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it.”
    “Okey-dokey,” I said. When Mom was in the kitchen stirring my soup, I shouted at her in a Level Three voice, “Maybe I’ll write to Dad to see if he knows what’s happening in March. Maybe he’ll have some good news for us.”
    The Voice Levels at school only go to four, but if I had some voice-recording equipment with me on the couch I’m sure Mom’s level would have been about Level Seventeen when she came in from the kitchen.
    “Can you stop fucking talking about this, Dylan? Can’t you see I’m at the end of my tether here? Jesus Christ! I don’t need this shit right now.” Then the phone rang, and Mom said, “Saved by the bloody bell.”
    When I went into the kitchen to check on my soup, Mom was in the hall talking on the phone in Hush Voice. An adult voice. She turned her back on me as though she didn’t want me to see her, but I could tell that her peepers were raw red. I stirred the soup two times clockwise and three times counterclockwise, but something had pressed my curious brain button, so I turned off the soup and did the glass-to-ear-to-door thing that kiddie spies do.
    “. . . Hmm . . . Hmm . . . I don’t know how to even approach this . . . Hmm . . . See, that’s the thing, isn’t it? . . . Hmm . . . I should’ve told him about this situation long before now . . . Hmm . . . I wish I’d done that . . .”
    The glass slipped from my ear, but I caught it in my hand. It was hard not to head bang the door ten or twenty-six times.
    “. . . I know. I know . . . He’s always been my little baby, my little Dylan . . . Hmm . . . Hmm . . . It’s not fair to land this on him now . . . I’m terrified for him . . .” Then the tears again and again and again.
    I couldn’t remember her hanging up the phone. I screamed. The sound hurt my ears. Then everything became black.
    One.
    Two.
    Three.
    Four.
    Five.
    Six.
    Seven.
    Eight.
    “Dylan?”
    Nine.
    Ten.
    One.
    Two.
    “Dylan?”
    Three.
    Four.
    “Dylan?”
    Five.
    “Dylan, I’m sorry.”
    Six.
    “I didn’t mean to shout.”
    Seven.
    “I love you.”
    Eight.
    “It’s been a crazy week.”
    Nine.
    “I’m sorry, Dylan.”
    Ten.
    “Mom loves you.”
    One.
    “Open your eyes.”
    Two.
    “Open your eyes, love.”
    Three.
    “Your soup’s ready.”
    Four.
    “Mom’s sorry, Dylan.”
    Five.
    “Mom loves you more than anything else.”
    Six.
    “More than anyone else.”
    Seven.
    “Come on, sweetheart.”
    Eight.
    “Your soup will get cold.”
    Nine.
    “Open your eyes, Dylan.”
    Ten.
    “That’s better, isn’t it?”
    “Yes.”
    “Sorry for shouting, love. Everything okay?”
    “Everything’s A-okay.”
    “Okay, I’ll bring in your soup.”
    “Thanks.”
    I sat up and waited for Mom to bring me my chicken soup and tomato sauce.

9
    Plans
    When I was a pup, like, super wee, I thought that after you cacked it you simply jumped on a bus and traveled up to heaven, munched on a huge ice cream with a gigantic cherry on top, and chilled out with the other cackees. Everyone would be sitting on big fluffy white clouds singing songs, telling funnies, and just enjoying the day. If you wanted to, you could play soccer, watch films, muck about on video games, have a hairdo, or cut your toenails. It would be up to you to choose. Everything would be whiter than snowflakes. A magic place.
    But now that I was more grown-up, every time I thought of the land of the cacked I didn’t see white stuff anymore; everything now was much darker, and the cackees were sweaty and dirty and some had cuts on their faces. Nobody was having fun; instead everyone was digging, shoveling, or hacking at something. The sound, too, was brutal; it was like being in the shittiest disco in the afterworld. That place terrified me. When I thought of it, I had to tuck both ears into my head, which was hard, so my technique was to lie on my left side with one ear pressed hard to the mattress and use a pillow to force down the right ear. When I did this, all the disco