Read Online Cinnamon Toast and the End of the World by Janet E. Cameron - Free Book Online Page A

table with its plastic red check cloth dotted with frozen bits of candle
     wax.
    ‘I’m still here,’ I said. ‘Just because you can’t see me doesn’t mean I’m not here.’
    ‘I know you’re still there! I know, I know, I know!’
    She stood up. Her chair went tumbling to the floor. The car keys were piled next to our salt and pepper shakers which were
     shaped like staring yellow and green owls. I got the keys first. I knew what she was going to do. In those days, whenever
     Mom got especially frustrated andcrazy, usually because of me, she went for a drive. The engine starting up was like the door slamming, like Mom yelling the
     last word over her shoulder.
    ‘Give me those,’ she said.
    ‘No.’
    Mom tried to pry open my hand. Her strong fingers with their long nails pushed and gouged. I shoved my arm behind my back
     and the next thing I knew, we were grappling for this jingling metal ring like a brother and sister squabbling over the controls
     for a video game.
    She ordered me to give her the keys again. I refused. Couldn’t let her go. This crazy panic flapping around my head like bat’s
     wings. If she left now, she’d be gone forever. I knew it.
    ‘You’re a brat!’ she said. ‘I raised a brat. Now I’m stuck in this awful town. In this bug-eaten house. With this
brat
!’
    ‘Tough shit.’
    ‘How
dare
you use that kind of language with me, mister.’
    ‘Tough shit, Maryna.’
    ‘Don’t call me that. I’m your mother!’
    She got hold of my right hand and forced my fingers open. I’d switched the keys to my left. I held the ring over her head.
     She actually jumped for them. I felt sick, horrified.
    But I laughed. ‘Have to do better than that, Maryna.’ His voice.
    She slapped me. I bit my tongue as my jaw jolted from the shock.
    We stared at each other, breathing hard. Mom had tears in her eyes. So did I.
    ‘You hit like a girl,’ I said.
    I threw the car keys on the floor.
    On the front steps in the dark, I sat with my head in my hands. I could hear her behind me in the kitchen, clatter of the
     keys as shegathered them up, her footsteps, then the door creaking at the other end of the house. Frost was sheathing the dead grass
     in white and making the pavement sparkle. I watched the car and waited for her to come around from the back. I really wanted
     a cigarette. There were some hidden in the bookcase down in the basement, but I couldn’t leave my post to get them.
    After a while, I realised how quiet it was and I knew I was alone. She wasn’t coming for the car. She’d probably sneaked off
     through the backyard in the darkness as I stood guard over her escape route. She was walking. Running. I’d made my mother
     run away from home.
    It was cold on the steps and the house was warm, but I couldn’t go back in. I had to find her.
    Hedges bristled by the sidewalks, all twigs and no leaves. I paced past the grocery store. The bakery. The bank. It was spooky
     – all these bright houses with the colours leached out, dimmed to shadow. A raccoon was tearing apart the trash outside the
     pizza delivery place that had just opened.
    I started to run. I jogged down Main Street. There was the town hall, with its red bricks and clock face, its ‘Town of Riverside’
     spelled out in solid metal letters. Deserted. I’d try the park next.
    But wait. I looked closer. There was a little figure huddled on the steps under the clock. She was smoking. I came nearer
     and she didn’t move or look at me. I lowered myself onto the cold steps, keeping the distance of two invisible people between
     us. In the daytime, this was where the tough kids hung out. The town looked different from this angle.
    ‘Please don’t fight with me anymore,’ my mother said.
    I let out a long breath – dragon vapour in the dark. Hadn’t bothered with a jacket and my teeth were starting to knock together.
    ‘Okay.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    We stayed where we were. A plastic ghost from Halloween drooped in a tree