Runner by Norma Charles

Author:Norma Charles [Charles, Norma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Red Deer Press
Published: 2019-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

About a year after they moved to their new house in North Vancouver, life was going along all right. Harry was at Sutherland Junior High School now and his sisters were still attending the same elementary school. The girls had a few friends who’d come over sometimes after school. As long as they weren’t noisy, they were allowed to play with their paper dolls and board games in their bedroom.

The neighbors still weren’t very friendly, though. The mothers never came over for tea as neighbors often had in St. Boniface. But Harry’s mom was kept pretty busy with all the housework, plus looking after Barton who, now that he could walk, was turning out to be a difficult toddler who needed constant minding.

After school, Harry continued with his paper route, now grown to fifty customers. That meant he was earning fifty cents a day. He had his own bank account and extra spending money for comics, or even going to the movies occasionally for a Saturday matinee with his friend Ray.

They had changed the system at the newspaper shack. Now when the papers arrived, they were already sorted into the individual routes. As soon as the supervisor cut the binding wire around his pile, Harry quickly counted the papers to be sure there were fifty copies and he hadn’t been shorted. Then he loaded twenty-five into each of his two newspaper bags, one for each shoulder, and he took off.

He didn’t have a bike like most of the other kids, but he could run like wildfire. He raced around his whole route in hilly North Vancouver, tossing the newspapers up onto porches or tucking them into post boxes. Up and down steep stairs and driveways, he sprinted to each house on his route, trying to break his record of getting the whole thing done in under an hour. By the end, he sure was puffed. But every day he was another fifty cents richer.

And every day, his lungs and legs were that much stronger.

Their father continued working as a porter on the trains so he was still often away from home for a week or so at a time. Whenever he left for one of his shifts, he still always reminded Harry to look after his sisters and the rest of the family.

One winter night when his father was away, Harry woke up. Something was wrong. It took Harry a few minutes to figure it out. It was the smell.

Smoke! He smelled smoke. Something was burning!

He flung off his covers and flew to the kitchen. He flicked on the overhead light. Smoke was billowing from the old electric stove. Had it been left turned on? In the window nearby, his mom’s new curtains were on fire.

Harry dashed to his sisters’ room, banging on the door. “Wake up, you guys! You have to wake up! The kitchen’s on fire!”

“What? What’s happening?” Carolyn cried, running into the hallway in her nightgown. Valerie was right behind her.

Harry beat on his mom’s door and flung it open.

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