The Gallery of Lost Species by Nina Berkhout Read Free Book Online Page B

enough.”
    For a week, Viv stayed in bed with the flu. None of us spoke of Fairytale Faces again.
    *   *   *
    S HORTLY AFTER, ON one of those warm days when Constance forced us outside, I sat in the tree swing and watched my sister extract a pair of scissors from her pocket.
    Other than Viv’s pageants, our mother’s only pleasure was gardening. In our postage-stamp yard there were unkempt beds and a rock garden that Con brought to life with flowers and the rich scents of herbs. She added window boxes around the house. She put a cement bird bath under the apple tree in the far corner by the painting shed, dangling feeders from the branches.
    With her gleaming scissors, my sister cut the head off every bud in Constance’s garden. Of all the yarrow, geraniums, and fringed bleeding hearts, the begonias and roses and daisies, she didn’t miss a blossom.
    Then she dragged the hose over to the wheelbarrow and filled it with water, throwing heads by the armful into the old receptacle.
    â€œShe’s going to kill you, Vee,” I said, and this snapped Viv out of her trance. She looked at me then back at the wheelbarrow.
    Constance was in the kitchen, buttering up a pageant co-ordinator on the phone. She materialized at the window with her bulky head of curlers, sucking on a cigarette and zeroing in on us to see what we were doing.
    â€œOver here, Con! I made you flower soup!” Viv scooped a fistful of jewel-tone petals in her hand and threw them in the air.
    Constance dropped the phone and flew through the patio door, tearing down the steps. Neighbours eyeballed her chasing my sister across the street in her bathrobe, the both of them barefoot. But Viv outran her and didn’t come home until nightfall.
    â€œVivie nne, Vivi eeeennnnne! ” our mother shrieked. She sounded like a wounded animal.
    Later, there were similar episodes. So many they melted together like a stack of Polaroids left out in the sun too long.

NINE
    I ESCAPED TO THE Coin Shoppe as much as possible.
    Serena had me cleaning and photographing coins. It was dull, methodical work and I enjoyed her assembly-line approach to preparing lots for sale.
    She ordered most of them from England. They arrived in dented boxes covered in stamps and stickers. After their initial scrub in soapy water, they went into a sodium carbonate solution that removed dirt and organic debris.
    She taught me to pick at thick clay encrustations under a microscope, using dental instruments including diamond-tipped drill bits. My desk was coated in dust and I used my inhaler frequently. When Serena swept the powder onto the floor with a hand-held broom, I’d launch into a coughing fit.
    While we soaked one lot for a week, we brushed and picked the next. The coins ranged from dime size to the size of a loonie, but thicker. None were exactly round and many were split at the edges.
    I took the hard dirt off with a shoe polishing brush until I saw a profile coming through.
    The Roman legends were easy to read—they used our alphabet and the Latin words reminded me of English. Serena gave me a chart for the Greek coins that had short letters naming the city. Soon I recognized heads of gods, goddesses, and rulers appearing beneath the dirt. Constantine, Caesar, Nero. Diana the huntress in her miniskirt with bow and arrow, Zeus on his chariot, and Athena in her helmet, ready for war. My favourites were the coins depicting animals—lions, owls, dolphins, and octopuses. Each one’s picture and text was so much more understandable than the complicated books in my room.
    Once cleaned and no longer rough, I laid them like cookies on a baking tray that Serena then put into the oven at a low temperature for a half-hour to remove leftover water from the pores. Next we applied wax to the metals and buffed them, turning ugly lumps into shiny hoards.
    I photographed the obverse and reverse sides and Serena put them in plastic sleeves,