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

Dad'd gone quiet but the danger wasn't past.

"That was just like me," I ventured. "But I didn't hang up straightaway 'cause I thought maybe they couldn't hear me. Was there a baby in the background, Julia?"

"Okay, you two, enough of the private-eye biz. If some joker is making nuisance calls then I don't want either of you answering, no matter what. If it happens again, just unplug the socket. Understand?"

Mum was just sitting there. It didn't feel at all right.

Dad's "DID YOU HEAR ME?" was like a brick through a window. Julia and me jumped. "Yes Dad."

Mum, me, and Dad ate our butterscotch Angel Delight without a word. I didn't dare even look at my parents. I couldn't ask to get down early too 'cause Julia'd already used that card. Why I was in the doghouse was clear enough, but God knows why Mum and Dad were giving each other the silent treatment. After the last spoonful of Angel Delight Dad said, "Lovely, Helena, thank you. Jason and I'll do the washing up, won't we, Jason?"

Mum just made this nothing-sound and went upstairs.

Dad washed up, humming a nothing-song. I put the dirty dishes in the hatch, then went into the kitchen to dry. I should've just shut up, but I thought I could make the day turn safely normal if I just said the right thing. "Do you get"—Hangman loves giving me grief over this word—"nightingales in January, Dad? I might've heard one this morning. In the woods."

Dad was Brillo-padding a pan. "How should I know?"

I pushed on. Usually Dad likes talking about nature and stuff. "But that bird at granddad's hospice. You said it was a nightingale."

"Huh. Fancy you remembering that." Dad stared over the back lawn at the icicles on the summerhouse. Then this noise came out of Dad like he'd entered the World's Miserablest Man of 1982 Competition. "Just concentrate on those glasses, Jason, before you drop one." He switched on Radio 2 for the weather forecast, then began cutting up the 1981 Highway Code with scissors. Dad bought the updated 1982 Highway Code the day it came out, and he says old ones could cause accidents if they're not destroyed. Tonight most of the British Isles will see temperatures plunging well below zero. Motorists in Scotland and the North should be careful of black ice on the roads, and the Midlands should anticipate widespread patches of freezing fog.

 

Up in my room I played the Game of Life, but being two players at once is no fun. Julia's friend Kate Alfrick called for Julia to study together. But they were just gossiping about who's going out with who in the sixth form, and playing Police singles. My billion problems kept bobbing up like corpses in a flooded city. Mum and Dad at lunch. Hangman colonizing the alphabet. At this rate I'm going to have to learn sign language. Gary Drake and Ross Wilcox.

They've never exactly been my best mates but today they'd ganged up against me. Neal Brose was in on it too. Last, the sour aunt in the woods worried me. How come?

Wished there was a crack to slip through and leave all this stuff behind. Next week I'm thirteen but thirteen looks way worse than twelve. Julia moans nonstop about being eighteen but eighteen's epic, from where I'm standing. No official bedtime, twice my pocket money, and for Julia's eighteenth she went to Tanya's Night Club in Worcester with her thousand and one friends. Tanya's's got the only xenon disco laser light in Europe! How ace is that? Dad drove off up Kingfisher Meadows, alone.

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.