Most of the time, you don't even see it coming. One minute, your life can be completely ordinary and predictable. You could be doing all the ordinary things, planning stuff to do for the weekend or panicking over some last-minute maths homework or rereading your favourite book for the millionth time. The same, ordinary things most people do, thinking that tomorrow will be pretty much the same, just another day in your ordinary life, spinning round in an ordinary cycle. Ordinary, ordinary, ordinary. Maybe you're happy. You probably won't have a clue.

The next minute, your life could have exploded into a thousand pieces, completely unrecognisable. Broken, maybe even beyond repair, and you're left to collect the shards and try to piece them back together like a shattered mirror.

That was what it was like when my mum left.

'Left.' That's the word my big brother Marty uses, on the rare occasions when he talks about it. Ugh, I hate that word so much. It seems to say that Mum disappeared on purpose, like she just walked out on us without a backwards glance. It wasn't like that at all, I know it wasn't; one night we were all just going to bed as normal, the next morning, her room was empty. I have no idea where my mum is now, I have no idea why she isn't here, but the one thing I do know is that she would never, never in a million years, have left deliberately. Not like my dad did.

Mum used to say that Marty and I look exactly like our father, and that fact has always driven me crazy with annoyance. Who would want to look like the man who abandoned you when you were only a baby, who left before Marty had even said his first words? I remember I always used to wish that I looked like Mum instead, but no. According to her stories (there are no photographs around the house), Marty and I have the same black, thin hair; the same tough, sharp cheekbones and noses; the same glint in our blue eyes. The honour of taking after our mother goes to our little brother Jamie (half-brother, really, I suppose). Sometimes, the blonde curls, hazel eyes and dimples are so familiar it hurts.

It always hurts, in a way. An ache that never really goes away. I've never stopped missing Mum, even though after four years I've pretty much given up on her coming back. I started getting nightmares after she disappeared. Every week, I woke up in the middle of the night, my face damp and my head full of bittersweet memories. They don't come nearly as often any more, but every now and then I still wake up with my lashes starred with tears. I save the crying for nighttime, though- The rest of the time I've gotten pretty good at pretending everything is still ordinary. I wrestle my way through school with my face set and my chin raised, all the while feeling like a shaken-up coke can; bursting with all the words I haven't said that could explode out of me at any moment.

I think I'd feel a lot, lot better if I could talk about all of this with someone, but there's nobody who I could say it too. Jamie is only seven, and he hardly remembers our mother at all. Jamie's dad, Richie, hardly talks to any of us at all. My friends from school... I doubt they'd understand. And Marty... He's made it very clear that he doesn't want to talk about any of this stuff. Very clear.

After Mum vanished, Marty grew up a lot. He turned from a slightly serious, very annoying eleven-year-old into someone I hardly recognised, someone responsible and still very annoying. Richie has never really bothered about looking after us- most of the time he's either at work or out with his friends at the bar- so Marty has been the one to make meals and help with homework and manage to force all three of us out of the door on time for school almost every day with minimal violence. He's actually been pretty amazing, but the problem with Marty is that he always has to be right about everything. Honestly, he acts like he thinks I'm about six years younger than him, even though it's only a year. It drives me insane. Even more insane than usual. I have to admit, though, no matter how many times I've fantasised about punching him in the nose, I don't know what I'd do without him.

I'd probably have a lot less headaches, but still.

Anyway, whenever I try to talk to Marty about Mum, he changes the subject or ignores me as though I hadn't said anything, or (more recently) just snaps at me. The last time I brought it up, he smacked me with his Physics textbook. I know it must be painful for him to remember what happened, but it's not like it's easy for me either. I constantly feel like a bomb that's about to explode, with so many thoughts and grief and memories buzzing in my head that I can hardly think, sometimes. I sometimes wonder if I actually have gone mad. With no way to loosen my frustration, it sometimes just erupts out of me, making me do random things out of the blue. 

Like today.

I stride into the kitchen, humming under my breath. I hear Jamie gasp and ignore it, shoving some bread into the toaster casually. Marty, however, hardly glances up from his book. I hear him give a resigned sort of sigh.

"Maya?"

"Mm hmm?"

"What," he reaches for the Nutella. "In the name of mentally insane little sisters have you done to your hair?"

I wonder vaguely if it's a trick question. "I dyed it blue."

He raises an eyebrow. "Yeah, I can see that. Sorry, what I meant to say was... Why in the name of mentally insane little sisters have you dyed your hair blue?"

On the spot, I try to think of a reason. "I was sick of people telling me I looked like you."

Marty doesn't really react. He just leans back in his chair, eyes sliding back to his book. "Okay."

I look at him, slightly disappointed. "'Okay'? That's it?"

"I'm kind of used to stuff like this by now, believe it or not," he says, idly flicking a page over. "I'm just grateful that you didn't chop off your plait with the kitchen scissors like you did when you were twelve."

I look at the drawer where the scissors are, then decide against it.

"You look like a smurf!" Jamie says, looking excited.

"I thought smurfs had blue skin?" I sit next to him at the table.

"You look like a very strange smurf," Jamie corrects himself.

"Thanks," I grin at him and reach out to ruffle his hair.

"Are we still going to the park, Maya?"

I shrug. "I did promise. I don't have any money for ice-cream, though."

"That's okay," Jamie swings his legs and spoons up some Coco-Pops. "Are you coming, Marty?"

Marty glances upwards. "Hm? Not today. I have some homework. Be careful though. Don't let him talk to any strangers, Maya."

Jamie looks disappointed and I try and distract him by asking him about his school play. I've always found it easy to make my little brother smile. It's one of the few things I'm better at than Marty. I used to be able to make my older brother happily just as easily, but lately I seem to have lost the knack. The older we get, the more difficult it is. Sometimes, I don't understand why Marty's in such a hurry to grow up.

Of course, a grown-up Marty is what you need when your Mum has vanished off the face of the Earth and your stepdad cares about you so little that you barely remember what he looks like. He's also the main reason Jamie and I managed to get out of the house in one piece, which means that this morning is as ordinary as this family's mornings go.

Of course, as I know very well by now, an ordinary morning can sometimes be the beginning of an explosion.