The Latchkey Kid Read Online Free Page A

way, and it hurt her.
    “I won’t disturb you,” she said. “I’ve brought my embroidery – I’ll sit quiet while you play.”
    Mrs. Stych rallied herself. “It’s all right, Mother. You’re very welcome. It’s just you don’t play bridge.”
    “Oh,” said her mother with a sniff, “I’ll be entertained enough, watching your fine friends.”
    Mrs. Stych cringed at this remark. It was bad enough to have to produce a mother who smelled of hens, worse to have all one’s guests disconcerted by the beady eyes of an old country woman. She said nothing, however, but continued her rapid preparations for her guests.
    The back screen door slammed and a second later her son Hank padded silently into the kitchen. He was a tall youth with very broad shoulders and a deep chest, a trifle plump like most North American boys, but giving an impression of great physical strength. His skin had a yellowy tinge and he had the same deepset black eyes as his mother and grandmother.
    He unzipped his black jacket and flung it on a chair.
    “Hi, Ma,” he said mechanically, and then realized that his grandmother was also present. His face lit up. “Hi, Gran,” he said with more enthusiasm, went across to her and embraced her with a bearlike hug.
    Laughing and fighting him ineffectually, his grandmother roared pleasantries at him in a mixture of Ruthenian and broken English. At last he let her go, and, puffing happily, she straightened her kerchief and skirt. “How’s school?” she asked in Ruthenian.
    Hank spoke no Ruthenian but he could understand the simple sentences his grandmother used – more easily, in fact, than her garbled attempts at English.
    He made a wry face and shook his head, his eyes holding, at that moment, the same merry twinkle as his grandmother’s, a gaiety missing from his mother’s expression.
    “He don’t work,” said his mother disapprovingly. “Always out somewhere. Did you do your homework last night, Hank?” she asked in a voice devoid of real inquiry.
    He was very hungry and answered her query absently. “Yeah, I did.” Then he asked: “What’s cooking, Ma?”
    “Got the girls coming for lunch and bridge. Make yourself a sandwich.”
    Obediently Hank got a plate, took two slices of bread from thebreadbox, and, after rummaging about in the refrigerator, found some luncheon meat, a glass of milk and a cardboard cup of ice cream. His grandmother watched, her toothless mouth agape.
    In all the desperate, toiling years she had been in Canada, neither her husband nor her son had ever made themselves a meal, except on one or two occasions when illness had confined her to bed. Yet here was her grandson fending for himself, leaning amiably against a kitchen cupboard and eating a self-made sandwich, while his mother gave infinite attention to food for women who should have been at home attending to their own children. It was with difficulty that she refrained from making a sharp remark.
    After a moment, she managed to say through tight lips: “Come out and visit us on Sunday.”
    Hank looked uneasily at her. “I can’t,” he said. “Got a date.” Then, feeling that the reply was too abrupt, he added: “I’ll sure come out and help with any work Uncle Joe wants doing on the next weekend.”
    Mrs. Palichuk smiled. “I know you will. Come then, work or no work.”
    He agreed, and lounged away to his room, from whence the sound of his portable typewriter could soon be heard.
    “He don’t really work,” said his mother crossly. “That typewriter used to go half the night. Now he don’t bring it home from school half the time.”
    Mrs. Palichuk came to Hank’s defence.
    “He seems to be keeping up his piano playing,” she said. “He was trying out the new one that Joe bought for his little Beth to learn on, and even I knew he was playing well.”
    Olga grunted, and then admitted grudgingly: “Yeah, he practises on our old piano in the basement. Does some at school, too, I suppose. But