Treasure Island!!! Read Online Free PDF Page B

perfect.
    Dear Nancy
, I wrote. Immediately an image sprung up of her sifting through the mail in the back room, the airbrushed centerfold of cats warping off the wall behind her.
Since you’ve misconstrued my actions, I’m bound by my honor to explain them. Many, many times I looked at The Pet Library’s petty cash and thought of how I could use the money for my personal uses, for instance to buy a cashmere sweater—which I’m fairly sure I’m never going to be able to buy—and yet I didn’t. I hope I’m right when I say that this kind of restraint counts for something. I took the money to buy a parrot for The Pet Library. Which wasn’t right, my boyfriend tells me now, but wasn’t the most wrong thing in the world either, as it was an act on behalf of the business and not a misappropriation of funds for a personal sweater. I had no idea the money didn’t belong to The Pet Library. As for the fish, I wish I hadn’t left the tank uncovered but you can hardly blame the cats for taking a crack at them. When Jim Hawkins counts up the dead after the first skirmish, the crew has been reduced from nineteen to fifteen. And two more wounded, lying about, I think. But he soldiers on. As for Willie his coat was his best feature but, on the bright side, it will grow back, and now it will be easier to really go after his eczema. I hope you accept this apology and let me know at your earliest convenience about my hours for the coming week. I could work this Saturday, but not Sunday because Lars and I have plans and I was going to ask you, before you fired me, if I could have Wednesday off. Any of the other usual hours would be good.
     
    Your Faithful Hand
     

CHAPTER 6
     
    S ometimes when a person does something wrong, she finds it easier to continue in a wrong way; for if having done a wrong thing, she proceeds to do a right thing, the wrong thing may appear to others all the more plain. I offer this sententiousness as an attempt to understand Nancy, whose actions the most compassionate person would find difficult to explain. Not only did she fire her best and only part-time employee, she refused to accept Richard for her collection. This woman who for years had given homes to lizards that people had dumped anonymously into the drop-box after maiming them,
refused
, as a matter of principle, to accept my bird. All she wanted was her money back.
    I was at my parents’ house, explaining some of the indignities to my sister Adrianna, who for financial reasons, had recently moved back home. Adrianna loaded pita chips with hummus and ate them very slowly, leaning one elbow on the speckled Corian breakfast bar.
    “Well, he’s yours now,” she said. “Tell me where you see potential snags.”
    I counted them off on my fingers.
    “The dirty cage. The smell of feather dust. The cost of feed. The cost of shots. Holding the bird for shots. The bird angry with me after shots. Daily upkeep. Daily training. Daily contact.” I paused and stared at my pinky. “There’s also the question of how I could own a bird and ever go away on the weekends.”
    “You never go away on the weekends. You come over to Mom and Dad’s.”
    “Well, maybe I’ve been
planning
to go away on weekends.”
    “Maybe it would be good for you to have a pet,” Adrianna said. “The responsibility, I mean. Besides, if you needed to get away, doesn’t your friend Rena do pet-sitting?”
    I passed myself the tub of hummus she’d been hoarding.
    “Rena gets on my nerves.”
    Adrianna looked quizzical.
    “Very unambitious personally, and very doom-and-gloom about the environment. Mm thinking of cutting her loose,” I said with a full mouth.
    “She still worried about her nitrogen footprint?”
    “Negative energy,” I summarized. A huge glob of hummus dropped onto my mother’s vinyl coupon organizer, which was lying on the counter. “Let’s finish talking about Nancy. Do you understand what I’ve sacrificed for her, how much study of
Treasure