Read Online Spare and Found Parts by Sarah Maria Griffin - Free Book Online

since you’re offering, I’ll have a—”
    He leaned over the bar to get the barmaid’s attention, cutting Nell off.
    â€œShe’ll have a bathtub gin with two wedges of lemon and a splash of—”
    â€œElderflower tonic,” snarled Nell. “Good evening, Oliver.”

CHAPTER 8
    Y ou are twelve, and you cannot believe Oliver Kelly is still coming here every week. It is bad enough that you have to take Saturday classes without having to take them with him . And he still looks around seven. You didn’t mind him when he was seven and you were seven, but that was long ago; that was when you didn’t have to see him every single weekend. You aren’t seven anymore. You are twelve. It is bad enough that you are twelve.
    Only half an hour left; then he’ll go home. Your eyes are on the clock, and you’re convinced it’s impossible for a clock to move this slowly. You’d really like not to be sitting beside Oliver Kelly, who apparently has just discovered cologne. Discovering it would be fine; but you’re fairly sure he’s also been bathing in it, and even your welding mask won’t disguise the stench.
    You shift uncomfortably, leaning away from Oliver a little more, almost at such an angle now that you might fall off your chair. You don’t care if you fall off your chair. You just don’t want to sit next to him.
    The clock’s second hand moves once. You scowl. Your goggles are starting to dig into your face. Another second.
    Your father makes very intense eye contact with Oliver when he’s instructing. He laughs at Oliver’s weak jokes. This is good because it means that Oliver’s gaze never floats over to you (your neckline, mostly, and you’re never sure if it’s your scar he’s trying to see through your scarf or if it’s your breasts, and either way you hate it). The whole thing makes you want to overturn the entire kitchen table and all the tools that lie out on it, wreck the composition of the skeleton key or whatever it is you’re practicing this week. Metal casting and magnets and filigree for detail. It’s pointless anyway. You’re ready to make things move, and you keep telling him ; but he’s dawdling on easier projects because of Oliver bloody Kelly.
    You like the tiny blowtorch, though, the raw blue flame. You like the whispery roar it makes. You like the smell of the molten iron as it casts and cools; you like carving away at it with raw heat. You like the shape of the key’s teeth, hungry for locks, confidentthat it can open anything, get in anywhere. You like its hidden magnets, how it can pull secrets apart.
    You like learning. You like building. You just don’t like Oliver.
    You don’t like watching how slowly and clumsily he puts things together; you don’t like his earnest questions, his shaky requests to be shown everything twice or three times. You don’t like how he keeps dropping his tools and how they clang onto the floor. You don’t like how he’s here.
    You turn the key over and over; you can’t do anything else to it. It looks exactly as the blueprints intended. You pop your goggles up onto your head and take off your face mask. Oliver shoots you a jealous look; he’ll be at least five more minutes to get the last corner done. You cup your face in your hands. “Da, I’m done,” you offer sweetly, pushing smugness down.
    Your father waves you off and continues to hover around Oliver. “All right, Nell, calm down just a moment.”
    Calm . . . down?
    You seethe. Why should you even calm down? You’ve done exactly what you were told, no questions asked, got everything right the first time, and are done twenty-four minutes before you’re meant to be. You resist the urge to rap your fingers against the table, andyour ticking escalates in that very specific way it does when you’re upset. Another furious minute drags