But today Art is making pancakes the ordinary way out of a shaker bottle and Elecktra is sponging them in maple syrup that she found in the bowels of our kitchen cupboards. Last night feels like a dream. I rub the small hole in my skin where the tip of Mum’s sword nicked me. I can’t have dreamed that. Her attack has turned my bones to foam. I feel like I’m drowning in disbelief. ‘So Mum’s gone?’ I ask Art. ‘She’s away on business again. Won’t be back for a while,’ he says. ‘How long?’ I ask. ‘Few weeks. She’ll send us SMS updates as usual, but she said she’ll be out of range for the most part.’ This is not unusual for Mum. She often disappears for weeks at a time. We have no real idea where she travels to, but it must be somewhere in Asia because last time she returned with a black eye and told us she’d fallen off a rickshaw. ‘What does Mum do again anyway?’ Elecktra asks, as she does whenever Mum goes away. She can never remember. ‘Your mother is a very successful financial advisor,’ Art says.
