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.Candice feels she is to blame, and that is the important thing.But all I can do is repeat: I know it wasn’t my fault.But it is unbearably sad.Families are fragile.Mine did not die when Sky did, but it took a battering and came out bruised and limping.It was the start of when things fell apart.Mum’s breast cancer.Dad’s increasing distance from everything except the computers in his shed and a faintly buzzing silhouette in the sky.I never saw them touch hands after that night.Now I am surrounded by unhappiness.Mum.Dad.Even Rich Uncle Brian.That is not my fault, either.But maybe I can do something about it.Before the last traces of warmth flee my family, too.G Is for Gravity“This is it,” said Douglas Benson from Another Dimension.“My passport home.”“Wow!” I said and meant it.It looked like a tree, but apparently it was a passport home.It was a big, spreading passport with a gnarled trunk and loads of branches.Leaves blocked the sky, and there was a bare patch of earth at the base where the grass did not grow.I stood on that patch and craned my neck.I made small cooing noises and hoped they sounded like appreciation.I had never seen a portal to another dimension before and the protocols were beyond me.“How does it work?” I asked after a suitably awestruck pause.Douglas looked at me as if I were crazy, which was a little strange since I wasn’t the one claiming that a spreading tree was a gateway to another dimension.But then, I thought, I am crazy—so I suppose he was entitled.“I climb into its branches and jump,” he said.“High-tech,” I replied.We were in his garden.I had come round for our afternoon tea date.Dad dropped me off, and when I’d approached the house I had seen Douglas sitting under his passport, though at that time I’d thought, in my innocence, that it was a tree.Inside his house, I imagined, were facsimile parents and I was nervous about meeting them, so it was good to chat a while and delay.I’d hoped to spy a postie’s bike in the yard, but there was no evidence of one, which was disappointing.Still, I reasoned to myself, you can’t have everything.A portal and a postie’s bike was probably asking for too much.“Come for a walk with me,” said Douglas.“I want to show you something, and the facsimile parents have informed me food will not be ready for another forty-five minutes.” His lip curled slightly when he made the parent reference.His eyes might also have flashed, but I’m not prepared to swear to that in a court of law, so it’s safer to stick with the lip-curling.“Okay,” I said.Douglas lived five-and-a-half kilometers outside Albright on a five-hectare property.Dad had driven up a rutted path, avoiding assorted chickens and one small lake.We retraced that journey up the path.It was a beautiful afternoon.The sky was clear and birds sang.It wasn’t difficult to imagine we were the only people in the world.Douglas said nothing for ten minutes and although I like silence, generally speaking, I had questions that were, if not exactly burning, definitely smoldering around the edges.“Douglas,” I said.“If traveling through dimensions happens when you jump out of a tree, are possums doing it all the time?”He sniffed.“It’s not just jumping out of a tree, Candice,” he replied.“There are other things involved and the math is quite tricky.”“Oh,” I said.I was a bit tired from my question.We walked for another minute or two.“Do you have your pad and a pen with you?” he asked.“Yes.” I knew that interaction with his facsimile parents was inevitable and had come prepared.“I’ll draw you a diagram when we get there,” he said.“Okay.”There wasn’t far away, as it turned out.We’d veered off the driveway and wandered down a rough path through thick bush, the kind of path that animals make when they can be motivated.The bush wasn’t very interesting—flat and crowded with spindly eucalyptus trees—so I was surprised when we came to a clearing.Surprised and alarmed, since we were virtually on the edge of a ravine.I say “ravine,” but that might be flattering it somewhat.Then again, I am afraid of heights, so even modest drops are ravines to me.I took a couple of tentative steps forward and cautiously peered over the edge.Slabs of rock lined the sides, and forty meters below, a small stream trickled in a picturesque fashion.I quickly stepped back.It’s not that I don’t like small picturesque trickling streams, but I prefer them when they are on my level.Ideally in a photograph.Douglas sat close to the edge and I joined him.Perhaps a meter behind.“Pretty,” I said to his back, though I wasn’t referring to that.And the scenery was pretty.It was a little surprise, like finding a bright stone in a pile of manure.That, I should stress, has never happened to me (possibly because I have never looked).“It’s nice here,” said Douglas.“I often come here just to think.”I was pleased to learn that Douglas had brought me to his special private place.It felt like an honor.I shuffled forward on my bottom so that I was nearly level with him.“Have you got your pad and pen?” he asked.I produced them from my bag.He found a clean sheet and drew a line.“What’s that?” he said.“A line,” I replied.It wasn’t difficult.“Correct.A line.One dimension.” He drew another three lines and lifted the pad toward my face.“And that?”“A square,” I replied.“Or maybe a rectangle.”“Correct.Two dimensions.” He scribbled some more.“A cube,” I said, without being asked [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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