Defective Read Online Free Page B

started to shake apart, crack open. Whole
mountains got pounded into dust. Honey Hill must have been in the
way of a stray boulder. There are lots of big stones in the Valley.
They had to have come from somewhere."
    "I wonder what it
was like."
    The Constable
smiled. "Probably pretty loud." Narrow laughed.
    It was late
afternoon when the children finally clambered down from the mule
cart. Their tired eyes followed the Constable’s pointed finger down
the road to where it opened up into a large bowl shape.
    A small wooden
house stood, leaned more like, at the bottom of it. Its roof and
sides were patched with a hodgepodge of corrugated aluminum and
yellowed plastic siding. Wisps of smoke escaped from a skinny metal
chimney that poked out of the roof. The front porch, furnished with
a wooden folding chair and an oak stump with an axe embedded in it,
sagged in the middle. To the right of the house was a path that led
into woods; to its far left was an enormous barn, its boards
weather-stained a greyish purple. In front of the house was a
dilapidated stone well; part of its rounded wall had fallen in. At
the back, its outer roof edge just barely visible was the
outhouse.
    "It’s getting late
and I need to get back to Battery," PC Pierre explained to
Porkchop. The last pay day of the year for the local lumbermen was
in four days and that meant that the Piggy Gristle would be full.
That usually meant trouble.
    He blew his
whistle three times.
    "He’s expecting
you."
    "Thank you," said
Porkchop.
    "If the snows
don't come too early, I’ll check in when I come by this way
again."
    He heeyapped at
Josephine who turned and started back up the road, her hips swaying
with the movement of the cart, leaving the children standing by a
muddy ditch filled with brewers’ blooms and fuggetaboutits. They
hoisted their packs over their shoulders and began the trek down
the road.
    Porkchop led the
way, then Santa who carried Mixer in the sling, followed by
Titania, Forest, Narrow, Bull, and Jelly and Jones, who walked
beside each other.
    Porkchop was a
plain young woman, tall with long legs and a short waist. She was
bosomy, like her mother, but no one would have known it by the
plaid flannel shirts she wore. She looked more like a lumberman in
her canvass pants and black leather lace-up boots.
    Santa was shorter,
plumper and more bosomy than her older sister. Ma said she took
after her grandmother, Ma's ma. Her thick dirty blonde hair hung
down her back in a tight braid, out of reach of Mixer's fingers.
Mixer was awake, peeking out from between the folds of the sling,
his mind tuned to Forest.
    Titania was the
tallest of the sisters; thinner and less voluptuous. She walked
down the road with a fluid grace but, despite the flannel underwear
she wore, she shivered when the cold wind whipped up her wool
skirt. She pulled tight the shawl she used to cover her head and
face.
    Forest opened the
top of his jacket. He was sweating under his arms but his nose and
the tops of his thighs were cold. He took off his cap and ran a
hand through the dark waves of his sweaty hair. At fourteen Forest
was the same height as his oldest sister but weighed less.
    Forest had been
thinking about his parent's deaths. Neither made sense; neither
should have happened. There was always a rope ladder inside the
vat; Narrow had only recently fixed the top rung and Forest had
seen Pa reattach it a few days before he died. Why hadn't Ma used
it? Pa wasn't allergic to stinging insects; in fact, they seemed to
leave him alone even when he occasionally stumbled into a hive when
he was drunk. They'd sting him once or twice then fly off. Pa had
been hung over that morning, he remembered. He felt a sudden jolt
of pain in his head and he stumbled a bit on the road. When he
regained his footing he couldn't remember what he'd been thinking
about.
    "What do you think
it'll be like?" Narrow asked Forest in front of him. Forest
shrugged.
    Narrow was a copy
of Pa. The same open, friendly