Of Salt and Shore by Annet Schaap

Author:Annet Schaap [Schaap, Annet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Published: 2020-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

fathers and legs

And this is how Lampie finds him the next morning, when she comes for her reading lesson. Edward is still on the floor, not lying under the bed now, but in the middle of the room. He is struggling and kicking like a rabbit in a snare. There is a kind of leather harness around him, with belts and straps, and at the bottom a clumsy leather shoe that is sticking out at an angle. His tail is hopelessly entangled; the belts have buckles and holes, and he keeps tugging away at them, but he cannot undo them.

“Fish? What are you doing?”

“My. Name. Is. Not. Fish!”

“Do you need some help?”

“No. Go away.”

“Couldn’t I?…If I just undo the buckles on that…What is that thing you’re wearing?”

“Go away, I said!” His hands keep fiddling with a prong that he cannot get out of a hole. The whole rotten contraption is twisting his back and he cannot take it off.

He simply cannot take it off.

“Are we going to do some reading?”

She is still standing there. “If you don’t go away this instant…” he pants. “I’ll bite you in two. I’ll bite your stupid head off. I’ll…” He struggles and kicks, but he only gets even more entangled.

“If you’ll just let me…”

“No! How many more times do I have to tell you? No!”

He hears her put down the tray on the chest of drawers, and then she is suddenly standing there behind him. He feels a small tug, and the harness slides off him and onto the floor. He is free. He wants to slip straight under the bed, but he has no strength left in his arms. So he lies there with his cheek on the carpet.

“What on earth is that thing?”

He groans. She can’t just go away and leave him in peace, can she?

“Are you learning to walk with it? Are you trying to walk on your, um…deformity?”

She can see for herself, can’t she? She’s not blind.

“But why?”

“Because I made a promise.”

“Who to? Your father?”

He gives a little nod. She picks up the breakfast tray and puts it down beside him on the floor. He smells the fish, and it makes him feel sick.

“Take that away. And take yourself away too. I have a headache.”

“But you have to eat,” she says. “You know, a bit of strength for the day ahead.”

What nonsense, thinks Edward. He lies on his back.

“My father,” he suddenly hears himself saying. “My father has a box in his desk.” He was not planning to tell her, but that little box has been on his mind all morning. “There’s an arrow inside it; he showed it to me once. A tiny little poisoned arrow.”

“Oh yes,” says Lampie. She sits down on the floor beside him. “The kind that the Bushmen use.”

He looks at her. “How do you know that?”

“Oh, I heard it somewhere.”

“Who from?” She can’t read, but she knows that?

“From Crow, from…from a pirate I know.”

“You know a pirate?”

“I know plenty of pirates.”

“Oh,” says Edward. She knows pirates? He can’t imagine that at all.

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