The Night Ferry Read Online Free PDF Page B

size. I didn’t think of my size. I thought of Cate.
    “That’s the one who runs,” said Bradley.
    “Wel run away little yindoo, you’re smel ing up the air.”
    I stil couldn’t get any words out. Disquiet grew in Donavon’s eyes. “Listen, you sick Sikh, get lost.”
    I rediscovered my voice. “What did you do?”
    “I did nothing.”
    A crowd had started to gather. Donavon could see them coming. He wasn’t so sure anymore.
    It didn’t feel like me who was standing in the playground, confronting Donavon. Instead I was looking down from the branches of the tree, watching from above like a bird. A dark bird.
    “Fuck off, you crazy bitch.”
    Donavon was fast but I was the runner. Later people said I flew. I crossed the final yard in the beat of a butterfly’s wing. My fingers found his eye sockets. He roared and tried to throw me off. I clung on in a death grip, attacking the soft tissue.
    Snarling my hair in his fists, he wrenched my head backward, trying to pul me away but I wasn’t letting go. He pummeled my head with his fists, screaming, “Get her off! Get her off!” Bradley had been watching, too shocked to react. He was never sure what to do unless Donavon told him. First he tried to put me in a headlock, forcing my face into the dampness of his armpit, which smel ed of wet socks and cheap deodorant.
    My legs were wrapped around Donavon’s waist. My fingers gouged his eyes. Bradley tried another tack. He grabbed one of my hands and uncurled my fingers, pul ing my arm backward. My grip broke. I raked my fingernails across Donavon’s face. Although he couldn’t see anything from his streaming eyes, he lashed out, kicking me in the head. My mouth fil ed with blood.
    Bradley had hold of my left arm, but my right was stil free. In a family of boys you learn how to fight. When you’re the only girl you learn how to fight dirty.
    Spinning to my feet, I swung my hand at Donavon’s face. My index finger and forefinger speared up his nose, hooking him like a fish. My fist closed. No matter what happened next Donavon would fol ow me. Bradley could break my arm, drag me backward, kick me through the goalposts and Donavon would come with me like a bul with a ring through his nose.
    A moan was al I heard escape from his mouth. His arms and legs were jerking.
    “Don’t touch her. Don’t touch her,” he pleaded. “Just let her go.”

    Bradley loosened his grip on my left arm.
    Donavon’s eyes were swol en and closing. His nasal passages were turned inside out by my fingers. I held him, with his head tilted back and his lower jaw flapping open as he sucked air.
    Miss Flower, the music teacher, was on playground duty that day. In truth she was having a cigarette in the staff room when someone came hurtling up the stairs to get her.
    Donavon blubbered on about being sorry. I didn’t say a word. It felt like none of this had happened to me. I stil seemed to be watching from the branches of the tree.
    Miss Flower was a fit, youthful, jol y-hockey-sticks type with a fondness for French cigarettes and the sports mistress. She took in the scene with very little fuss and realized that nobody could force me to let Donavon go. So she adopted a conciliatory approach ful of comforting words and calming appeals. Donavon had gone quiet. The less he moved, the less it hurt.
    I didn’t know Miss Flower wel but I think she got me, you know. A skinny Indian girl with braces and glasses doesn’t take on the school bul y without a good reason. She sat with me in the infirmary as I spat blood into a bowl. Two front teeth had been ripped out of the wire braces and were trapped in the twisted metal.
    I had a towel around my neck and another across my lap. I don’t know where they took Donavon. Miss Flower held an ice pack to my mouth.
    “You want to tel me why?”
    I shook my head.
    “Wel , I don’t doubt he deserved it but you wil have to give a reason.”
    I didn’t answer.
    She sighed. “OK, wel , it can wait. First