Mountains of the Moon by I. J. Kay Page B

back but he throws me off, like nothing. I smashes into the sink. Mum is half up on her feets but he still has got her hair, strangles her back down to the floor. I look quick for an idea, sees Sheba’s lead on the back door. It’s heavy, got leather and fat choke chain. I jump on Bryce’s back gain, try to get the choke chain over his head but he easy throws me off cos there int nothing to hold on to. That’s how come I stands back, and slams the chain down on his back.
    He yelps up.
    Bends backward.
    Arms go out like on a cross.
    Int no air cos it’s all sucked in.
    “She didn’t mean it, Bryce,” Mum says.
    I stand still. Wonders how he’ll kill me, if he’ll do me like he done Sheba. He grabs me, drags me and carpet burns. Baby Grady fills my ears.
    “No, Daddy! No, Daddy! No, Daddy! No, Daddy! No, Daddy! No.”

    The choke chain is done around my ankles and I’m hanging upside down from the banisters. Arms int long enough to reach the stairs. Nosebleed has dribbled down cos Bryce swung me gainst the wall; lucky my teefs still in. Baby Grady is looking through the stair gate. His face is snot and stripy with crying and his fingers is stuck as wet knots.
    “Oo-oo-oo,” I says. “Oo-oo-oo.” Til gets a wonky smile come.
    Chain digs in bad on my ankles; I get one arm up and hang on that. I keep changing arms til I sees Bryce at the front door. His shirt is in his hand, chain has done like a tractor track, cross his shoulder and all down his back. He comes up the first stairs.
    “No, Daddy!—No, Daddy!” Baby Grady squeals.
    Bryce is upside down to my face.
    “Next time,” he whispers, “I’m going to kill you.”
    Then he goes back down to the door and closes it gentle nice behind him. We listens for the car. Mum checks in the front room, makes sure he’s proper gone. She holds me on her shoulder so I can get the chain off, can’t stand up cos feets is dead.
    “You shouldn’t have done that,” she says. Both her eyes is like a boxer and blood is black in her hair. Door knocks.
    “Everything all right?” Roger shouts through the door. “Everything OK, Mrs. King?”
    Mr. Baldwin must have called the police. Mum talks through the letter box.
    “Fine,” she says.
    We listen. Radio crackling and calling Roger. They goes way.
    Mum goes upstairs to bed. I make the sofa cushions a nest for Baby Grady, sings him lullaby to sleep. Then I pick up chairs and hair and Monopoly money and clean the kitchen floor, sweeps up glass and blood and dog ends. I go upstairs every now and then, check case my mum is died. She’s just laid in bed, staring into no place. Int got nothing to say. I take her up a cup of tea but it int no good cos she needs a straw. Can’t find one so I break a pen. When the mersion water is hot I run Mum a bath and help her get in it. I washes her hair, then combs it out, gentlenice, sees what the cut on her head is like. Int cut, just bashed in and ouch from all the hair pulled out. Worstist cut is on her eyebrow and it don’t want to stop bleeding. I look downstairs in the kitchen drawer for butterfly stitches Auntie Fi brung us, save going all the time to the hospital. I does Mum’s eye and then dries her hair.
    “Sorry about Sheba,” she says.
    But I don’t hear her cos the hairdryer’s loud. She stays on the bedroom chair while I make her bed with clean sheets.
    “I’m going to get an injunction,” she says. Then she falls sleep.
    Downstairs I look in the dictionary see what an injunction is.
    I try to lift Sheba. She’s fixed in a swirl, eyes is open gone milky, empty like paper mache and woodlice is underneath. I tie Baby Grady on my back; drag Sheba down the alley and cross the road on a bit of plastic. Then I go back for a shovel. I pull stingers out and start digging, takes ages cos the handle on the shovel is broke. I keep trying Sheba in the hole but it int no where near big enough. I looks up, sees the Sandwich Man, standing with hands on his hips. He nods like he