Counting Stars by David Almond Read Free Book Online Page B

the dust. He shifts on the hard kitchen chair, catches his breath.
    “Press there,” he says, taking my hand, holding it against the base of his spine. I press, feel the complicated solid bone beneath the flesh and skin.
    “There?” I ask.
    “There. Yes, there. Press harder, son.”
    He touches the eggs gently and tells us he’s seen a Time Machine today.
    “I know,” I say. “I saw it come to Felling Shore.”
    He breathes the smoke from his nostrils.
    “I saw it going down,” he says. “Just as it did those years ago.”
    He reaches out and touches my cheek.
    “Who’d believe it? It’s the same Time Machine that I saw on Felling Shore when I was a boy.”
    We lean close together, above the eggs.
    “You’ll have to take me,” he says. “It won’t stay long. You’ll have to show me.”
    He laughs, touches us all, kisses us all.
    He ponders.
    “Larky?” he says. “Blackbird, starling and wren?”
    I dream that God clambers through the hawthorn at Felling Shore. He balances on thin boughs, gazes into the nests, carefully takes eggs from clutches of more than three. He holds them on His tongue for a moment, then swallows them. Little Kitten watches Him from the ground. She keeps saying, “Give us an egg, sir. Please give us an egg.” At last He tosses one down to her. It cracks open on her palm as she catches it. A feathered child comes out, bright and tiny as a hummingbird.
    I catch my breath. It’s our dead sister, Barbara, the fourth of us. I watch her fluttering toward the blue sky and deserts of the Time Machine. “Forgive us,” whispers Little Kitten. “Give us another egg, sir.” But God is furious. He glares darkly down at the girl. He becomes careless and clumsy. He shoves egg after egg into His mouth. Yellow yolk and bright blue shell dribble from His lips. The hedges tremble and the air is filled with the alarm cries of parent birds. I see Barbara flutter through the beaded curtain of the Time Machine. I rush to follow her, and wake in the darkness inside.
    Next afternoon Dad calls me from the garden. He’s tying the stems of roses against the fence. He squeezes a bud and we see the petals packed moist and dense inside. He tells me how fortunate I am. He tells me there will be nothing I can’t do.
    “You understand, don’t you?” he says.
    I nod.
    He smiles, ironic, blows smoke on the aphids to make them die.
    “We’ll go now,” he says. “Just you and me, the two of us. I’ll take the others later.”
    In the house the girls and Mam are at the kitchen table. Colin is somewhere upstairs, trying on his best yellow shirt or his best blue jeans.
    Dad takes me inside, brushes my hair down, tugs at my sleeves and hems to make me neat. He lays his herringbone coat across his arm. He sighs, presses his hand into the small of his back.
    “Where you two off to?” says Mam.
    He grins and winks. “Nesting,” he says. He kisses the girls. “I’ll take you to the fair later,” he says. “I won’t forget.”
    We step out into the streaming light.
    “Goodbye, little chicks,” he calls.
    An untidy cluster of tents and stalls, a couple of merry-go-rounds turning. The caravans are parked above the water. The din of compressors, Elvis’s howl, the scent of onions and boiling fat. The people of Felling move at ease through the field and through the fair. We pause by the hawthorn at the edge of the field. Brilliant light pours down, carries the singing of larks from somewhere high above. Dad faces me, watches me. I see the darkness of his beard beneath his dark skin, the heavy eyebrows, the glittering eyes. I see that soon I will be taller than him.
    “Are you happy?” he asks.
    I shade my eyes and look away and don’t know what to say.
    “Not a fair question,” he says. He raises his hand to some passersby. “You will be happy. You’ll have everything we’ve missed.”
    We move forward. He lights a Players. We weave our way through the crowds between the shooting galleries and