The Sky So Heavy by Claire Zorn Page A

back onto the mattress but he must have already been feeling better because he lifted his arm and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
    ‘I burnt a lot of clothes, Fin. I’m sorry. I couldn’t . . . cut the wood . . . to put it on the fire. The clothes were . . . right here.’
    ‘It’s okay.’
    I opened another can for Max and left it with him to eat while I gathered up the few clothes we had left. I shoved them into garbage bags and took them out to where I had left Ellen’s car in the middle of the street, pointing up the hill. I threw the bags into the boot. I was going to get that car up the hill. There was no choice.
    I went back inside and slugged the axe into the dining suite; splinters scattered across the sisal carpet. It took a long time. I didn’t have the strength to finish the job, I would have to come back and do the rest. I loaded the wood into the boot along with the coffee table – our last remaining piece of wooden furniture. Shame I couldn’t burn the plasma and the iPod dock and our computers. They were of no use to us. Maybe they could be brewed into a fine soup with lots of salt if things got desperate. If things got desperate. Ha.
    Max was beginning to rally. There was colour in his face again. I gathered up our bedding and stuffed it into garbage bags. I could hear my mum telling me that I’d fit more in the bags if I folded the blankets.
    ‘Where are we going?’ Max asked.
    ‘Up the road. Arnold’s place.’
    ‘Who’s Arnold?’
    ‘Guy from school. He has food. It makes more sense for us to band together.’
    I picked up the last doona. Beneath it was Pooh and Tigger Fly Kites . Max and I stared at the book.
    ‘Do you think she’s okay?’ Max whispered.
    ‘I don’t know.’ I took the bag out to the car, then came back for Max. I wanted him to lean on me as we went to the car but he wouldn’t.
    Just like the handbook said, I made sure my passenger and I were both wearing our seatbelts. Then I checked and adjusted my seat position and mirrors. The view out the back window was pretty much obscured by the coffee table. There was nothing I could do about this so I carried on. I started the ignition, put my foot on the brake and put the car into drive. As I let the handbrake off and eased my foot off the brake, I turned the wheel toward the nature strip on the left-hand side of the road and the car crept forward. We hit the lip of the guttering and I pressed the accelerator a fraction, the car let out a high-pitched whine of protest and the back tyres spun on the ice. I tried again and the car nosed up the kerb and onto the nature strip. I drove it gently forward and straightened the wheel so we were parallel with the road. I began driving up the hill slowly. We made it about fifteen metres until the back tyres began to skid again and we started to slide backward ever so slightly.
    ‘Shit, shit, shit.’ I smacked the wheel. ‘C’mon, c’mon .’ The car whined its refusal. Why did Mum and Dad have to pick a house at the bottom of a bloody hill? Why? I pressed the accelerator again. And backward we went. I put on the handbrake and turned to Max. ‘Okay, you’re going to have to drive. I’ll push.’ His eyes bulged. I got out of the car.
    ‘I’ll talk you through it, yeah?’
    Max got in the driver’s seat. ‘Which one’s the accelerator?’
    ‘The one on the right. Put your seatbelt on.’
    I went to the back of the car and braced myself against it with my full body weight.
    ‘Okay, put your foot on the brake, on the left, put it into drive, take the handbrake off and gently press the accelerator as you take your foot off the brake.’
    The car whined and the tyres flung snow into the air. I pushed and pushed with everything I had, which admittedly wasn’t all that much. It wasn’t working. All I was doing was preventing the car from sliding backward and even that was questionable.
    ‘Okay, okay, stop. Put the handbrake on.’ I turned and leaned on the back