Read Online The Year My Life Broke by John Marsden - Free Book Online

of the planks, which meant the job was going to take a lot longer but it would be much better.
    We spent more than an hour in the tree. Woody gradually warmed up, and even made a few jokes. I’d say he got on better with Callan than with me. Poor kid, he actually laughed at Callan’s jokes, but he was probably desperate for friends.
    Then Dad brought out some sandwiches and a bottle of Solo. He’d never ever done that before. We hoed into it but as soon as we’d finished, the cop with the gun said it was time to go. Woody just got up and said, ‘See you,’ and over the fence he climbed, on his own this time.
    As soon as they were back inside their house Callan and I went after Dad with the questions. But he wasn’t too keen on answering. Callan hadn’t seen the gun so he wasn’t as interested as me in interrogating Dad. He just thought it was weird that these people were living next door and Woody was being watched so closely and we weren’t allowed to ask him anything.
    I thought it was all beyond weird and I remembered the police check on us that Harriet had told me about, and I wondered if it was all related. A few weeks earlier I’d never spoken to a cop in my life and now here I was living in Cop City.

On Monday morning at school I was a man with a mission, and my mission was to find Red before he got to Mr Surrey. I didn’t know what I wanted to say; I just knew I had to track him down.
    I got a glimpse of his back on the way in from the bus stop so I ran and caught up with him as he reached his locker. ‘Red,’ I gasped, ‘we have to talk.’
    On American TV shows that line always seems to work, but it didn’t work for me. Red turned away, shoved his stuff in his locker and headed down the corridor towards the assembly hall without looking at me. I tagged along beside him, still carrying my bag, trying to think of what to say next.
    We got into the assembly hall but we were so early the teachers hadn’t even arrived, so we weren’t meant to be in there at all. But we both ignored that. Red went down the front, trying to get away from me, but at the same time still trying to pretend I wasn’t there. ‘Red,’ I said again, ‘please just let me explain.’
    He jumped up on the stage and stood there looking down at me. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Explain. You’ve got one minute.’
    I jumped up beside him and he immediately walked to the other side. ‘Forty-five seconds,’ he said. Suddenly we were like actors in a play. The trouble was, I didn’t have a script. It was about ten minutes since I’d first seen him and I still couldn’t think of a single word to convince him that I wasn’t a complete dickhead . . . which was very close to one of the things he’d accused me of being.
    â€˜Geez,’ I said. ‘You’re making this difficult.’
    It wasn’t much of a line but it seemed to trigger a bit of a reaction in him. ‘ I’m making it difficult?’ he asked. ‘What have I done? Everyone knows this is the crappiest school in the whole crap universe and we get treated like crap by everyone and we get totally smashed by every other school in every sport you can think of and in my last year when we finally get a decent oval I try and do something to give us a chance to actually win a game of cricket and here you are, the best cricketer in the school, and you won’t even pick up a bat or a ball to help. So what have I done that’s so wrong?’
    I stood there burning up with embarrassment because I knew he was right. I had been a complete dickhead. So I said that.
    â€˜Yeah, I’ve been a complete dickhead,’ were my exact words.
    â€˜You can say that again,’ he said.
    Always wanting to be the comedian, I had to fight very hard not to immediately say ‘I’ve been a complete dickhead’ a second time. Instead I swallowed,