really listening. My head is still spinning with Bindi’s revelation about the arranged marriage.
    Bindi comes out of her trance and turns up the music on Asian Network.
    â€˜Now, Lilah May,’ she says, settling cross-legged on the bed next to me. ‘Let’s hear about you. Spill.’
    Bindi’s the only person I can talk to about how I’m feeling.
    And she’s the only person I don’t get angry with.
    She doesn’t ask me that stupid, ‘How ARE you?’question, and she’s always got time for me.
    Mum’s too busy with her clown job and comes home exhausted and with no energy left to speak to me after yelling at groups of kids.
    Dad’s kind of good to talk to about some things – like how hideous my teachers are, what boring subjects I’m doing at school and what we’re going to do at the weekend.
    But I can’t talk about the important stuff to him. You know – boys, feelings, girl stuff. He’s more interested in animals than he is in me. To Dad, animals have more feelings than humans do. He’s always worrying about them and reading great long articles about animal behaviour. He writes articles too, for a science magazine that deals with animals.
    So I can’t really talk to Dad about how I’m feeling. Teenage girls don’t register on his animal radar.
    The only other person I used to be able to talk to about personal stuff isn’t here any more. And he got just as fed up with Mum and Dad never being around as I did.
    I’ve got my anger diary to write in but it’s not the same as talking to a Real Live Person with a sympathetic look in their eyes.
    So there’s just Bindi left. She’s like the dustbin for all my raging tempers.
    Poor Bindi.
    She’s staring at me now with an expectant look in her wet brown eyes.
    I clear my throat and cross my legs on the bed, fiddle with my socks.
    â€˜Y’know,’ I mutter. ‘It’s still difficult at home and all that.’
    Bindi nods. She does know. She’s seen me in great stomping rages after yet another argument with my parents. She’s seen me quiet and withdrawn at school, and she’s seen me burst into flames of rebellion and act like a complete nutter.
    Bindi’s always calm and serene, like the surface of a blue-green river under sunlight. She ripples with sympathy but never goes over the top.
    Sometimes I wonder whether there might be a tiny flame of rebellion living deep inside Bindi. I haven’t seen it yet.
    â€˜How did it go with Adam?’ she says now, getting up to draw the curtains. She is