nasya29: переводы

→Later, what happened earned the label ‘tragic accident’, but no amount of apologising could undo the damage. A split-second decision turned best friends into mortal enemies and changed my life and those of the people around me for ever.

→It was the last weekend before school started for the new year, and we were going to an abandoned mine to search for gold.

→People say you can tell when tragedy is about to strike. You get a vibe, a sense of déjà vu, something like that. If that’s true, then I’m not one of those people. If my mother had been alive, she would have said the Angel of Death walked in our shadows that day, waiting for the right moment to collect. Maybe he was following us, and we were just too excited to notice.

→But the good times didn’t last.

→Adam had an irritation in his life in the form of his little brother, Seth. I didn’t mind Seth tagging along half as much as Adam did. I used to pretend they were my real brothers. I think I knew this was the closest I would come to a family of my own. Adam never understood, back then, that having a brother made the difference between being a family and being alone.

→I don’t recall much from that day or the months that followed. One year blurred into another and soon I had hit eleven. Social services had just placed me with an older, childless couple. When I came to the house at No. 42 Warrigal Road, there were already two other boys there – brothers: Adam and Seth Skinner. Adam was in my year at school and we hit it off instantly. His mother was in hospital with a broken heart after his dad died from a brain tumour.

→I glance at my tattoo. It’s on the inside of my left wrist – a big strong angel, his face in profile surrounded by masses of gold curls, with big white wings on broad shoulders, and in his hands a golden bow. My mother’s boyfriend, Jason, a tatooist by trade, penned it for me on the day she died. He wanted me to have something lasting to remember her by. It was my first experience of real pain.

→Today, a few weeks after my sixteenth birthday, my life is still going well enough, though it’s anyone’s guess how long this run will last. Deep inside, I know I’m a hair’s breath away from spinning out of control. When Mum died, I thought I would too. I wanted to. What does a nine-year-old do for the rest of his life without his mum? Call me morbid, a pessimist, whatever you want, but a sense of death still simmers beneath the surface, rising up on days like today.

→People say it’s a wonderful world. Well, from where I stand it’s a load of bull. Man, this world is feral. It’s cruel and unpredictable.

→I was pretty much living on a day-to-day basis at the time. Then a new caseworker named Lillian Fisher took an interest in my well-being and secured a decent place for me to live, giving me hope.

→I’ve lived in more houses than I have fingers, including a six-month stint in juvenile detention for hitching a ride in a car I didn’t know my mate’s brother had stolen.

→Which means, while I stand here watching parents dropping off their kids, my brain has time to remind me how my father is in a prison cell with seven more years to serve, and my mum is long gone from a heroin overdose.

→It’s Saturday night, the air is cold, and I’m standing outside the nightclub – Chill – in my black T-shirt, blue jeans and the brown suede jacket I picked up at the charity shop this morning. I shiver inside my jacket. I should have told Danny I’d meet him inside. My best friend, my one-and-only friend, is running late.

→Jordan

→2

→Her mouth opens and a pained look enters her eyes. She doesn’t say a word but her eyes gleam with unshed tears, and my head fills with more questions.

→‘You say I have a temper, yet I don’t raise my voice or argue with anyone except you. Can you tell me why that is, Mum?’

→‘What?’

→Not hungry any more, I dump my muesli in the bin and head for the back door. But once there I stop and turn back. ‘That’s funny, you know.’

→She takes a deep breath. ‘Ebony, calm down. Take Shadow for a ride. Cool that fiery temper of yours.’