The Ocean at the End of the Lane Read Online Free PDF Page B

they’ve been having money problems. And
this morning he had a dream where she . . . she was doing bad things.
To earn money. So he looked in her handbag and found lots of folded-up
ten-shilling notes. She says she doesn’t know where they came from, and he
doesn’t believe her. He doesn’t know what to believe.”
    â€œAll the fighting and the dreams. It’s about money,
isn’t it?”
    â€œI’m not sure,” said Lettie, and she seemed so
grown-up then that I was almost scared of her.
    â€œWhatever’s happening,” she said, eventually, “it
can all be sorted out.” She saw the expression on my face then, worried. Scared
even. And she said, “After pancakes.”
    Lettie cooked us pancakes on a big metal griddle,
on the kitchen stove. They were paper-thin, and as each pancake was done Lettie
would squeeze lemon onto it, and plop a blob of plum jam into the center, and
roll it tightly, like a cigar. When there were enough we sat at the kitchen
table and wolfed them down.
    There was a hearth in that kitchen, and there were
ashes still smoldering in the hearth, from the night before. That kitchen was a
friendly place, I thought.
    I said to Lettie, “I’m scared.”
    She smiled at me. “I’ll make sure you’re safe. I
promise. I’m not scared.”
    I was still scared, but not as much. “It’s just
scary.”
    â€œI said I promise,” said Lettie Hempstock. “I won’t
let you be hurt.”
    â€œHurt?” said a high, cracked voice. “Who’s hurt?
What’s been hurt? Why would anybody be hurt?”
    It was Old Mrs. Hempstock, her apron held between
her hands, and in the hollow of the apron so many daffodils that the light
reflected up from them transformed her face to gold, and the kitchen seemed
bathed in yellow light.
    Lettie said, “Something’s causing trouble. It’s
giving people money. In their dreams and in real life.” She showed the old lady
my shilling. “My friend found himself choking on this shilling when he woke up
this morning.”
    Old Mrs. Hempstock put her apron on the kitchen
table, rapidly moved the daffodils off the cloth and onto the wood. Then she
took the shilling from Lettie. She squinted at it, sniffed it, rubbed at it,
listened to it (or put it to her ear, at any rate), then touched it with the tip
of her purple tongue.
    â€œIt’s new,” she said, at last. “It says 1912 on it,
but it didn’t exist yesterday.”
    Lettie said, “I knew there was something funny
about it.”
    I looked up at Old Mrs. Hempstock. “How do you
know?”
    â€œGood question, luvvie. It’s electron decay,
mostly. You have to look at things closely to see the electrons. They’re the
little dinky ones that look like tiny smiles. The neutrons are the gray ones
that look like frowns. The electrons were all a bit too smiley for 1912, so then
I checked the sides of the letters and the old king’s head, and everything was a
tad too crisp and sharp. Even where they were worn, it was as if they’d been
made to be worn.”
    â€œYou must have very good eyesight,” I told her. I
was impressed. She gave me back the coin.
    â€œNot as good as it once was, but then, when you get
to be my age, your eyesight won’t be as sharp as it once was, neither.” And she
let out a guffaw as if she had said something very funny.
    â€œHow old is that?”
    Lettie looked at me, and I was worried that I’d
said something rude. Sometimes adults didn’t like to be asked their ages, and
sometimes they did. In my experience, old people did. They were proud of their
ages. Mrs. Wollery was seventy-seven, and Mr. Wollery was eighty-nine, and they
liked telling us how old they were.
    Old Mrs. Hempstock went over to a cupboard, and
took out several colorful vases. “Old enough,” she said. “I remember when the
moon was