Runt Read Online Free Page B

too big and shouty and angry all the time and the only time I saw him smile or heard him laugh was when I saw him hit people like he did that time a summer ago when I was outside the Farmer’s Arms waiting for Drunkle and feeding birds with crisps and Arthur came out with another man smaller than him and I hid in a bush and saw Arthur hit the man and the man fell and then Arthur stamped on his face lots of times and before he went back into the pub Arthur scraped his boot on the sharp edge of the step like I do when I’ve trod in dog poo and it made me think that the man’s face was to Arthur like dog poo is to me and that put a big big sick into me. I wanted to go and see if the man was okay but I had too much scaredness in me and sickness too and after a while the man crawled off. And Drunkle came and got me and we drove home and I tried to tell him about what Arthur did and the poo-facey stuff but he just told me to hush and told me that there are not many people in the world like Arthur and that in fact Arthur was probably from Another World and not this one cos
I
was from this one and
Arrn
was from this one and
Drunkle
was from this one and
Bethan
was from this one so how could Arthur be too? And I remembered that then behind Arthur’s shouting but it didn’t stop me from remembering that poor man with his face scraped off and Arthur’s wife in the shop with her arm in a sling and Arthur’s daughter in the school with her face all black and one time her arm in a sling too and she said she fell off a horse but no one believed her cos we all knew what Arthur was like even the teachers but they didn’t say anything cos like everybody else they were scared of Arthur too.
    Arthur should live in Bala Lake. Arthur should be That One in the darkness and the slime. Maybe he
was
the monster from the lake come out to hurt people no big croco-horsey thing but a horrible thing shaped just like a man big like a bull standing up on its back legs with red hair and red beard come up out of the deep blacksome water to eat people in his way. I wished he’d go back there, I did. Or if not the lake then some hole in the ground or cave somewhere or something where no one could be hurt by him any more cos that’s the world he comes from not this one with me and Arrn and Drunkle in it that Arthur comes from a Different World one dark and far away in a beneathness and he should go back there I would be gladded if he did that very very much.
    Bala Lake just lay flat and darksome with the moon on it shining and I watched it for ages. Sometimes the wind would make the webcam wobble and it would be as if the lake not the camera was moving from side to side but it wasn’t really that. It was too dark to see the mountains on the other side of the lake and all I saw was the water of the lake like all the other times I’d watched it and no monster but there
could
be a monster and that thinking happy’d me in a way and there
was
a fox, tho, skinny fellow come down to the lake for a drink and then went away again and that happy’d me loads seeing the fox like that having a drink. I told Arrn about him cos he and the fox are brothers and Arrn lay on his side under the bed with his head sticking out from the darksome dusty underneathness with all grease and bonedust on his face and he looked at me as I spoke to him and listened to me as well because he was understanding every word I said even tho he’s a dog cos I can speak his own Special Words and he can speak mine too.
    Arthur stopped his shouting but still he went on talking in an angerment that I could hear coming up through the floor. He was like a war. I could hear my Drunkle’s voice too much softer than Arthur’s trying to make Arthur’s voice softer like his which after a while it did but not as soft as itself cos there was still an angerment in Arthur and always was and would be. Arrn fell asleep with his face all side-pressed to the floor cos he was listening to the voices too