Two Wolves Read Online Free PDF Page B

you two okay?’ Mum called.
    They looked at one another through the gloom, Dad inside the cabin, Ben in the doorway. He squeezed his lip so hard that he almost drew blood.
    â€˜Sorry. I’m sleeping in the car,’ Ben said. He turned, walked away, and ripped open the car door.
    â€˜Big baby!’ Dad called.
    Ben threw himself onto the back seat and pulled the door shut behind him. It was warm and happy in there and it smelt caramelly, like Olive when she slept. He was never going into that cabin again.
    â€˜What’s it like?’ Mum asked.
    â€˜Beautiful,’ Ben said. ‘You’d love it.’

Ben stood outside the closed cabin door, still wearing his school uniform from two days ago. Olive stood beside him, hair mussed up, holding Bonzo the rabbit by one long, grubby ear. She wore her uniform, too. Feet bare, as always. No shoe had been invented that was comfortable enough for Olive.
    Early morning light poked at the cabin through sky-high pine trees. Mum was passed out in the car, still parked in the sandy clearing in front of the small timber building.
    Ben’s heart went blump , blump , blump . He could hear his father inside. A piece of furniture scraped across the floor. He waited a few seconds before giving the door a little push. It swung open with a raaaaaaark .
    Dad stood on a chair in the dim light of the room, reaching up into the open roof area. Exposed timber beams ran from one side of the room to the other. No ceiling. Just the rusty corrugated iron of the peaked roof high above. Dad looked down at Ben and Olive.
    â€˜Get out of here!’ He quickly covered something with a piece of black plastic. ‘What are you doing sneaking around?’ He jumped off the chair and stormed toward them. Ben and Olive backed away. He slammed the door in their faces.
    Mum sat up, woken by the sound, and opened her car door. ‘What?’
    Olive giggled.
    â€˜What are you laughing at?’ Ben whispered.
    â€˜Dad being cranky. What was he doing?’
    â€˜Are you guys all right?’ Mum asked.
    â€˜Yes, but Dad has poo in his pants. Again,’ Olive said.
    That almost made Ben smile but his pounding heart stifled the grin before it reached his lips.
    â€˜What’s for breakfast?’ Olive asked. ‘I want sugar on toast. Can we have sugar on toast?’
    â€˜We don’t have anything. There’s half a Kit Kat but you can’t have that for breakfast. We’ll work something out,’ Mum said, closing her door and lying back in her seat.
    â€˜Can you hear water? Maybe it’s a river,’ Olive said. ‘Let’s go exploring.’
    â€˜I want to go home,’ Ben said. He headed to the car as the cabin door opened.
    â€˜We’ve got to clean this place out so we can sleep in it tonight,’ Dad said.
    â€˜No. I want to go home.’
    â€˜Well, you’re not. You’re helping me clean up. You think I want to do it? No, but some things in life just have to be done.’
    Ben looked into his father’s eyes, deciding whether or not to challenge him. Dad was still a good thirty centimetres taller than him – thin but strong, lean arm muscles tanned dark.
    Some holiday, Ben thought but he dared not say it.
    Dad went back inside. Ben followed and was smacked with the stench of mould and death. He looked around. There was a shelf on the back wall, jammed with things. Next to it, a creepy built-in cupboard with large doors yawning open. On the right-hand wall, a solid timber workbench and a rusty green trunk. Under the window, a small wooden dining table and chair. To the left, behind the front door, there was a torn camp bed with a grubby sheet and leaves on the floor all around it. Up high, a window that had been smashed. And the clump of black plastic sitting on a wide timber slat up in the roof beams.
    â€˜Get to work. We’ll chuck most of it out,’ Dad grunted. ‘And don’t ever sneak up