Read Online Crow Lake by Mary Lawson - Free Book Online Page A

persisted in asking me questions, and Luke happened to be there at the time, trying to read the paper, and Bo was screaming …
    “You’ve cut your finger,” Matt said.
    We were sitting on the sofa. Supper was over and I’d finished drying the dishes for Aunt Annie, who now, persisting grimly in her efforts to get us accustomed to a new order, was putting Bo to bed. You could hear Bo raging through two closed doors. “Not!” she was yelling. “Not! Not! Not!”
    What she meant was not Aunt Annie. We all knew that, Aunt Annie best of all.
    Luke was on his knees and elbows on the floor, pretending to read the paper. His hands were clenched against his jaw.
    “How did you cut your finger?” Matt said.
    “On a knife.”
    “What were you doing with a knife?”
    “Topping beans.”
    “You should be more careful.”
    He leaned back, waggled his shoulder blades, and groaned. “My back’s killing me. You’d rather be topping beans than doing what Luke and I were doing, I can tell you.”
    He wanted me to ask him what they’d been doing. I knew that, but the words seemed to be so far down inside me that I couldn’t drag them out.
    He told me anyway.
    “Today we were pitching straw. And I tell you, that is one awful job. The dust gets up your nose and in your mouth and the straw gets in your shirt and down your pants and the sweat and the dust turn into this sort of glue between your toes and Old Man Pye stands there leaning on his fork like some old troll, just hoping you’ll slacken off so he’ll have an excuse to eat you.”
    He wanted me to laugh, but that was more than I could manage. I smiled at him though. He smiled back and said, “Now tell me about your day. What exciting things happened today, apart from beans?”
    I couldn’t think of anything. Thinking had become as difficult as speaking. My mind seemed to have been swallowed up like a boat in a fog.
    “Come on, Katie. What did you do? Did anyone come to visit?”
    “Miss Carrington.”
    “Miss Carrington? That’s nice. What did Miss Carrington have to say?”
    I dredged around in the fog. “She said you were clever.”
    Matt laughed. “Did she?”
    But I was remembering now. She’d been nervous. She’d been scared of Aunt Annie and she’d had to force herself to say what she wanted to say, and it had made her voice funny
    “She said you were the cleverest child she’d ever taught. She said it would be a … tradegy … a tragedy … if you didn’t go to university.”
    There was a moment’s silence. Matt said, “Good old Miss Carrington. It always pays to suck up to a teacher, Kate. Take it from me.”
    His voice was funny now. I looked at him, but he was looking at Luke and his face was red. Luke had looked up from his paper and they were staring at each other. Then Luke, speaking to me but with his eyes still on Matt, said, “What did Aunt Annie say?”
    I tried to remember. “She said there wasn’t enough money.” She’d said more, but I couldn’t remember what.
    Luke nodded. He was still looking at Matt.
    After a minute Matt said, “Well she’s right. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.”
    Luke didn’t say anything.
    Out of the blue, Matt seemed to be angry. He said, “If you want to spend your life feeling guilty because you were born first that’s up to you, but don’t waste it on me.”
    Luke didn’t reply. He turned away and started reading his paper again. Matt bent forward and picked up another bit of the paper. He looked at it and then tossed it on the floor again. He looked at his watch and said, “We should go to the ponds. It’ll be light for another hour,” but neither of us moved.
    In the background we could hear Bo, still screaming.
    Luke abruptly heaved himself to his feet and left the room, and we heard him going into Bo’s and my room. We heard voices, his angry and Aunt Annie’s very firm, and Bo’s, heartbroken now, really sobbing; you could almost see her arms reaching out for Luke. Then, surprisingly