Mearsies Heili Bounces Back Read Online Free Page A

first
put it down, not so long after I came.
    “Hey, the rain is stopped,” Sherry yelled—breaking into her
own story of her first clash with Kwenz, which wasn’t all that interesting
(though it had been awful at the time).
    Kwenz, the Shadow, Sherry’s fumbling attempts at being a
housemaid (causing Kwenz to fire her from the job and send her out—she wasn’t
even worth turning into something!), all were forgotten at the prospect of
running around in the fresh air.
    We all raced up into the brisk wind. The sun was just
emerging from the clouds, birds trilled again, rain dripped from the trees—and
we just had to run around and have a mud fight, leaving storytelling for
another day.

TWO
“How to Cure the Romantically Minded in One Easy Lesson”
    Gwen was thoughtful after that last story, and for a while
we didn’t have any more personal ones, just made up ones. We also acted out
what seemed the millionth variation on Faline’s new play, When PJ Meets the
Goat at the Bridge .
    One day Gwen was walking beside me as the bunch of us headed
out to do a whole-forest patrol, and she said, “Why doesn’t Clair like to talk
about her past? Everything is so good now!”
    “I dunno.” I flapped my arms. “She might feel differently
than we do. I mean, I love gloating over nastarooni I don’t have to put
up with any more.”
    Sherry usually didn’t talk seriously, so when we heard her
speak up behind us, we both jumped.
    “She doesn’t talk about the things she can’t fix,” Sherry
said, her big blue eyes kind of sad.
    Gwen looked puzzled. I thought this over. “You mean, about
Puddlenose and their creepy uncle trying to grab him back to Land of the
Chwahir?”
    Sherry nodded so hard her curls jiggled. “That and worse
ones.”
    “Like when her mom died? She’s hardly said a word about
that.” I shuddered. I’d never asked, either. If Clair wanted to talk about it,
I figured, she would. Meanwhile, it wasn’t anything I wanted to hear
about.
    Sherry nodded again. “Ones like that.”
    “There’s stuff as bad as that?” Gwen asked, her droopy eyes
going round.
    Sherry looked around at the forest. Fog wreathed through the
upper branches, obscuring them. The air was just cool, not cold, and soft, and
the forest as beautiful as ever, but Sherry shivered, bent her head, and said
in a murmur, “She didn’t tell you why she didn’t go around to the provinces.
Maybe I better tell you, so nobody asks.”
    Gwen was silent, her eyes huge.
    My stomach squinched. “Go ahead.”
    “Well, she started with the Auknuges. Her meeting with Fobo
was horrid enough, but when she went out to the woods—what used to be the North
Wood—and saw it all cut down. All the trees. Every one. She just sat down and
cried and cried. Then we came home. She didn’t go out again. Until we all did,
you know. When we did.” Sherry wound her hands in a circle.
    “Of course. She couldn’t fix the forest.” I whistled—that
made a lot of sense. Then I snarkled. “But we’ve kept the Auknuges from cutting
down any more trees!”
    Sherry grinned. “That we have.”
    “And Clair’s been getting the guilds to not trade with them.
Though I guess it’s slow going,” I added, pointing my thumb down in the “stinker
alert!” sign. “Seems like a bunch of clods like all that money Fobo’s brother
sends, so they hold their noses and deal with Fobo anyway. Because she spends
so much on marble and gold and stuff, trying to make the Squashed Wedding Cake
bigger and fancier than ever.”
    Diana scowled. “Is that why Clair looks sour some days after
morning boredom?” ‘Morning boredom’ was our slang for Clair’s queenly
interviews.
    “She told me she’s trying to find ways where the people can
still trade outside of the country. Thanks to Irene, it’s actually
working—we’ve got the Tornacio Islands again. We just have to get trade from
here to the Torns going, when we don’t exactly have a really good harbor off
Wesset