Piranha to Scurfy Read Online Free PDF Page B

upstairs his own post had come. Two envelopes lay on the mat. The direction on one was typed; on the other he recognized the handwriting of his cousin Frank’s wife, Susan. He opened that one first. Susan wrote to remind him that he was spending the following weekend with herself and her husband at their home in the Cotswolds, as he did at roughly this time every year. Frank or she herself would be at Kingham Station to pick him up. She supposed he would be taking the one-fifty train from Paddington to Hereford, which reached Kingham at twenty minutes past three. If he had other plans perhaps he would let her know.
    Ribbon snorted quietly. He didn’t want to go, he never did, but they so loved having him he could hardly refuse after so many years. This would be his first visit without Mummy, or Auntie Bee as they called her. No doubt, they too desperately missed her. He opened the other letter and had a pleasant surprise. It was from Joy Anne Fortune and she gave her own address, a street in Bournemouth, not her publisher’s or agent’s. She must have written by return of post.
    Her tone was humble and apologetic. She began by thanking him for pointing out the errors in her novel
Dreadful Night.
Some of them were due to her own carelessness, but others she blamed on the printer. Ribbon had heard that one before and didn’t think much of it. Ms. Fortune assured him that all the mistakes would be corrected if the book ever went into paperback, though she thought it unlikely that this would happen. Here Ribbon agreed with her. However, this kind of letter— though rare—was gratifying. It made all his hard work worthwhile.
    He put stamps on the letters to Eric Owlberg, Kingston Marle, and Dillon’s and took them to the postbox. Again he experienced a quiver of dread in the pit of his stomach when he looked at the envelope addressed to Marle and recalled the words and terms he had used. But he drew strength from remembering how stalwartly he had withstood Selma Gunn’s threats and defied her. There was no point in being in his job if he was unable to face resentful opposition. Mummy was gone, but he must soldier on alone. He repeated to himself Paul’s words about fighting the good fight, running a straight race, and keeping the faith. He held the envelope in his hand for a moment or two after the Owlberg and Dillon’s letters had fallen down inside the box. How much easier it would be, what a lightening of his spirits would take place, if he simply dropped that envelope into a litter bin rather than this postbox! On the other hand, he hadn’t built up his reputation for uncompromising criticism and stern incorruptible judgment by being cowardly. In fact, he hardly knew why he was hesitating now. His usual behavior was far from this. What was wrong with him? There in the sunny street a sudden awful dread took hold of him, that when he put his hand to that aperture in the postbox and inserted the letter, a scaly paw would reach out of it and seize hold of his wrist. How stupid could he be? How irrational? He reminded himself of his final quarrel with Mummy, those awful words she had spoken, and quickly, without more thought, he dropped the letter into the box and walked away.
    At least they didn’t have to put up with that ghastly old woman, Susan Ribbon remarked to her husband as she prepared to drive to Kingham Station. Old Ambrose was a pussycat compared to Auntie Bee.
    “You say that,” said Frank. “You haven’t got to take him to the pub.”
    “I’ve got to listen to him moaning about being too hot or too cold or the bread being wrong or the tea or the birds singing too early or us going to bed too late.”
    “It’s only two days,” said Frank. “I suppose I do it for my uncle Charlie’s sake. He was a lovely man.”
    “Considering you were only four when he died, I don’t see how you know.”
    Susan got to Kingham at twenty-two minutes past three and found Ambrose standing in the station approach,