Pig Boy Read Online Free PDF Page A

reads the letter she gets me to pour her a bourbon and Coke.
    â€˜A strong’un,’ she barks. ‘And don’t go spilling any on me new carpet!’
    The paper rustles as she fans her face with the letter. ‘They can’t kick ya out before ya finals. That’s bloody not on. They complain about ya writing now, they complain about it when ya got finalist in that competition. They don’t know what the hell to do with ya talent. That’s what the problem is.’
    Quickly, I take a swig from the bourbon bottle, hoping it’ll settle my guts or stop the shaking. It was no one important at the door. We’re fine for now.
    â€˜It says ’ere I can go and have an appointment with Mr Pascoe. I can afford a lawyer, ya know. A real good’un. Bet he didn’t think ’bout that.’
    â€˜I’m not going back to the school.’
    â€˜Ya got your final exams, Damon!’ she shouts.
    â€˜I’m not going back.’
    â€˜What’s “menacing behaviour” meant to mean anyway? And this protecshun crap for students and staff?’ Mum says, handing me the letter.
    I pretend to read it. My eyes flick and scan across the page, then I let it drop to the table.
    â€˜Pascoe, he gone and said it’d be a fresh start after Year 10,’ she whines.
    â€˜Well, Pascoe’s a fucking liar,’ I hiss.
    But Mum’s on a rant and doesn’t notice. ‘We stuck to our part of the deal. Ya did the counselling, everythin’. You name it, we done it. That Year 10 camp nearly bloody killed me. It cost me, it cost me Archie …’ His name wheezes up her throat. Whenever she gets sidetracked on the topic of Archie you know an attack’s coming. She’ll holler for her Ventolin. She’ll go back to telling me I nearly killed her. She’ll bury her arm deep into that bag and show me every bit of heartache she’s ever had. Never once thinking that maybe I miss him too.

    Mum met Archie through her hairdresser, Pat. He’d been Pat’s brother’s best man and dropped in for a visit on his way back from a hunting trip up north. A couple of weeks later he was still in Strathven and moving into our place. It was good. He made the old girl happy. Archie brought along laughs and decent meals and also his gun collection.
    Hunting and guns. It all bored me but Archie was obsessed. I soon learnt that the only way to have real time with him was if I pretended to like them too. Relentlessly I’d bug him to take me away on hunting weekends. Sitting around the camp fire, staring at the flames till my eyes watered, drinking sweet tea and listening to Archie’s stories were the best times and I couldn’t get enough of them. But then he’d wake me before sun-up and that’s when things would go wrong.
    As far as a hunter went, I was useless. I didn’t have it in me to shoot an animal. Not that I told Archie, but every time I cocked the rifle all I could see was the cat spread-eagled by the riverbank staring me in the face. Eventually Archie told me he thought it was best that I stopped joining him on his trips.
    The weekends Archie wasn’t hunting I’d sit by my bedroom window waiting to see him stride past the clothesline and into the garage. In a flash I’d be out there, offering to help him clean his guns. It was nowhere near as good as camping but it was better than nothing.
    We’d play a game where we made up stories about the people who’d owned the guns before him, what they were like and where they were from. If Archie got out all his guns the game could take all afternoon.
    There were antiques in his collection. One was a single-shot pistol with a brass trigger that he’d polish with his spit and a blue cloth.
    â€˜I’ll never know why the gun maker didn’t put his signature on this,’ Archie’d say, when he’d put the pistol back in its box. ‘It’s a beauty,