Payback Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’ve got a narrow letterbox opening to see through the bun part.
    If you don’t think it gets hot in a hotdog suit, especially when you’ve got to dance every five minutes with your arms by your sides with very littleroom to move them about, then you never tried it. But hey, I like the way people, especially little kids, stop and watch me and laugh at me.
    It’s the best part of the job.
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    Da is home for three days. He came in Sunday night and picked us up from Aunt Maeve’s about eight o’clock.
    As much as me and Annie like Aunt Maeve’s, it’s always grand to be in our own home and in our own beds.
    On Monday, Attila the Hundle talks to my da on the phone. Da tells me how much it is for the damaged book. I hand over most of my hard-earned hotdog money, and then Da writes a check, pushes it into an envelope and addresses to Attila the Hundle.
    Da doesn’t read me the riot act or hand me a lecture about it, either.
    He just puts an arm around my shoulder and says, “If you plan to act mad or stupid, Charley, could you please do it at home instead of at school?”
    â€œOkay, Da, sorry.”
    â€œAnd what’s this about missing two days of school?”
    I give a guilty shrug.
    â€œWhat were you doing?”
    â€œRiding my bike.”
    â€œAnd what are these little faces Mr. Hundle mentions?”
    At first I don’t know what he means and then I twig — the screaming heads.
    â€œOh, those,” I say. “I don’t really know. Maybe it’s the way I was feeling, you know?”
    He knows. He knows how much me and Annie miss Ma.
    He’s okay, my da. I wish now I hadn’t wrecked the book with those little screaming heads and racing bikes and a tomato splotch that soaked through to the next page. My da’s got enough to worry about paying the rent and the food and keeping our family going.
    â€œSchool is important, Charley. Your ma wouldn’t want you missing time.” He ruffles my hair.
    â€œYeah, Da, I know that.”
    I don’t tell him in case he worries even more, but my notebooks are full of little screaming heads lately, especially ever since Friday, when Sammy pushed Benny Mason into the mud.

7
    The last day of September.
    â€œCharley, what do you think of us using puppets for part of our English presentation? Benny asked.
    â€œPuppets?”
    â€œWe’d do it like a TV show, and...”
    I didn’t listen to any more. Imagine Benny and me with puppets! The other kids would laugh us out of Lonsdale. Especially Sammy and Rebar.
    Forget about that.
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    Wednesday, Da takes me and Annie over to Aunt Maeve’s after dinner, and then he has to go back to work.
    I happen to overhear him in the kitchen tellingAunt Maeve about the damaged textbook and how I skipped school a couple of times.
    â€œI’m a bit worried,” he tells her.
    Crazy Uncle Rufus is at a meeting of the North Shore Kite Club, and Aunt Maeve is busy making a batch of her almond and walnut granola. The whole place smells rich with roasting grains and nuts.
    She says to my da, “There’s no need to get your knickers in a twist about it, Tim. Don’t we all know Charley’s a dreamer. There’s not a scrap of harm in the boy, I swear to God. Stop your worrying about nothing.”
    It’s not the first time I’ve heard myself called a dreamer. That was what my old Dublin teacher, Mr. Gannon, called me, too. “You’re a dreamer, Charley,” he used to say when I didn’t get my work done on time. Or, “What are ye day-dreamin’ about now, Charley Callaghan?” he’d say as I stared out the window at the sky. “What do ye see out there, I wonder? Besides the trees and clouds, I mean? Is it Charley Callaghan ye see? And himself a great leader of the Irish people, uniting our poor country after eight hundred years of foreign occupation, is