No Small Thing by Natale Ghent Read Free Book Online

her. Ma keeps sobbing until she sees Queenie.
    “Good God, what happened to you, child?” She rushes over to Queenie.
    Queenie finally breaks down because she is tired and scared and she can’t be strong any more, not with Ma crying and all.
    “What have you done to her?” Ma screams at me.
    “It was an accident…. She fell.”
    Ma runs her hands over Queenie. “My baby, my poor baby …”
    Cid is crying now too, but softly, sniffling into her shirt, her face crumpled like an old tin can. She moves over to where I am and we stand mutely watching.
    The woman in the car offers to drive Queenie and Ma to the hospital. They get in the car and drive off, leaving Cid and me standing in front of the house.

chapter 6
I run away
    “They’ve been gone for an awfully long time,” Cid says, looking out the living room window. “I hope Queenie is okay. I’ve never seen Ma so mad before. I thought she was going to kill you.”
    They
had
been gone a long time. I’m concerned about Queenie, but I have to admit, I’m not in any hurry to face Ma. I don’t mind so much that she hit me. I was more embarrassed than anything else. But I’m sorry that I made Ma worry so much. I never want to be like my dad.
    While we are waiting for Ma and Queenie to return, I wash my knee in the sink. After the blood is cleaned up I can see that the dog only grazed the skin. It isn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. “We’ll have to tell Ma about Smokey when they get back,” I say, trying to thread a needle to fix the tear in my pants. My fingers feel like a tangle of thumbs and the thread goes everywhere except through the needle. Cid grabs it from me and threads it as easily as if the needle were the size of a wooden spoon, then hands it back to me.
    “She’ll never let us keep him. What are we going to do? We can’t take him back. That would be just awful.”
    “We’re not going to take him back. I don’t care what Ma says. I know she’s mad now, but I’ll convince her once she cools down. I have my paper route. She won’t have to have any part in it. She doesn’t have to pay for a thing.” I don’t know who I’m trying to convince with this delivery, me or Cid, but it makes me feel better to say it and it seems to make Cid feel better to hear it.
    Cid’s just about to turn on the t? when we hear the sound of the car crunching the gravel in the driveway. We can hear Ma thanking the woman, then the doors slamming and the car driving off. I take a deep breath because I’m afraid of what will happen next. I tie a finishing knot in the thread, then break it with my teeth. My sewing is terrible compared to Ma’s. But I sure wasn’t going to ask her to mend my pants.
    Ma walks in, helping Queenie through the door. Queenie looks tired but she’s smiling. Her eyes are kind of glazed over—probably from the painkillers they gave her at the hospital. She has a small stuffed bear in her hands and a plaster cast that runs thick and white over one shoulder, across her chest and under her arm. There’s a
    Scooby-Doo sticker on the front of it. Her shirt had been cut to make room for the cast, and she looks like a little football player just coming in from a hard game.
    Ma kisses Queenie on the forehead, then walks right past me without saying a word. This is not good. I’m more afraid of her silence than her yelling. Ma can freeze you out forever. Once, she didn’t talk to Dad for three months, she was so mad at him for something. I can hear her clattering pots in the kitchen. Cid and I rush over to where Queenie is standing.
    “What was wrong with you?” Cid asks. “You’re so lucky to have a cast.”
    “The doctor said I broke my collarbone,” Queenie says, touching the cast reverently. “Feel it. It’s hard as anything.”
    Cid taps lightly on the cast.
    “The hospital people were really nice. They gave me this bear and this sticker too.”
    “Did it hurt?” Cid asks. “Can I sign your cast?”
    “I’m sorry,