A Town Called Dust: The Territory 1 Read Online Free Page B

Uncle to pass on whatever message she had for him. “Tell your nephew to clear up the plates,” she would say, or “Tell your nephew to fetch my needles.” At least when Uncle ordered him around he did it directly.
    “Go on,” she said, “your uncle will be waiting.”
    Squid picked up one of the potatoes and took a hesitant bite. As his teeth dug through the springy cold skin he felt the fluffy interior of cold roast potato burst into his mouth. It was good. He was so hungry he would have happily eaten a bowl of oat gruel, his usual morning meal, but this was delicious. He demolished the rest of the potato and grabbed the next one. When he was done with that he came to the generous slice of ham. He lifted it and inhaled. He knew this smell, a tantalizingly sweet aroma, but he had never before been allowed to eat any. He bit into it. The sweetness of the honey and the saltiness of the meat met on his taste buds. He scoffed it down and wished, once it was gone, that he’d taken more time to savor it.
    “Thank you,” Squid said.
    He saw his aunt’s eye float to the stain on his shirt. Her lips tightened but she didn’t say anything.
    Back at the wagon Squid began loading the barrels. He was surprised when Uncle continued to help. Usually Uncle’s idea of helping was sitting back and telling Squid exactly how badly he was doing. Today, though, with Uncle’s assistance they loaded the forty-six barrels in half the time it usually took.
    Uncle turned to him.
    “Time for the horses.”
    Squid felt the all too familiar pang of dread in his stomach.
    “I’ll get that one,” Uncle said. Squid watched him walk away but somehow didn’t feel better. He had a lingering sense that something wasn’t quite right. 
    Uncle hitched up The Horse without even asking Squid to try. Squid led the reddish-brown horse, the one Uncle called Bluey, toward the wagon. Where The Horse was a big animal, stocky and strong, snorting and scraping as he waited impatiently, Bluey was skinny. The lines of his ribs could be seen in his chest like depressing stripes. This was not to say that Bluey was sickly or starved; under his droopy eyelids he looked out at the world with a kind of stupid happiness.
    With the two animals harnessed to the tongue of the wagon, Uncle pushed the wheel chocks aside with his foot.
    “All right, let’s go,” Uncle said, climbing into the driver’s seat. Squid clambered up onto the wagon next to him and looked at Uncle. He couldn’t hold it in anymore.
    “Why are you being so nice to me today?” he asked.
    Uncle looked at him for a moment before whipping the reins down. 
    “It’s your birthday, you ungrateful snot,” he said.

CHAPTER 3
    Lynnette Hermannsburg was bored. School bored her. Mathematics and Language Studies were bad enough but Arts and Crafts, the subject she was currently being forced to participate in, was almost as tedious as the afternoons they spent listening to the Sisters drone on about the glory of God and his righteous punishment of mankind. Not that she would ever admit her ill-feelings toward the Sisters; even she knew better than to do that. Arts and Crafts, on the other hand, she could openly despise that. Why would she ever need Arts and Crafts? She wasn’t going to spend her days painting or knitting or making collages of pink ribbon and dead grass. She was going to be a Digger.
    Lynn pushed the needle through her cross-stitch fabric. It slipped through the cotton easily, too easily. She felt a vicious sting as a quarter-inch of needle pierced her finger. Crying out, she threw her cross-stitch puppy dog across the room.
    “Ow! Ancestors’ sin!”
    “Lynnette Hermannsburg!” Lynn’s teacher Ms Apple stared at her. She was wide eyed and open mouthed. “Where did you learn such filthy language? I have a mind to tell your father of this.”
    “He’s the one I learned it from,” Lynn answered quickly, failing as she so often did to use the filter between her brain and