Read Online The Sky Is Falling by Caroline Adderson - Free Book Online Page A

Belinda in the other room: “Pete! Guess what? Jane knows Russian.”
    I’d already closed my book and was just waiting for the opportunity to bolt upstairs when Pete strode in. “Do you speak Russian, Zed?”
    â€œA little. I read and write it better.”
    â€œSay something.”
    â€œI don’t want to.”
    He came over. “Show me the writing then.”
    Now Sonia appeared and, behind her, Belinda again, followed by a pale girl I’d never seen with shorn beige hair. Pete held the page in the air. Belinda snatched it and passed it along. “Jane!” Sonia cried. “What does it say?”
    I repeated the Masha question. “Where was Masha going when we saw her yesterday?”
    Dieter was there now. “Say something.”
    Pete: “She doesn’t want to.”
    Belinda piped up, “She said something to me. It sounded delicious.”
    Dieter: “I prefer the Romance languages.”
    â€œYou would.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œIt means you prefer the Romance languages,” Pete said. “Why are you offended? You said it yourself.”
    â€œIt’s your tone.”
    â€œAre you the Tone Police?”
    â€œExcuse me,” I said, making a break for the door.
    â€œLet’s finish the meeting,” Sonia pleaded and they all followed me out, though I turned right at the stairs and went up where they turned left at the living room. They didn’t bother closing the French doors this time and a few minutes later, the song started up.
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell us?” Sonia asked the next day.
    â€œI said I was in Arts.”
    â€œArts is anything. Dieter’s in Arts.” She added quickly, “Not that there’s anything the matter with Dieter.”
    â€œHe has a lot of rules,” I said and Sonia cringed. A few days ago he’d tied a grease pencil to a piece of twine and taped it on the fridge door. It was for writing our names on our bread and yogurt and milk. Only supper was communal. But Pete, of course, was drinking from any milk carton he liked. He’d drunk from mine right in front of me.
    â€œAnyway. Can you help me?” she asked.
    There was a demonstration at the art gallery. The Americans were trying to deploy more missiles in Europe. At first, the West Germans wouldn’t take them, but now that the Soviets had shot down the Korean airliner, it looked like it was going ahead. Sonia wanted her banner to be in Russian.
    â€œWhat do you want it to say?” I asked.
    â€œEnd the arms race.”
    I suspected this couldn’t be directly translated. I could write “weapons” for “arms,” but maybe you couldn’t refer to it as a “race” in Russian. Finish the weapons’ athletic competition! No one would be able to read it anyway. “I need my dictionary,” I said, then did my best up in my room, working out the phrase and bringing it back down to her on a clean sheet of paper. Ostanovitye gonku vooryezheniy! She was in her room, cutting a bedsheet in half lengthwise. Then she laid it, a white runner, in the hall. Pete was on the phone in the kitchen. We could hear him saying, “Why can’t I go in through the window?”
    â€œI’m going to write the letters first, then paint them,” Sonia said.
    â€œDo you want help?” I asked.
    â€œWould you? It’s chicken scratch to me.”
    Pete: “I’ll climb.”
    Pete: “Well, that’s just fucked.”
    Then he roared. Hammering—the receiver against the counter, again, again. Sonia and I rushed to the kitchen where Pete was redialling. We heard Belinda’s faraway hello. “Did you hang up? You didn’t? Are you sure? They cut us off then, the fuckers !” He hurled the receiver and charged past us, knocking aside Sonia. She went over, picked the phone out of the sink, and, with the greying dish cloth, wiped