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boundaries’. Just the same, I decide I’ll keep it underneath my mattress.
    There’s a space on the front of the notebook to write your name. But since Len Russell isn’t my real name, I don’t bother.
    I think about what I want to write in the notebook. Something has been floating in the back of my mind all day, bothering me, distracting me. I try to put my finger on what it is. I sit quietly for a few minutes, and then I remember. It was something I was thinking about last night before I fell asleep. I pick up my pen and start writing.

    It’s Saturday. A girlfriend of Daddy’s is here, not one I’ve seen before. Now that she’s curled her hair and put on all her makeup she doesn’t have anything to do, so she’s sitting in a lounge chair looking bored. I’m playing Milk Jug with our dog Reggie. Milk Jug is his favourite game. You take an empty plastic milk jug by the handle and Reggie jumps up and sinks his teeth into it. Then you play tug-o-war, trying to pull the jug toward you as Reggie pretend-growls and pulls in the opposite direction. Reggie could pull you off your feet if he really wanted to, but he’s smart enough to know that doing that would ruin the game.
    ‘Aren’t you afraid to let her play with a pit bull?’
    I don’t know why she’s so concerned about me playing with the dog. She didn’t care when I burned my hand on the kettle earlier.
    ‘Reggie’s a staffie cross, not a pit bull.’ Daddy’s watching the cricket on TV and doesn’t bother looking at the lady when he talks to her. He talks to the lady like he talks to all of them, like she’s kind of stupid and not really worth talking to.
    ‘Aren’t you afraid he’ll bite her?’
    ‘He’s a sook,’ Daddy says, and turns up the sound.
    ‘Don’t you think you should get him de-sexed?’ The lady raises her voice to be heard over the TV.
    Daddy hits the mute button, sets his feet on the floor and looks directly at the lady. If she doesn’t shut up after Daddy does this, then she really is stupid. ‘A dog like that has two purposes in life: to fight, and to root. You take both those things away, he’ll go crazy.’
    Then Daddy turns the sound back on and puts his feet back up on the coffee table.

    Once I’ve finished writing, I read what I’ve written. Then I close the notebook and put it under my mattress.

Chapter 10

    Today is my last regular visit with Scott, the physiotherapist. We’ve been doing exercises to help me extend my range of movement. After being inactive those weeks in hospital, I was pretty stiff and inflexible. Since I’m working with a tutor rather than going to school, we have to decide on a type of exercise for me since I won’t be doing sport as a class.
    Scott is soft-spoken and gentle, not really the kind of person you’d think of as the ‘sporty’ type. He’s broad-shouldered and tall. You wouldn’t immediately guess how strong he is. I could feel the strength in his hands when he was working on my shoulders and lower back.
    ‘Can I take up racquetball?’ Clarissa Hobbs does racquetball.
    ‘Racquetball?’ Scott looks at me through his rimless glasses and blinks. ‘Well, I don’t see why not, but racquetball’s not that popular. It might be difficult for you to find a place to take lessons. Why don’t you try tennis?’
    I figure tennis will do.
    ‘And can I start lifting weights?’
    Scott frowns slightly. ‘You can do light weight training,’ he says. ‘Just dumbbells – no barbells and definitely no weight machines. Your bones and muscles are still developing – I don’t want you pumping iron and risking injury. And don’t even think of dieting,’ Scott cautions me further. ‘You’re a mesomorph – stocky and muscular. There’s no sense in starving yourself to make yourself look like Lila-Rose and LeeLee. You’re not built that way.’
    I’d rather be dead than look plastic and phony like Lila-Rose and LeeLee, who probably started wearing thick makeup at age three,