Read The Sky So Heavy for Free Online

dumped them on the front porch.
    ‘Fin thinks the snow is poisonous, radioactive,’ said Max.
    ‘Serious?’ laughed Lokey. ‘How do you know?’
    I blotted up the puddles with the towel and put it in a garbage bag, tying the end. I was pretty sure that wasn’t the recommended procedure for nuclear waste management.
    ‘We don’t know. That’s the point.’
    ‘But wouldn’t they tell us?’
    ‘How? There’s no electricity.’
    Lokey let out a low whistle and shook his head. ‘Poison or no poison, I’m going to ride your lawn, man.’
    ‘I’m coming!’ said Max, holding up the esky lid. ‘Toboggan.’
    In my mind I heard my mother shrieking disapproval.
    ‘No you’re not,’ I said.
    ‘I am!’
    ‘No, Max.’
    Max threw the esky lid on the floor and stormed to his room, slamming the door theatrically. Lokey was pissing himself with laughter.
    ‘You are hilarious,’ he said. ‘As if it’s poisonous.’
    ‘I saw an anti-terrorism website once. It went through the dangers of radiation.’
    ‘Dude, who the hell looks at anti-terrorism websites? Anyway, someone would have told us. It was on the other side of the world.’
    ‘I’m telling you. I have to look after Max, otherwise I wouldn’t care.’
    ‘Hey, where’s Kara?’
    ‘You’re obsessed.’
    ‘Admit it, Fin, she’s totally hot.’
    ‘You’re mentally disturbed.’
    ‘Where is she?’
    ‘I don’t know. She and Dad didn’t come home last night. Maybe they stayed at Kara’s mum’s. Maybe there’s ice on the road. I don’t know.’
    ‘Shit.’
    ‘Yeah.’ We both stood there in the space left for some sort of meaningful exchange. We didn’t fill it.
    ‘Heard you had a little study date with Lucy Tenningworth yesterday.’
    ‘Yeah. I dunno if I’d call it a date . . . Was kind of interrupted by the whole nuclear disaster thing.’
    ‘She is way out of your league, man.’
    ‘Thanks for your vote of confidence.’
    He grinned. ‘I mean, are you sure she’s not using you to get to me? I am pretty popular these days.’
    ‘Again, your belief in me is amazing.’
    ‘Well, dude, I’m going to go ride your lawn. Watch from the window, you don’t wanna get poisoned.’
    I watched Lokey do about five runs down our steep front lawn, each time bailing at the last moment before he hit our house. Then he threw his board in the back of the car and gave me a wave, off to find bigger slopes. The car fish-tailed as he took off up the hill.
    I bummed around for a bit, had four slices of bread with jam for breakfast, did some drawing and tried to ignore the worry that was sitting in my gut. Max didn’t come out of his room till after lunch. He pretended it was because he was really pissed off but I think he probably just fell asleep. We meandered through the afternoon, waiting, but not sure what for. It’s amazing how slowly time goes when you have no electricity. Several times I reached for the TV controller, forgetting we had no power. Kara had given Dad a plasma for his birthday. (She said she had bought him a plasma as if she used her own money.) It’s funny how without something as simple as electricity it was completely useless – just a gaping, blank stare of black. Without electricity our house was a box of useless bits of moulded plastic and wiring. I was tempted to listen to my iPod, but figured the power could be down for ages. I wanted to save the batteries.
    I thought about Lucy.
    By five it was dark and any heat in the house had leached out. I put on an extra jumper and two pairs of socks, found an old Dolphin torch in the garage and set it up on the dining table as a lamp. It turned out Kara’s scented candles were useful after all. I lit a few in the kitchen and lounge room and pretty soon the place smelt sickly sweet with vanilla. Max and I played cards and listened for the sound of a car in the driveway.
    Around six-thirty I got us some dinner, leftovers that were in the fridge: chickpea curry, cold sausages, slices