Bye Baby Bunting by Tannis Laidlaw

Author:Tannis Laidlaw [Laidlaw, Tannis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Junction Publishing
Published: 2018-08-27T22:00:00+00:00

Twelve below zero; Jemma calculated that was forty-four degrees of frost. Once Penny awakened she dressed her in the snowsuit, scarf and mittens first and by the time she had herself assembled with the puffy jacket, hat, scarf, mittens, heavy socks and boots, the baby was becoming restless, most likely because she was far too hot.

“A bit like a strait-jacket, isn’t it,” she said to Penny as she hefted her up for their outside adventure and opened the back door. Jemma’s first breath was such a surprise she stopped. The cold hit her lungs with a vengeance. She took another cautious breath and anxiously watched Penny breathe. She seemed unaffected.

The house was unlocked and Jemma was unsure what to do about it. Kathie had talked about the boots but not about locking up the house, so she decided to leave the door shut but unlocked and not venture far. The pushchair was leaning against the wall of the house. Jemma pulled off a mitten to fasten the safety mechanisms and hastily put it back on again. She’d learned rule number one: outside, everything has to be done with mittens on.

The snow was as glistening and eye-squintingly bright as she had first observed when opening her curtains that morning. The whole world was white with stark black trunks of large trees emerging from the brilliance and silhouetted against the deep blue of the sky. Where the trees cast a shadow, the snow was also almost blue. Truly, another world.

With Penny jammed so tightly into the pushchair seat, there was no need of her restraint. Jemma set off down the cleared path through the back garden to what appeared to be a lane behind the houses. She turned right towards a cross street, Jemma talking about everything she was seeing and Penny babbling in reply. The air was still unbelievably cold going into her lungs. Should a baby be out in this? she asked herself. But half a million people lived here in this city. They couldn’t keep babies inside the whole winter, could they?

They came to the end of the lane and followed a ploughed footpath to the street where Kathie lived. The sign said ‘Somerset Avenue’ and this busier cross street, cars streaming past, was ‘Point Road’. Jemma turned back down the quieter Somerset Ave to see the Strong’s house from the front. It was set well back from the road with a cleared path to the front door. The footpath cut through a broad snow-covered verge and both road and footpath were lined in heaped piles of snow with a fresh fall arranged on the top like icing on a cake. The Strong house was rendered in cream-coloured stucco, tall and thin with large gardens at the front and back, and to one side as well. In fact, all the houses were set well back from the road, most with low fences or hedges. They all had thin trails of smoke coming from rooftop chimneys and seemed snuggled down beneath snowy blankets.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.