Freia Lockhart's Summer of Awful Read Online Free Page B

Mum. “Are you in there? The kitchen looks like a bomb’s gone off!”
    I straighten my clothes and open the door.
    Mum is standing with her arms crossed and her lips tightly clamped in a thin, humourless line. It gets even thinner when she sees Dan. “I think it’s time Daniel went home,” she says, not taking her eyes off me. “Freia, your father and I would like to see you downstairs in two minutes. Daniel, we’ll see you soon, I’m sure.”
    â€œI’m really sorry, Fray,” says Dan when she leaves.
    â€œWhat for? It’s not as if you dragged me up here against my will. Anyway, Mum said ‘Daniel, we’ll see you soon’, so at least she’s not planning to put me in solitary confinement for the rest of the holidays.”
    â€œUnless what she meant was ‘Daniel, we’ll see you soon when we haul you back here with your father to punish you, too’.”
    The thought of Mum and Dr Phil joining forces for a parenting uberlecture makes me shudder. “I’d better get down there. The longer I keep them waiting, the more time they have to stew on it.”

5
    We walk down the stairs together but Dan continues to the front door and I go to the kitchen. Mum, Dad and Ziggy are all sitting at the table. Mum and Dad look … not so much angry but as if something’s very, very wrong. Ziggy seems as confused by the situation as I am to see him there. I don’t know why they think he needs to witness my telling off, unless it’s meant to be some sort of moral lesson about the pitfalls of going into girls’ bedrooms.
    â€œSit down,” says Dad. “We need to talk.”
    â€œWe were just listening to music,” I say as I pull out my chair. Then, when no one says anything in response, “Okay, and kissing a bit, but that’s all. It’s perfectly norm–”
    Mum holds up her hand to stop me talking. “Not about that – although we
will
talk about respecting house rules later. There’s something we need to tell you.”
    Now I recognise her expression. She’s not angry, she’s sad. “What’s wrong?” I ask. “Has something happened to Gran?”
    â€œNo, she’s fine,” says Mum, “but I’ve got some news.”
    Next to her, Dad’s fiddling with the mechanical pencil he uses to fill in the cryptic crossword over breakfast, clicking the thin column of lead out and pushing it back in. It’s the sort of thing that drives Mum batty, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She smooths an imaginary wrinkle from the tablecloth and studies her hands for a few moments before continuing.
    â€œI went for some tests last week – nothing special, just the regular check-ups Dr Chandarama insists on for all her patients when they get to my age: blood pressure, blood sugar levels, mammogram, that sort of thing.” Mum’s talking faster than normal, running words together as if she’s worried that if she pauses between them, she might not finish what she’s saying. I’ve just about got my head around the fact that whatever this news is, it’s medical, when she says, “They found something in the mammogram – a mass in my right breast. I went back on Monday and they took a cell biopsy and sent it to be tested.”
    Monday. All I remember is that it was the day of my last PE lesson for the year. I don’t recall Mum seeming any different. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
    â€œWe didn’t want to worry you if it turned out to be nothing. Dr Chandarama said that nine times out of ten a lump is just that: a lump. She thought it was probably a cyst that might need to be drained or could even go away by itself. Until the biopsy results came back, we weren’t sure that there was anything to tell you about.”
    â€œBut now there is?”
    She nods. “I got the results yesterday. It’s what they call