The Anatomy of Wings Read Online Free Page B

afraid,” said Beth.
    The door lock shone like new silver. Light beams rained from the toilet doll's upraised arms.
    “It is a normal thing,” whispered Nanna. “All girls must have it happen.”
    “Leave her alone, for God's sake,” said Mum from the hallway. “Give her some space.”
    “I'm all right,” said Beth.
    On our bedroom floor I sang “Speed Bonny Boat” because it was a song about having to leave everything behind and saying goodbye to everything you know and because I was definitely going to run away as soon as possible. I had never wanted to break anything before, but when Dad told me to ping off because I didn't know what I was talking about, I felt like breaking something for the first time. I took out the box of Barbie dolls and the first thing I broke was Ken's legs. They weren't easy to break. I broke one off where the joint was. It took a long time. First I did it with my bare hands and then I used scissors. I felt better but only for about ten minutes. Then I felt bad and I went out to the Drawer of Everything in the kitchen and found some sticky tape and Mum saw me and said I thought I told you to go outside.
    “I'm busy,” I said.
    Nanna clicked her tongue and followed me down the hallway and I only had time to throw Ken back in the box and push him under the bed and didn't get to tape up his legs till later, after she had gone.
    “What did you mean she was shining?” she asked when she came into my room.
    “You shouldn't say ‘she,’” I said. “ ‘She’ is the cat's mother.”
    “Be quiet,” she said. “Tell me what you meant.”
    Nanna told me to get off the floor and sit beside her on the bed; she could be very nasty if she didn't get her own way. Nanna had blue-gray eyes that bulged slightly and she leaned in close with them and I could see the very old blackheads on her crooked nose.
    Nanna grabbed my hands and held them between her own. This was called the Hand Press. It was very important to keep our hands in our pockets if we did not want to tell her the truth. When Nanna held our hands between her own there wasn't enough air. All we could do was answer the questions.
    “She was just shining,” I said.
    “What do you mean shining? I don't understand this talk. Was the sun shining on her face?”
    “Yes, the sun was there but she was shining too. She was looking past us at the sky.”
    Nanna took a long deep breath in.
    “Holy Virgin of virgins, Virgin most wise, pray for us,” she said.
    She released my hands for a moment, crossed herself, and then placed them in the press again.
    “I couldn't see what she was looking at,” I said.
    “Shush, shush,” said Nanna.
    “Dad shouldn't say I don't know anything,” I said. It was the thing that hurt me the most.
    “I know, I know,” she said, and she released my hands before I could say anything else. “Don't think about it now. Everything will be all right. I know these things.”
    Before everything happened, that year Angela and I were ten, my second-greatest love was collecting facts. Danielle said it was an unusual love and why couldn't I just collect cereal packet Crater Critters like everyone else or ceramic dogs and Virgin Mary statuettes like Nanna or have a hobby like Hobbytex crafts, which was our mother's number one passion.
    Some of my fact collecting rubbed off on Angela but sometimes she didn't understand that you can't just say something is a fact because you believe in it strongly. Facts are found in fact books or in encyclopedias and if they aren't there you have to do research, for example, by asking someone who knows a lot about stuff. For example, Mr. Willow would be the man to ask about the history of macramé because he taught it in grade 7.
    My mother liked to use the word “fact” a lot. Her favorite saying was “It's a fact.” Her facts included our faces being frozen into a frown when the wind changed direction or how lots of children are killedby chewing on their pencils and getting