Read Online The Giant-Slayer by Iain Lawrence - Free Book Online Page B

the street.”
    Laurie looked at Carolyn with a new understanding. Chiphad turned his head away, and little Dickie was staring up toward his comic of the Two-Gun Kid but not reading the words or seeing the pictures.
    “That was more than seven years ago,” said Carolyn. “They moved to a new city. They moved again. Dad bought a company, and that took them even farther away.
    “I have a sister now. She’s three years old. I only saw her once.
    “They went to Niagara Falls. To the Grand Canyon. To California.
    “And I haven’t left this room. Not once in all that time.”
    Dickie tipped his head toward her. “They couldn’t take you,” he said.
    “Think I don’t know that?” asked Carolyn. “Think I couldn’t figure it out?”
    “I mean, you shouldn’t be mad. Boy, it’s not their fault.”
    “Oh, shut up,” said Carolyn.
    Laurie stepped away. “Do they still come to visit?” she asked.
    “Oh, they did at first.” Carolyn talked about it as Laurie moved along the row of iron lungs, to Chip’s and then to Dickie’s, taking down the magazine and comic book, flipping mirrors over.
    For a week, said Carolyn, her father and mother had come every day to the hospital. Each time they brought a tiny bunch of flowers, or candy that she couldn’t eat. They always asked how she was doing, as though they couldn’t see that she was just the same. Then they had to go home; Mr. Jewels had to go back to work.
    “Dad started coming by himself. All that summer, hecame every weekend,” said Carolyn. “In the fall it was every
second
week. By the end of winter it was once a month.
    “And now …” She sobbed and sniffed. “It’s maybe once a year. He came last month, and stayed for less than an hour.”
    “Were you mean to him?” asked Dickie, piping up above the huff of the respirators. “Did you get sore at him?”
    “Mind your beeswax,” said Carolyn.
    But Dickie kept on, with the serious expression that made him look so much older. “Did you shout at him? Then not even talk at all? Boy, I bet he looked so sad.”
    “Well, good for him!” she snapped. “Why shouldn’t he be sad?”
    “’Cause he came to see you,” said Dickie.
    “You stupe. He didn’t
want
to come. He
had
to,” said Carolyn. “He hates coming here.”
    She looked mean now, not pretty at all. Her face had set into hard lines, her forehead into rows of wrinkles.
    “You should be nicer to people,” said Dickie. “Then they’d be nicer to you.”
    “You should shut up,” said Carolyn.
    She and Dickie might have argued all day if not for the boy between them. Chip lay for a while with his eyes closed, his teeth gritted, as though he hoped to block out the sound. Then he tossed his head back and forth; he slammed it up and down. He did it so violently that one of the photographs shook loose from the front of his iron lung and drifted in zigzags to the floor. “Quit it!” he said in an angry voice.
    Right away, the others stopped.
    “Okay,” he said, more quietly now. “I want to hear Laurie tell her story.”
    “Me too,” said Dickie.
    “But no splints on the baby.”

    Fingal wouldn’t think of harming his baby. Jimmy was now the most precious thing he owned, as good as a golden goose.
    In the basement, Fingal had barrels full of money. He had coins of silver and coins of gold. He had round coins, square coins, coins with six or eight sides. He loved to pour them like grains of sand through his fingers. His only fear was that his new wealth wouldn’t last, because Jimmy was growing bigger.
    On the day of the first snowfall, when it was bitterly cold, a stranger arrived at the inn. He was older than any traveler who had ever come before, older than the inn itself. He looked like an ancient oak in a woolen cloak, twisted and wrinkled and gnarled, his skin as rough as bark, his fingers like so many twigs.
    He pushed the door with all his weight, and a frigid gust set Jimmy’s cradle rocking on the bar. It woke the