Spirit Read Online Free PDF Page B

into his drink and said, ‘Whatever you do, Lizzie, don’t regret things that you never did. Don’t ever pine for anything. Not men, not money, not things you think you should have had.’
    Elizabeth drank more Coca-Cola, and gave her father a sage nod of the head. She was beginning to enjoy herself. This was grown-up talk, in the middle of the night.
    Her father said, ‘Don’t pine for Peggy, either. She’s gone now, and no amount of pining can bring her back. Don’t worry: she won’t be alone. We’re going to put Mr Bunzum in the coffin, to keep her company.’
    Elizabeth stared at him in horror, and then burped, because of the Coca-Cola. ‘You can’t do that!’
    Her father frowned at her. ‘Why not, Lizzie? Mr Bunzum was Peggy’s favourite toy.’
    â€˜But he’ll
suffocate
! And he never liked the dark! You know he never liked the dark!’
    â€˜Lizzie, sweetheart, Mr Bunzum is a toy rabbit.’
    â€˜But you
can’t
! Peggy wouldn’t want you to! Mr Bunzum’s real! Mr Bunzum isn’t even dead yet! He had real adventures, I can prove it!’
    Her father put down his whiskey glass. ‘You can
prove
it?’ he asked.
    â€˜Wait.’ Elizabeth hurried upstairs, burglar-syle so that the stairs wouldn’t creak. She crept across her bedroom, so that she wouldn’t wake Laura, and then she opened her desk. She took out three well-worn exercise books, and then hurried back downstairs again. Her father was still sitting in the same place, although he had picked up his whiskey glass again. She handed him the books and said, ‘There.’
    Because he was tired, and because he wasn’t wearing his glasses, her father found it difficult to focus at first. But when heheld the first exercise book at arm’s length, he was able to read out ‘Mr Bunzum Goes To Hollywood’.
    â€˜You wrote this?’ he asked Elizabeth.
    â€˜I wrote all of them.’
    Her father set down his glass, licked the tip of his finger, and opened the first page. He stared at it for a very long time, and swallowed. The dying light from the fireplace reflected from the tears that were welling up in his eyes.
    â€˜Chapter One,’ he read out. ‘Mr Bunzum Sees A Movie.’
    He paused for a while, and then he read, ‘Mr Bunzum was a person who lived in a big white house in Sherman, Connecticut, with his friend Peggy and Peggy’s two sisters Elizabeth and Laura. Mr Bunzum’s problem was that he was a rabbit, which made life very difficult for him, i.e. he was the proud owner of an excellent red Packard but could not drive it because every time he drove it the cops stopped him and said “you’re breaking the law, whisker-face.” Also he could not eat in restaurants because whenever he walked in for lunch and said “lunch?” they thought that he
was
the lunch.
    â€˜But Peggy loved Mr Bunzum so much that she dressed him and fed him and took him everyplace he wanted to go, for which Mr Bunzum was internally grateful. Mr Bunzum for his part loved Peggy too and the two of them were the firmest friends that anyone had ever known.
    â€˜Mr Bunzum – ’ But here, Elizabeth’s father was stopped right in the middle of reading by a terrible sob. He bent forward in his chair as if he had the world’s worst stomach ache, and he was grimacing with grief. He sat there shaking and sobbing, and he wouldn’t stop. In the end there was nothing that Elizabeth could do but tippy-toe upstairs again. She climbed back into the chilly sheets of her bed and lay in the darkness with her heart beating, and prayed to Jesus that she had done the right thing.
    She saw the moon come out. She thought of
The Snow Queen
,and the maidens dancing by the lake. She could smell the flowers on their biers; and they were Peggy’s funeral-flowers. She heard Laura’s blocked-nose breathing; and the clock