Read Daylight Saving for Free Online

sound from the lake; the instructors had taken the boats out on the water. There were no clothes on the sandy earth. “Hello!” I shouted. My voice echoed through the treetops.
    Some old woman on one of the boats waved at me.
    I thought I was going to have to lie down, but then I felt this great surge of energy flow through me. I don’t know where it came from. It was something like happiness.
    I walked back through the trees slowly and felt that my vision was so much clearer. I could see every groove in the bark of the trees, every contour of the soil, every fern glowing with the afternoon sunlight.
    I collected my bike. As I was about to leave, I noticed a carving on the tree against which I had left the Shopper:

    For some reason, the numbers sent a chill through my body. Suddenly, everything seemed important, so I stared at the numbers until they were lodged in my memory, and then I rode back toward the cabin, because there was nowhere else to go.
    That night Dad brought pizza back from one of the restaurants. He had cleaned the cabin and said he was sorry. I could see from his expression and hear from the tone of his voice who he was sorry for — and it wasn’t me. “It was good to see you swimming,” he said. “You were going fast. Imagine if you pumped your arms a little bit faster.”
    “You don’t need to pump your arms. It’s about timing,” I said.
    “Your mother was a strong swimmer,” he said.
    Oh, Jesus,
I thought.
Here we go.
    He bucked up and shrugged. “Anyway, you looked good in the water. That’s all I was saying.”
    Of course I looked good,
I thought.
I was submerged.
    In my room, I stared out the window into the woods. I thought about the numbers on the tree. What could they mean? It wasn’t the usual
Tom is gay
or
Daz 4 Niki.
I took Dad’s mobile from the living area and went back into my room. I dialed the local area code and then the first number: 122593.
    The number you have dialed is not recognized,
the woman said. I hung up and tried the second number.
    “Hello.” It was an old man’s voice. Sounded like there was something wrong with him.
    “Hi. Who’s this?”
    “It’s Mickey bleeding Mouse. Who’s this?”
    “I just wondered if Lexi was there.”
    “If
what
was there? Is this a prank? Are you the kid that pissed on my pansies?”
    “No,” I said. I started laughing. It was such a funny thing to say.
    “Bugger off! Bloody kids.”
    The old man hung up, and I deduced that the digits on the tree did not relate to phone numbers.
    I lay back on my bed and thought of her swimming, the absolute clarity of the sound of her hand dipping into the water. I thought of her wrist, and the time ticking backward.
32, 31, 30, 29, 28 . . .



When I woke the next morning, I felt ill. Except
ill
isn’t the right word. I felt like someone had kicked the absolute crap out of me. Was this
love
? That was how my parents always talked about love. Like a pain, an ache, a bind. True, I’d only spoken to Lexi for a few minutes, but I felt more alive than I had for God knows how long, and I felt battered and bruised.
Maybe that’s it,
I thought.
Maybe I’m in love.
    I had woken later than I’d wanted to, but I took a little time to dress and style my hair. I thought I’d wear the T-shirt she said she liked, but it didn’t smell so great, so I went for a black polo shirt instead, black being a slimming color. I had become addicted to the hay-fever nasal spray and fired a few shots up my nose, the flowery smell taking me back, for a moment, to happier holidays, with Mum.
    Dad was already up, but that wasn’t a great surprise. He operated in a cycle: feel emotional, drink, kick stuff, get a hangover, apologize, become slightly righteous about health, and then, eventually, get emotional again. The “become righteous about health” stage was better than the “drink” stage, but I didn’t much like any of the cycle.
    “Morning, Daniel,” he said. He was wearing his tennis gear. His