The Art of Not Breathing(41)

5



ON SUNDAY MY SHEPHERD’S PIE BUBBLES OVER IN THE OVEN. The cheese drips down through the grills and sizzles on the bottom. Dillon is stressing over his studying at the kitchen table. We both have our last exams tomorrow. It’s biology day. We’ll even be in the hall together.

“Let me test you,” I say.

He passes me his biology book. He has dark circles under his eyes, and his cheekbones are jutting out.

“What’s the difference between DNA and RNA?” I ask.

“DNA is double stranded, RNA is single stranded.”

“It says more than that here.”

He exhales loudly and puts his hands around his waist, pressing into his ribs with his thumbs.

“The sugars are different. I don’t know—I can’t remember.”

“Try,” I say. “You have to know this. Your exam is tomorrow.”

“Pyrimidine and purine bases.” He signals for me to move to the next question.

“That’s the wrong answer.”

He grabs the book and starts flicking the pages.

“Your brain has shrunk,” I say.





Later, after I’ve skimmed my own notes and Dillon’s spent an hour on the phone begging our father to come home, I follow him to the bathroom. I jam my foot in the door as he tries to close it, and because I’m stronger than him now, he staggers back into the sink. He’s shaking.

“Please, Elsie. Leave me alone.”

“No!”

I shove him, and he almost loses his balance. He now has the same frame as Mum, but he’s at least a foot taller than her.

I fold my arms. “I’m not leaving.”

“Fine,” he says, and moves me out of the way so he can get to the toilet.

He bends at the waist over the toilet, and my shepherd’s pie shoots out of his mouth like a thick beef soup. He straightens and then leans again. I cover my mouth and my nose. My eyes water.

“Don’t cry,” he says. “I’m sorry about the pie.”

This makes me sob loudly.

“How do you do that?” I ask, still covering my face. “Without even . . .”

“It just happens,” he says. “It just happens when I lean over.”

“God, Dillon. You need help. I’m going to speak to Mum, and maybe you can speak to her therapist.”

Dillon grabs my wrist and leans in close. “You tell anyone, and I’ll tell them about your diving.”

“Okay, calm down. I won’t tell,” I say, moving my head away from his mouth. “Why don’t you get in the shower. You smell really bad.”

While he’s in the shower, I find laxatives in his bedside drawers. I take three, but nothing happens. I hide the rest under my bed along with my Superdrug stash.

I picture my life in the future. When Dillon has starved himself to death, I’ll have let two brothers die. Dad will be long gone, and that just leaves me with Mum. Every day will be like therapy day. I wonder if I could hold my breath for a whole year. I play a game with myself: if I can hold my breath for an extra twenty seconds in the morning, I’ll have one last read of my exam notes.





6



EXAMS ARE FINALLY OVER. BEFORE I LEAVE THE BUILDING FOR THE SUMMER, I go to collect my boat from the technology block, but it’s not in my drawer where I left it. Anger rises within me. Ailsa. I check everywhere—in all the bins, under the tables, behind the cupboards—for bits of my boat. Nothing. I ask Mr. Jones and he frowns.

“Ask him,” Mr. Jones says, pointing to Frankie. “He’s always around—he must know something.”

“What have you done with my boat, Frankie?”

“Relax,” he says calmly. “I rescued it from that ugly girl who’s always harassing you.”

He goes to his drawer and takes out his wooden box. His box is beautiful, way better than my boat, and I feel a pang of envy. It’s covered in grooved-out shapes and lines that look like maths and physics symbols. I should have tried harder, should have spent more time on my boat instead of reading my diving notes. Frankie lifts the lid of his box and pulls out my boat. It’s in one piece.

I grab it from his hands and then remember to say thank you.

“It’s really good,” he tells me. “The sails are in perfect proportion. If it was real, it would go really fast.”

“Thanks,” I say again. “I like your box, too.”

He blushes, then asks me if I want to go crabbing with him, just as Lara wanders into the room.

“Elsie, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

She stands between me and Frankie with a hand on her hip and swishes her hair into Frankie’s face. She’s been searching me out a lot recently, accosting me in the corridor, begging me to tell her where Dillon is, why he isn’t spending any time with her.

“I don’t know where he is,” I tell her now. “He finished his exam early, so I guess he’s gone out to celebrate.” I swallow a huge lump in my throat. He practically ran out of the exam and he looked like he was about to throw up.

“Actually, I don’t even care about him anymore. I came to see if you wanted to hang out over the summer. Go into Inverness and stuff. You know, get drunk, find boys to kiss, or whatever.”