Read Online Breaking the Fall by Michael Cadnum - Free Book Online

into the engine and poke the screwdriver where it belonged, holding open the trapdoor valve as Tu clicked the ignition. The car made that robot laugh old cars make when they have trouble starting. And then the engine caught, rumbled, and Tu pumped the roar, played it, until the big car idled.
    â€œWe’re doing okay,” called Tu. “We got power after all, Stanley,” he said. I smiled at him through the dust of the windshield, as exhaust crept forward from the rear of the garage. Power after all. The phrase seemed political, or like something from an ad, and Tu laughed, aware that he had been quoting something, or misquoting.
    I thought: tell Tu. Tell Tu all about Jared and the game.
    I needed to talk to him, and hear what he would say.
    I needed to tell someone.
    Tu climbed out of the car, and the car settled back again. There was satisfaction on his face as he held out his hand so I could drop the butterfly nut into the creases of his palm.
    Tu slammed the hood by lifting it a little higher to disengage the hinge and then throwing the hood down hard, back where it belonged.
    We both coughed against the exhaust, and Tu smiled. “You want to drive?”
    I shrank. I began to say that I didn’t know how to drive, that I had missed Driver’s Ed as a sophomore because of my ligament, that I didn’t even have a learner’s permit. And just as quickly I thought, sure. Why not?
    But Tu was already in the front seat, and the car was rolling, and as we made our way down the driveway, Sky stopped at the sidewalk, gazing at us with her head held slightly back, an empress enjoying the sport of her subjects, her eyes nearly closed, telling her brother: so you got it moving.
    It caught me, how well they knew each other.
    â€œHey,” Tu called, “get in the car. We’re going for a ride.”
    And the way he said it made it sound like we were going to go for a drive into the afternoon sky, over the sea.
    â€œThis is no car,” she said scornfully, and more than that, lovingly.
    We drove to the intersection by the video store, and the big white car stuttered and rolled silent. Tu leaned his head on the steering wheel.
    â€œIt’s okay,” said Sky from the backseat.
    A car behind us honked, and Sky turned back and called out so clearly I knew the driver could hear, “Our car is broken. Don’t you have any sense?”
    The car honked again, belligerently, and then the tires squealed and the car passed us.
    Sky put her hand on my shoulder. “Come on, Stanley,” she said, her breath in my ear, her hair tickling my neck. “Let’s push.”

16
    My mother had a black carry-on over her shoulder. It was leather, the shiny, soft leather that makes a silky noise when it moves.
    She was slipping a map into a side pocket. “Don’t put so much salt on the popcorn,” she said. “And if you use the microwave popcorn, make sure you open the packet away from your eyes. You might get blinded by the steam.”
    I was in my dad’s chair, looking, as he often looked, at the blank television screen.
    â€œWait a minute,” she said. “I thought for a second there was another person in the room, someone with ears who spoke English.”
    â€œOkay,” I said.
    â€œChrist.”
    The television screen was a peculiar color when you really took a moment to look at it. It was gray-green, a flat, empty green like nothing alive.
    As so often before, the words came before I could stop them. “You feel guilty,” I said.
    She tugged at a zipper, and did not respond.
    â€œYou feel bad,” I continued, hating to hear myself talk. “You worry about me eating enough fiber because you’re running away all the time.”
    She let her black bag drop. “This is very interesting, one minute before my cab gets here.”
    â€œNever mind.”
    â€œYour basic form of conversation is sneaky, you realize that? You think