The Tricking of Freya Read Online Free PDF

queen on red king. Red two on
black three.
    "Amma Sigga won't put up with any nonsense."
    I imagined Sigga in her velvet Fjallkona cape, regal and strict as a
queen. "What about Auntie Birdie? Will she put up with nonsense?" As far
as I could tell from our phone conversations, Auntie Birdie seemed fond of
nonsense.
    "Auntie Birdie ..." Mama began, then stopped herself.
    "Auntie Birdie what?"
    "You'll see soon enough."
    Out the window things became very flat. There were no trees. Just miles
and miles of fields. Barley and wheat and alfalfa, Mama explained. Once
when the train stopped she took me onto the platform for my first glimpse
of prairie. All I could see was sky, blue in all directions. Except far to the
west. In that one corner of the sky, dark black clouds. From their underside
a gray streak connected sky to ground.
    "Storm clouds," Mama said. "It's raining there."
    How could it be raining in one part of the sky and blue in another? The
dark clouds brightened for a second. Lightning. The storm raced our train to
Winnipeg and won; when I stepped onto the platform raindrops fell so hard
they pinpricked the skin of my arms and the back of my neck. Mama didn't
seem to notice. Her gaze was fixed on the large group of people waiting under a tin awning. Suddenly a pair of arms shot up above the crowd. The arms
were long and pale and slender, crisscrossing dramatically through the air
like those of a person stranded on a desert island signaling to rescuers. The arms moved through the crowd until they reached the front edge of it, then
connected to a person, a woman in a lilac dress, who began running toward
us in the rain. Still waving grandly.

    "That's Birdie," Mama said, raising her own hand in a modest gesture of
acknowledgment.
    "I know that!" I started running to meet Birdie but my mother gripped
my hand and we walked instead.
    First Birdie threw her arms around Mama, then she stepped back and
took Mama's two hands in hers. "Anna," she said. "Anna Anna Anna!" Her
voice was like a song. Then she knelt onto the platform and looked me in
the eye. "Little Freya."
    "I'm not little. I'm the tallest girl in first grade."
    "Frey," my mother admonished. "It's not nice to boast."
    Birdie didn't seem to mind. "Of course you are," she said apologetically.
"We'll call you Freya the Tall." Then she pulled me to her.
    "Birdie," Mama said, after a few moments. "That's enough. You'll ruin
your stockings on the pavement."
    Birdie did not let go. My chin rested on Birdie's shoulder, my nose
against Birdie's long soft neck. "You smell purple."
    "Good nose, kiddo." Birdie sounded pleased. "That's Lavender Dawn. I'll
dab some on you when we get home."
    I took my mother's hand, then reached up for Birdie's. Every few steps I
swung in the air between them, a feat I'd often watched other kids-ones
with two parents perform with envy. By the time we reached the parking
lot, a very tall man in a dark suit was putting my red suitcase into the back
of his car.
    "Stop, thief!" I shrieked. Foxy was in that suitcase.
    Birdie laughed. And laughed and laughed. There seemed no end to her
laughing. "That's no thief," she managed to get out, gasping for breath.
"That's your uncle Stefan."
    "It can't be. I have one aunt no uncles."
    Stefan stood awkwardly at the side of the car.
    "Stefan's not a blood uncle," Birdie explained. "He's the kind that chooses
you. Even better."
    "Does that mean he's like your brother?"

    "Exactly!" Birdie seemed pleased. Stefan blushed.
    Stefan's car was old-fashioned and shiny. A Rambler, he called it. I sat
up front between Stefan and Birdie. Mama sat in the back. "I can't see anything," I complained. So Birdie pulled me onto her lap.
    "Take us through Winnipeg, Stefan," Birdie commanded. As if Stefan
was a chauffeur. "Let's give Freya a tour of the old West End."
    "Oh no," Mama protested. "That's out of the way. No need for that. Stefan's nice enough to come all the way from Gimli to fetch