Louis Beside Himself by Anna Fienberg Page B

frantically at another chair, wanting me to throw it, too.
    I picked it up shakily. My arms felt weird – as if they didn’t belong to me – but I lifted the chair high above my head and swung it around, ready to throw. I don’t know what happened then – my hands were slippery with sweat – but the chair slid out of my grip and fell hard, crashing right onto the girl’s foot.
    She let out a cry, and stumbled over the upturned chair.
    I sprang to help her up, but she flicked my hand out of her way. She leapt up, dragging her bad ankle behind her.
    God, now I was dangerous, as well as useless.
    â€˜ I’m sorry ,’ the girl yelped, her voice high-pitched. ‘ I was just hungry, I only wanted a piece of bread, I’m not a thief, I’m a girl, just a hungry girl!’
    â€˜ Aarrgh, ya think ya can make an udiot of me like thes bro? What do ya take me fa’? I’m gunna chop ya!’
    The girl pulled me savagely away from the window, pushing me up the hall. She pounded the wall with her fist – bang , barff , boom! She sounded like a bunch of cowboys brawling in a bar.
    Then she stopped suddenly and lifted her finger for quiet, which wasn’t necessary as I seemed to have lost my voice forever. In the silence we heard feet running away up the path, and the slam of the gate. Then nothing.
    Jimmy was gone.
    I should have been relieved. But I felt like I’d been run over.
    How are you going to protect your family if you can’t even stand up for yourself? said Dad sadly.
    The girl picked up the chair and slumped down on it. She shook her head at me. I’d only just met her, but I knew a look of bitter disappointment when I saw it. And it matched exactly the look I’d seen so often on my father’s face.

7
STRUCK DUMB
    I stared at the floor. There wasn’t much to see, what with the moonlight now barely diluting the dark. I was glad. I didn’t want anyone looking closely at me, at my squishy, spineless self.
    â€˜Where’s the light switch?’ The girl was feeling the walls, searching.
    I sighed and reached over near the door, snapping it on. We looked at each other. I was the first to look away.
    She groaned, heavily. She was probably thinking that of all the males home alone in the world, wasn’t it her bad luck to have found the most cowardly. I sneaked a glimpse at her. She had her foot up on her knee and was examining her ankle.
    â€˜Pffaw,’ she whispered. How would you spell that, I couldn’t help wondering. There was the problem of the silent ‘w’. She was touching her ankle bone gingerly. Her face was scrunched up, looking lugubrious again. I felt a stab in my chest. Her ankle must really hurt. I remembered when I’d sprained mine last year, stumbling into a bandicoot hole, and how the needling pains had made it feel burning hot. And she didn’t even have a dad there with a cold packet of peas to put on it.
    â€˜Is it sprained?’ I blurted.
    I’d found my voice again – now that it wasn’t necessary, of course.
    â€˜Nah, don’t think so. Just twisted it a bit. I’ve had worse – that bang on the foot didn’t help.’ She gave me a lopsided grin. ‘Are you okay?’
    Did she mean me, the invertebrate?
    â€˜Yeah, you,’ she said. ‘That was pretty scary, I guess. I’m sorry I got you into all . . . thet .’
    I laughed without knowing I would. ‘How did you do that? You know, make your voice go all manly and fierce, as if it wasn’t yours?’
    She grinned. ‘It worked, hey?’
    â€˜It was awesome. For sure that guy— ’
    â€˜Jimmy.’
    â€˜Yeah, Jimmy, he would have thought you were with a big angry man, a big angry, infuriated, irate man from . . .’
    â€˜New Zealand.’
    â€˜Yes!’
    â€˜I can do most accents.’ She smiled, but sadly, as if this wasn’t a talent but more like an