complicate things, I wanted it to fix them. It wasn’t doing any of the
things I had asked. Why had I even bothered?
I went into the big storage room that we used as a study. My mum was typing slowly on the computer keyboard. When she saw me she suddenly stopped and with a click she closed the document on the
screen. I just had time to see it was an Excel spreadsheet. They’d started teaching us Excel at school two months earlier.
‘Are you okay, Mum?’
‘Yes, darling.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Sort of . . . bookkeeping.’
‘Can I watch television?’
‘Do what you like, darling, you can even stay up late, there’s no school tomorrow.’
‘Thanks, my sweet Mummy!’
I hugged her. She was surprised at me clinging to her like that. I didn’t feel like helping myself any more. I’d been mean enough the night before. What was the point of making her
cry? I love my mother. In the end, hurting other people doesn’t make you feel any better. And besides, it didn’t do any good. What I was trying to do was just too hard. Children
can’t decide things, I should have realised that right from the start. There’s not a thing you can do once your parents have decided to split up.
‘I love you so much, sweetheart. Right! Go and watch television.’
Hugging her did her good: she seemed relieved. I was throwing in the towel. Split up, share me between you, I won’t say another word.
I curled up in my dad’s spot, in ‘his’ armchair with ‘his’ remote. Before was before. I had to stop hoping he’d come back and that life would go on just like
it used to. I surfed through all the channels. On Le Canal Nouvelles all they talked about was the ice. It was perfect for them. But the problem with these non-stop news programmes is that they end
up repeating themselves. I heard the same thing over and over again so often that for a laugh – well, actually in order not to cry – I started multiplying. Seven hundred thousand
households without electricity times the number of evacuation centres, add a thousand volunteers and multiply by twenty-five millimetres of ice: what do you get?
‘
The cost of the storm could be devastating. Damage is already estimated in the tens of millions of dollars . . . And the ice has not stopped falling . . .
’
I was ashamed of what I’d done. If it had solved my problem, I wouldn’t have minded, but . . . it was all for nothing. I ran towards my room, angry, but before I got there I stopped
suddenly in the storage room.
‘Night, Mum.’
She wasn’t there. My gaze landed on the tray by the printer. On the bookkeeping sheet there were two columns, ‘you’ and ‘me’, and loads of numbers. I read,
‘video camera: one thousand dollars’. In the ‘you’ column was written, ‘five hundred dollars’. Same thing in the ‘me’ column. There was a comment in
the margin: ‘we were still together . . .’
It’s the thought that counts, not the present
. . . Easy to say.
Everything in the house was listed. I saw that my dad could keep the electronics but he had to give up the sofa and his precious leather armchair. What? The sofa was worth three thousand
dollars? My dad was keeping the television, six hundred dollars, but giving up the computer, eight hundred. There was a line marked ‘alimony: five hundred dollars’. It was spread over a
year. It looked like my dad wouldn’t be paying anything until April because my mum was getting the big double bed and the big dresser in the sitting room, which came to two thousand dollars.
And in the middle of all those figures, there I was like a piece of furniture. Hardly worth any more than the sofa.
I heard the toilet flush. I rushed to my bedroom before my mum was even out of the bathroom.
Slam!
The sky hadn’t done a thing for me; on the contrary, my situation was getting worse by the day, by the hour. I went to the window. I stared at the sky and shouted.
‘Stop it, you’re hurting
things I had asked. Why had I even bothered?
I went into the big storage room that we used as a study. My mum was typing slowly on the computer keyboard. When she saw me she suddenly stopped and with a click she closed the document on the
screen. I just had time to see it was an Excel spreadsheet. They’d started teaching us Excel at school two months earlier.
‘Are you okay, Mum?’
‘Yes, darling.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Sort of . . . bookkeeping.’
‘Can I watch television?’
‘Do what you like, darling, you can even stay up late, there’s no school tomorrow.’
‘Thanks, my sweet Mummy!’
I hugged her. She was surprised at me clinging to her like that. I didn’t feel like helping myself any more. I’d been mean enough the night before. What was the point of making her
cry? I love my mother. In the end, hurting other people doesn’t make you feel any better. And besides, it didn’t do any good. What I was trying to do was just too hard. Children
can’t decide things, I should have realised that right from the start. There’s not a thing you can do once your parents have decided to split up.
‘I love you so much, sweetheart. Right! Go and watch television.’
Hugging her did her good: she seemed relieved. I was throwing in the towel. Split up, share me between you, I won’t say another word.
I curled up in my dad’s spot, in ‘his’ armchair with ‘his’ remote. Before was before. I had to stop hoping he’d come back and that life would go on just like
it used to. I surfed through all the channels. On Le Canal Nouvelles all they talked about was the ice. It was perfect for them. But the problem with these non-stop news programmes is that they end
up repeating themselves. I heard the same thing over and over again so often that for a laugh – well, actually in order not to cry – I started multiplying. Seven hundred thousand
households without electricity times the number of evacuation centres, add a thousand volunteers and multiply by twenty-five millimetres of ice: what do you get?
‘
The cost of the storm could be devastating. Damage is already estimated in the tens of millions of dollars . . . And the ice has not stopped falling . . .
’
I was ashamed of what I’d done. If it had solved my problem, I wouldn’t have minded, but . . . it was all for nothing. I ran towards my room, angry, but before I got there I stopped
suddenly in the storage room.
‘Night, Mum.’
She wasn’t there. My gaze landed on the tray by the printer. On the bookkeeping sheet there were two columns, ‘you’ and ‘me’, and loads of numbers. I read,
‘video camera: one thousand dollars’. In the ‘you’ column was written, ‘five hundred dollars’. Same thing in the ‘me’ column. There was a comment in
the margin: ‘we were still together . . .’
It’s the thought that counts, not the present
. . . Easy to say.
Everything in the house was listed. I saw that my dad could keep the electronics but he had to give up the sofa and his precious leather armchair. What? The sofa was worth three thousand
dollars? My dad was keeping the television, six hundred dollars, but giving up the computer, eight hundred. There was a line marked ‘alimony: five hundred dollars’. It was spread over a
year. It looked like my dad wouldn’t be paying anything until April because my mum was getting the big double bed and the big dresser in the sitting room, which came to two thousand dollars.
And in the middle of all those figures, there I was like a piece of furniture. Hardly worth any more than the sofa.
I heard the toilet flush. I rushed to my bedroom before my mum was even out of the bathroom.
Slam!
The sky hadn’t done a thing for me; on the contrary, my situation was getting worse by the day, by the hour. I went to the window. I stared at the sky and shouted.
‘Stop it, you’re hurting
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