Mud Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

before – this dead person – then she might have another piece of the answer to why Mum left.
    There’s a reminder from the tv: it’s Canada Day. It’s going to be a hot one. In the fridge, the milk is sour.
    There used to be an insulated bag around, a lunch bag. It’ll keep the milk cold as she walks home. She finds it stashedunder the sink, throws it in her knapsack and heads off towards the Industrial Park. Away down River Road, and a bus hurtles past, almost pushes her off the gravel at the side. She looks after the bus, but knows Horace can’t be on it: he’s been a driver long enough not to work holidays. And he wouldn’t have driven that close, not on this side with the river so near. She has a sudden image of him playing with his trains, and her steps quicken. In fifteen minutes, she reaches the convenience store: a small store that services the few scattered homes as well as the mill employees and others. There’s always a small table with produce in rehearsal for its leftover stage.
    Abi buys milk, more cereal, a big plastic bottle of ginger ale, and a small piece of cut watermelon. The clerk hands her a paper flag. “Happy Canada Day!” she says.
    â€œYou too,” Abi says. She holds the bag close. “Are you looking for anyone to work here?”
    The clerk doesn’t take her eyes off the till. “I dunno. You’d have to talk with the manager.”
    Of course. I should have known.
Abi feels a warmth spread over her face, and leaves.
    The way home is dry and the dust rises with the traffic. The cedar being milled burns in her nose, and she imagines that that’s where he works –
My Boy
 – and he goes home with the smell. He’s old enough to live on his own, youngenough to live with a mum and dad, a brother or sister, someone who welcomes him with a cheery shout when he pushes the door open. Someone who asks how he is, and cares about the answer.
    The stench of the river mud at low tide puts a stopper in her thoughts. Mud Girl and her Prince.
Bah. Humbug.
    A pickup truck kicks gravel over her knees, and she looks up to see a HELP WANTED sign in the window of the paint store – “Hood’s Paint, Family-Owned Since 1954.” So. She’ll have to go and talk with the owner or the manager soon, and try not to ask a stupid or obvious question.
    At home, she empties the ginger ale into a juice pitcher and puts it in the fridge. The green plastic bottle she rinses and dries. She sets it on a dented tray that must have belonged to Uncle Bernard, along with paper and a pen, and then she cuts the small piece of watermelon into halves – pyramids on rockers. She sticks a spoon and the paper flag into one, all red and white, and sets it on the tray too, then puts it on the TV table by Dad. She takes her own piece out to the greenhouse.

Cyan
    A new word.
Cyan
. Never heard it, never seen it before.
A greenish-blue colour
. The word sounds pretty. Something Rhodesy might like. Abi wonders exactly what colour it is; there are no pictures in the dictionary. The colour of jade? Of a glacier lake? She’s seen pictures of those.
    She should go to Hood’s Paints. She pulls on overalls and her cleanest sneaks.
    There’s a sound from Dad’s chair as she opens the door.
    â€œPardon?”
    â€œWhere’re you goin’?” he mumbles. He reaches for his glasses on the table beside him. She’s noticed this past year that sometimes his glasses are still sitting in the same place they were when she left in the morning, and she’s wonderedhow he’s gone through entire days without them. He turns to look at her through them just for a moment before he turns back to the television.
    Stops her cold; maybe he liked the watermelon or has a plan for the bottle. Maybe he’s already begun to write one of his messages. It’s been a long time. Not that she’d know, really. Her dad