All the King's Horses by Laura C Stevenson Read Free Book Online Page A

obvious. When we’d asked Grandpa to teach us to box, he’d said no. ‘
See, your mother’s like her mother – it grieves her to see matters settled in the ordinary way. So we don’t want to be causing her tears; she’s shed enough of those already
.’ He finally gave in, but only if we promised never, never to have fist-fights at home, only in Pennsylvania. Up until then, we’d never forgotten that promise. I was so ashamed that I couldn’t look anywhere but down.
    ‘What brought this about?’ asked Mom in a quiet voice that was lots worse than yelling.
    ‘Nothing, really,’ I whispered.
    ‘Right,’ muttered Colin. ‘We just … disagreed.’
    ‘What about?’
    I snuck a glance at Colin, then we both looked up at Mom. She was almost crying, just like Grandpa had said. ‘Oh Mom!’ I said.
    ‘We’re so sorry!’ said Colin. ‘We’ll never, never …’
    ‘OK.’ But she still stood there, blinking tears away. Finally, she said, ‘Look. It’s hard on all of us, having Grandpa like this. But the only thing we can do about it is stick together.’
    This wasn’t the time to explain you could have a fist-fight and still stick together, so I didn’t. Which was a good thing, because she looked at us very closely and added: ‘That doesn’t just mean no fighting. It means no secrets.’
    ‘Absolutely,’ said Colin, looking at her, not at me. ‘No secrets, from now on.’
    Mom’s face suddenly looked a lot better. ‘Great,’ she said. ‘Let’s have some tea.’
    We did, and that was that, except after we went to bed, Colin snuck into my room.
    ‘Just in case you think I’ve still got a grand future in lying—’
    ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘You said
no secrets from now on
; the old ones don’t count, right?’
    ‘Just wanted to be sure you got it,’ he whispered, looking over his shoulder at the door. ‘And look, Sarah. We
did
see Cathbad and Mongan, and we went to the Burkes’ and …’
    ‘Oh, for Pete’s sake.’
    ‘No, no! That’s what I wanted to tell you! I don’t know if you can believe this, but I … forgot. Honest. Like on a test, and everything goes blank, you know?’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Yeah, really. And like after the test is over, when you suddenly remember the answer – bang, there it was: Cathbad and Mongan and the mission and everything else that happened before we got back and they told us Grandpa was down by the river.’ He shivered. ‘Spooky, right? I mean, you
know
the Sidhe are powerful and all, but if they can wipe out your memory like that—’
    ‘Yeah,’ I said, but then we heard Mom and Grandpa coming upstairs, and Colin whisked back into his room.
    I lay there in the dark, thinking about what had happened after we left the laundromat, and wishing Colin hadn’t left; it would have been nice if he’d been around when it all came back to me. But it was even spookier than I’d thought. Because it didn’t come back. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember finding Grandpa by the river.
    Notes
    1 Manannan mac Lir is pronounced
Monn -un-aun Mak Leer

THE NEXT MONDAY , the bus was late, which only happens when it’s pouring. After we’d been standing at our stop for about ten minutes, the little white dog we’d seen with Jenny bounced out of one of the warehouses, and a moment later Jenny followed it. She didn’t have an umbrella, so she was soaked by the time she got to us. ‘You want to wait in our place?’ she said.
    ‘Oh … thanks,’ I said, ‘but we couldn’t see the bus from there.’
    Jenny glanced at the warehouse, and I knew she knew we could have seen the bus just fine, but all she said was, ‘OK.’ Then she asked us what our names were, and where we’d lived before, and I kept thinking we should make room for her under the umbrella, and Colin stood on one foot, then the other, and it seemed like forever until the bus finally came. As we climbed on, I looked back, wondering why she’d stand in the rain just to talk to us.