The Country of Ice Cream Star Read Online Free PDF

gun. All looking at the gun, and Crow say, ‘Driver choose to bring a roo back to the town. Choose to give a gun to little sister.’ He say this with sucking anger. ABC shy from his voice. Crow shy himself and look at ABC with nerves.
    Then he turn sharp, and aim the pistol toward the roo. Keepers squeak and duck. Then pride hold her still. Feary Keepers strain her body away, but make herself stay on the sledge.
    The roo go shut his eyes. If he frighten, it ain’t show. Likely, he been frighten all this time.
    Driver say, ‘You shoot a stranger who be bound and cannot move. What you being then? You be how vally then?’
    Crow’s hand ease from its aim. Driver standing quiet, though I see him swallow. He say, ‘Crow, give that gun to Ice Cream. Ice Cream, Jermaine, you tie the horses. Can leave the roo tonight. I be at nighting camp.’
    His voice be angerless and tired. Then he leave, my brother pass to darkness in the farther trees. Nobody else hear, but I hear him cough a minute down the path. I hear him coughing hard.
    Crow reach the gun to me. I take it careless. When our fingers touch, I look at Crow’s face. Someday I look at Driver’s face, when Driver been already dead. Everybody lost.
    And Crow turn away and follow Driver down the nighting path. I slip the pistol in my belt.
    ‘Ain’t go to nighting camp without my roo,’ Keepers say with pleasure.
    Asha Badmouth say, ‘Myself, ain’t go without Big Smoke. Ain’t walking on my feet.’
    ‘This be different cases,’ Keepers say. ‘I love my roo.’
    Asha scoff her breath. ‘He loving you, I guess?’
    I say, ‘Cannot take no roo to nighting camp. He go escape and eat us all.’
    ‘With crow sauce,’ say Asha Badmouth.
    ‘I fetch us hammocks,’ say Jermaine. ‘We sleep here and keep the fire.’
    Then Keepers joying in her eyes. She say in happy voice, ‘Spaseep, Jermaine. Mean gratty in their rooish.’
    Our nighting camp be kept a minute’s hike from town, clear from its trash unpleasantry. Summer grown thin then, so we strung hammocks in the reddish maples back of Christing Tophet. Hammock high enough, mosquito never think to go. Brook nearby, and everything the pure reverse of town. Is wild and tall with star bellesse.
    But this night, is comfort sleeping in our townie stank. All person smells be warm somehow, surround you with their unwant life. Yo,is Money by in friendship, and my ABC. Even the roo seem kinder in my fear, now Crow dislike him.
    Jermaine bring back four hammocks, but we only using three. Keepers nest up on the roo, where he be on the sledge. Yo, she start to speak roo language. Any word he speak, she parrot. Then me–Jermaine go parrot after, we all rooing to the stars. Spaseep. Ott vyazee mnya. Bolna, syo takee . But soon the roo gone silent, he look starward with his birchen eyes. Keepers curl against his ribs. His grandy hand be held in Keepers’ hands and they be snug as twins.

5
    MY PARLEY TO THE CHRISTINGS
    No child ever know a time be happiness until it gone. Time Pasha come, when we still raiding in the Massa woods, I swore to worry. Yet this been before the Nat Mass Armies took no Massa child. Driver bell and vally still, he rule and never weaken. We live wolfen through our wars.
    This morning when my trouble wake, Driver send me out to beg a housing for the roo. His judgment be, this perilous beast ain’t safe to keep with Sengles. Must go where there be walls to keep him. Ya, the Christings own a cellar built for prisoning. Kept Armies there, in murder wars that been. So this morning I leave my Jermaine to watch the roo. Ride to see the digger folk at Christing Tophet house.
    Before the murder wars, it been ten Christing homes in Massa woods. These people mostly fleeing north, whoever can survive. Now only Christing Tophet stay. Ya, in time before and time remaining, Christings live the same. House got one husband ruling it, with any-number wives and every enfant that they breed. And all believe a god who