Read Online The Uninvited by Tim Wynne-Jones - Free Book Online Page B

turned back even the most intrepid explorer. The result was that Cramer had never seen a soul on the creek. It was his private highway. He was its lord and master.
    The sun was behind the trees by the time he passed under the Upper Valentine Road Bridge. Just ten minutes from home. The road continued for another couple of kilometers where it used to cross the Eden, but that bridge had been washed away years ago and never been replaced. The road beyond their place had gotten tired of waiting to be repaired. It petered out to a rutted and overgrown trail. The Lees’ box was the mail lady’s last stop. Cramer would watch her drive on up the road to a better turnaround spot to avoid using their steep and pitted driveway. The oil truck wouldn’t deliver to them, either, so they’d had to stick with wood heat. Mavis wanted to convert to electric, but that wasn’t going to happen any time soon, not with the money Cramer made. He was supporting the two of them.
    The last house on the road, the last place up the creek; that’s where Cramer Lee was heading, filled with emotions he couldn’t put a name to. There was jealousy in there, resentment, too, but something else—something deeper. A shifting.
    There was a quiet and deep pool just past the bridge, where he could pause for a moment without having to fight the current, where he could catch his breath, though his final destination was hardly any distance now. He stopped and laid his paddle across the gunwales. He closed his eyes and could feel the calm of the water rise up through the canoe’s hull. He breathed deeply, tried to block from his mind Mimi Shapiro’s
Cracker Jack
voice—a voice like some comedian on
Saturday Night Live.
He tried to block the vision of her naked bottom, her cleavage, her shiny eyes and defiant smile. And he tried to get out of his head the thought that she might be Jackson Page’s girlfriend. What had happened to Iris? Was he two-timing her? Cramer shook his head at the unfairness of it all.
    The worst thing was that it would be awhile before he would see Mimi again. God, what if she left! What if she was only there for the weekend? No, there had been things in the back of the car—a box of dishes, kitchen stuff.
She has to stay until I’m free again.
He worked the nightshift, eight out of twelve days at the 3M plant just outside of town. That started up again tomorrow. He might sneak in an early afternoon trip to the snye, but he also worked part-time at PDQ Electronics, and Hank Pretty had extra work for him. Cramer couldn’t turn down extra work.
    It was more unfair than anything.
    He opened his eyes and stared down at his hands gripping the paddle. The veins stood out in high relief. He breathed deeply again but couldn’t get the calmness back. He imagined himself in Mimi’s documentary. “This is Cramer,” he could hear her say it. “My good friend Cramer.” And in the film he smiled at her and winked. Then he said something clever like her clever friends to make her laugh. Yeah, right.
    He dug his paddle deep into the creek’s dark water, and the canoe shot forward, rounding the last bend.
    Up ahead, to his surprise, he saw his mother down by the shore. She was sitting on a granite boulder that poked out into the creek. She had her bare arms wrapped around her knees, and her head was tipped back to catch the very last of the sun. She saw him and waved.
    He waved his paddle at her, tentatively, wondering what had happened to bring her down here. She didn’t venture outside all that often. Hardly went to town anymore, had a friend or two she seldom saw. She didn’t look agitated, as far as he could tell.
    Cramer’s eyes scanned the hill for a white panel truck. Nothing. Thank God.
    She stood as he neared his docking place. She was in a white T-shirt and her torn-up work jeans, stained with paint. Her hair was tied back in a red ribbon. She was wearing the emerald necklace. She looked beautiful. Happy.
    “Isn’t this some