Paperquake by Kathryn Reiss Read Free Book Online

added pine cleaner, and opened one of the packages of scouring pads. Then she lugged it all back to the front room, water sloshing. "Okay," she announced. "Let's get going."
    But the room was empty and the front door stood open Rose and Jasmine were sitting out on the front stoop giggling at some boys showing off with skateboards. The girls didn't even turn when Violet stepped out behind them. One of the boys looked like a younger version of the man in the needlepoint dream—with a large nose and dark curls spilling over his forehead. The boy looked up and pointed at her now.
    "Hey, it's the Maid-of-All-Work!"
He has a voice like a bulldozer,
Violet thought.
Loud and grating.
He nudged his companion, and both broke into catcalls.
    Violet frowned. What was it about her that set boys jeering, while Rose and Jasmine set them flirting and bantering?
    Rose glanced over her shoulder. "Oh, there you are. This is Sam—and his friend David. Guys, this is our sister, Vi."
    "You shouldn't be carrying that pail," Jasmine cautioned her. "It's too heavy."
    "It is not!" But it was heavy, so Violet set it down in the doorway. "You're supposed to be working, not socializing," she reminded her sisters. Then she gave the boys a tentative look. She felt awkward, as usual.
    She tried to turn the tentative look into the same sort of grin Rosy and Jazzy used on boys and flashed it down the steps at Sam and David. She hoped to dazzle them.
    The boy named Sam backed down the curb into the street, his skateboard tight under his arm.
Stunned him,
thought Violet.
    "We'll get started in a second." Jasmine looked irritated. "There's nothing wrong with meeting our neighbors." She appealed to the two boys. "She may look little, but believe me, she's the boss."
    "You can say that again," muttered Rose.
    The boys across the street laughed some more. Jasmine bowed to them, blew kisses. Then Rose remembered they needed to buy a new broom and a mop. And they'd never called their mother to say they'd arrived safely.
    "We'll just go on over to that hardware store and be back in a few minutes," Rose said. "Hang in there, okay?"
    Violet went back inside and slammed the door. There they were already, off without her. She donned the yellow rubber gloves, dragged the pail over to the big plate-glass window, and started scrubbing. With each swipe of her sponge, the front room grew brighter. Outside in the street, cars passed and people walked by. She watched the boys roll off on their boards, tipping up and down the curb effortlessly, Jasmine and Rose striding along at their side. The only time Violet had tried skateboarding, she'd fallen off and sprained her wrist. Jasmine and Rose, of course, had no trouble soaring along on skateboards, Rollerblades, or bikes. Violet didn't ride her bike very often. She seemed to fall as easily as her sisters balanced. They loved flying in airplanes, too, while Violet worried about birds being sucked into the engines or terrorist bombs going off and blowing the plane to smithereens.
    When the big window was clean, Violet began washing off the grimy sales counter. Then, using the broken old broom, she energetically swept the cobwebs out of the corners of the room, stirring up dust.
    When she was satisfied that most of the dirt had been banished, she bundled up the old newspapers. They were so yellowed and damp from mildew, it would be a chore even to read the headlines. She hauled the papers down the hall to the back door, turned the bolt to unlock it, then hefted her stinking bundles down the rickety steps to the back fence by the trash cans. There was no recycling bin yet. She'd have to tell her parents to see about getting one. She turned to go back in and grimaced with distaste as a spider ran across her arm and sailed off on a strand of web into the bushes. Once inside, she gathered up the grimy rags from the corner and wrapped them in the last sheets of newspaper. These she carried back to the garbage cans and dumped them