The Diviners Read Online Free PDF

fat–can she be aperson? Can people look like that? The Skinny Man looks funny, too. Sort of crooked in his arms or legs, or like that. He has a funny lump in his throat and it wobbles up and down when he talks.
    “You’ll call me Christie, Morag girl,” he says. “And this here is Prin. You hungry, lass?”
    Morag does not let on.
    “She’ll be all right, Christie,” the Big Fat Woman says. “She gotta get used to us. Leave her be, now.”
    “I was only trying, for God’s sake, woman.” Sounding mad. “You want to see your room, Morag?” the woman says.
    She nods. They mount the stairs, the woman going very slow because fat. The room is hers, this one? A thin bed, a green dresser, a window with a (oh–ripped, shame on them) lace curtain. A little room. You might be safe in a place like that, if it was really yours. If they meant it.
    “I want to go to sleep,” Morag says.
    And does that. They let her.
    And after that, for one entire year, my memories do not exist at all. A blank. Nothing of what happened then remains accessible. Not until I was six.
     
    Memorybank Movie: The Law Means School
    The long long long long street, and Morag walking, slowly. Her hand, sweaty, in Christie’s hand. His hand is like when you feel the bark of a tree, rough rough. Not far now. She wishes it was about another million miles.
    All kids have to go to school when they are six. It is LAW . What means Law ?
    Big brick building, with a high wire fence around the big yard, and the yard all gravel. If you fell on that gravel youwould skin your knees, all right. Must never trip. What if they push you, though?
    So many kids, there. All yelling. Some very big kids. Some about Morag’s size. Morag knows for sure only Eva Winkler, who lives next door on Hill Street.
    “Do I have to, Christie?”
    “Aye. Just give them hell, Morag, and you’ll be fine. Just don’t you take any smart-aleck stuff from any of that lot, there. They’re only muck the same as any of us. Skin and bone and the odd bit of guts.”
    “Yeh.” But not knowing what he means.
    She and Christie walk up the cement steps. Forty miles. LAUGHTER ? Why? She turns. Many laughers. All around. On the steps and on the gravel. Large and small kids. Some looking away. Some going ho ho har har.
    “Lookut her dress–it’s down to her ankles!”
    “Oh, it isn’t, Helen! It’s sure away below her knees, though.”
    Her dress? What’s wrong? Prin sewed it. Out of a wraparound which Prin is now too stout to wear.
    Girls here. Some bigger, some smaller than Morag. Skipping with skipping ropes. Singing.
     
    Jamie Halpern, so they say,
    Goes a’ courting night and day,
    Sword an’ pistol by his side,
    Takes Junie Foster for his bride.
     
    And oh
    Their dresses are very short, away above their knees. Some very bright blue yellow green and new cloth, new rightout of the store. You can see the pattern very clear, polka dots flowers and that.
    Well oh
    Eva Winkler’s dress same as Morag’s.
    “Hello, Eva. Hello there, Eva!” Morag’s voice loud.
    But Eva is bawling her eyes out. By herself.
    In the front hall, dark dark floor stinking of oil bad-smelling oil. Boys’ voices. Mean.
    “Hey, you know who that is?”
    “Sure, old man Logan. He’s the–”
    “Sh! Al Cates, you shut your face.” Girlvoice.
    “Oh shut up, Mavis. He’s the– SCAVENGER !”
    What means Scavenger ? Morag cannot ask. Christie’s face is stone.
    “Phew! Can’t you smell him from here?”
    “Gabby little turds,” Christie mutters.
    The room. Grade One. Christie gone. Morag alone with all the other kids. Having taken a seat at one of the desks in the back row. Holding hard onto her wooden pencil-case. Never mind. They are only gabby turds, these kids. And when she goes home today she will know how to read.
    The teacher is a lady. Tall, giant, like a big tree walking and waving its arms. A tree wearing spectacles. Morag giggles, but inside.
    Then the worst thought. What if she has to