Paperquake by Kathryn Reiss Read Free Book Online Page A

in.
    When she turned to go back up the steps, something held her. She looked around the backyard at the cracked concrete, the broken fence, the single bush, the walls of the buildings next door and directly behind. Why did she feel sad that there were no flowers in this small space? If she knew how to needlepoint, she would work a picture of flowers cascading over a gray concrete wall.
You can tell I'm the florists' daughter, that's for sure.
    Then she went back to the front room. Her sisters had returned with the new broom and mop. They were standing by the sales counter, taking in the changes in the room. Jasmine had the grace to look ashamed.
    "Really, you should have waited. You've done all the work yourself."
    "No one made her do it," said Rose. She sounded angry. "And she
shouldn't
have. What if something had happened? She could have hurt herself doing it, and it would be our fault."
    "It's so changed now," said Jasmine in wonderment, turning to look. "There's more light than I thought there'd be—and now that the cobwebs are gone, you can see the walls have textured wallpaper on them. And all those gross newspapers—Vi, you didn't lift them yourself, did you?"
    "Who was here to help?" asked Violet. Her voice was cool, but she felt an inner warm glow.
At last!
she was thinking. At last she had shown them she wasn't a useless baby anymore.
    "Give us a break, Baby," snapped Rose. "We were gone ten minutes, tops." She shook back her long ponytail and put her hands on her hips.
    "I must
really
be fast, then, if that's how long you were gone." Violet tried to shake back her nub of a ponytail in the same manner, but it was too short. "And don't call me Baby!" She put her hands on her hips, mirroring Rose's stance. "I hope you had a nice chat with those boys while you were buying the broom and the mop. But what would Brett Hudson think?"
    "Look, don't you two fight," said Jasmine, handing Rose the mop. "It's not good for Vi to get all upset. She
has
done all this work, Rosy, so we must have been gone longer than we thought." She turned to Violet. "We really didn't mean to be gone so long. I guess we sort of lost track—"
    "Oh, it's okay." Violet wasn't used to having her sisters apologize to her. Or even one sister. Rose's face was still thundery.
    Jasmine picked up the pail and opened the front door. "I'll just empty this dirty water outside into the gutter. Then we can start on the floor, Rosy. Okay?"
    "At least Vi has left us
something
to do!" snapped Rose.
    "Listen, don't tell Dad." Jasmine looked anxiously at Violet. "That you did all this work, I mean. You're not supposed to, you know, exert yourself."
    "Yeah," spat Rose resentfully. "We'll get in trouble if you look even the teensiest bit tired out." She frowned at Violet. "I don't know how you get away with it."
    "I won't tell." The small glow inside Violet brightened.
    While Rose wielded the mop and Jasmine scrubbed the floor on hands and knees, Violet returned to the begrimed cupboards and countertops. They would need repair before her parents could install their top-of-the-line computerized cash registers. She stooped behind the counter and tried to close the sagging cupboard doors, but the hinges had pulled away from the old wood. "We'll need to buy hinges at the hardware store," she said, reaching gingerly inside and rolling up the brittle, stained shelf paper. It shredded in her hands. She gathered all the scraps, actually enjoying the work now that she had impressed her sisters.
    She was just standing to carry the scraps out to the trash when another piece of paper caught her eye. It was different from the shelf paper—a thicker rectangle, stuck along the back of the shelf. She reached inside again to pull out this last offending bit of rubbish, then stopped and looked closely at what was in her hand. It was an envelope of thick white paper, yellowed at the corners. The back flap was tucked in. On the front, in elegant brown ink, was a single