The Slightly Bruised Glory of Cedar B. Hartley by Martine Murray Read Free Book Online Page A

a bad teen movie.
    â€˜Maybe he didn’t notice you, Marnie,’ I said, because if there’s one thing Marnie puts a lot of energy into it’s getting noticed. I walked off, dragging Caramella with me. I wasn’t going to tell them who Aunt Squeezy was. Let them wonder, I thought.
    â€˜See ya, Zit-face,’ yelled Harold, once we were a safe distance away.
    He’s such a coward. He just had to hurl one last witless insult so he could look as if he’d been victorious or something. But it kills me when he says something hurtful to Caramella because she has no confidence; she dies a little inside when he says stuff like that. Whereas I, I just get mad. I looked at her, but she was already tugging at my arm and pointing at something else.
    â€˜Hey, look at that,’ she said.
    A van had pulled up outside the Abutula’s house and out of the van came three people: first a girl, then a woman and last a small boy. It appeared to be a mother and two children, but it was dark and they were on the opposite side of the street so it was hard to see them, and they seemed not to want to be seen. The girl was thin and taller than me and she turned away from us. Her younger brother, however, stood and faced us. He didn’t smile; he just looked and stuck his finger in his mouth. The mother kept her face lowered, but glanced quickly at us and then ushered her children towards the house. Mr Abutula had picked up the suitcase and was leading the way.
    â€˜See,’ said Caramella, triumphantly, ‘something is going on there.’
    â€˜Sure is,’ I said, and already I was getting ideas. The thing about the mother and her children was that you could tell they came from somewhere else. They weren’t from here. They were different.

Chapter 10
    The thing is, I understand what it’s like to be different because I’m just slightly different myself. In some ways I’m exactly the same, of course. For instance, I’ve got skin and it hurts when someone pokes it. And the main way I’m exactly like everybody else alive and breathing and pooing is that I don’t like it when I’m sad or lonely or angry – I much prefer to be excited. If I had it my way, I’d always be just about to do something lovely, like a cartwheel.
    Also, if I had it my way, everyone, absolutely everyone, would love me. Not up-close, and not in the way the big guns like Jesus and Saint Francis of Assisi and Gough Whitlam were loved; not even as much as Cathy Freeman is loved for being a fast runner who doesn’t show off and who carries the flag for Aborigines. I just want the people who know me to love me just for being me, in an everyday kind of way. They don’t have to sing songs about it.
    Aunt Squeezy says that doesn’t make me any different from anyone else, because all people want to be loved, even if they wear safety pins in odd places. Even if they say mean things or forget to take a bath, they still want to be loved.
    But I don’t have it my way, and so some people don’t love me at all. Like Harold Barton. He doesn’t love me; he thinks I’m a no-hoper. And Marnie thinks I’m so uncool, absolutely in every way, and sometimes Barnaby thinks I’m a pain. And Kite can’t be sure if he loves me or not, because he just went off and left.
    But no one has it all their way. Aunt Squeezy says we think we’re steering the ship, but really the ship is steering us, so we may as well let go of the wheel. You can’t make people like you, you can only try to like people. Even Harold.
    So, in that way I’m still exactly the same as everybody.
    But I’m sure I’m different in some way. I feel as if I am. I told Aunt Squeezy that I was and she just looked at me with her owl eyes and grinned. We were in the kitchen, and she was cooking. She had a pale green scarf tied in her hair and she looked like an exotic bird, because of the way she hopped