The Girl from Felony Bay Read Online Free PDF

finally saw a plume of road dust from Uncle Charlie’s black pickup as he drove out the plantation drive. It was nearly eleven thirty, and I assumed he was on his way to a card game or a bar. That meant the coast was clear, so I headed back to the house with Rufus trotting at my heels.
    Back in the kitchen I emptied the dishwasher from the night before, wiped off the counters, and cleaned up the spilled milk that was left from Uncle Charlie’s cereal bowl. After I let Rufus lick up the rest of the milk from the bowl, I washed it, put coffee in the machine, and turned it on. Then I sat and read my book and waited for Ruth to appear. She came down about twenty minutes later, sniffing at the freshly brewed coffee and carrying what looked like an old-fashioned yellow ball gown made of some shiny stuff like silk or satin.
    I could tell right away that Ruth hadn’t expected to find me there, because she looked surprised and angry. “What are you doin’ here?” she demanded, half turning and bundling up the the gown behind her back. She must have been embarrassed. A ball gown was totally un-Ruth. Not that I had much to brag about in the clothing department, but she tended to dress like a train wreck. All of her clothes looked like they had never met an iron, and most of them had burns from her cigarette ashes. Ruth couldn’t find the department-store makeup counter with a map, and her dull brown hair was usually as tangled up as a bird’s nest. She’d have looked as silly in a ball gown as I would have in a chicken suit.
    â€œFinished my chores at the barn,” I said. “So what’s the dress for?” I added, unable to leave it alone.
    â€œNothin’. It’s just a dress.” As if to make her point, she tossed it onto one of the kitchen chairs, where it fell half onto the floor. She left it there and walked over to pour herself a mug of coffee.
    I caught a big whiff of mustiness coming off the dress. It smelled like it had been in some attic trunk for about a hundred years. I wondered where she would have gotten it, seeing as how there’s no way she owned it. But I didn’t get a chance to ask any more about it, because she took her coffee out on the back porch steps, lit a cigarette, and sat there while she smoked it. When she finally came back into the kitchen, she looked around at how everything was cleaned up, then squinted at me as if she was just noticing me for the first time.
    â€œYou sure you finished your barn chores?”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œYes, ma’am,” she said in a mocking tone. “You only talk like that when you want something.”
    I pursed my lips and forced myself to be quiet and not bug her about the dress or anything else.
    â€œWhat?” Ruth asked when the silence stretched.
    â€œI’d like to go see him.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œYou know who. Please?”
    She poured another mug of coffee, then stood at the sink for a moment looking out the kitchen window. When she turned toward me and spoke again, her voice had become softer. Unlike Uncle Charlie, Ruth was actually capable of being human at certain times. “He probably has no idea that you’re there. You do know that, right?”
    I bit my cheeks hard. I could not and would not accept that. “That’s not what the doctors say.”
    â€œThey said if your dad is gonna come out of his coma, talking might help. I’m sorry to say it, but that if is getting bigger every day. It’s been nine months.”
    She did not have to tell me that. It had been eight months and twenty-seven days. That afternoon at about three o’clock it would be eight months and twenty-eight days since I had found Daddy lying on the library floor.
    The doctors had told me that the best way of helping Daddy wake up from his coma was to go in and talk to him and read books to him and just let him hear my voice. They said if he could hear me, it