Fall Girl Read Online Free PDF

properly, not once. One of my paintings was framed behind his desk: a gentle meadow with yellow sunbeams raining from clouds. I remembered the day I drew it, how happy I had been to give it to him.
    He pulled me into his arms and sat me on his knee, then he opened my fist to find the ten dollar note, folded now, hidden. He sighed as though he was wounded. The shame that I had said this to him was such a weight on my shoulders I felt I could barely raise my arms. All I wanted was to say sorry and take it back, take it all back.
    â€˜I can see you did very well, Della. But I think you forgot rule number four,’ he said finally. He bit his bottom lip, then he said, ‘What is rule number four?’
    â€˜To watch, until the mark is out of sight,’ I said. ‘To never look at the money until you can’t see the mark anymore.’
    â€˜That’s right,’ he said. ‘You didn’t, did you Della? You didn’t watch her walk away.’
    Sometimes you think a job is over, but it’s not over. I’d been told this. But that day it was true. I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off my ten dollars. I’ve never made that mistake again.
    I shook my head. My father raised his eyebrows at Ruby.
    â€˜I watched her,’ Ruby said. ‘Five-eight or five-nine. Early forties. Medium build. Light brown hair with grey roots, short, wavy. Just over twelve stone. Bad varicose veins on her calves. I watched her walk to the end of the street and turn the corner. She walked tall. She was proud.’
    My father straightened my skirt, and bent a little to pull up my white socks. ‘Della, listen to me very carefully. There are two types of people who give us money. The first type are greedy people. They think they can get something for nothing, or profit from other people’s misfortune. They are opportunists. Look. See these stones?’
    As he spoke he lifted with one hand the burgundy bag and five rectangular emeralds skidded on to the desk. They were twinkling, beckoning things of beauty. I had to restrain my fingers from touching them. My father picked one up between his fingers and turned it so it caught the light.
    â€˜Greedy people will buy these stones because they think they are real. They will rush to give me four or five or ten thousand dollars, write out their cheques or count out their cash and shove it into my hand. I won’t be able to dissuade them, though I will show suitable reluctance to take their money. They will buy them because they think they are worth many times that. They think they are stolen gems, smuggled from a country at war with itself, where people slave and die to find them. Sometimes even children have to dig in deep holes to find these jewels. Do you think it’s fair, that children have to do that?’
    â€˜No,’ I said. No, it was not fair. Every child should have a room like mine and a father like mine and not have to dig in a hole. I was the lucky one.
    â€˜And by the time these buyers realise the stones are not real, if they ever do realise it, the cheques are cashed and the account is empty and untraceable and I have vanished. They won’t go to the police, either because they are too embarrassed or because they would have to admit they were trying to commit a crime. Now, don’t people like that deserve to be punished?’
    I nodded. Of course. Of course they did.
    â€˜The second type of people who give us money might be rich, or they might not be. They can be old or young, or honest or not. But they have one thing in common. They need to feel better about themselves. That woman walked down the street with her head held high after she gave you that money. She would have felt better about herself as a mother, because she would never leave her children alone in the city. She would have told the story of how she met you to all her friends, who would have praised her generosity. Ten dollars is a small price to pay to