The Shoe Story

Chapter Three

Photo albums. Why are they so depressing?

If I could, I'd burn all of ours, but Mum's still really obsessed with them. Every now and again she'll pull them all out and gasp over the faces of our past and how much everything's changed while Dad and I sit and listen in stony silence. 

I'm a good child.

She's been doing it more than usual lately. Mainly because I'll be leaving next year, going to London for university. She's been so stressed about it I don't know how she'll handle it when I'm gone. 

I shouldn't be thinking about that. I should be studying- I have three thick physics textbooks to get through. Yep, after all my struggles through school and the years I spent complaining about it, I've decided I want to be a teacher. I really make no sense.

Instead of ploughing through another chapter, I pull out my laptop and open the page on my future university. I've spent so long poring through pages of the classrooms, the boarding houses, and best of all, the football pitch. I'm even going to take up rowing.

Only if you get the grades, I remind myself, re-opening my textbook. Except I can't really focus in my room, the walls covered in posters and shelves full of games begging to be played. And to make things even worse, Mum's started the hoovering downstairs.

I slide my textbooks into my backpack, pocket my phone, grab my skateboard and head to a place I never visited until a few years ago- the library.

***

The first time I went to the library was in the middle of the winter holidays when I was fourteen. 

After our skateboarding event, I spent the next few days doing what normal people do in the holidays- sitting in my room, wrapped in a duvet, and playing XBox, pausing only to refill my hot chocolate or to open another packet of crisps.

Unfortunately, exactly twelve days before Christmas, my paradise came to an abrupt end. 

Ataraxy had been trying to call me since the previous night, but the whole point of a holiday was to forget about school and everyone in it. I had been ignoring her calls. Finally, at nine o'clock in the morning while I was still asleep, she gave up and called the house phone. 

"Ataraxy?" I heard Mum's voice float up the stairs. "How lovely to hear from you, darling!" A pause. "Yes, he's just asleep. Too many video games, but he's fine." Another pause. "Oh, that's awfully rude of him. I'll have a word with- oh, the library?"

From halfway in my sleepy stupor, I groaned and dragged the covers over my head. 

"That sounds great! I'll get him up now. See you soon!"

The phone clicked back on the receiver. I opened one eye. Would I have time to lock the door before Mum got upstairs?

No such luck. "Carter?" Mum poked her head around the door. "Are you awake?"

"No," I grumbled.

Mum opened the door fully and winced. "Oh, my." 

I opened both eyes and saw the room from her point of view. It wasn't that messy, but judging from the way she sucked in her stomach, she thought otherwise. "I'll tidy it later, Mum."

"Too right you will," she said. "But first I'm dropping you off at the library on the way to work. Ataraxy-"

I pulled a face. "I heard the conversation. And I'm not going."

"What?" She put her hands on her hips. "Now listen here, young man. You've been wasting about the house for the last few days, doing nothing, making a mess-"