Read Online Blue Vengeance by Alison Preston - Free Book Online Page A

bubble at the same time.”
    He was so delighted she had seen it that he had to move, get his feet off the ground. Russell sensed the joy and behaved for a moment or two as though she was about to receive a snack.
    â€œI’m not sure I need a helper.” He looked at her, met those steady eyes.
    â€œYou missed, didn’t you?” she said.
    The words hung in the air between them. Danny couldn’t snatch them back; they weren’t his to snatch.
    â€œDon’t talk any more.” He walked over to the shed where he fetched a y-shaped piece of dogwood from his shelf.
    â€œIf you’re gonna help me, it would be good for you to have your own slingshot, so you understand the ins and outs of it.”
    She reached into the back pocket of her jeans and brought out as fine a specimen as he had ever seen. It made his look like something Fred Flintstone would carry around. Hers was uniformly solid, and the rubber and leather sling looked strong and full of purpose.
    â€œWow,” he said. “Where’d you get your hands on that?”
    â€œSo I’m allowed to speak now?”
    He smiled. “’Course.”
    â€œI made it.” She handed it over.
    â€œWhat kinda wood is it?”
    She had left the bark on, except where the grooves were, and he liked that rough-hewn look. His weapon looked naked and tired next to it: the slingshot of a simpleton.
    â€œWillow,” she said. “We have a big old willow tree in our yard.”
    â€œThe rubber,” he said. “It’s red.”
    â€œYeah. It’s from an inner tube.”
    She lifted her chin towards a black inner tube that floated on the surface of the pool along with the elm seeds and aspen fluff.
    â€œLike that one, except red.”
    A picture of Cookie, cold and rubbery from the river, flashed behind Danny’s eyes.
    â€œThe rubber of red inner tubes is more elastic. You can pull it back further.”
    He pulled and saw that she was right.
    The grooves were perfect and the rubber was tied with strong twine. The leather pocket for the stone was expertly attached; there were uniform slits to slip over the tubing.
    â€œThere’s a dead squirrel in your pool,” Janine said.
    He followed her gaze. He handed the slingshot back to her and went to the shed for the skimmer that Uncle Edwin used to clean the surface. Handling it with ease, he scooped the squirrel out of the water and tossed it over the back fence with one smooth action. It was done before Russell had a chance to get involved.
    â€œNice one,” said Janine.
    â€œWhere’d you get the leather?” he said.
    â€œIt’s the tongue from a pair of my dad’s old shoes.”
    He whistled quietly. “It’s a beaut.” He laid the skimmer down.
    â€œI have to go now.” She put the slingshot back in her pocket. “I have to make supper for my dad, but I could come back later and start in on being your assistant — set up cans and stuff.”
    â€œWhy do you want to help me?” Danny said.
    â€œI just do.”
    â€œBut why?”
    â€œCookie was my friend. I mean, not so much lately, with what she got up to and everything, but...well…she was kind to me, back before…”
    â€œBack before what she got up to lately.”
    â€œYeah.”
    Danny hadn’t known that anyone else was aware of
what she got up to lately
. He wasn’t even sure that his mum realized the extent of it.
    â€œPlus, I hate Hardass and I’d like to do something to her.”
    Danny smiled.
Hardass
. So it wasn’t just about him becoming the best slingshot shooter in Canada.
    â€œWhat if we get in serious trouble?” he said.
    â€œWe won’t.”
    â€œWhere do you live?”
    â€œOn Lyndale. Same as you but at the far end.”
    â€œMaybe I could come there.”
    He wanted to get a look at the tree with the good wood, maybe find himself a decent branch. Maybe she would