Read Online The Baking Life of Amelie Day by Vanessa Curtis - Free Book Online
Authors: Vanessa Curtis
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of it during the day that my subconscious doesn’t really need to explore it during the night. That’s why I like being asleep so much. When I’m asleep, it’s like the CF doesn’t exist.
The night before my annual review it takes me hours to get to sleep.
When I finally drift off, exhausted, in the early hours, I don’t dream at all.
That scares me more than any nightmare I might have had.
It’s like being dead.
***
Mum insists we have a good breakfast even though my insides are really sore and my stomach is churning and making weird noises.
‘It’s a very long day for you today, Amelie,’ she says. ‘You need some energy.’
I give a feeble snort. I can barely sit up straight at the table after my bad night. I can’t help thinking back to my last annual review when I went for a run round the block before we headed off to the CF centre and spent the whole day bouncing off the clinic walls with frustration, desperate to get home and bake.
Today I almost feel like it would be a relief to spend some time lying around in hospital doing not-very-much. I haven’t spoken to Harry since he got angry two days ago and he hasn’t texted me which is well out of character. Gemma reckons that boys need to go off and have sulking time on their own and that he’ll come out of his cave when he’s ready, but I’m not so sure.
I hate not speaking to Harry. It’s like the rug has been pulled out from under my feet. He’s my support system. He even offered to come with me to all my medical appointments, but I’ve never let him. I reckon it’s bad enough Mum seeing me at my worst without Harry having to see it as well. Something about tall, fresh-faced, glowing athletic Harry looks all wrong against the clinical whiteness of the sterile hospital rooms where I spend so much of my time.
‘Take it off the heat,’ I say to Mum. She’s attempting to make scrambled egg but she’s never quite got the technique right, leaving it on the gas for too long so that it always turns out dry and rubbery and split into hundreds of little bits. I like my scrambled eggs soft, yellow and creamy and to get that result you have to take the pan away from the heat before they’ve finished cooking.
‘I don’t want you to get Salmonella,’ says Mum, but she starts spooning the egg onto some of my home-made granary bread. She puts two plates in front of us and pours me a cup of tea from our brown pot.
‘Stewed,’ I say in an automatic way, staring at the orangey scum floating on top of my cup.
Mum ignores me. She’s used to me making a fuss about the way everything is done in the kitchen.
She’s got the day off work today and is dressed in leggings and a floaty top instead of her usual smart business suit and heels. Even though she’s quite old, she manages somehow to look trendy. If some of the other mothers of kids at school wore leggings, they’d look tragic.
I can tell that she’s really worried. I can hear it in her over-bright voice and see it in the way she keeps staring up at the clock.
She’s come on every single one of my annual reviews and seen how things have started to slide downwards a little bit more every year. Dad comes to them whenever he can take time away from work, too. If he can’t make it, Mum rings him at the end of the day and they discuss my results over the phone.
I sigh as I force down the scrambled egg into my sore guts.
‘Creon,’ says Mum. She pushes my pill box across the table. I take a few of the capsules and gulp them down with the stewed tea.
‘Aspirin,’ she says next. I glance up, surprised.
‘I don’t take aspirin,’ I say. ‘Do I?’
I take so many tablets I’m not always sure what they all are.
Mum smiles.
‘The aspirin are for me,’ she says. ‘I always get a headache at the hospital. It’s the stress of waiting about in those stuffy rooms.’
She slips a yellow box into her handbag and stands up.
‘Right,’ she says. ‘Let’s go and get this over with
The night before my annual review it takes me hours to get to sleep.
When I finally drift off, exhausted, in the early hours, I don’t dream at all.
That scares me more than any nightmare I might have had.
It’s like being dead.
***
Mum insists we have a good breakfast even though my insides are really sore and my stomach is churning and making weird noises.
‘It’s a very long day for you today, Amelie,’ she says. ‘You need some energy.’
I give a feeble snort. I can barely sit up straight at the table after my bad night. I can’t help thinking back to my last annual review when I went for a run round the block before we headed off to the CF centre and spent the whole day bouncing off the clinic walls with frustration, desperate to get home and bake.
Today I almost feel like it would be a relief to spend some time lying around in hospital doing not-very-much. I haven’t spoken to Harry since he got angry two days ago and he hasn’t texted me which is well out of character. Gemma reckons that boys need to go off and have sulking time on their own and that he’ll come out of his cave when he’s ready, but I’m not so sure.
I hate not speaking to Harry. It’s like the rug has been pulled out from under my feet. He’s my support system. He even offered to come with me to all my medical appointments, but I’ve never let him. I reckon it’s bad enough Mum seeing me at my worst without Harry having to see it as well. Something about tall, fresh-faced, glowing athletic Harry looks all wrong against the clinical whiteness of the sterile hospital rooms where I spend so much of my time.
‘Take it off the heat,’ I say to Mum. She’s attempting to make scrambled egg but she’s never quite got the technique right, leaving it on the gas for too long so that it always turns out dry and rubbery and split into hundreds of little bits. I like my scrambled eggs soft, yellow and creamy and to get that result you have to take the pan away from the heat before they’ve finished cooking.
‘I don’t want you to get Salmonella,’ says Mum, but she starts spooning the egg onto some of my home-made granary bread. She puts two plates in front of us and pours me a cup of tea from our brown pot.
‘Stewed,’ I say in an automatic way, staring at the orangey scum floating on top of my cup.
Mum ignores me. She’s used to me making a fuss about the way everything is done in the kitchen.
She’s got the day off work today and is dressed in leggings and a floaty top instead of her usual smart business suit and heels. Even though she’s quite old, she manages somehow to look trendy. If some of the other mothers of kids at school wore leggings, they’d look tragic.
I can tell that she’s really worried. I can hear it in her over-bright voice and see it in the way she keeps staring up at the clock.
She’s come on every single one of my annual reviews and seen how things have started to slide downwards a little bit more every year. Dad comes to them whenever he can take time away from work, too. If he can’t make it, Mum rings him at the end of the day and they discuss my results over the phone.
I sigh as I force down the scrambled egg into my sore guts.
‘Creon,’ says Mum. She pushes my pill box across the table. I take a few of the capsules and gulp them down with the stewed tea.
‘Aspirin,’ she says next. I glance up, surprised.
‘I don’t take aspirin,’ I say. ‘Do I?’
I take so many tablets I’m not always sure what they all are.
Mum smiles.
‘The aspirin are for me,’ she says. ‘I always get a headache at the hospital. It’s the stress of waiting about in those stuffy rooms.’
She slips a yellow box into her handbag and stands up.
‘Right,’ she says. ‘Let’s go and get this over with
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