Page 39 - SAMPLE Running Out of Time

I am sitting in the kitchen. Dad is out and Grandmother and I will both be tense until he is back. She tells me to concentrate, but I can’t and I tell her I want to stop. Then she snaps at me louder and more angrily than I expect; harder than seems right.
“Vasily!” she barks. “What is the point of having a gift if you won’t learn to use it?”
I feel like she’s slapped me.
And she isn’t concentrating either. We have been working for ages now, and her eyes keep flicking to the television. The noise roars again and people are shooting. She turns the TV off.
“Maybe you are too young,” she says. “But there is no one else to teach you and I may not have long left.” “Are you leaving too?” I ask, and she must see the
fear in my eyes because she shakes her head quickly. “No,” she says, but then she hesitates. She gets up from the table where we have been sitting and walks to the window, staring at the weeds that stain the small garden like the brown marks on her hands. Then
she sighs.
“Tell me,” I say, but when she turns back I wish I had
not asked.
Her hand moves to her side but I don’t think she
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