Wake The Stone Man by Carol McDougall Read Free Book Online

coat and by the time I got to the parking lot I was running. I kept running until I got deep into the woods at the back of the school.
    Where was Nakina? Where was she?
    ***
    One morning about five months later she was back. Just like that. I was at my locker sorting through the books I needed for class and I looked up and there she was turning her lock. She had to do it a few times; I guess she’d forgotten the combination. She got her books, closed her locker and walked up to me and said “Hey Molly.”
    â€œHey,” I said.
    â€œWe got shorthand this morning?” she asked.
    I said, “Yeah.”
    â€œDo we have a spare after, or history?”
    â€œHistory.” I said.
    She said “OK” and led the way down the hall. I followed her.
    I wanted to hug her and ask where the hell she’d been and what happened, but she just grabbed her books and walked past me down the hall like it was no big deal. So I followed her like it was no big deal.
    She looked the same when she came back but something had changed. It was like that film Invasion of the Body Snatchers , where people look the same but inside they’re empty pod people. It was like that with Nakina. People thought it was her but I knew it wasn’t. Not really. At first she started coming home with me again, and Mom and Dad acted like nothing had happened, and I told myself that maybe nothing had and everything was the same. But I knew it wasn’t.
    She was in a new foster home. Said the Dekkers had kicked her out, which was strange because they seemed like really nice people. She was living with the school janitor, Mr. Starke, and his wife and she said it was OK. I thought it was creepy. He was creepy with his white shoes and gold chains on his hairy chest and always stinking of Brut aftershave and the disinfectant he used to scrub the floors. Nakina said he was OK. Said they knew how to have a good time. She stopped coming home with me after a while, and I got the feeling that she didn’t think my family knew how to have a good time. I felt hurt, but I wasn’t sure why.
    It was small things I noticed at first. Like her laugh. She used to crack me up with her deep belly laugh. She didn’t laugh much any more and when she did I always felt like the joke was on me. I began to see things. She wore a lot of make-up at school. I noticed she had new jewelry and the chain around her neck looked like real gold. She didn’t wear the dime store turquoise ring I gave her anymore.
    She came for Easter dinner. Hadn’t been over for ages and it felt good to have her back.
    â€œMolly, can you set the table?”
    â€œI’m peeling the potatoes. Nakina can do it.”
    â€œGet Nakina to finish the potatoes. She does a better job than you.” Mom took her apron off and put her hand on my shoulder. “There’s no potato left when you peel them.”
    â€œThanks a lot.” I handed the paring knife to Nakina.
    â€œFork on the left, Molly,” Mom said.
    Mom made a fantastic turkey dinner and Nakina raved about the apple pie and after dinner they played cribbage. Dad got out the slide projector and screen, and I teased him about showing us hundreds of pictures of his racing boats, but we looked at slides of Loon Lake and laughed about how short and goofy we were. Pictures of me and Nakina rowing the Little Tink across the lake, sitting around the bonfire at night roasting marshmallows, carrying the water pail back from the well.
    I was watching the slides and thinking maybe I was wrong — maybe nothing had changed. I was thinking maybe the problem was me. Then Dad took the picture.
    â€œCome on girls let’s get a picture of you two. You’ve grown a foot since last summer.” It was true. I had grown up a foot but not out. I was tall and skinny and flat chested and awkward, and I was wishing my dad would just put the camera away.
    â€œCome on Nakina, get over there with Molly