Inukshuk Read Online Free PDF Page B

street. “Thomas Franklin, you could be subtler about being a stalker, you know, hanging around waiting for my bus.” She swung out a pace and spun to walk backward, facing him, hands on her hips, wisps of hair swirling around her face; such an abundance of freckles and in such contrast with the paleness of her skin, he had the feeling, as always, looking at her, that she was peering out from behind a puzzle mask or field of static, the red-blue port-wine stain shaped like King William Island creeping from just under her left ear to her jaw and neckline, accentuating this like a hole or tear in the mask. “Ohmygod! Thomas! What happened? Your face .”
    â€œThat. Oh.” He touched his jaw and cheek. “Just some dried blood. It’s nothing. From a fight.” He shrugged. “We match now.”
    â€œWe what?”
    â€œJust kidding.”
    Her mouth fell open. “You are such a jerk ! I can’t believe you just said that to me. Did you really say that? You’re such a jerk!”
    â€œCome on.”
    â€œYou are .”
    Why the pleasure in meanness, he wondered, and then the regret? Idiot. Why had he said that? Irresistible, like tearing at a hangnail. “I
was kidding. OK? It was like a joke. Lighten up. Anyway, it’s no big thing. Just a bloody nose.”
    She was beside him again. He watched her boots, black, with fur trim, tick in and out of sight at the corner of his eyes, and waited a little longer before continuing his story. Flat, hard, overcast light; bare tree limbs framing the Rockies in the distance. Every other day for as long as he’d lived here—going on two years since the family breakup, Dad’s big real estate cash-in, and the grand exodus from Calgary down Highway 2 south and west all of an hour to nowheresville /Houndstitch—they’d been walking home together like this, he and Jill. He’d entertain her with his tales of high school woe, answer her questions about classes and principles of dating, social groups, clothes styles, et cetera, babbling on as if he were an authority on any of it, something like what Devon used to do for him in years past (though he doubted Devon ever fabricated half as much). And more recently, four or five times since the start of the present school year, maybe more, she’d invited him inside with her and they’d ended up on the floor of her basement family room, making out experimentally for hours (her word for it—and he had no idea where she got it— canoodling ) beside the giant muted TV. So her question was a fair one. Had he been stalking? Waiting for the junior high bus in hopes that their paths would cross? Possibly. The prospect of being asked inside was certainly something he’d welcome, if he thought about it—on the floor, her hair tented over him, enclosing them, lips on hers, tongue floating against hers, sweet smells of her saliva and lip gloss and of their shared breath absorbing him, faces so close the shattered mask of her skin disappeared, turned to what it was truly, dots and slashes of pigmentation, nothing hidden, and the port-wine stain . . . exactly the same to touch as any other part of her, though it made her eyes wink shut and the pulse jump in her throat when he did that. Weird. Yes. But he hadn’t been thinking about any of this, or of her, he was pretty sure. He’d hung around at the Jerky Shack a few extra minutes, longing for something to eat or drink, anything to take his mind off of whatever—the horrible day, the restrictions on his rations to make the experiment work, the experiment itself,
his missing mother, his stupid life—anything good that wouldn’t just make him feel like barfing later or clawing his skin off; waited until the other bus stop kids had cleared out enough that he could make his way home, alone, without any hassle. Then back out into the wind . . . odd how you still braced yourself, expecting it to suck