Excerpt from Black Swan Green by David Mitchell, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

 

Dad held up his hand to say Enough! "Well, in my opinion, Mr. Kaggs gets eaten by fish. Picked clean."

"Do they have piranhas in the Arctic?"

"Fish'll eat anything once it's soft enough. Mind you, if he fell into the Thames, his body'd wash up before long. The Thames always gives up its dead, the Thames does."

My misdirection was complete. "How about if he fell through ice, into a lake, say? What'd happen to him then? Would he sort of stay . . . deep frozen?"

"Thing," Julia mewled, "is being grotesque while we're eating, Mum." Mum rolled up her napkin. "Lorenzo Hussingtree's has a new range of tiles in, Michael." (My abortion of a sister flashed me a victorious grin.) "Michael?"

"Yes, Helena?"

"I thought we could drop by Lorenzo Hussingtree's showroom on our way to Worcester. New tiles. They're exquisite."

"No doubt Lorenzo Hussingtree charges exquisite prices, to match?"

"We're having workmen in anyway, so why not make a proper job of it? The kitchen's getting embarrassing."

"Helena, why—"

Julia sees arguments coming even before Mum and Dad sometimes. "Can I get down now?"

"Darling." Mum looked really hurt. "It's butterscotch Angel Delight."

"Yummy, but could I have mine tonight? Got to get back to Robert Peel and the Enlightened Whigs. Anyway, Thing has ruined my appetite."

"Pigging on Cadbury's Roses with Kate Alfrick," I counterattacked, "is what's ruined your appetite."

"So where did the Terry's Chocolate Orange go, Thing?"

"Julia," Mum sighed, "I do wish you wouldn't call Jason that. You've only got one brother."

Julia said, "One too many" and got up.

Dad remembered something. "Have either of you been into my office?"

"Not me, Dad." Julia hovered in the doorway, scenting blood. "Must've been my honest, charming, obedient, younger sibling."

How did he know?

"It's a simple enough question." Dad had hard evidence. The only adult I know who bluffs kids is Mr. Nixon, our headmaster.

The pencil! When Dean Moran rang the doorbell I must've left the pencil in the sharpener. Damn Moron. "Your phone was ringing for yonks, like, four or five minutes, honestly, so—"

Dad didn't care. "What's the rule about not going into my office?" "But I thought it might be an emergency so I picked it up and there was"—Hangman blocked "someone"—"a person on the other end but—" "I believe"—now Dad's palm said HALT!—"I just asked you a question."

"Yes, but—"

"What question did I just ask you?"

" 'What's the rule about not going into my office?' "

"So I did." Dad's a pair of scissors at times. Snip snip snip snip. "Now, why don't you answer this question?"

Then Julia did a strange move. "That's funny."

"I don't see anyone laughing."

"No, Dad, on Boxing Day when you and Mum took Thing to Worcester, the phone in your office went. Honestly, it went on for aeons. I couldn't concentrate on my revision. The more I told myself it wasn't a desperate ambulanceman or something, the likelier it seemed it was. In the end it was driving me crazy. I had no choice. I said 'Hello' but the person on the other end didn't say anything. So I hung up, in case it was a pervert."

Excerpted from Black Swan Green by David Mitchell Copyright © 2006 by David Mitchell. Excerpted by permission of Random House, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.