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Authors: James Scudamore
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thought at first. Then, after the arrival of the third message, it came to me.
If he knew more than I thought.
If he had known all along, and was playing some sort of bluffing game with me and Melissa.
Ernesto might hate me that much.
FEIJOADA
W e have an epidemic of helicopters now. There are over two hundred helipads in the city, and on Friday nights the skies darken as the wealth takes wing to retreat to its weekend homes. It wasn’t always like this, but Zé was one of the earliest of the very rich to take to the air. And for all the family’s nonchalance, you could tell that the ability to fly never got dull. Sometimes, on Sunday evenings when they left me waving particularly morosely, Zé would get the pilot to recede a little, then come in low and buzz me at high speed. I would feign exhilaration, dust myself off and go inside feeling as if something had been unnecessarily flaunted in my face. I know it was only a helicopter. But I wonder how much it contributed to the state of things between me and Melissa. Seeing her float away like that week after week, emphatically, according to all the evidence at my disposal, a superior being—how could I fail to put her on a pedestal?
There were practical reasons why it was necessary. First, Zé’s job made time a precious commodity; second, the family didn’t have the time to drive out to the farm every weekend. But there was a third reason why Zé wanted to keep his family safely up in the air. In addition to accounting for that raising of barometric pressure when they left on Sunday evenings, it also explains why they retreated so religiously to the farm every weekend, and why they were so ecstatic on arrival.
It happened in the city, on a school day. Only infrequently did the family enter our lives during the week, so when the kitchen phone rang, and my mother heard Zé on the line, she knew that something was wrong. Rebecca sometimes called her to discuss menus and arrangements for the weekend, but never Zé.
I am nine, and sitting in the kitchen licking cake mixture from a spoon: dark chocolate thickened with condensed milk. The phone goes, and my mother crosses the room wiping a hand on her apron. She answers normally, tired, bored. Expecting Silvio. But when she hears the voice on the other end, respect stiffens her voice. Then comes the blood-chilling sound of my mother praying. So this is what the end of the world sounds like.
There exist hybrid faiths where she came from, and she tended to keep the specifics of her beliefs out of my sight. All I know is that on the day Melissa was taken, my mother made sounds that I had never heard before. Horrified, I asked what was happening, and she told me, using her voice to say that I should not worry, while every other part of her screamed that worrying was exactly the right response.
I had a slingshot, a proper one, with a brace that extended to the forearm. It came equipped with lethal ball bearings, which I had soon exhausted missing mice and frogs around the farm buildings. But I had learnt how to use it to convert inert objects into deadly projectiles: stones, dried seedpods, stray bits of wood. That afternoon, after the phone call, I took the slingshot into the woods, and spent an hour firing at trees and fruit and birds, imagining every quarry to be the invisible foe I hated so much, and feeling more powerless and angry with each shot I missed.
Melissa was ten. The MaxiMarket chain was hitting the headlines for the speed of its expansion, and this financial success, combined with the public relations dream of Rebecca’s foundation, had made the family newsworthy. A full colour spread appeared in a widely read gossip magazine. It included one photo of the three of them posing on the farm with a horse, and another of Melissa chasing around with a butterfly net, her blonde tresses perfectly backlit by the sunshine. It got bad people thinking.
Class had finished for the day, and
If he knew more than I thought.
If he had known all along, and was playing some sort of bluffing game with me and Melissa.
Ernesto might hate me that much.
FEIJOADA
W e have an epidemic of helicopters now. There are over two hundred helipads in the city, and on Friday nights the skies darken as the wealth takes wing to retreat to its weekend homes. It wasn’t always like this, but Zé was one of the earliest of the very rich to take to the air. And for all the family’s nonchalance, you could tell that the ability to fly never got dull. Sometimes, on Sunday evenings when they left me waving particularly morosely, Zé would get the pilot to recede a little, then come in low and buzz me at high speed. I would feign exhilaration, dust myself off and go inside feeling as if something had been unnecessarily flaunted in my face. I know it was only a helicopter. But I wonder how much it contributed to the state of things between me and Melissa. Seeing her float away like that week after week, emphatically, according to all the evidence at my disposal, a superior being—how could I fail to put her on a pedestal?
There were practical reasons why it was necessary. First, Zé’s job made time a precious commodity; second, the family didn’t have the time to drive out to the farm every weekend. But there was a third reason why Zé wanted to keep his family safely up in the air. In addition to accounting for that raising of barometric pressure when they left on Sunday evenings, it also explains why they retreated so religiously to the farm every weekend, and why they were so ecstatic on arrival.
It happened in the city, on a school day. Only infrequently did the family enter our lives during the week, so when the kitchen phone rang, and my mother heard Zé on the line, she knew that something was wrong. Rebecca sometimes called her to discuss menus and arrangements for the weekend, but never Zé.
I am nine, and sitting in the kitchen licking cake mixture from a spoon: dark chocolate thickened with condensed milk. The phone goes, and my mother crosses the room wiping a hand on her apron. She answers normally, tired, bored. Expecting Silvio. But when she hears the voice on the other end, respect stiffens her voice. Then comes the blood-chilling sound of my mother praying. So this is what the end of the world sounds like.
There exist hybrid faiths where she came from, and she tended to keep the specifics of her beliefs out of my sight. All I know is that on the day Melissa was taken, my mother made sounds that I had never heard before. Horrified, I asked what was happening, and she told me, using her voice to say that I should not worry, while every other part of her screamed that worrying was exactly the right response.
I had a slingshot, a proper one, with a brace that extended to the forearm. It came equipped with lethal ball bearings, which I had soon exhausted missing mice and frogs around the farm buildings. But I had learnt how to use it to convert inert objects into deadly projectiles: stones, dried seedpods, stray bits of wood. That afternoon, after the phone call, I took the slingshot into the woods, and spent an hour firing at trees and fruit and birds, imagining every quarry to be the invisible foe I hated so much, and feeling more powerless and angry with each shot I missed.
Melissa was ten. The MaxiMarket chain was hitting the headlines for the speed of its expansion, and this financial success, combined with the public relations dream of Rebecca’s foundation, had made the family newsworthy. A full colour spread appeared in a widely read gossip magazine. It included one photo of the three of them posing on the farm with a horse, and another of Melissa chasing around with a butterfly net, her blonde tresses perfectly backlit by the sunshine. It got bad people thinking.
Class had finished for the day, and
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