Sister Mine by Nalo Hopkinson

Author:Nalo Hopkinson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780446576925
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2013-03-11T13:00:00+00:00

Next morning when I stepped out of Cheerful Rest, uncomfortable in a plain black skirt and sweater and chilly in my dress boots and coat, the wooden car was waiting for me. Abby sat behind the wheel, looking simultaneously tired and disapproving.

An icy breeze ran up under the hem of my coat and skirt, pimpling my thighs. Frost rimmed the edges of the grass blades on the sidewalk verge. The windows of the cars whooshing by on the already-busy street were ringed with icy, crystalline teeth. Hands in my pockets, I walked over to the driver’s-side window. “Butter tattled on me, didn’t she? Told you where to find me?” I peered into the backseat and sure enough, there was Butter, in her plastic-sided carry case, looking smug. “You see what you get for telling tales?” I asked her. “Locked into in a box.”

Abby said, “Oh, get in already.” When she saw my hesitation, she said, irritably, “I’m just giving you a lift to the funeral. It’s not like I’m going to try to kidnap you.”

I went over to the passenger side and got in. “Why’d you bring her?”

“Had to. She couldn’t exactly tell me your street address. She had to take the cattish route. It involved far too many back alley garbage cans for my liking. Besides, she liked Dad.”

“You’ve told her what’s going on? She understands the concept of burying the body of someone who’s no longer in it?”

Abby took a jerky breath in and out. “She understands the concept of putting rotting meat into the earth.”

Something unhappy fluttered in my rib cage. “Oh.” Now I was going to have to sit with that thought for the rest of the drive, if not longer.

Abby reached into the backseat of the car and handed me a giant water cannon, much like mine, except this one was black plastic. “I thought it’d be more appropriate. It’s already filled.”

I took it from her. “I could have thought of that on my own, you know.”

“Point is, you didn’t.” She checked her mirror and pulled out into traffic.

“You really think I’d be in danger with so many people around?”

“Butter says it seems to be getting more vicious.”

I turned to Butter and bared my teeth. I could speak that much carnivore, at least. Butter drew back into a corner of her cage.

Abby began, “Maka, I—”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it. I said, “Remember that time you didn’t come home from school, and Dad thought maybe something had happened to you?”

Abby cracked a tiny, sad smile. “Yeah. And his bicycle had a flat tyre, only he didn’t know how to fix it. Plus he could have just called me. I had my cell on vibrate.” Dad could make an apple tree bear lemons, but had never really gotten the hang of most mechanical things. “I’d lost track of the time, is all. I mean, I was singing. What’d he expect?”

She’d been in the choir, rehearsing for the school’s annual year-end concert. I chuckled. “He was so freaked out.

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