Shadows on the Train by Melanie Jackson Read Free Book Online

yell at Bowl Cut.
    â€œAAAGGGHHH!”
    Okay, not overly articulate, but Bowl Cut did whip round. “AAAGGGHHH!” I re-hollered. I splashed through the wading pool, causing waves that capsized a cute toddler’s plastic ship. He burst into loud, uncute wails. His mom was on her cell, 9-1-1-ing it. “Terrible accident…Garden Park,” she jabbered.
    I sprinted the last few yards over to Ardle. He was sheet-pale. His breath came out in ragged gasps. Kneeling beside him, I grasped his nicotine-stained fingers. “Hold on for the ambulance,” I begged. Had someone been there to tell Dad that after his car accident? My eyes swam with tears, which plopped onto my glasses’ frames.
    I glared blurrily at Bowl Cut. “You did this,” I accused. “Is eighty grand that important? IS IT?”
    Bowl Cut’s round face soared up and out of sight like a wayward ping-pong ball. He ran up to Broadway.
    An ambulance, a fire truck and two police cars screamed up to us in a splash of red lights.
    â€œHey, Di.” Talbot knelt beside me and put his arm around my shoulders. “Hey,” he said.
    He held out a folded white handkerchief. I blew my nose into it with my usual deafening honks. I was suddenly glad for Talbot’s well-brought-up conscientiousness, which included carrying clean hankies around and somehow not minding what a doofus I was.
    Ardle, who hadn’t been at all well brought up, winked at me weakly from the stretcher he was being shifted onto. I bet he had his good points too—more challenging to find, that’s all. If I ever had the chance to find them now.
    â€œI’ll be okay,” he croaked. “Yer a good kid. Mike Galloway’s kid. Crumbly Hall, huh?” And then, incredibly, he managed a laugh-cough.
    As the ambulance attendants hoisted him, Ardle’s lean features stiffened. “Careful,” he wheezed, clenching my hand. “Be careful of …” And with his other hand he gestured in the direction Bowl Cut had fled. “Mighty dangerous.”
    He shut his eyes. The attendants lifted the stretcher.
    â€œBut who is Bowl Cut?” I demanded. In a minute Ardle would be in the ambulance. Already a policewoman’s hands were on my shoulders, prying me away. “And who’s this king?”
    â€œA king, yeah. A king who lost his head,” Ardle muttered on a cigarette-smoky breath.
    â€œHuh?”
    Ardle wagged his head feverishly. “Naw. Shouldn’t have said that much to ya. Too dangerous…”
    The attendants heaved Ardle away.
    â€œPoor fellow,” the policewoman tsked. “Imagine babbling out such nonsense! Dazed by the accident, I shouldn’t wonder.”
    The doors closed behind Ardle, and the ambulance shrieked off.

Chapter Seven
    A Peanut-Butter Voice Creates
a Sticky Situation
    I rang up Vancouver General Hospital with advice about Ardle. “Put him near an open window. He needs lots of fresh air. He’s a smoker,” I finished ominously.
    â€œBut I’m just the receptionist,” the young man on the other end bleated.
    â€œFine. Put me through to surgery.”
    Mother grabbed the phone and hung it up. “Dinah, I promise you we’ll check in a while. It’s much too soon to—”
    Brrring !
    I lunged for the phone again. Mother, Madge and Jack, at the kitchen table knocking back cups of tea, exchanged despairing glances through the Earl Grey-scented steam. Or maybe it was Darjeeling or Ceylon steam. The three of them had become tea fanatics and grew quite tiresome with their discussions of hint of vanilla here, touch of red pepper there and so on.
    â€œ Hello !?” I shouted into the phone. It’s good to take the upper hand immediately in calls, I find.
    A feeble croak limped out of the receiver. “Please, Dinah. I’m already ill—no need to deafen me.”
    â€œMr. Wellman!”
    â€œI can’t go to Toronto with