Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey

Author:Craig Silvey [Silvey, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 978-0-375-89678-1
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

wasn’t killed.

But I was tortured. I was thrown in the hole. They imprisoned me in my room up until this morning. It was supposed to be until after the New Year, but after a brief hearing I’ve been granted parole for good behavior.

It’s the day after Boxing Day and the start of the Country Week Cricket Carnival. Jeffrey has been made twelfth man for the main team, but it’s no sudden admission of his ability: they just need someone to run errands without complaint. In the same way, the seniors team always give a jersey to Neville Schank, a cricket tragic who has Down syndrome and performs menial tasks with pride and enthusiasm. Not unlike Neville, Jeffrey is the embodiment of excitement. He’s been round twice this morning, his whites starched stiff, begging me to try to make it down to the oval. Both times I had to remind him I was grounded. But to my surprise, my parents have relented and they’ve let me out early. My purgatory has ended. I can stand in the sun. It’s been a long couple of weeks.

That night, after we came inside, I was expecting to be thrashed to death. Instead, our living room was full of tense, cautious concern. The house smelled of lamb fat and cold gravy. I still felt sickly and drunk, but sober enough to act straight. The police stayed: two locals and one from the city who wore a gray suit and a hustler’s hat. My mother perched on the edge of our couch. Turned out she’d arrived home and noticed my lamp was still on. After knocking on my door to no response, she’d burst in to find my room empty, my louvre plates stacked beneath my bedsheet. Then she panicked.

My father stood in the kitchen doorway and looked on as they asked me questions. They asked me if I’d been with Jasper Jones.

I was terrified, but something kicked in me. I discovered a gift for lies. I looked straight at them and offered up the best story I could muster. It was like I’d clicked opened my suitcase and started spinning a thread at my desk. Weaving between the factual and the fictional. It was factitious. And Jeffrey was right, it was all in the delivery. I had them. I’d reeled them in. They all nodded like it was truth, writing it down on a yellow pad.

I started talking about Eliza Wishart.

Blushing, I told them I was very fond of her. I told them that I hadn’t been able to sleep that night. I was beset by thoughts of her, worried and alone. I told them I kept thinking of her lying awake too, wondering where her sister was, whether she was all right. I couldn’t bear it any longer. I told them that all I wanted was to comfort her, because I knew she was upset. So I snuck out with the intent of going to her house, just to talk to her, just to see if she was okay.

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