Girl From the Tree House, стр. 45
So, its normal jeans that fit and my save the animals ~ eat people t-shirt. That’ll be just the thing for our hunting neighbor… I skip down the stairs and find him poking the fire alive in the cooking range. Shouldn’t he still be resting?
“You seem as good as new, or are you aiming to impress me?”
He jumps up like Toby does when we catch him with his hands way, way into the cookie jar.
“I believe I’m good to go. No headache at all, thanks to you.”
“Don’t thank me. All I did was get you here, clean you up, and order you to sleep on the sofa. That wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary.”
“Talking about sleeping on the sofa. What was that last night?”
“What do you mean?”
“You do remember talking to me last night?”
“Of course, I do. I’m not senile, you know.”
“You’re sure you don’t have a twin or something upstairs? I could’ve sworn it wasn’t you last night.”
“Maybe you were half asleep or still knocked out from the accident. I don’t have a sister, twin or otherwise. Nor do I have a brother. I wish I had. Having a large family would be so much more fun.”
I fold the blankets and put them back into the cupboard. He’s finished stoking the fire and I bring a pot of water to a boil.
“What would you like for breakfast?” I open the pantry door and feel stupid. There is porridge, a box of cereal, long life milk, eggs, butter, and a loaf of sliced whole meal bread. Not really a sophisticated, extensive choice. Though it’s all the stuff we like and eat.
“You have the choice between porridge, cereal, or eggs. I can recommend the porridge. But even the eggs, cooked to perfection for three minutes are worth a trip into the outback of the South Island. The coffee is like auntie Mandy used to make. Letting freshly ground coffee boil for a few minutes in hot water.”
He looks at me speechless. What did I just say? There was nothing strange about what I said, was there? Perhaps I grew horns? I touch my head just to be sure.
“Did you expect us to send you on your way on an empty stomach? That would not be the neighborly thing to do.”
“I guess not.” He shakes his head as if he’d tested a theory inside his head and shook it off after deciding it wasn’t working out. “I’ll have cereal and a cup of coffee, please.”
I pull the table to the open window with the view to the vegetable garden. If you are quiet, you can hear Flatbush Creek gurgling as it dances over the boulders right behind the trees at the other end of the clearing. We sit on opposite sides at the table, in front of us for each a bowl with cereal and milk and a mug of fresh coffee.
We chat along like friends who were best buddies at school and meet again at a reunion twenty years later. He tells me a few funny stories from when he moved here and cleared out his place. He used to live in a tent and built his log cabin with his own hands. That must have been something because you don’t just build a cabin in a fortnight. As far as I know, you don’t.
He tells me of his wife who died in childbirth. Really? Do they still die in childbirth? Is this Africa? I thought we were in New Zealand in the twenty-first Century. I would like to hear more about that because I can feel his story affects the Tribe. But something in his eyes stops me. He looks as if he already regrets telling me that much. We like this guy. Which is a bit lame because we should like him because he is a neat person, not because he’s been through hell and back.
I want him to know that we know a bit or two about what it means to have a crappy life. Although I guess, nothing compares to losing a loving wife and one’s child. A cold shiver runs down my back and for a fleeting moment, all I can think of is a sea of blood. Not now. I squeeze my eyes together and think cinnamon rolls, cinnamon rolls, cinnamon rolls. As always, that good old NLP technique does the trick and removes all upsetting thoughts from my mind.
“My husband died two weeks ago. After the funeral we overheard his sister arranging to lock us up in a mental hospital. We packed our bags and left the same night.” I wait for a response from the inside, for someone shouting “No” or “Are you crazy?” but it doesn’t happen. That must mean Sky has decided it’s okay, even though I sense some of the Tribe are in two minds about this.
Get it? Two minds?
I have trouble to hold back a giggle. Two minds. It would be so good to have an ally and not be so alone in this super paranoid place, thinking everyone is out to get you.
“You? Crazy?” He looks at me as if I’d told him someone canceled Christmas this year. I do like this guy. I could even forgive him slinging dead rabbits about.
“I do have my moments.” A few videos are running in my head that are probably hilarious if you were to describe them. They weren’t that hilarious living through them, like when Maddie woke up one morning next to Horace and asked him, “Who are you?” When he told her with a stern frown that he was her husband, she shook her head and said, “You are telling fibth. I’m four yearth old. I’m too little to have a huthband.”
We paid for that with a two-week stay in a psych-ward, drugged out of our brains. It took forever to get the stuff out of our system. Since then Sky tries