Runt by Niall Griffiths Read Free Book Online Page A

burned a bit but not too bad cos it had gone cool a bit but I still looked badness at that boy and he curled his lip up at me like a fern leaf and then went away. I didn’t like him and I wished him bad and he did the same to me and I thought of that black hissy mist creeping around him and him disappearing in it and I felt gladder.
    I thought of the dance I did when I left the school and was it only yesterday Duw it seemed like ages and I wanted to do That Dance again. I hated that bastard school. Glad dead glad that it was gone I was and still am.
    In a sudden the sun went. In a sudden I was in a shadow. I looked up and up and up and saw a big black shape like a bull on its hind legs and knew then that it was That Arthur. A coldness came in me then and I felt dead dead small like a mouse in front of Charlesworth.
    —Having a nice chat with my wife, were we? His voice was like a tree falling over into other trees and making them fall too. —Well well. You’re going with your pisshead uncle. He’ll tell you what to do. And I’ll tell you this.
    His face was then in mine and much bigger than mine like a mountain itself with the beard like a red forest and cheeks like boulders and his eyes were two Bala Lakes and Duw I could see some monsters in
them
oh yes. I felt mud come into my knees and a coldness come quick into that place that had been hot when his wife Rhiannon put a smile on me.
    —Yewer dog goes anywhere near my fucking sheep and I’ll blow its fucking head off. Hear me? I’m watching
you
. And your fucking hound. Hear me?
    Another one of them questions that I didn’t know if I should answer but then the sun was back bright in my eyes cos That Arthur had gone away. Just took all his bigness and
there
-ness somewhere else and let the sun back into my face and I was gladded he was gone cos I hated him being in my eyes and I hated him just for being him and I thought of his wife coming across the mountain in the future-ness ahead to bring me soup and that thought and the thought of the way she looked at me made me glad and less scared of That Arthur and I didn’t know why it just did . And Arrn would bite his head off. Arrn would leap and go SNAP and Arthur’s stupid too-big head would go off and bounce all the way down the mountain into the Low Places and we’d watch it go and we’d laugh. I’d laugh and Arrn would wag and then we’d go back to Drunkle’s house where Rhiannon would be making soup and that would let me laugh some more.
    It would be good this world with no Arthur-ness in it. And that’s how it should be cos Arthur’s not from here anyway and doesn’t belong here with me and Arrn and Drunkle and even My Mam Bethan sometimes and he should go back to the place he came from which isn’t This World but might be somewhere
in
This World in a lake say or a cave but not here on the mountain that wears the sun. Not here where he can go about his face-scrapey business he should be in the ground with the worms and grubs that bastard Arthur whose wife Rhiannon smiled at me in a way she didn’t smile at any other and I didn’t know what that meant but did know it made me less scared of Arthur even with his bigness and the badness in me that he made grow.
    People started to go off in groups. I saw lots of dogs and some guns. I heard lots of voices with a lot of laughing in those voices and the voices were big and high but they didn’t need to be. It was as if most of the people were not being themselves and were speaking loud on purpose so other people could hear them who they weren’t even talking at and I wondered why that should be.
    I heard a whistle and looked round and saw Drunkle by the truck waving me over to him so I went over to him. I could see Arrn’s face behind the back window with his eyes all big and home to worryment.
    —Arthur have a word with you, aye?
    Yes I said. And his missis Rhiannon did give me a smile that made me hot but I didn’t tell that bit to Drunkle.
    —I